Financial aid may increase

By Gerald Frazier
Daily Forty-Niner

Cal State Long Beach may soon be able to offer more money to its students that need financial assistance if Congress passes a bill to increase money in the Pell Grant program.

Under the proposed plan, federal Pell Grant funding will exceed $8 billion and the maximum individual grant will increase by $500 to a total of $3,800 per student next year, helping 3.9 million students with college costs, said Mary Ellen Grant, spokeswoman for former CSULB president Rep. Stephen Horn, R-Lakewood.

"This is something that will definitely be a benefit for us (students) to make it easier financially for school," said Edward Collins junior business major. "There were times I missed a semester because I needed to work a lot of hours just to make it."

Although promising, the bill, which has been in the works for the past year, may not go into effect for the 2001 fiscal year as planned.

"There is no guarantee it is going to pass," Grant said. There could be a few problems to overcome before the bill is passed.

A few items in the Labor Health and Human Services could hold up the bill, Grant said. The bill also has health care issues. The sides need to agree on funding for school construction and office ergonomics.

"It could cause difficulties in the spring if funding has not been approved," said Dean Kulju director of financial aid at CSULB. "We process over 30,000 applications."

If the bill were held up, they would have to send award letters out to students that might later have to be changed for more or less money, he said.

Congress wanted to offer more opportunities for students to get a college education, Grant said. Other opportunities are created through tax incentives. These incentives include the Hope Scholarship and the Lifetime Learning incentive, which provide tax credits for college study.