House Panel Recommends $100 Increase in Maximum Pell Grant

The U.S. House Appropriations Committee has approved a fiscal-2007 appropriations bill that recommends a $100 increase in the maximum Pell Grant, the first such increase since 2003. The maximum Pell-Grant award would rise to $4,150. The panel recommends overall Pell-Grant funding of just over $13 billion for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, 2006.

The panel also recommended maintaining funding for several other key student-aid and access  programs — Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants, Federal Work/Study, Perkins-loan cancellation, Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnerships, Federal TRIO programs and GEAR UP — at the current year’s levels.

The committee also rejected an administration budget proposal to begin a phaseout of the Perkins-loan program by recalling $664 million in the federal portion of Perkins-loan collections received during the year.

The committee’s recommendations — included in a $142-billion appropriations bill that covers discretionary funding for the federal departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education — now move to the full House for consideration.