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Eye on Washington: Helping Needy Students 'Know How 2
Go'
By Melanie Corrigan and Terry Hartle
It's no secret that low-income, first-generation students fail
to enroll in higher education at the same rate as their more affluent
peers. In 1970, 46 percent of low-income high school graduates enrolled
in college immediately after high school, compared with 79 percent of
graduates from high-income families. A generation later, in 2004, 56
percent of low-income students made it to college, but the percentage of
upper-income students had jumped to 89 percent. That means that the
participation gap in higher education between low- and upper-income
families has remained essentially unchanged for three
decades.
Several recent reports have called attention to this continued
underrepresentation and called for federal and state governments, along
with colleges and universities, to take aggressive steps to address the
problem. The most expansive recommendation was made by the National
Commission on the Future of Higher Education, which called for boosting
the average Pell Grant so that it covers 70 percent of the average cost
of public college tuition. This recommendation—which was welcomed
by the higher education community—would not come cheaply;
according to an analysis conducted by the American Council on Education
(ACE), it would add at least $10 billion to the cost of the program to
make this possible. The Democrats have promised to increase the maximum
Pell Grant over the next five years to $5,100, from its current $4,050.
Clearly, that will be a welcome and long overdue development. . .
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Excerpted from the winter 2007 issue of The
Presidency. To subscribe to the magazine, please call (301) 632-6757,
or order online through ACE’s
bookstore.
For more information about the KnowHow2GO campaign,
please visit the campaign web
site.
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