Late this week  Congressional leaders reached agreement on an omnibus spending bill (H.R. 3671) that contains the nine remaining spending bills for 2012.

As a part of this package Congress agreed to maintain the maximum Pell Grant at $5,550. To pay for the Pell Grant program the bill tightens eligibility for grants and temporarily ends the interest subsidy on undergraduate student loans during the six-month grace period after a student graduates.

With regard to eligibility changes, under the bill, students would be limited to six years of Pell Grants, rather than the current nine. It remains unclear whether or not students who have already received at least six years of the grants would remain eligible for additional aid. In addition students who lack high-school diplomas or GED’s would no longer be allowed to qualify for the grants by taking an “ability to benefit” test.  Finally the bill would reduce the number of students who automatically qualify for the maximum Pell Grant by lowering the income cap for receiving an “automatic zero” expected family contribution from $30,000 to $23,000.

In addition to the changes to the Pell Grant program the bill impacts several other higher education related programs. Among the impacts are:

• Increased funding for the National Institutes of Health by 1 percent;
• Allowing the National Institutes of Health to go ahead with plans to create a new center to help pharmaceutical companies make drugs from universities’ research discoveries;
• Providing flat funding for most student-aid programs, including the Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants and Federal Work-Study, and the Gear Up college-preparation programs; and
• Increasing funding for TRIO college-prep programs by $15 million.

Votes on the budget are expected today in both the U.S. House and Senate. The latest continuing resolution experies today and if lawmakers do not pass the spending bill or another stopgap resolution by then much of the federal government could shut down.