Planning on using a federal Perkins loan to pay for college? Perhaps you didn’t hear. The new White House budget proposal lists that program as a casualty for the 2009 budget year. Several educational programs may suffer.
Why Kill The Perkins Loan Program?
The idea isn’t actually to take money out of education. In fact, the Pell Grant program will see an increase of $2.6 billion. Instead, the budget proposal shifts the money for Perkins loans and other loan programs to the tune of $20 billion over 5 years into grant programs. And that is one place the $2.6 billion will come from for a bigger Pell grant budget.
47 Programs May End
Since many of these programs don’t have large budgets, 47 of them add up to only $3.3 billion which would be shifted to other educational programs. I haven’t found a list of the other 46 programs yet, but if I do, I’ll let you know. All together, the proposal shows about $60 billion for education related items, about the same as 2008.
The president mentioned he was changing educational programs in the state of the union address this week. Also, democrats are working to make student loans less expensive. A welcome change for many, but still a program that will vie for money in the budget.
You can find one bright spot in all of this. Congress usually comes up with their own ideas on education, so Perkins loans may continue after all. And the Pell grant program will probably have more money for college, especially with a democrat led congress. But watch out for other casualties.
And if you don’t know your Stafford from your Perkins, come to Beat-Tuition.com to download my free short report on financial aid and read up on all kinds of money for college.
