Tens of Thousands Will Lose College Aid, Report Says The first report to document the impact of the government's new formula for financial aid has found that it will reduce the nation's largest grant program by $270 million and bar 84,000 college students from receiving any award at all. The report, by the Congressional Research Service, the research arm of Congress, does not calculate the full effect of the changes, since it does not consider the further cuts in student awards that will probably occur once the new formula is applied to billions of dollars in state awards and university grants. But it does settle some uncertainty over the initial consequences of altering the intricate federal formula that governs the vast majority of the nation's financial aid. Word of the changes has kindled a small storm in Washington in the last month. Members of Congress have put forward legislation in hopes of either gauging the toll of the new formula or stopping it; they have characterized the change as a way to cut education spending without facing the public. "The department is wrong to turn its back on students and families," said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. "They need more financial aid for college, not less." The Department of Education has cited its obligation under federal law to revise the formula and played down the impact. Sally L. Stroup, its assistant secretary for postsecondary education, told The Washington Post last month that "the changes will have a minimal impact on a handful of students." The figures cited in the report made clear, however, that the new formula would trim the government's primary award program, the Pell grant, by $270 million once it takes effect in the 2004-5 academic year. That amount, financial aid experts said, probably means that hundreds of thousands of students will end up getting smaller Pell grants, not counting the 84,000 who it is estimated will no longer qualify. "It's pretty hard to call several hundred thousand students a handful," said Brian K. Fitzgerald, director of the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, which was created by Congress to advise it on higher education. He estimated that more than one million students could receive smaller Pell grants because of the new formula. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/18/national/18GRAN.html