The federal Pell Grant is a need-based grant that is given to undergraduate students from across the country on annual basis. While the basic fundamentals of the Pell Grant are not that difficult to grasp, the subtle nuances can be a bit more demanding, and before you start to plan on receiving any sort of Pell Grant aid for the upcoming year, it is crucial that you at least get a grip on the important aspects of the grant that will play a crucial role in affecting the amount of funding you are able to receive.
That being said, there are a whole host of new changes to the Pell Grant for the 2010-11 school year that will pertain to almost every prospective college student who is thinking about becoming eligible for the Pell Grant.
Pell Grant Amount Increased
The good news is that virtually all of these changes have been implemented to benefit student applicants, and because of these changes, along with an insertion of over a billion dollars of new capital into the Pell Grant program by the government, there has never been a better time to get a Pell Grant.
The first major change has come by way of an increased maximum amount, with the current figure standing at 5,550 dollars per year, on 2,775 dollars per semester. This was an increase of about 200 dollars from the year before, as the previous maximum Pell Grant amount was set at 5,350 dollars. Pell Grant amounts across the board have also been increased, resulting in more and more students receiving a larger proportion of Pell Grant aid.
Part Time Students Now Eligible
Another change that has benefited students for the 2010-11 school year has been an abandoning of the minimum enrollment hour requirement that existed previously to the current reform. Before this was enacted, you had to be enrolled in a minimum amount of credit-hours to receive any sort of Pell Grant aid. Now the amount of credit-hours you are taking will fractionally prorate the amount of aid you are able to receive, and you can even receive money if you are enrolled on a “less than halftime” basis, and are taking only one, or two classes.
Another major change has come with the expansion of the number of semesters that can make you eligible for the Pell Grant, as the new changes have made it so that you can now receive Pell Grant aid regardless of whether you are attending classes in the fall, winter, spring, or summer.
The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act
The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, or SAFRA, was signed into law in 2010, and with it came a number of changes to the Pell Grant program. The two major changes will effect the minimum cutoff threshold in terms of EFC, and how the maximum Pell Grant amount will increase over the next ten years or so.
SAFRA increased the EFC cutoff threshold to 5,273 from 4,617, and therefore has made the Pell Grant available to thousands of additional students from across the country.
The maximum Pell Grant amount is now scheduled to increase on an annual basis according to the Consumer Price Index + 1% beginning in 2014 as a result of SAFRA. This was put into place to combat inflation, and many critics have argued that this rate of change isn’t enough to keep up with the rising cost of living.
Between all of these changes you should not hesitate to fill out your FAFSA with the end goal of getting some amount of Pell Grant aid, as there has never been a better time in history to get such an award.
