Ric Keller: “I'm going to limit my comments to the Pell Grant portion of this legislation. I'm honored to serve as the ranking member…”

“I'm going to limit my comments to the Pell Grant portion of this legislation. I'm honored to serve as the ranking member on the Higher Education Subcommittee. I used to be the chairman of this committee before the change in Congress, but I still have the honor of serving as the chairman and founder of the Pell Grant Caucus. Pell Grants are money we give to children from low- and moderate- income families to help them go to college. I, myself, would not have been able to go to college if it wasn't for Pell Grants. Pell Grants are truly the passport out of poverty for many worthy young people. We believe, in a bipartisan manner, that all children, rich or poor, deserve the opportunity to go to college through Pell Grants. When this College Cost Reduction Act was initially presented in the House, I felt that it spent too much money on new entitlement programs and too little on Pell Grants. For example, it had an increase of $5.8 billion. I was honored to serve on the conference committee. I made those comments during our conference committee. And the conference committee decided to increase the Pell Grant funding from $5.8 billion to $11.4 billion, doubling what was in the original House bill. What does that mean for young people going to college? That means the maximum award is now going to go from $4,310 to $5,400, phased in over time.”