Dive Summary:
- A new report from the New America Foundation's Education Policy Program lists expanding the federal Pell Grant program, reducing the amount of student loan debt and ending tuition tax breaks among 30 critical policy changes necessary for improving the financial aid system.
- The report is part of one of 16 studies commissioned and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its $3.6 million Reimagining Aid Design and Delivery Project, and the past few weeks have seen additional reports from National College Access Network, the Institute for Higher Education Policy, the Committee for Economic Development and HCM Strategists.
- The New America Foundation report's suggestions mostly center on a financial aid overhaul that expands grant opportunities while consolidating some aid programs and holding institutions that serve low- and middle-income students accountable--and much of it focuses on reimagining Pell Grant funding, suggesting, among other things, that the program be established as an entitlement.
From the article:
Expanding the federal Pell Grant program, reducing student-loan debt, and eliminating tuition tax breaks are necessary steps toward improving the federal financial-aid system, according to recommendations released on Tuesday by the New America Foundation. In a report the foundation's Education Policy Program proposes more than 30 specific, budget-neutral policy changes that would reorganize several hundreds of billions of dollars in spending to deal with what the authors say are inefficiencies in the postsecondary financial-aid system. ...