Budget cuts.

"Rising College Costs Squeeze Students--And Graduates" (Center for Popular Economics, www.populareconomics.org, December 4, 2004) offers statistics to explain the growing difficulty of financing a college education for today's college students: the average student debt upon graduation more than

The Pell Institute's report called "Indicators of Opportunity in Higher Education" will annually look at the ability of poor students to go to college and graduate. The report finds that most students from low-income families never consider going to college (The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 22, 2004).

New federal rules in Pell grants will require students in every state to shoulder more of the cost of their education. Because of the new rules, which will save the government $300 million annually, 1.3 million low-income students will receive smaller Pell Grants, and about 89,000 students will get no money at all (Minneapolis Star and Tribune, December 23, 2004). For more information on the cuts for Pell Grants, see http://www.ourfuture.org/defend_Pell _Grants.cfm.

The "Economic Scene" (New York Times, August 5, 2004) lists the nine states that made the biggest cuts in education in fiscal 2004: Massachusetts, Colorado, West Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee, California, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Virginia. These cuts indicate that federal and state aid are not keeping pace with the rising cost of tuition, resulting in far fewer students from low-income families receiving college educations.