Obama Lied: Cuts Pell Grant Eligibility after Promising Opposite
This is no different than the Obama Administration targeting women's cancer screenings for rationing while fully admitting that it will increase women's mortality rates.
Why is it that women’s and minority health are the first to be targeted for cuts as ObamaCare takes over? Why is it that Pell Grants for college are already being targeted? It is because those groups vote Democrat in such large numbers, that the Democrat leadership can do whatever it wants and likely keep that group secured as a voting block.
With the elite media, and in the case of the young being barraged by leftist professors, covering for them most of the time Obama can get away with it. Do you ever wonder why inner city minorities get the worst teachers, worst schools, worst city services and worst police protection in cities and areas ran by Democrats? It is for the same reason. No matter what the Democrats do they believe they will always get 85% or better of the black vote, so they put resources in swing districts to win swing voters.
Victor Medina:
Sorry, college students. President Obama has cut your access to Pell Grants by 33%; he just forgot to mention it before Election Day.
During the recent campaign, President Obama claimed credit for increasing funding to the Pell Grant program, which provides college funds, free from repayment, to millions of students. However, an email sent out Tuesday to some Dallas college students is revealing a detail the President forgot to mention: the time a student can receive a Pell Grant has been cut, by as much as three years. With Pell Grants for the fall semester now dispersed, colleges are informing students of their options, bringing the cuts to light.
The email, sent out by the Dallas County Community College District, informed students of the changes to the Pell Grant program. It revealed that the number of semesters a student could receive a Pell Grant had been cut from 18 semesters down to 12. It is a detail likely unknown to most students; in fact, the cut in grants has gone largely unreported by the media.
The email states that the cut in eligibility was part of an education bill President Obama signed into law in 2011. "On December 23, 2011, President Obama signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012 (Public Law 112-74). This new federal law states that the amount of Federal Pell Grant funds a student may receive over his or her LIFETIME will be reduced to the duration of a student's eligibility from 18 semesters (or its equivalent) to 12 semesters (or its equivalent). This new law applies to ALL Federal Pell Grant eligible students effective with the 2012-2013 award year beginning July 1, 2012. (DCL-GEN-12-01)"
The cut in grant eligibility has serious ramifications for non-traditional students. Part-time students who do not receive a full semester grant may lose out on funds if they do not earn an undergraduate degree within 12 semesters. Adults who go back to school, including retraining for a new career, will also have limited access to grants.
The amount of the grant varies based on family income (with a current yearly maximum grant of $5,550). If a student gets a grant less than a maximum, and a year later finds their income level has been reduced, they will not be able to recoup the difference in the lower amounts earned in a previous year. The cut in eligible semesters makes it difficult for students to make up that gap in later years.
This cut in eligibility was never mentioned by President Obama during the campaign, and when he boasted about increasing funding to the Pell Grant program, CNN fact-checked his claim as true. While the amount of government funding to the program is going up in future years, CNN failed miserably by not pointing out the cuts in eligibility to students. The cuts could be a rude awakening to students who thought President Obama was expanding their educational opportunities.