A Matter of Decimal Points

College students, rejoice! The senate voted this morning to approve The Higher Education Access Act, a extensive bill that will increase the size of current Pell Grants to $4,310, and up them again to $5,400 in 2011. The bill will also take stress off of college graduates trying to pay off their student loans by creating a system of "income based repayment" which sets loan payments at a "manageable" percentage of a recent grad's income. It will also increase the amount of federal aid that working students can receive, and raise the income level under which a student is automatically qualified for a Pell Grant.

Of course, student aid money doesn't appear out of thin air. The Senate bill paid for the increases in aid by cutting subsidies to lending firms that provide federally guaranteed loans to students by a whopping, massive... 0.5%. To some, this cut seemed excessive, so an amendment was attached to the bill cutting that cut to 0.35%. The rationale apparently being that the 0.5% cut would do "irreparable, significant harm to the public-private FFEL program which 8 out of 10 institutions of higher education rely on," and a 0.35% cut wouldn't. Now, I'm neither a mathematician or an accountant, but I feel like a change in 0.15 percentage points isn't worth threatening the life of such an important bill.

The bill transcended this parliamentarian snare and went on to win by a vote of 78-18, with the aforementioned amendment going down 36-61.

In this author's humble opinion, the bill is a success in the effort to make college affordable for everyone, if a relatively modest one, and I'm encouraged to see that the Senate sided with American students over big banks and loan lenders. For now.