Senate Extends Budget for Financial Aid

The Senate, in direct opposition to President Reagan's proposed budget cuts, yesterday approved legislation that will extend the current budget for college financial aid by increasing funding for federal grants and loans.

The legislation raises the monetary amounts allotted to Pell Grants and Guaranteed Student Loans (GSL) available to eligible students while tightening the requirements needed to qualify for federal financial aid.

The Higher Education Act, extended for another five years, sets aside $9.4 billion for higher education programs in fiscal 1986. Ninety-five percent of this amount goes toward loans and grants for student aid. The remaining 5 percent will fund grants for universities with specific improvement projects, such as library renovations.

The Congress' legislation for student-aid financing "underscores Harvard's continuing need-blind admission," said John Shattuck, vice president for government and community affairs. It will "guarantee Harvard's middle-income students Guaranteed Student Loans and lower-income students Pell Grants," he said.

Currently, two-thirds of the Harvard student body receives financial aid. This amounts to 2751 students who receive GSLs and 680 who receive Pell Grants.

Reagan's original budget proposal included $2 billion in cuts from federal student aid, eliminating financial awards to more than 2 million students. Experts feared that these cuts would lead to drastic cutbacks in the number of grant recipients and the collapse of the GSL program.

Experts attribute the Congress' support of higher education issues to political factors. "Congress is concerned with long-term investment in human resources, especially scientific education," Shattuck said.

"Also, it's an election year, and higher education is very popular," Shattuck said. "Advocating education cuts is seen as damaging and unpopular."

"President Bok has done an enormous amount of work fighting for student financial aid, and the work he has done has began to pay off," said Shattuck. During the last year, Bok and Shattuck have repeatedly lobbied the Senate to resist the Reagan Administration's efforts to slash aid for higher education.

The Senate voted to raise the maximum grant a poor student can receive from $2100 to $2300 for fiscal 1987, increasing it to $3100 by fiscal 1991. By automatically excluding families with incomes exceeding $30,000, 35,000 students will be cut from the Pell Grant rolls.

The amount a student can borrow under the GSL program will be increased from a flat $2500 to $3000 for the first two years of education and $4000 each year after that. The eligibility standards for loans will also be more restrictive, requiring that all students pass a needs test, not only those whose families earn more than $30,000.

A new academic clause has been added to the act, requiring a student to achieve a "C" average by the end of his second year in order to continue receiving aid.