A desire to combat rising student debt has the government promoting spending programs that show no evidence of improving outcomes.
On Tuesday, the Senate contemplated a proposal to expand Pell Grants to year-round availability. The increasing burden of student debt in America has motivated the proposal, but Pell Grants are not the answer.
Pell Grants are used to help low-income students complete a college degree.
“Twenty-nine percent of all beginning students and 32 percent of full-time beginning students received a Pell Grant” in 1995-1996, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Yet now, with more students qualifying for the program, it is transforming into a middle-class entitlement.
The expansion proposal would cover summer college costs and help students graduate faster, lowering their debt burden. The problem with this expansion is that there is a lack of evidence proving Pell Grants help students graduate. Because the program is based on income levels, the government hasn’t investigated whether recipients have a better chance of graduating.
With little-to-no evidence proving its success, the expansion would cost taxpayers and estimated $1.3 billion, according to The Daily Signal. It’s difficult to accept such an enormous increase when there is a lack of evidence that the funds will improve results.
Mary Clare Reim of The Daily Signal wrote that “not only is expanding the Pell Grant program to cover summer courses unlikely to improve the circumstances of college students, but expanding the Pell Grant program is just bad policy.”
The Pell Grant program costs taxpayers $30 billion annually. The Department of Education has already been speculative of the cost per student completion value. The Department of Education made a statement regarding the considerations, saying that “in light of the extraordinary costs of this initiative, and before any additional costs are incurred, the administration believes it is prudent to thoroughly study whether the benefits generated are sufficient to justify the expense.”
To resolve the issue of student debt, significant research on the effects of financial aid programs to define areas of improvements are vital.
The Institute for for College Access and Success reported that “seven in 10 seniors (69 percent) who graduated from public and nonprofit colleges in 2014 had student loan debt, with an average of $28,950 per borrower.”
A debt average of $30,000 per student, yet the Senate is considering additional funding.
Instead of continuing to flood more money into the nation’s education aid systems, the Senate needs to reconsider the internal problems that can be fixed without putting an additional burden on America’s taxpayers.
