NAICU - Obama’s disappointing college plan

New College Affordability Measures

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Obama’s disappointing college plan

Washington Post - Opinion Piece

February 1, 2012

The president boasts of having increased the maximum value of Pell Grants to $5,635 next year, up $905 since 2008. Sounds good. But according to the Department of Education, the maximum Pell Grant in 1976 covered 72 percent of costs at a typical public four-year college. Today it covers about half that much. In other words, the outer limits of the president's ambition is to leave public colleges half as affordable via federal aid as they were under Presidents Nixon and Ford.

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