FAP559: The Water Show, Higher Education Reauthorization, Mail Bag, Uncle Seth

Student Financial Aid News
+ Welcome to the BlogTV viewers watching the live taping of the show!
+ Inside Higher Ed: The U.S. Senate education committee fleshed out its bipartisan package of legislation to renew the Higher Education Act Tuesday, calling for $17 billion in new funds for Pell Grant recipients and $18 billion in cuts to student loan providers over five years. The Senate panel also revised a Higher Education Act renewal bill it had released Monday in several key ways, most notably abandoning a plan to require accreditors to ensure that colleges do not discriminate against for-profit colleges in their policies on the transfer of academic credit.
+ The legislation the Senate panel released Tuesday, the Higher Education Access Act of 2007, is a “budget reconciliation” measure that covers all provisions that either cost money or produce savings in the programs covered by the Higher Education Act. The budget bill would produce $18.3 billion in revenue by cutting subsidies for and imposing fees on lenders and guarantee agencies in the Family Federal Education Loan Program, which is about $1 billion less than would be imposed under parallel legislation approved last week by the House of Representatives education committee. (It is also many billions less than would have been cut under draft Senate legislation leaked to reporters in April, which would have cut much more deeply into lender profits.)
+ The legislation the Senate panel released Tuesday, the Higher Education Access Act of 2007, is a “budget reconciliation” measure that covers all provisions that either cost money or produce savings in the programs covered by the Higher Education Act. The budget bill would produce $18.3 billion in revenue by cutting subsidies for and imposing fees on lenders and guarantee agencies in the Family Federal Education Loan Program, which is about $1 billion less than would be imposed under parallel legislation approved last week by the House of Representatives education committee. (It is also many billions less than would have been cut under draft Senate legislation leaked to reporters in April, which would have cut much more deeply into lender profits.)
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+ The Senate budget reconciliation bill would use the $18.3 billion in cuts to reduce the federal deficit by about $1 billion and provide $17.3 billion in new and enhanced financial aid for students. Among the benefits for students, the bill would:
+ Provide $17 billion over five years for a new program of “Promise Grants,” which would go to Pell Grant eligible students with the greatest financial need. The creation of the Promise Grants would result in the equivalent of increasing the maximum Pell Grant to $5,100 next year and to $5,400 by 2011. The comparable bill in the House would increase the maximum Pell Grant by $100 a year for five years beginning in 2008-9, assuming that Congress increases discretionary spending on the Pell program to $4,700 this year.
+ Institute a system of “income-based repayment” for borrowers, in which their student loan payments would be capped at a manageable percentage of their income (15 percent of the amount by which a borrower’s adjusted gross income exceeds 150 percent of the poverty line) and their debt canceled after 25 years of repayment.
+ Raise the amount that working students can earn — through the “income protection allowance” — without reducing their financial aid awards. Those amounts would rise to $6,000 by 2012-13 for dependent students and $9,330 for financially independent students.
+ Increase to $30,000 from the current $20,000 the family income level under which a student is automatically eligible for the maximum Pell Grant.
+ Forgive the remaining student loan balance after 10 years for borrowers who enter and spend a certain amount of time working in public service fields and fulfill other national needs.
+ Inside Higher Ed: Less than two weeks after the House Appropriations subcommittee for education programs delivered a major potential boost to the maximum Pell Grant and the National Institutes of Health, the mirroring Senate panel delivered significantly less in its own 2008 spending bill Tuesday.
+ The Senate panel proposed leaving the maximum Pell Grant award at $4,310, a level Congress set in its catchall spending bill for the 2007 fiscal year — far less than the $4,600 President Bush requested in February for his 2008 budget plan and than the $4,700 the House proposed in its 2008 spending bill.
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Scholarship Update
+ Richard A. Herbert Memorial Scholarship
+ Each applicant must be a national AWRA member. One $2,000 scholarship will be awarded to a full-time undergraduate student working toward his/her first undergraduate degree and who is enrolled in a program related to water resources for the 2006-2007 academic year. One $2,000 scholarship will also be awarded to a full-time graduate student enrolled in a program relating to water resources for the 2006-2007 academic year.
+ Deadline April 24
+ Details at our free college scholarship search site
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Mail Bag
+ Alesia writes in from yesterday’s show: just a little fyi that advising your listeners to buy the heapest bottled water is not the best idea. Some of the very cheap brand such as anchor farms use regular tap water which in some areas such as my hometown using tap water is very bad for your haelth. In my hometown there are so many “boil your water b4 you drink it otherwise you will get e-coil” warnings that most ppl in my hometown have turned to bottled water. Believe me, when you grab a bottle of cheap water and its tap water u’ll know it. Anywho hope your having a great week.
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