Pell Grants and Perkins Loans

[Mizmoon]

If these programs had not existed and given me the tuition money I needed, I would not have been able to attend college.

It reminds me of a story my grandfather told me. He was a big football player in high school, so good that Dartmouth wanted him to come play for them. The problem was there was no way his father could pay the tuition, and there were no sports scholarships or loan programs or grants to help him. He did manage to go to community college at a time when few had any college at all. He was very financially successful, but always felt a twinge of pain knowing what could have been ...

Thank God that didn't happen to me. I was able to go to both undergrad and grad school, which imporved my life, the lives of my children, and turned me from a poor, single mother into a self-supporting, tax-paying citizen.

We can never, ever allow these programs to be eliminated. Their value is immeasurable.

[lanparty]

1. Bush was lying his ass off last night ...

Bush slashed Pell grants and then put a little money into them in the latest budget so he could technically "not lie" about cutting them.

These guys are VERY pro-active about their half truths.

[progressivebydesign]

12. Oh.. But Calvin Woodward of AP says YOU"RE WRONG!!

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=1963&e=9&u=/ap/20041014/ap_on_el_pr/debate_fact_check

Did anyone catch this piece of work from a Bob Woodward wanna-be? He lists the so-called "inaccuracies" of the debate.. AND guess what?? MOST EVERY ONE was KERRY'S! Bush's BIG one is way at the bottom, you know the ONE ABOUT OSAMA!, the BIG one?

Kerry was accurate.

[AP]

2. In the UK you pay for your college AFTER you graduate. It isn't a loan,

so there are no interest charges (and the banks don't make money off the program). This was a program that Blair just passed.

You only pay up to a % of your income, so that it's never too burdensome, and you only pay if you make the median income. You have your entire life to pay off the government.

That's how the cost of education should be allocated. Not on to parents or on to students when they have the least time to earn money and the least money they'll have in their life. You pay it when you have money and never so much that you have to radically alter your choices about your career based on the burden of debt.

It also creats a social incentive for the government to make sure there are many high paying jobs, rather than a few really high paying jobs and a lot of low paying jobs.

So, thanks to Tony Blair, future governments, labour and tory, will have to balance their books by making sure there's a huge middle class making near the median income, and that everyone has a chance in their lifetime to cross into the top 50% of income earners.

[Mizmoon]

3. Wow, what a great idea

Of course if anyone even suggested it in the US, they'd be called a pinko commie taxandspend liberal.

Good Lord, this nation is fucked up.

[AP]

4. ...and it would be the Wall St banks which control the student loan...

....industry and make all the money off them who would finace the smear campaign.

[Viking12]

5. The reason more Pell Grants are given

is because tuition is skyrocketing. Eligibility is determined by a formula based on income and tuition rates.

Tuition rates going up
+
income is same/dropping
=
More Pell grants

Also the average amount of Pell grants have dropped.

[AP]

7. No doubt, students are financing more of their education than ever before

despite the Pell Grant program.

The grants are just enough to make sure that you still get yourself on the hook with insupportable debt, but not enough to make a real difference in your life.

[Occulus]

6. I ALWAYS feel a bit of envy

toward people whose parents never told them they didn't deserve help paying for school.

Regrets? Hoo, boy- I regret ever having had those... people... as part of my life. HS Credentials:

NHS Society (both cords)
27 on ACT
3.85 GPA at time of graduation (13th in class)
more music medals and honors than I can easily list
SEVENTEEN credit hours... my first semester of college, as a music ed major

I was composing when I was *thirteen* years old.

Ah, but there was a requirement- no matter what I did, I *had* to have a job of some sort. As a music major.... that made it impossible to finish in four years, like I wanted to do. Then they found out I was gay and kicked me out of the house with about two hours warning.

It was after I got a C in Phil 101 and a D in Econ 101 (said poor grades being related to practice, rehearsals, and performances... IOW, the things I was actually there for) that they decided I didn't deserve their help any more.

Did I mention when I lost one of my apartments, they knew about it... and left me standing on the side of the road, knowing I had nowhere to go? That was in between moving back in with them because I had nowhere to go, and them removing all their support. The truly evil part? They timed it so the financial aid for the year would be awarded and unavailable by the time I tried to apply for it.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that all the college programs in the world do not help those students who have evil parents, which mine were. Don't feel sorry for me, but DO jump down the throat of ANY parent who is running interference on their own kids' educations.

Preventing your own kid from going to college is just... evil. Telling them you can't afford their "poor" grades, and then turning right around and paying cash for TWO vehicles ( a truck and a Lincoln Town Car).... that's just mad.

[AP]

8. Take a look at my post about the UK and how they make you pay for uni.

Gov't policy can make a difference even in your situation. The UK shifts the burden of paying for education almost entirely off you and your parents and off on to the future employed you and only if you make above the median income.

You could have been raised by wolves and still be able to afford college, and nobody would have made you work during college.

It amazes me when people don't realize that policy can make a difference in your life, no matter how personal and unique you feel your circumstances are.

[Mizmoon]

9. Similar deal

When I told mom I wanted to go to college, she said, "Well I'M not paying for it."

This from a woman whose father was rich and coddled her her whole life. She squandered everything. When I managed to get grants and loans and go on my own without her help, she was actually angry.

That which does not kill us ... pisses us of for the next 25 years at least.

[AP]

10. Move to the UK.

Whatever choices your parents make for you will have no influence on the choice you make for yourself...

[Mizmoon]

11. hey, one of my kids will be ready for college in 2 years

and my husband is a dual citizen. He's not their father, though.

Maybe I will go. I bet it's complicated to qualify though because the whole damn world will want in on something good like that.

[Occulus]

14. It was a bit worse for me, actually

I knew *going into* school that they were holding their "help" over my head and using it like a bludgeon, but I had been cowed for years by them at that point and didn't have a big enough spine to put my foot down and just say "fuck you".

I should add I didn't shed a single tear at my father's funeral. My mom? I already don't feel enough for her to cry about her loss. Point of fact, I'll feel free for the very first time in my life when that happens.

We ARE talking some pretty severe psychological abuse. Intellectually, I know that... but I *still* feel torn into itty bitty little pieces, ten years later. Music was the only thing I ever had any talent for at all, and they used that against me.

After they made sure I wasn't in school any more, long after, when I got my job with the postal service, my mom told me they both had known I was musically talented... when I was five.

From the age of five to the age of thirteen, when I started band in middle school, they knew I was musically talented and did. Nothing. At. All. to clue me in.

I guess in my case, it wasn't just social policy that led to where I am today.

Oh- my mom promised to get the piano tuned as one of the gifts for my 18th birthday. That would be the piano I paid half for... when I was *twelve*. To this day, she holds that promise hostage contingent upon my moving it out of her house. Yup, I get to pay money before she follows through on her "promise".

What a wonderful set of parents I have.

Sorry, I'm ranting, and I really need to stop. Now.

[progressivebydesign]

13. Parents who make their kids pay for college ARE NOT EVIL.

THat's a generalization. Some usually have a good point, and get much better results from the students who are not fully supported. Also, some parent's can't afford to send their kids to school.

Sounds like you have some major bitterness issues about your parents... I hope you're only in your early 20's, cuz carrying around that kind of anger and bitterness isn't healthy beyond a year or two of it happening. It just happened, right?

I've gone to school with kids given a free ride, and they're mostly unappreciative of what they have.. and didn't do as well, later in the real world, as those that had to work for it. I think your parents asking you to work is a good thing... I've known far too many musicians, especially classical ones, that couldn't function in the real world, because all they had ever known was music and school... otherwise they didn't have the life skills to work at an ice cream parlour (which unfortunately, many music majors have had to do from time to time).

I won't get into your own relationship with your parents.. I'm only hearing one side. But.. asking kids to work while they go to school is healthy, and real world. AND.. not automatically paying the way for your kids to go to school is not evil. It's not a god-given right to go to college... all you can hope for is cooperation for getting help paying for some of it. I'm sorry your experience sucked so much..

[Mizmoon]

15. I disagree

I've seen plenty of kids who had to pay it all, graduated with debt coming out of the wazoo, and can hardly make it. They are often miserable.

It's my obligation as a parent to provide my children with the things they will need to have a happy, healthy, prosperous adulthood. These days, that includes college.

Now, heard of a guy near me who bought his kid a Hummer. Now THAT'S a kid who will have a hard time facing reality.

[Occulus]

16. That's not what happened at all.

What happened was, they waited until I was in a very vulnerable position, and then ripped the rug out from under my feet. What I'm saying is that their overall justification- that they couldn't afford to pay even half of the education for their own kid due to "bad grades" that they themselves hand a big hand in generating (not JUST because of the job, but also kicking me out of the house while I was still in school, not letting me take *my* car when they did so, and then leaving me homeless on the side of the road, knowing I had nowhere to go)- falls apart when you consider their cash purchase of vehicles immediately after they stopped helping me. Sorry. I find myself pretty much blameless.

Do you know, they told me I didn't deserve their help with school, when I was driving thirty miles to a factory job in the morning, and from there almost FIFTY miles for the one class I* had time to go to (because of the job!). They told me I "wasn't trying hard enough". This was after they "took me in", after I slept under trees on campus. They "let me" move back in, and then brought the hammer down on my head.

Bitter? It's taken me *ten* years to get to the point I can talk about it without weeping (I'm 29 as of now). The end result of what they did is that I no longer have any interest in music at all, my only real talent. I'm bitter because their timing was obviously intended to inflict the maximum damage. I forgot to mention- in the past ten years, my parents together saw the inside of my home less than ten times. And I live 20 miles from their place.

It was intentional, it was personal, and it was just plain cruel. No, they didn't have to pay a dime- but they led me to believe that they would, promised me over and over again that they would stand behind all my decisions I made for myself in my life... and then promptly ripped all that away when they found out I was gay.

I'm thinking that's the real reason- they didn't want to in any way support "someone like me".

No, parents who make their kids pay it all are NOT evil. But- parents who say they will help and then bail out when things get tough, especially when those tough times are a direct result of cruel actions they themselves took against their own kid.... THAT'S evil.