Durbin: Don't Cut Pell Grants
CHICAGO (WBBM) -- While Congress has averted a government shutdown for now, Illinois' highest ranking Democrat is going into budget talks with serious objections to proposed cuts.
As WBBM Newsradio 780's Nancy Harty reports, Pell grants that currently give college students $5,500 per year would be cut by $845 per grant.
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That idea doesn't sit well with U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).
"One president of a downstate private university said to me that they would lose 5 percent of their student body if the House Republican budget goes through on Pell grants," Durbin said. "It's an indication of how close to the edge many students are."
Durbin was speaking to reporters on the campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago about income tax for education spending.
He wants House Republicans to spread the pain across a broader swath of the budget, not, in his words, "just target education and government research."
