(Cross-posted at Students for a New American Politics)
You know, for all the talking Republicans do, you would think they would be the biggest proponents of making higher education available to everyone. After all, if everyone got an opportunity to aim for the top, they might have little more punch behind their ridiculous rhetoric about the "laziness" of Americans.
However, it should not surprise anyone that congressional Republicans have absolutely no interest in such a thing. Under the Republicans draconian budget, the maximum Pell Grant award would be cut by over $2,500 in 2012-2013, and resulting in nearly 1.4 million American students losing their eligibility to receive Pell Grants, putting their dreams that much further out of reach. While I wasn't able to find data regarding Pell Grants under the Republican Study Committee proposal, I have a hard time believing their proposal was not even more regressive.
The Democrat's Committee on Education & The Workforce website has a great summary of what these cuts mean for every state around the country. If you are too lazy to click through, I'll give you a hint - the numbers are ugly. In every corner of the US, college students and their families would be looking at an extra 2,000 they would need to pay for their education. Any college student, or parent putting their child through college, knows that money like that is not exactly easy to come by, and especially so during this economic downturn.
So exactly who on Capitol Hill is fine with letting the students they represent take the fall? I went through the data to see which congressional districts contain the most Pell Grant recipients, and then looked at how their representatives voted on the various budget proposals.
A fair amount of the hardest hit districts are represented by reliable Democratic votes - Mississippi's 2nd District (D+12), represented by Bennie Thompson, is the worse off, as 46,000 students are currently expected to receive Pell Grants next school year, before the GOP's painful cuts would go in to place. However, their are a few bold Republicans, who despite the large number of students in their district relying on the Pell program, didn't bat an eyelid at making their constituents lives exponentially more difficult.
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, in Florida's 21st District (R+5), is the worst offender. In the 21st, Pell grants are given to 37,716 students, injecting $154,108,786 worth of financial aid to his constituents. I have no reason to believe that Diaz-Balart is unaware of the costs of higher education - as a father with a young son - I'm sure the rising costs of a college degree are all ready on his mind. Yet despite knowing how important this program is to the people of Miami, he voted FOR the GOP budget. Unless Diaz-Balart magically believes that none of the 82,770 students cut from the Ryan plan happen to live in his district, there are a lot of Miami residents who need to be asking some serious questions of their representative - and a lot of Democrats who need to work on knocking this vulnerable incumbent out of office - after all, his constituents only voted 51-49 for McCain. Despite this fact, Democrats failed to nominate a candidate in 2010, a fact that cannot be repeated in 2012.
It would be unfair to Representative Diaz-Balart to only focus on his misgivings - over in Mississippi's 1st district, Rep. Alan Nunnelee not only voted for the Ryan proposal, but he cast a vote for the stone age proposal from the Republican Study Committee. Evidently the 35,990 students currently receiving Pell Grants aren't at the top of Nunnelee's priorities. Then again, given his background in business, something tells me paying the tuition for his three children has not been as challenging of a question as it is for the thousands of Mississippi families his vote leaves scrounging money together. Furthermore, Rep. Nunnelee seems to have a problem understanding what it is that government programs actually do - this is the same man who believes Planned Parenthood exists to protect rapists. There's no questioning that former 1st district Rep. Travis Childers could not come remotely close to being labeled a progressive Democrat, but he a strong supporter of higher education, and I am sure is deeply troubled by this vote.
Of course, these two are not the only representatives wronging their citizens - Republicans voted en masse for these cuts, whether it hurt a huge number of constituents or a small minority. Either way, this is exactly the kind of regressive action that we have to fight back against as progressives. Call your legislator and let them hear your experiences trying to pay for college - we might not get to vote them out in 2011, but we can at least thank them for putting an even greater burden on the backs of American families who simply want their children to have a shot at the American dream the Republican party pretends to protect.
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