A total of 19 reports/issue briefs, and 3 refereed articles, as well as 25 presentations at state, regional, and national meetings have resulted from the Education Policy Center’s on-going policy research on Pell Grants and student access since 2010. This work has involved 18 EPC staff, senior fellows and fellows, and research associates.
The first of EPC’s Pell studies began after observing long lines of students signing up for new Summer Pell funding at community colleges serving some of the highest poverty rural counties in America in May 2010. Nationally, the number of Pell recipients grew from 6 to 9 million from 2009 to 2012; President Obama predicted 800,000 new Pell recipients in 8 years in signing legislation expanding Pell funding in March 2010. Preliminary results from EPC’s April 2011 study showed the impact of new Pell funding, presented at the U.S. Department of Education in February 2011, found just under half that number enrolled at just 205 community colleges in one year!
Our February 2012 study of Pell grants in Kansas found to our surprise that west Kansas counties where the population had declined by 5% between the 2000 and 2010 Census, Pell not only turned part-time students into full-time students as expected, Pell grew the base of part-time students as well. When our 2012 study of Pell’s impact in Kansas was presented at the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, Secretary Arne Duncan said increases in Pell funding was perhaps the single most gratifying accomplishment of his tenure. EPC studies of the impact of increased Pell funding in the states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and seven other states revealed similar findings. The March 2012 companion technical report resulted in statewide coverage.
But the wildly popular new 2010 and 2011 Summer Pell program created a funding shortfall, resulting in federal legislation passed in June 2012 mandating new Pell Eligibility restrictions, effective immediately in August 2012. EPC’s study November 2012 study commissioned by the Alabama Commission on Higher Education, A Study of Pell Grants in Alabama, found nearly 5,000 students lost Pell Grant eligibility in the Fall 2012 term alone, and projected 16,500 Alabama public two- and four-year institution students would lose Pell eligibility in the 2012-13 academic year. A companion study conducted by EPC for the Mississippi Association of Community and Junior Colleges produced statewide headlines. In February 2013, an EPC study released at a Congressional Briefing hosted by U.S. Senator Thad Cochran, found community colleges lost 17,000 students across the 62 community colleges in Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi.