The Federal Pell Grant Program provides need-based grants to low-income undergraduate and certain postbaccalaureate students to promote access to postsecondary education. Students may use their grants at any one of approximately 5,400 participating postsecondary institutions. Grant amounts are dependent on: the student’s expected family contribution (EFC) (see below); the cost of attendance (as determined by the institution); the student’s enrollment status (full-time or part-time); and whether the student attends for a full academic year or less.

Students may not receive Federal Pell Grant funds from more than one school at a time.

Financial need is determined by the U.S. Department of Education using a standard formula, established by Congress, to evaluate the financial information reported on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and to determine the family EFC. The fundamental elements in this standard formula are the student’s income (and assets if the student is independent), the parents’ income and assets (if the student is dependent), the family’s household size, and the number of family members (excluding parents) attending postsecondary institutions. The EFC is the sum of: (1) a percentage of net income (remaining income after subtracting allowances for basic living expenses and taxes) and (2) a percentage of net assets (assets remaining after subtracting an asset protection allowance). Different assessment rates and allowances are used for dependent students, independent students without dependents, and independent students with dependents. After filing a FAFSA, the student receives a Student Aid Report (SAR), or the institution receives an Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR), which notifies the student if he or she is eligible for a Federal Pell Grant and provides the student’s EFC.

FSA Handbook Federal Pell Grant Program

Federal Pell Grants are direct grants awarded through participating institutions to students with financial need who have not received their first bachelor’s degree or who are enrolled in certain postbaccalaureate programs that lead to teacher certification or licensure. Participating institutions either credit the Federal Pell Grant funds to the student’s school account, pay the student directly (usually by check) or combine these methods. Students must be paid at least once per term (semester, trimester, or quarter); schools that do not use formally defined terms must pay the student at least twice per academic year.

To find out if your eligible for the Pell Grant program you must first complete a Free Application for Federal Aid (FAFSA) form. If you have not yet completed your FAFSA application, go to the website (http://www.fafsa.ed.gov), and complete your FAFSA there in the “Fill out a FAFSA” section. When you complete your first FAFSA application, you will answer questions to determine your eligibility for the Pell Grant among other government grants and funding. After you save and submit your initial FAFSA application, you will be notified by email or regular postal delivery if and when you receive Pell Grant funding.

Students with a total family income up to $50,000 may be eligible for Pell Grants, though most Pell funding goes to students with a total family income below $20,000.

Other Pell Grant Eligibility requirements include the following:

You must be a U.S. citizen

U.S. national

An eligible non-citizen

A conditional permanent resident with an I-551C card
possess Arrival Departure Record I-94 from the Immigration and Naturalization Service one of the following designations:

asylum granted
parole
refugee
entrant from Cuba or Haiti

You may also be eligible if you live independent of your parent or guardian, and/or if you have your own dependents.

For Pell Grant Eligibility, you must be an undergraduate student, and in some cases, a student completing your first professional degree, e.g., pharmacy or dentistry.

Also for Pell Grant Eligibility, you must be enrolled in a program that will lead to a certificate, diploma, or degree at any institution eligible to participate in the Pell Grant Program, and maintain satisfactory academic progress as defined by the grant program. You must also sign a statement indicating that you are not in default on a federal loan, and that the financial aid will be used only for educational purposes. Finally, you must not have been convicted for the possession or sale of illegal drugs while receiving federal financial aid.

 

Claiborne Pell

The Pell Grant program is a type of post-secondary, educational federal grant program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education.

It is named after U.S. Senator Claiborne Pell and originally known as the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant program. Grants, which do not require repayment, are awarded based on a “financial need” formula determined by the U.S. Congress using criteria submitted through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

The Pell Grant is covered by legislation titled the Higher Education Act of 1965, Title IV, Part A, Subpart 1; 20 U.S.C. 1070a.

Because Pell Grants are targeted toward students from poor families, receipt of them is often used by researchers as a proxy for low-income student attendance and to indicate the economic diversity of the student body.

Amount of grant

Federal budget legislation passed in early 2006 cut the federal financial aid budget by $12.5 billion. While the maximum Pell Grant legislative limit was raised to $5,800 through 2011, maximum Pell Grant awards were not funded at this level.

For 2006-07, the maximum Pell Grant available to students was $4,050. For the award year of 2007-2008 the maximum Pell Grant award was $4,310. The maximum award for the 2008-09 award year (July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009) is $4,731. For 2009-2010, the maximum is $5,350, with an added option for receiving an additional disbursement ($2,675) in the summer. The maximum award for the 2010-2011 award year will be $5,550, and tie future increases in the Pell Grant maximum value to annual increases in the consumer price index.

Due to rapid increases in tuition and fees, Pell Grants do not cover as many credit hours as they used to. Twenty years ago, a grant covered 60% of a student's cost of attendance while in 2006 the maximum grant covered about 31% of the cost of attendance.

Pell Grant recipients

To qualify for a Pell Grant, a student must demonstrate financial need. The amount of the award is based on the Expected Family Contribution, derived from the information on the FAFSA. In the 2005-06 school year, students with family incomes of less than $20,000 accounted for 57% of Pell Grant recipients. 35% of these recipients attended public two-year colleges, and 42% attended public four-year colleges.

The National Postsecondary Student Aid Study found that during the 1999-2000 school year, students from families making less than $41,000 accounted for 90% of Pell Grant recipients.

Students may not receive Federal Pell Grant funds from more than one school at a time.

Financial need is determined by the U.S. Department of Education using a standard formula, established by Congress, to evaluate the financial information reported on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and to determine the family EFC. The fundamental elements in this standard formula are the student's income (and assets if the student is independent), the parents' income and assets (if the student is dependent), the family's household size, and the number of family members (excluding parents) attending postsecondary institutions. The EFC is the sum of: (1) a percentage of net income (remaining income after subtracting allowances for basic living expenses and taxes) and (2) a percentage of net assets (assets remaining after subtracting an asset protection allowance). Different assessment rates and allowances are used for dependent students, independent students without dependents, and independent students with dependents. After filing a FAFSA, the student receives a Student Aid Report (SAR), or the institution receives an Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR), which notifies the student if he or she is eligible for a Federal Pell Grant and provides the student's EFC.

FSA Handbook Federal Pell Grant Program

Federal Pell Grants are direct grants awarded through participating institutions to students with financial need who have not received their first bachelor's degree or who are enrolled in certain postbaccalaureate programs that lead to teacher certification or licensure. Participating institutions either credit the Federal Pell Grant funds to the student's school account, pay the student directly (usually by check) or combine these methods. Students must be paid at least once per term (semester, trimester, or quarter); schools that do not use formally defined terms must pay the student at least twice per academic year.

Pell Grant Controversy

The primary controversy is that a small set of educational institutions comprising 6% of all college students receives roughly 20% of all Federal Pell grant money. University of Phoenix tops this list with Pell Grant revenue of $656.9 million with second and third place held by Everest Colleges at $256.6 million and Kaplan College at $202.1 million for the 2008-2009 educational year. Some of the universities that are top recipients of Pell Grants have low completion rates, so students leave with no degree and large indebtedness leading some former students to accuse recruiters of being “duplicitous” .

In 2003, a Government Accountability Office report estimated that overpayments of Pell Grants were running at about 3% annually, amounting to around $300 million per year.

Before any school’s financial aid office can give you Pell grant funds, it must have a fully updated FAFSA. If you still have to make corrections regarding your tax information or you omitted parental information, your Pell funds are not going to be disbursed until this is all updated.

It is up to the school on when it will make the payment to the student; this is decided on what is best for the student. You certainly are not going to get a full year’s worth of Pell Grant funds before you start any classes. The school will usually put half of your grant in your student account on the first day of class. This is put into place to prevent fraudulent financial aid. Most schools will also give you book vouchers to use at the book store and the funds will come out of your Pell Grant.

The school will always pay for outstanding classes and fees with Pell Grant Disbursement before it gives any funds to the student. If the student has already paid for all classes out of pocket and has no outstanding charges on the account, then the school will disburse all remaining Pell funds directly to the student.

Schools will disburse funds to students in a couple of ways. You can have them give you a check at the cashier’s office, you can have the check sent to your home, or the funds can be directly deposited into your bank account with a prior authorization.
The most important things to remember to ensure that you get your Pell Grant disbursed to you is to have your FAFSA complete, register for all your classes on time, and keep in contact with your financial aid office at your school.

There is also the possibility that you have other financial aid that pays for your school and your Pell Grant looks like it is just sitting in the school’s account.  In some instances you may be able to get an early Pell Grant Disbursement due to personal circumstances, like have to pay rent or need it for food.  If your fees are all paid up and covered by another financial aid source then you can probably get an early Pell Grant Disbursement.

The Pell Grant Supplement Program is designed to assist low-income students who would have qualified for the Pell Grant program had they not worked. Many low-income students who work often earn enough money to disqualify themselves from Pell eligibility. By reviewing only the parent’s contribution, the University can offer an institutional grant at the same funding level as the Pell Grant.

The recently passed health care bill includes several pieces of legislation that involves Title IV. Title IV is the governmental code word for federal financial aid for college students. The one facet we are going to cover in this article is the part that includes Pell Grant funding.

The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act is the piece of the health care bill that involves financial aid for college and more specifically the increased funding for the Pell Grant. For the current 2009-2010 school year the maximum amount of aid you can get with the Pell Grant is $5350 and that will be raised to $5550 for the upcoming 2010-2011 school year that will start in fall on 2010. If you are planning on attending college in fall of 2010 and you want to apply for the Pell Grant, you must file the 2010-2011 FAFSA that was released on January 1st, 2010.

The new amounts that were passed with the bill will increase the Pell Grant to a maximum of $5975 by 2017 and the increases will coincide with the consumer price index with the cost of living. This increase is miniscule compared to the gigantic increases in the cost of going to college, but in our opinion, it is better than no increase at all.

The money to pay for the increase in the Pell Grant is going to come from the savings of 61 billion dollars over 10 years coming from the elimination of subsidies to banks offering college student loans. The federal government was giving banks subsidies for offering student loans to students and then also guaranteeing the loans as well. The banks were taking no risk and collecting huge amounts of money so the government is going to directly loan the students’ money and save billions of dollars.

This legislation included in the healthcare bill to increase Pell Grant funding is vital to college students everywhere and we hope the increased amounts will help more students achieve the goals of going to and finishing college.

1. You cannot receive the grant for over one college at a time. This is the condition of all financial support also.
2. You cannot have a past Pell Grant Overpayment or Fed Stafford Loan in default.
3. You must be in an undergrad program and you can’t already have a 4 year degree or higher.
4. You cannot be locked up in a state or Fed. penal institution.
5. You need to be in a degree seeking eligible program. This means that you can’t go and take underwater basket weaving and gymnasium class and expect to get the Pell Grant.
6. You have to not already be receiving a full grant or already have your school paid for 100% by a scholarship.This sometimes implies that if you were awarded a massive presidential grant and your college is already 100% paid for, you wouldn’t get the full Pell Grant as there would be little need for it according to the school .
7. You have to be fulfilling the school’s OK academic progress policy.