GOP Senator Seeks to Add Income Test For Program
City Officials Oppose Limiting Assistance
By Valerie Strauss
Washington Post
August 24, 2007
A Republican senator is pushing to change a federally funded program that provides college tuition assistance to D.C. residents, despite opposition by city government officials who say it has been working well for seven years.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) is seeking to start a means test for the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant Program, which since 2000 has provided financial aid to college-bound D.C. residents -- regardless of family income -- at specific schools across the country.
D.C. officials oppose the proposal, saying the program was never intended to help only poor families but to give city residents the same choice in higher education as people in other jurisdictions. The District lacks a state university system and has only one public college: the University of the District of Columbia.
"Sometimes, if things are not broken, there is no need to fix it," said Iris Toyer, chairman of the activist group Parents United for the D.C. Public Schools. "This program has allowed a significant number of kids to go off to college all over the country. It has done just what we wanted it to do." Toyer said two of her nieces have received grants through the program.
Under the program, D.C. residents attending any state university in the country are eligible for up to $10,000 a year, with a limit of $50,000. Those attending private schools in Maryland and Virginia, as well as historically black colleges, are eligible for grants of $2,500 a year with a $12,500 cap.
D.C. officials said college attendance among the city's high school graduates has increased 50 percent since the program began. More than 26,000 grants have been disbursed to nearly 10,000 students since it began -- at a cost of about $141 million. Sixty-eight percent of recipients come from families with low or very low incomes. Thirty-eight percent are the first in their family to attend college.
"This program gives our children the opportunities enjoyed in any other state that has a state university system," Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) said. "State universities provide subsidized tuition to any resident of that particular state regardless of means, and District residents should have that same opportunity."
A bill to renew the program recently passed in the House without amendment, drawing support from 98 percent of Democrats and opposition from 57 percent of Republicans.
When the Senate bill to renew the program through 2012 comes up this fall, Coburn plans to introduce two amendments seeking to halt participation of families with annual incomes of more than $1 million, spokesman John Hart said. Coburn wants recipients to be able to use the grants available for public schools at private colleges and universities, too.
Hart said Coburn does not think the program can be equated to providing a state university experience to D.C. residents. "It is like comparing apples and oranges, not an apple and apples situation," he said.
This summer, Coburn placed a hold on the Senate bill, invoking a rule that allows any senator to hold up any legislation for any reason. But Hart said Coburn withdrew it after the Senate agreed to consider his amendments in the fall.
DCTAG is administered by the D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education. The office has no administrative means to verify family income and would have to create one should Coburn's amendments pass, city officials said.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who is on vacation, issued a statement saying, "We are pleased that we got the TAG reauthorization bill out of the House with no issues and also are pleased with negotiations in the Senate, as they are continuing."
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$9,741,967,426,830.00
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$31,792.15 Per Citizen |
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