NAACP Urges Congress to Reject Bush’s Cuts in Financial Aid

The NAACP is urging Congress to reject the Bush administration’s proposed cuts in college financial aid, saying the government’s plan would eliminate grants for an estimated 90,000 students and significantly reduce the amount of funding that 1.3 million students receive.   Last week, President George W. Bush said he would propose a modest increase in federally-funded Pell Grants for students by $100 a year for five years, which would increase the maximum aid from $4,050 today to $4,550 by 2010. Nearly 40 percent of the nation’s students depend on Pell Grants to help pay for college, and many of those students are black, the NAACP said. The civil rights organization said a new Department of Education formula for calculating eligibility for college financial aid students would deprive students of much-needed financial assistance.[more]