Free pell grants

IN HIS 2004 State of the Union address, Pres. George W. Bush proposed to "expand Advanced Placement programs in low-income schools." The President's subsequent budget for fiscal year 2005 calls tom" $28.000.000 in additional funding for the Advanced Placement Incentive Program. This would allocate some $52,000,000 in 2005 to establish Advanced Placement programs in low-income areas and prepare more teachers to instruct these rigorous classes.

While increasing college-level educational opportunities for low income students is a worthy goal, there are more efficient and cost effective ways in achieve this aim. Specifically, the President and Congress should divert the proposed $52,000.000 to the Pell grant program and aim these funds specifically at bright, low income high school students who could use the grants to attend classes at a community college or state university in the U.S.'s extensive network of higher education restitutions.

Such a program could enable over 43,000 high school students nationwide to attend one college class per semester. There are two basic ways that especially intelligent high school students can perform college-level work. First, they may enroll in Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate classes. More than 14,000 institution--about 60% of the high schools in the nation--offer at least one AP class. These courses are an extremely challenging way for students to experience the rigors of college while still in high school.

At the end of an AP class, the student is eligible to take a test administered by the College Board (the organization responsible for the SAT and a number of other exams). If he or she achieves a sufficiently high score, most colleges and universities will award the student a certain amount of credit toward a bachelor's degree.

The second way to get college credit while still in high school simply is to take one or more classes at a community college or state university. Virtually all states have some program that allows high school students to take such courses, subject to various admission requirements and regulations.

Federal initiatives clearly have favored the establishment of AP courses. One of the declared purposes of the No Child Left Behind Act was "to increase the number of individuals that achieve a baccalaureate or advanced degree and to decrease the amount of time such individuals require to attain such degrees."

To that end, the No Child Left Behind legislation authorized Advanced Placement Incentive Program grants, which provided roughly $24,000,000 annually to state and local education agencies to fund Advanced Placement and pre-AP programs in low-income communities. Although there are many allowable uses for these grants--including tutoring lessons and faculty in service activities--the intent of the law clearly is to funnel more students into high school-based AP programs.

Pres. Bush's additional funding for FY2005 was proposed to "provide teacher training to expand the pool of instructors qualified to teach AP classes at schools that serve large populations of low-income students."

Generally speaking, AP courses are far more expensive to operate than regular high school classes because of the higher salaries given to teachers who are qualified to instruct these subjects, the smaller class size that is typical of AP programs, and the higher cost of AP books and other materials. For instance, a typical high school math instructor (who might teach, for example, algebra or geometry) has, at a minimum, a bachelor's degree in mathematics or math education and some teaching credential. In contrast, because an AP calculus class would require a higher understanding of complex mathematical concepts, a qualified AP math teacher typically would have a master's degree or perhaps even a Ph.D.

In 2002, an entry-level teacher with a bachelor's degree, teaching in a large urban school district, earned an average of $31,567 per year. Yet, a highly educated teacher with a master's degree and additional graduate training--a likely candidate to teach AP courses--might earn as much as $53,248 per year.

AP classes also are more expensive to operate because the average size (17 students) is smaller than the standard high school class (24 pupils). Additionally, as noted by the President, many high school teachers need supplementary training to achieve the competency needed to teach AP. Indeed, most of the proposed $28,000,000 increase would be designated for teacher-training activities.

In the end, the cost of the typical AP class is more than twice that of the average non-AP high school class. Nevertheless, increasing numbers of low-income students have taken AP tests in recent years. This is due, in part, to the Advanced Placement Incentive Program grants and the Advanced Placement Test Fee Program (which pays a portion of the AP test fee), as well as to various state and local incentives.

In 1999, fewer than 93,000 low-income students took AP tests; by 2002, that figure had increased to more than 140,000. Even so, this represents only about nine percent of the total AP tests administered in 2002. Compared with higher-income peers, far fewer low-income students are taking AP tests.

This discrepancy likely is the result of two factors. First, there is a well-documented academic achievement gap between low-income students and their more "affluent peers. For example, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, in 2002, one percent of the 12th-grade students who qualified for free or reduced-price lunches exhibited an advanced level of proficiency in reading, compared to nearly five percent of students from higher-income families. These high-achieving students would be the most likely to benefit from rigorous college-level studies.

A second, and related, reason is that the demand for AP classes in low-income areas may not be sufficient to justify the costs of their implementation at individual schools. In these areas, only a few students may have the aptitude necessary to benefit from an AP regimen. Cost concerns are augmented by the fact that, in low-income schools, even fewer students may be sufficiently advanced to qualify for AP classes, thereby increasing the per-pupil expenditures.

Another drawback is that these courses may duplicate classes that currently are being offered in institutions of higher education. Indeed, the point of the AP program, according to the College Board, is to "get a head start on exactly the sort of work you will confront in college." Classes similar to the ones in the AP program can be found at virtually all of the nearly 2,100 community colleges and state universities across the U.S.

For the most part, these institutions already have the infrastructure to offer these types of classes, and they exist in close proximity to high school students--especially those in low-income urban areas. Consequently, these AP programs would tend to duplicate the kinds of classes that already are available at a broad range of colleges and universities.

A final--and key--policy question in evaluating the AP Incentive Program versus other alternatives is: How many students does the program serve? A corollary question is: How far is the reach of the program in terms of the potential population of students served? There is reason to believe that estimates have been overstated. They are based on the assumption that the program would benefit two groups: those who directly are served through newly formed AP classes and those who are not in the AP classes but would profit indirectly through the increased teacher training provided by the program. Estimates from the Department of Education peg the total number of beneficiaries at approximately 370,000 students attending 550 middle schools and high schools.

This assumes that all students in a given school benefit from the existence of AP classes. Applying this premise, a remedial student is counted as a beneficiary of the program, as is an advanced student enrolled in an AP course. This clearly overstates the program's reach.

Currently, the AP Incentive Program initiative offers tutoring and summer enrichment programs for students, as well as teacher training. Overall, however, it has a limited reach because of the program's relatively small dollar funding. During 2002-03, the AP Incentive Program funded a mere 35 projects, with most of the money going to individual school districts and a few state education agencies.

As an alternative to the AP system, Pell grants could be offered to bright, low-income high school students as a fiscally responsible way to expand their access to college-level classes. These grants could be used to take classes at any community college or university that would admit a high school student for the purpose of taking advanced, college-level classes.