Biggest Increase In Student Aid Since The GI Bill

Time to give the Democrats credit where credit is due.

WASHINGTON - Congress approved a $20.2 billion boost in financial aid for college students yesterday, a package that backers said would be the single largest increase in federal tuition funding since World War II.

The bill, which President Bush is expected to sign, raises the maximum Pell grant for low-income students from $4,050 to $5,400, and temporarily slashes interest rates on student loans by half.

It also establishes debt-forgiveness programs for graduates who enter certain poorly paid fields such as law enforcement, firefighting, and teaching. According to the Department of Education, the average student now graduates with $19,000 in debt.

The new aid would be funded by a massive cut in subsidies to the scandal-plagued private student loan industry. Lenders said the cutbacks would cause some banks to stop offering student loans.

The president had threatened to veto an earlier version, but the White House indicated Thursday that Bush would sign the legislation.

This is fantastic news. The student loan industry has been gouging kids for decades and forcing them to live the beginning of their professional lives in debt. It discouraged innovation and entrepreneurship among young people. I'm especially pleased to see debt forgiveness for those who enter public service-sector jobs like police, firefighting and teaching. And to get the President to agree to sign it is quite a coup.

This Congress has endured a lot of headache from all sides, a lot of it deserved, but this is a step forward. In fact, it was one of their core priorities in the "6 for '06" election-year agenda. Now education reform moves to the reauthoriztion of No Child Left Behind, where George Miller has some ideas.

The leading House Democrat on education issues proposed revisions yesterday to the No Child Left Behind law that would ease the penalties for public schools that barely miss academic testing targets but tighten another rule that has helped the District and Virginia.

U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee and a leading sponsor of the law in 2001, called his proposal a work in progress. He and three other committee members were floating the ideas as they move toward introducing a bill likely to contain major changes to the controversial law. Miller has said he wants to move a bill through the House of Representatives next month.

The proposal would allow states to use more than annual tests in reading and math to rate schools; give credit to states for students who are projected to reach proficiency within three years; and require states to test certain students with limited English skills in their native language. For some schools that fall only slightly short of academic targets, the proposal would also lift requirements to provide after-school tutoring and let students transfer to better schools.

In addition, Miller proposed strengthening a rule that requires test scores to be reported separately for groups of students identified by ethnicity, race, family income and other factors. Currently, Maryland reports separate scores for groups in a given school if there are at least five students in the demographic category. D.C. schools report scores from all groups with at least 40 students in a given school, and Virginia sets the threshold at 50 students.

Hopefully, we can work hard to establish some sensible solutions to a flawed education bill. This is a good day for the future of our country.