"A Trump administration proposal to use money meant to help low-income students attend college to fund a mission to the moon is facing pushback from colleges, universities and advocates," MarketWatch reports.

"The White House sent a budget amendment to Congress earlier this week that would fund a handful of proposals, including a NASA mission to get astronauts to the moon by 2024, by tapping nearly $3.9 billion allocated for the Pell Grant. The proposal was met with swift condemnation from organizations representing colleges and universities, financial-aid administrators and others.

...'The Pell grant is an entitlement where people qualify, but Congress has to estimate and provide funding on a year-to-year basis,' said Justin Draeger, the president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. 'If we don’t retain our surpluses, when the eventuality comes that we have a shortfall, Congress ends up scrambling to make up the difference.'

One need to look no further than the Great Recession and its aftermath to see how that kind of scrambling plays out, Draeger said. During that time, Pell expenditures more than doubled in just a few years as more students went back to college.

To make up the difference, Congress allocated more funding for the program. But lawmakers also made 'opaque' changes to it — like tweaking the formula for how the government determines financial need — that resulted in cuts for students, he said."

NASFAA's "Notable Headlines" section highlights media coverage of financial aid to help members stay up to date with the latest news. Inclusion in Today's News does not imply endorsement of the material or guarantee the accuracy of information presented.

Publication Date: 5/16/2019