For college students, Pell grants aren’t what they used to be - Shawn Vestal, Spokesman-Review

The Pell Grant was the chief way poor kids could get a higher education, and a key way the country kept its promises about the equality of opportunity. But as a new school year starts on campuses everywhere, we take another step downward in the slow-motion breaking of that promise: The costs of college are rising crazily; the bulk of the increases fall squarely on students and families; and the purchasing power of the Pell Grant shrinks faster every year. In the past four decades, the value of the maximum Pell Grant against the cost of college has plummeted. According to the United Negro College Fund, the maximum grant in the 1976-77 school year covered 72 percent of costs at public four-year universities. By 2015-16, it covered less than a third of those costs. http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2018/sep/02/shawn-vestal-for-college-students-pell-grants-aren/