Statement by Senator Jack Reed, March 20, 2007

 

Mr. President, today I introduce two bipartisan bills to expand access to college for students and their families.    

We are slated to reauthorize the Higher Education Act this Congress for the first time since 1998. The key to this reauthorization will be ensuring that we make a substantial Federal investment in need-based grant aid. I am pleased we took a significant first step down this path last month by increasing the maximum Pell Grant, the Federal Government's primary source of need-based financial aid, for the first time in four years. However, we are still far from the robust lift Congress provided students and their families in the mid-1970s, when the maximum Pell Grant covered 84 percent of costs at a public 4-year institution. Today, it covers only 32 percent.

There has also been a concurrent increase in college costs. According to a recent report by the College Board, for the 2006-07 school year, tuition rose 6.3 percent at 4-year public colleges and 5.9 percent for 4-year private institutions. The combination of declining Federal investments in need-based aid and sharp increases in college costs has priced more and more qualified individuals out of college.

This is particularly troubling, given the strong correlation between educational attainment, employment, and wages. A college education has now increasingly become a necessary requirement for upward income mobility. College graduates, on average, earn 62 percent more than high school graduates. Over a lifetime, the gap in earnings between those with a high school diploma and a bachelor's or higher degree exceeds $1 million.

To help increase the amount of need-based grant aid to low-income students and fulfill their unmet financial aid need, today I introduce the ACCESS, Accessing College through Comprehensive Early Outreach and State Partnerships, Act, cosponsored by Senators COLLINS, KENNEDY, MURRAY, DODD, and SANDERS.

This legislation improves the Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership or LEAP program by forging a new Federal incentive for States to form partnerships with businesses, colleges, and private or philanthropic organizations to provide low-income students with increased need-based grant aid, early information and assurance of aid eligibility (beginning in middle school), and early intervention, mentoring, and outreach services. Research has shown that college access programs that combine these elements are successful in making the dream of higher education a reality. Students participating in such programs are more financially and academically prepared, and thus, more likely to enroll in college and persist to degree completion.

Since 1972, the Federal-State partnership embodied by LEAP, with modest Federal support, has helped leverage State grant aid to low-and moderate-income students. Without this important Federal incentive, many States would never have established need-based financial aid programs, and many States would not continue to maintain such programs. Last year, States matched approximately $65 million in Federal LEAP funds with over $840 million in supplemental need-based aid. By way of example, in my home State of Rhode Island, the Federal investment of approximately $350,000 in LEAP funds spurred the State to expend over $13 million in need-based aid.

The second bill I introduce today, the FAFSA Financial Aid Form Simplification and Access Act, cosponsored by Senators COLLINS, KENNEDY, MURRAY, and SANDERS, has several key components to make the college financial aid application process both simple and certain.

First, our legislation would allow more students to qualify for an automatic-zero expected family contribution, or auto-zero, and align the auto-zero eligibility levels, income of $30,000 or less, with the standards of other Federal means-tested programs like school lunch, SSI, and food stamps. Second, the FAFSA Act would establish a short paper FAFSA or EZ-FAFSA for students who qualify for the auto-zero. Third, the bill phases out the long form, using the savings to utilize "smart" technology to create a tailored web-based application form and ensure that students answer only the questions needed to determine financial aid eligibility in the state in which they reside. For those students who do not have access to the Internet, we propose creating a free telefile system for filing by phone.

The FAFSA Act would also emphasize providing students with the opportunity to complete financial applications earlier in order to receive early estimates of aid eligibility. This legislation would create a pilot program to test an early application system under which dependent students would apply for an aid estimate in their junior year, using the student's prior/prior year income (PPY). The pilot program also includes a requirement that the Secretary study the feasibility, benefits, and adverse effects of utilizing information from the IRS in order to simplify the financial aid process.

I was pleased to work with the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance and a host of other higher education organizations and charitable foundations on these bills. I am also pleased that both bills are supported by a range of higher education and student groups, including the American Association of Community Colleges, the American Council on Education, the Association of American Universities, the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, the Center for Law and Social Policy, the National Association of College Admission Counseling, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, the National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs, the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, the United States Student Association, and the College Parents of America. The FAFSA Act is supported by the Council of Graduate Schools as well.

We must act on these bills and continue to push for increased Federal investment in need-based aid to middle- and low-income students and their families. All too often successful students give up on a college education because they think there is no way they can ever afford it. We must ensure that every student who works hard and plays by the rules gets the opportunity to live the American Dream.

I urge my colleagues to cosponsor these bills and work for their inclusion in the upcoming reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.    I ask unanimous consent that the text of these bills be printed in the Record.