The Education Policy Center, in cooperation with scholars from Iowa State University and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, released the report “Pell Grants and the Lifting of Rural America’s Future.”

The report shows how the Pell Grant program made a difference to needy community college students in perhaps the most & the country, Kansas.  More students were moved from part-time to full-time status, resulting in more students taking more credit hours.  Pell funding in Kansas nearly doubled from about $20.5 to $40.4 million from the Fall 2008 to the Fall 2010. 

This report can also provide an early glimpse of how maintenance of effort standards might impact the long term future of student aid.  MOE was included in the federal ARRA stimulus package. It said that total state support had to be maintained at FY2006 levels, providing an incentive for states to not defund their public higher education operating budgets and supplant with tuition revenue (as has occurred in recent recessions). It is possible that this policy level might be used in the unfolding discussions s college cost containment proposals are considered. 

Please download the report and/or read the brief story from this morning’s InsideHigherEd.