Talk:Pell Grant

Discussion of Controversy
Given that the Pell grant program has been a primary instrument of making certain parties extremely wealthy while delivering highly questionable educational product, abusing students with predatory loans that they must acquire after initial signup and contracts that enrich such institutions as the University of Phoenix further if students don't finish, a discussion of the way the Pell Grant is abused is needed. A 4% completion rate is really quite astounding. When that is looked at up against the huge revenue from Pell and other federal sources going to a small number of schools the public deserves to be informed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.230.116.219 (talk) 22:10, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

The point of the article is to detail the history and the function of the pell grant,rather than the funding or political issues. Some of the material would seem to be POV. However, I think the entire article should be revamped. SemperDoctus (talk) 15:55, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The point of wikipedia articles is to inform readers regarding the topic. Any information on Pell Grants should include controversy about them. The controversy section is not a POV, it is thoroughly sourced from highly reliable public information. Not including this is equivalent to removing relevant information regarding Franklin from James Watson's page. It should also be noted that Pell Grants, their existence and continuance, like all federal money are entirely a political matter. Thus, providing open context is appropriate. 67.115.54.202 (talk) 23:54, 14 January 2010 (UTC)LibertyBell

The controversy section is integral to the article, as it details abuse and misuse of the Pell Grant, in addition to other Title IV funds (Loans, etc.), the parties involved, the extent of the abuse and fraud (Omitting the $250,000 in savings from the undercover shoppers and adding dependents by the financial aid representatives, in order to award Pell Grants to applicants that otherwise would have been disqualified from receiving them) and the geographical extent of the fraud; The section before included few references, was biased and did not include any data on the August 4, 2010 GAO report; The material is not POV, all of the examples of misuse and fraud have extensive sources, and according to OEDB, University of Phoenix's completion rate is 4%, for the 2009 fiscal year, as noted by 69.230.116.219. Any and all institutions receiving Title IV funds, specifically, Pell Grants, are required, in accordance with the "Gainful employment" NPRM by the Department of Education, to have a minimum loan repayment rate of 45%, which many For-Profits (Strayer, Kaplan, University of Phoenix) are failing to do: This isn't a "scam" warning, this is the inclusion of the GAO report that found extensive and widespread fraud, deceptive and questionable marketing practices in addition to the failure of these schools' student body to repay their loans, graduate, and their excessive defaults (44% of all in total), which shows mismanagement of funds (Pell Grant and other Title IV) and is relevant to the article, as it involves both Pell Grant and other Title IV abuse. Projectopat (talk) 19:19, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

The entire controversy section dealt (implicitly and without clarification) with tuition charged by for-profit institutions. This has little, if anything, to do with the Pell Grant program. As this had been previously discussed here, and given the low quality of the existing section to begin with, I have removed it in its entirety. One sentence would suffice, perhaps linking to a page on this "controversy", should the original author(s) feel that the subject is integral to the grant program. (But please remember that Pell Grants and student loans are two entirely separate undertakings.) Ickydog (talk) 21:48, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

If it matters the whole reason i looked up the Pell Grant was in an effort to find said controversy, please put it back or create a new section (I didn't see what was up but something should be). The 4% completion rate for some schools and probably other things belong here. The people all posting here have a point of view censoring because you don't like someone else's facts just isn't right, what you have here right now is a pretty useless article. This is Wikipedia while its nice to try and remain above board people can still think for themselves.68.43.156.24 (talk) 14:12, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Rework of Article
I am opening discussion for a rework of this article with better citations and format. I would like to hear opinions before I begin to edit. I will wait 7 days before suggestion further changes. Your thoughts?

IlliniGradResearch (talk) 15:12, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Capitalization
We need to decide whether to capitalize it as "Pell Grant" or "Pell grant" and stick to it throughout the article. - furrykef (Talk at me) 23:22, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I vote for "Pell Grant" since it refers to a Federal program name and these names are usually capitalized. Thus, a "Pell Grant" is short-hand for a "grant dispensed through the Federal Pell Grant program". Also, doing a quick Google search on the term finds this is the predominant usage (not to mention the usage used on the actual Federal site). Bashen 05:07, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * When talking about the name of the Federal program, the "G" should be capitalized. When talking about one specific instance of a grant given to a student, the "g" is not capitalized. As in Bashen's example above, "Susan received a grant dispensed through the Federal Pell Grant program." If you follow this rule, there seems to be many capitalization errors in the article.24.78.109.120 (talk) 22:43, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

While I agree with the final paragraph (I'm in the same boat) it obviously needs to be taken out/heavily heavily rewritten. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.183.40.171 (talk) 01:59, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Recent legislation section
Not even close to NPOV. The whole section needs to be removed. 72.213.138.75 (talk) 08:42, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Citation
Could we get a citation for this: "Due to high increases in the cost of post-secondary education as a result of government funding of post-secondary education"? Or maybe it should be deleted? There are many arguments for why the cost of higher education has gone up, this being just ONE of those opinions. Considering this article is NOT about the reasons for why the cost of a college education has gone up, maybe it would suffice to just say, "Due to high increases in the cost of post-secondary education" without the opinion. Either way, the paragraph needs citations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.175.155.227 (talk) 22:50, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Scam section
I've removed the scams section twice, because it seems to consist only of a generic scam warning, with no actual data backing it up. Likewise, I've removed the link to pell-grants.org, as it doesn't clearly identify what organization, if any, is sponsoring it, and the Google ads are quite prominent at the top of the page. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:09, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I am new to WK and sorry for the inappropriate content in the above section. However, I've studied the WK pillars and other guidelines and would like to contribute to the named section content. With the number of scam on Internet, in all spheres, this type of warning should be very important. As to the (http://pell-grants.org/) site, I found it very convenient to study. In my research on pell grants, it was the first source to study and then I moved easily to a more precise but less easy to understand (for a newbie) site of FAFSA. Also, on grants scams it was the rare site that touches the issue. I'll post my new content on this talk page for you to review. And your advice of a professional writer would be much appreciated. Thanks. Julia. Davidcrew2010 (talk) 11:33, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Dual Enrollment
I think it's important to point out that students who dual enroll in college and highschool (DUAL, not JOINT enrollment) do not receive Pell Grant, as they have not yet graduated from high school. I was cheated out of two years of Pell Grant because I thought it would be a good idea to go to college early. I cannot add this section, because I'm clearly biased and bitter about the entire subject. 70.33.118.55 (talk) 17:45, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

GAO report
The GAO report cited does not use the term illegal. Describing the activities as illegal, regardless of what the USC says, is improper synthesis. See WP:SYNTHESIS. WP wants verification, not user conclusions. --S. Rich (talk) 19:10, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Update the recent legislation part.
According to my financial advisor congress had approved some form aid, which is why I was able to get funding for my Summer semester. This means since April 6th they have passed something. Since word of mouth is not a reputable source, can someone find a article about what has happened since then? In fact, I'll go look for one now.FusionChamber (talk) 14:58, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

http://www.dailynebraskan.com/news/pell-grants-facing-reduction-as-congress-trims-nation-s-budget-1.2553205 http://northernstar.info/campus/article_16a7623e-713a-11e0-a106-0019bb30f31a.html FusionChamber (talk) 05:37, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Eligibility
The first sentence says it provides money for students who need it. But the eligibility section doesn't seem to say any-thing about how "who needs it" is defined.Kdammers (talk) 13:01, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Pell Grant. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110930045657/http://www.clasp.org/admin/site/documents/files/FundingCareerPathways_Pell.pdf to http://www.clasp.org/admin/site/documents/files/FundingCareerPathways_Pell.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 17:54, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 7 November 2019

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: No consensus. (non-admin closure) Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:30, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Pell Grant → Pell grant – This is not a proper noun. It is a type of grant, not one specific grant. See the RM discussions at Talk:Personal equity plan, Talk:Individual savings account, and Talk:Tax-free savings account. As the proper noun article says, "a class of entities" is a common noun, not a proper noun. Some writers use capital letters to indicate any special string of words or anything to be abbreviated with initials, but Wikipedia's convention is to use sentence case for topic names instead. The second sentence of the article says "Federal Pell Grants are ..." If it's plural, it's not a proper noun (with few exceptions, as with the Hendersons, the Everglades, the Azores, the Pleiades). —BarrelProof (talk) 04:48, 7 November 2019 (UTC) —Relisted. – Ammarpad (talk) 06:36, 14 November 2019 (UTC) —Relisting. Primefac (talk) 13:48, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose Per how it is written in reliable sources, like this one, as well as the Dept. of Education website.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 21:15, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Not all publications follow the same practices for capital letters. "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization", while some others use it relatively indiscriminately. And the people who dole out grants (e.g., the DoED) and their affiliates tend to use caps to make their programs appear more important. —BarrelProof (talk) 01:35, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Support – there are more than enough sources that don't cap it, so per MOS:CAPS we default to lowercase. E.g. this one. Dicklyon (talk) 02:46, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose per the references and external links on the page. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:33, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Nearly all of the cited sources and external links in the article are self-published government sources, not independent reliable sources. —BarrelProof (talk) 16:36, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
 * A government source is a reliable primary source. They don't have to be independent to be used as a source.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 18:24, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
 * To some extent, yes, but independent sources are clearly preferred – especially in matters of styling. See WP:TITLETM / MOS:TM / MOS:CAPS / MOS:ALLCAPS / WP:IRS. —BarrelProof (talk) 23:39, 24 November 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The Pell Grant has massively inflated College Tuition fees over decades - but there is no mention of this in the article.
It is a basic principle of economics that a government subsidy inflates costs over time - whether medical subsidies, rent subsidies, or education subsidies. The article as written give no indication of the massive inflation of higher education costs (tuition fees) caused by Pell Grants and other subsidies (such as government student loans), over many years and decades.2A02:C7F:96F6:5300:5CB:1188:C503:D65E (talk) 15:30, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Loan forgiveness
The text says that Pell grants don't have to be paid back (which makes sense since they are called 'grants' rather than 'loans.' Then it says "In August 2022, President Biden announced that up to $20,000 of debt would be canceled for Pell Grant recipients." On the face of it, it looks contradictory.  Is the crux in the word "recipients"? -- Does it mean that students who had Pell Grants and a Federal loan will have their loan (up to $20,000) canceled? Kdammers (talk) 23:17, 24 August 2022 (UTC)