Content area
Abstract
The Educational Amendments of 1972 created the federal Basic Education Opportunity Grant (later renamed the Pell Grant) to assist low-income students in their postsecondary goals by providing grants for their tuition. The initial legislation for the Pell Grant created three program elements---portability, its need-based nature, and non-entitlement status---that have characterized it in this scheme of federal financial aid over time in the judicial process. In addition to a legislative history of the formative years of the Pell Grant program, this dissertation includes a legal analysis of five relevant federal cases related to these features. The judiciary consistently recognized these elements, upholding them through judicial review. As the legislative history and legal analysis illustrate, the three elements of the Pell Grant that were established during the Education Amendments of 1972 continued to play a substantial role in the litigation regarding the program. However, the emphasis on low-income students inherent in the initial legislation did change as a consequence of the Middle Income Student Assistance Act of 1978. Years after MISAA, the Pell Program has been funded below authorized level, a probable consequence of liberalizing the focus to include low-income students.
