Pell Grants cut to 90,000 cause state taxes went DOWN????

[DebJ]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/12/23/pell.grants/index.html

(CNN) -- A change in eligibility for Pell Grants to be announced Thursday by the Department of Education would cut some 90,000 students from the rolls of recipients and affect more than 1 million others, an education advocate says.

(snip)

In addition to those who will lose their grants completely, "we estimate about 1.3 million students will see reductions in their grants from $100 to $300 per year," he said.

The 5 million recipients each get about $2,500 per year in Pell grants, he said.
(snip)
The new formula depends on more recent state and local tax data paid by low- and middle-income families, Hartle said. The formula is supposed to be updated regularly, but the Department of Education had not done so for 15 years, he said.

At that time, state and local taxes were, on average, higher than they are today, he said. As a result, the recalibrated formula makes it appear that families have more income available to pay college expenses than they did.
(end quotes)
Please explain this to me. State taxes have gone down? The article also says 19 of 20 families where students get pell grants earn less than $35,000 a year...where I was in Maryland, statistics said a family of three needed $45,000 to not file bankruptcy...and that was out in a less expensive area.
I think the story is perhaps a bit misleading...my daughter was only able to get $500 in pell grants per year for her first two years...and I was only making $28,000, had two children, single parent, one kid handicapped. She got the grants for 2000-2001 and 2001-2002.

And old W was bragging during the debates that they had increased Pell Grants....I heard that was after they CUT them...

Republican plan to dumb down middle and lower class America marches on.
Article is also full of stuff when it says this won't affect many students,I feel...they will just work more part time jobs, ha! My daughter worked three part time jobs and I gave up my house so I could make monthly payments. (It was worth it for her; she's done very well.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

1. Kick for the effort to dumb down America.

[lonestarnot]

2. Want the Big Bird for bushitler posted here but don't know how.

Bushitler's underlying feelings re Pell Grant reductions. Have the pic in my word program but can't paste so I'll forget it.

[FreakinDJ]

3. My son was told no scholarship for him

My son was told no scholarship for him

Was tested Mensa level intelligence in the 5th grade. has been writing code, has his own web hosting company since 14 yrs old, is starting college next year at age 16, and his school councilor told him Calif. has cut back so much there is little or no chance he can get a scholarship into college.

Can't afford to send him to college here in the US so he will most likely be attending college in the Philippines

[Hekate]

4. Tax burden shifts to the states, who have to get money somehow

> Please explain this to me. State taxes have gone down? <

Our US economy may actually be in free-fall even as we speak, but we're kind of like the guy who jumped from a 200 story building. At the 20th floor from the bottom someone called out to him and asked how he was doing. "So far, so good!" was the reply.

DUers are among those Americans who understand that government can't operate without money, and it gets that money from taxes. No taxes, no money. No money, no programs. In order to keep anything running at all, programs that serve people with the least clout are being drastically cut. The Governator already has his list -- he has no choice. That $300 all us peons got as a tax refund? We will pay for it over and over and over in lost services and higher local taxes.

For Bush and Company, however, this is all according to plan. Remember Newt Gingrich came to Washington saying he wanted to repeal every social program ever enacted by the New Deal and the Great Society plans. I think it was Grover Norquist who said he wanted to reduce the federal government to the size of something he could drown in a bathtub and then pull the plug. Well, these bastards meant it then and they mean it now.

And that's where your son's Pell Grant went.

Hekate
:argh: