With Success of College Grant Program Comes Debate Over Its Rising Budget
When Randa Chappin started high school, she did not see college as an option. The burden of paying for four years of college, she thought, would be too heavy for her family.
“I didn’t want to go to college and come out with the same kind of debt as I would have if I took out a mortgage to buy a house,” Ms. Chappin said.
But just months after she graduated from Woodrow Wilson Senior High School here in 1999, help came from an unexpected source. Congress established a program that provides students from the District of Columbia as much as $10,000 a year to pay the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition at state universities, with lesser amounts of assistance at some private institutions.
Because of the program, which has no income-eligibility requirement, Ms. Chappin was able to attend American University here, one of more than a dozen private colleges or universities in the District of Columbia. She graduated in 2005.
Thousands of local students have also benefited, many of them poor. Since the first grants were awarded in 2000, the number of students from the District of Columbia who have enrolled in college has increased 35 percent, with most going to state universities, city officials said.
Yet with success, the initiative’s budget has nearly doubled. And some lawmakers are arguing that it is too expensive, a debate that is sure to intensify as the legislation establishing the program, which is scheduled to expire at the end of the 2007 fiscal year, comes up for reauthorization.
In passing the law, Congress was in part trying to compensate students for the fact that the District of Columbia, which has about 500,000 residents, has only one public university, the University of the District of Columbia. There are highly regarded public institutions in Virginia and Maryland, but legislators were also hoping to encourage families to remain in or move to Washington.
With an initial budget of $17 million, the program helped 1,948 students enter college in the 2000-1 school year. The budget has grown to $33.2 million; this year, about 5,000 students used the federal money to attend institutions in 45 states — ranging from the University of Arizona in Tucson to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor to Morehouse College in Atlanta.
In addition to the aid for public universities, which is limited to $50,000 per recipient, students are also eligible for $2,500 a year in tuition assistance to attend a private institution in Washington, Maryland or Virginia, or to attend a private historically black college or university elsewhere in the nation, with a total limit of $12,500.
To be eligible to participate, students must live in the District of Columbia for 12 months before they apply, and new applicants cannot receive money after they turn 25.
Representative Thomas M. Davis III, a Virginia Republican and the chairman of a House subcommittee on the District of Columbia, called the effort an “undeniable success.”
“This program not only helps D.C. kids afford a college education, and it has done that to a remarkable degree, but it helps keep taxpaying families in the District, furthering the revitalization of the nation’s capital,” Mr. Davis said. “How many other federal programs can tout such an amazing record?”
But Senator George V. Voinovich, a Republican of Ohio who is the chairman of the Senate subcommittee on the District of Columbia, has said he is concerned about the rising cost.
Mr. Voinovich has proposed legislation that would extend the program for another five years, expanding it to all of the nation’s private colleges and universities. But he also wants to cap spending at the current level. President Bush has sought $35 million for the program for next year.
Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s delegate in the House, and Anthony A. Williams, the mayor of Washington, say the current spending level would not be enough to keep pace for continued growth of the program. They argue that capping the spending would require reducing the grants, setting a limit on eligibility based on income, or restricting the number of colleges and universities that participate.
“The program costs have continued to grow rapidly due to rising tuition costs nationwide and rising program participation,” Mr. Williams said at a hearing on Capitol Hill.
The program’s advocates say it has helped the city’s poor the most. Deborah A. Gist, the District of Columbia’s state education officer, said the majority of the students who participate in the program are the first members of their immediate families to go to college. Ms. Gist said the program helps “to foster a college-going culture” among city residents.
Ms. Norton said that she hoped the program would not “become a victim of its own success.”
“I dare say that it’s hard to find a program that is more popular in the District among all groups of people,” Ms. Norton said. “It has gotten the same reception in our wealthy neighborhoods as in our poorest.”
In addition to the federal program, many students here, including Ms. Chappin, say they have benefited from a private initiative, the District of Columbia College Access Program, that encourages students to apply to college and then works with them to ensure that they graduate. The initiative has spent millions of dollars to place full-time college advisers in public high schools here.
The initiative is supported by local and national companies, including The Washington Post Company, Verizon, America Online, Lockheed Martin and ExxonMobil, as well as some individuals and foundations.
Argelia Rodriguez, the executive director of the initiative, said that the federal and private efforts are “an example of a public-private partnership that is really working,” and that the two have had an “emotional and psychological impact on the city as a whole.”
Ms. Chappin credits both programs with helping her make it through college.
“They prepared me for all the challenges I’d face at school — academics, social issues and finances,” said Ms. Chappin, who majored in urban development and communications, and works for an organization that helps teachers achieve professional certification. Ms. Chappin, whose parents immigrated from Trinidad, has a 6-year-old son, Jeremiah.
“Going to college raised my expectations,” Ms. Chappin said. “I was truly able to explore the possibilities of life.” www.nytimes.com
