Congress Reaches Pell Grant Funding Agreement for Fiscal Year 2012

Media reports indicate that the House and Senate have reached an agreement on fiscal year 2012 funding for the U.S. Department of Education as part of an omnibus spending bill that covers multiple federal agencies. Many education supporters have been waiting to see how Congress will fund the Pell Grant program for fiscal year 2012 (which will support grants in the 2012-13 academic year) given that the House and the Senate had previously proposed very different plans for the program. Although both chambers proposed maintaining the current maximum grant of $5,550, a House draft would have made nearly a dozen changes to eligibility rules that reduced the cost of the program, while the Senate proposed redirecting money spent on student loan subsidies to Pell Grants.

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