Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act put on hold in Senate for health care bill

Students expecting increased financial aid will have to wait a little longer as the health care debate plays out on the Senate floor.

The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which would increase nationwide funding for Pell Grants by $40 billion, has remained on hold in the Senate for months, after being passed in the House of Representatives in September.

The delay stems from plans to pass the measure using budget reconciliation, which would allow the bill to be passed with a simple 51-vote majority, according to congressional newspaper The Hill.

“We’ve already been instructed by the Budget Committee to do this, so we’re going to do it,” Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, told The Hill.

However, if the Democrats decide to use reconciliation on the health care reform legislation, the two bills will have to be combined, since reconciliation may only be used on one bill per year.

Until then, SAFRA remains stagnant.

“(SAFRA) needs to pass a lot sooner than later because the reality that we’re facing is that students are either not attending or reconsidering their options,” said Cinthia Flores, president of the Undergraduate Students Association Council.

UCLA currently awards Pell Grants to 35 percent of its undergraduates, covering about 33 percent of education costs. In light of the 32 percent student fee hike, passed by the UC Board of Regents in November, the increase in grant money would help to alleviate the growing financial burden on students, Flores said.

“If we want to continue to make college more affordable and accessible, we need to make sure that the Pell Grant is keeping pace with the rising cost of college,” said Sarah Dobjensky, chair of CALPIRG at UCLA and CALPIRG’s statewide student board.

SAFRA would eliminate the Federal Family Education Loan Program in favor of the direct loan program, which distributes student loans through the federal government rather than through private lenders subsidized by taxpayers. The switch would save about $87 billion over 10 years, allowing the government to increase funding for Pell Grants and invest in community colleges while expanding access to college.

UCLA is already in the process of switching to the direct loan program and hopes to participate in the program for the 2010-2011 academic year, according to Ronald Johnson, UCLA director of financial aid. If the bill passes, academic institutions would be required to transfer to the new system by July 1.

“It’s only a matter of time that with reduced subsidies, that many of the lenders would begin leaving the program as they have been over the past year, and that’s a position that we don’t want to put ourselves in at UCLA. That’s why we’ve gone forward with transitioning,” Johnson said.

The act would further simplify the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form, which has already undergone a 63 percent reduction this year. Last year, UCLA received 77,000 financial aid applications, more than any other UC institution, according to Johnson.

UCLA student advocates participated in CALPIRG and the United States Student Association’s “Raising Pell Week of Action” in October, calling senators and personalizing a brick for a Wall of Debt to symbolize the barrier the cost of college poses for students, Dobjensky said.

“In an ideal world, students wouldn’t be asked to take out loans. They’d be actually going to school completely subsidized by grants or scholarships. But that’s just the reality that students face today,” Flores said.

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