Arlen Specter: “Going back to the issue on the Pell grants, I do not think anybody has fought harder to raise the Pell grants than this…”

“Going back to the issue on the Pell grants, I do not think anybody has fought harder to raise the Pell grants than this Senator. During my tenure as chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Education, I have battled, along with Senator Harkin, to raise the Pell grants. If one takes a look at where they were a few years ago in fiscal year 1997, they were at $2,700. Now they are at $4,050. It is an increase of about 50 percent in the course of those few years. When the fiscal year budget for 2002 was set with the Pell grants at $4,000, there was a vociferous objection from the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. I recall the meeting in my Senate office where there was a very strong objection that we had gone too far. They wanted a recision on our bill, but we held our ground. We kept the Pell grants at $4,000. So it would be a delight to me to be able to raise them to $4,500, but it simply cannot be done within the confines of the funding we have available, unless we go to some other lines to balance out by cuts in programs like community health centers or strengthening historical black colleges.”