Unpacking Pell Grant Reforms in the House-Passed (“Ryan”) Budget

As we wrote last week, congressional budget resolutions are always light on details. At best, lawmakers include vague descriptions of policies that Congress could enact to meet spending goals. That’s exactly what House Republicans did for Pell Grant reforms in the fiscal year 2013 budget resolution that passed the House of Representatives last week. The document offers only a few hints about how lawmakers might fund Pell Grants as the program nears a major funding cliff in fiscal year 2014.

Using those hints, we’ve done some detective work to put together what we think the House Republicans might be after with respect to Pell Grant funding levels. The results suggest that House Republicans do in fact have a long-term plan for Pell Grants that would stave off a big cut to the maximum grant and/or avoid radical eligibility changes come 2014 – but their plan includes a few key tradeoffs.

Click here to read the full post on Ed Money Watch…