[WASHINGTON]—Following the recent release of Congressional Budget Office estimates on the cost of the Pell Grant Program and proposed reforms to it, Young Invincibles joined a chorus of education advocates calling on Congress to use the funds to address American’s growing college affordability crisis.

Today, Pell Grants cover a less than a third of the cost of four-year public college, making it that much harder for millions of low-income students to successfully obtain a higher education.

Rory O’Sullivan, deputy director of Young Invincibles, issued the following statement:

“Pell grants provide critical support for roughly 8 million low-income students seeking greater economic opportunity through higher education. Investment in Pell has largely failed to keep pace with the exploding cost of tuition in recent years, despite it proving to be one of the country’s best social mobility programs.

It’s essential that Congress use this surplus to strengthen the Pell Grant program for future students, including re-instituting year-round access. Raiding the Pell surplus for non-educational purposes would undermine our country’s commitment to low-income students who currently rely on it and would further erode policymakers’ ability to protect the program’s future stability and ensure our nation’s future economic growth.”