The United States Department of Education offers loans and grants to students, which have been primarily designed with an intention to help them to compensate hefty and burdensome expenses of college tuition in the country.
The Federal Pell Grants stand out distinctively and exclusively from student loans such as Perkins, Stafford and PLUS federal loans in the manner that they don’t have to be repaid. There are no strings attached to grants as compared to loans where the students have to sign legal papers for repayment of the principal amount with interest. Grants are rather monetary gifts.
Pell Grant was introduced in the year 1972 as the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant with an intention to assist and accomplish educational goals of students belonging to financially weakened sections of society. It has been widely seen that students belonging to middle to upper income families pursue a college degree while only half of the students belonging from lower income families go on to attain a college degree.
Thus Pell Grants have helped millions in the pursuance of college degree fulfilling their desire of chalking out their exclusive place in the society. No doubt, this grant program has been always at the mercy of whims and fancies of political and budgetary considerations of federal government yet it has remained a cherished and invaluable source of funding financially distressed students. However, it has come to light that fewer students are getting helped by Pell Grants as federal student loans have become more pervasive.
Students who can testify their financial need are awarded federal Pell Grants. For applying for the same, they require paperwork to be completed for the determination of their Estimated Family Contribution (EFC). The EFC is the number accredited to the application of borrower based on financial information of the household as such disclosed by the applicant.
If the criterion of receiving the Pell Grant is met, then the amount is awarded to the applicant on the basis of EFC number, whether the student would enroll for a college course on a full-time or halftime basis and number of times the student plans to participate in scholastic programs in an academic year. Millions of qualified students receive the Pell Grant annually and most of them belong to the families whose annual income is below $20,000.
Statistics reveal that on an average, annual private college tuition fees is more than $20,000 whereas tuition fee of public university or college is half this amount.So one can see the financial hardships faced by the students of low-income family. These Pell Grants come as a rescue boat for impoverished students for the accomplishment of their dreams of attaining higher education. Pell grant can be applied by filling the form of Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) at http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/.
