State Student Grant Aid
The Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership (LEAP) was established to incentivize states to supplement the federal Pell Grant Program with additional need-based grant aid to low-income students. Unfortunately, LEAP has received no new funding since 2011. State actions since then demonstrate how important it is to maintain LEAP and restore program funding.
Currently, two states do not have need-based grant programs, and others struggle to keep them funded. The savings to the federal government in defunding LEAP was only $67 million annually, but the loss of grant aid to needy students is immeasurably higher as states have disinvested from these aid programs. The National Association of State Student Grant Aid Programs issues an annual report that provides data regarding state-funded expenditures for student financial aid and illustrates the extent of efforts made by the states to assist postsecondary students.
Before the pandemic, Congress was considering repealing the LEAP authorizing statute as part of the Higher Education Act (HEA) reauthorization process – a step that would be penny-wise and pound-foolish. With the arrival of the Biden Administration, proposals for Free Public College and free community college continue to be popular policy goals. Ironically, the free college proposals are structured like (and are often called) “federal-state partnerships, " which follow similar constructs to the now defunded LEAP program Any federal-state partnership addressing college affordability should include students at private, nonprofit colleges as part of the solution.
NAICU supports S. 2054, the Partnership for Affordability and Student Success (PASS) Act, introduced by Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Jack Reed (D-RI). The PASS Act would expand LEAP to increase state need-based grant aid.