Oregon Daily o WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23,1991 EUGENE, OREGON VOLUME 93. ISSUE 40 Congress to determine course of financial aid House bill has USSA support By Daralyn Trappe Emerald Associate E ditor _ Tht; future direction of federal finaii t ial aid for higher education will likely he determined within the next month by Congress. The decisions about what pro grams to cut, maintain, expand or < reate will affect students and future students for years to come. See related story, Page 4 Student lobbyists from Washington D.C. to Oregon have been working for over a year to make student needs known to national legislators, who will set the course of financial aid when they vote on the reuuthorization of the High er Education Act Such a vote takes place every five years, when federal financial aid poli cies are re-evaluated The United States Student Associa tion, the country's largest student lobby ing group, set out recommendations that the House of Representatives Subcom mittee on Higher Education not only took note of. but implemented into a bill that will soon go to the House floor USSA is now lobbying for that bill, but a separate higher ed bill is also be fore the Senate now, one that contains none of the provisions requested by USSA The Senate bill is "quite lousy," in USSA President Tajel Shah's opinion It does not authorize enough funds for the Pell grant program, she said, and would maintain graduate fellowship aid at $H5 million, the current total figure for graduate aid. That figure not only represents no increase, but fails to take into account the projected rate of infla tion, Shah said The Senate bill also contains no pro visions for child care for student par ents, Shah said, and would increase the interest rate of Guarantee Student Loans. "It's really not as promising a bill us the House sub-committee bill is," she said The House bill represents the culmi Higher education costs are escalating beyond many students hnancial means A House bill, it approved by Congress, will put more federal dollars into student grants. nation of student efforts that included testimony before Congress in March "It's a student-created bill with stu dent interests ,it heart," Shall said USSA's recommendations that wi*re implemented into the House bill in clude: • Restoration of the loan/grunt balance by making Pell (Iranis an entitlement si milar to the Social Security policy any person who is eligible would auto matically he entitled to the money Additionally, the Pell (Irani limit would be increased to $4,500 a student, up from the current limit ot $2,-100, and half-time students would become eligi ble • Funding for programs for students from disadvantaged backgrounds • Adequate publicity and information dissemination on student aid • Increasing the eligibility ol stuii> ills from moderate-income families This in cludes the elimination of home equity in calculating need • Eliminating student loan origination foes. • Eliminating extraneous requirement for student aid For example, the Depart merit of Education recently dropped its proposal to eliminale from the financial alii system, those students in the bottom 10 percent of their classes • Simplifying applii ulion process, de velop a new system of updating infor mation • Improving wort-study program by mating wort opportunities more mean ingful • Eliminating delayed disbursements and financial penalties to students whose loan ( her ts are late in arriving • Ensuring that financial aid is not counted as income when determining a person's eligibility for irenclits such as food stamps, and decreasing from 70 percent to 50 percent the portion of a dependent student's income expia ted to go toward college expenses Shah noted that Oregon college slu dents, now laced with significant tuition increases, may need to rely on financial aid more than ever, "Students need to mobilize to ensure that the House hill gets passed," she sail! "We need to edui ate Congress about the situation we’re in now It y\ill put states in