This bill establishes measures to expand access to higher education, including by eliminating tuition and required fees for eligible students, revising the Federal Pell Grant program, and reauthorizing certain programs to assist students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Specifically, the bill provides funding to enable states and tribal colleges and universities, through a federal-state partnership, to eliminate tuition and required fees for (1) all students at community colleges and two-year tribal colleges and universities, and (2) working- and middle-class students at four-year public institutions of higher education and tribal colleges and universities.
The bill provides funding to enable private, nonprofit historically Black colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions to eliminate tuition and required fees for eligible students.
The bill permanently reauthorizes and otherwise revises the Federal Pell Grant program by
providing funding to increase the maximum award for each eligible student, increasing the duration limit for the use of Pell Grants, allowing students to use their awards to cover living and nontuition expenses, and expanding eligibility to Dreamer students (i.e., students who have been granted Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status and who entered the United States before the age of 16) and students with other immigration statuses. Further, the bill requires the Department of Education to award grants to eligible states and tribal colleges and universities for improving student outcomes.
The bill reauthorizes through FY2035 the Federal TRIO Programs and reauthorizes through FY2029 the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs.