While the recent budget and debt ceiling fiasco on Capitol Hill was disheartening, the news of $17 billion in increased funding for Pell Grants over the next two years was welcome indeed.

Of course, there was a trade-off, since graduate students will have to now begin paying loans while they are still in school, so this is not an optimal situation. However, preserving this critical program to serve low-income undergraduates constitutes a victory for educational access institutions such as Chaminade University.

Pell grants for the academic year just completed (2010-11) were capped at $5,550, with grant amounts depending on level of financial need, tuition, student status (part time or full-time) and individual degree plan.

The Pell Grant program is especially crucial given the high need for scholarship dollars of our unique student population. Since federal Pell Grants, unlike loans, do not have to be repaid, this program is critical to ensure that graduates are not so overburdened with debt that they end up defaulting.

Of our day undergraduate student population, some 44 percent are Pell Grant recipients. More than 95 percent of our student body receives some form of financial aid. We are proud to serve a student body of which half are the first in their family to attend college, 76 percent are minority students, and 14 percent are of Native Hawaiian ancestry. Our diverse learning community consists of approximately 1,200 undergraduate students from Hawaii, neighboring Pacific Island regions, and the mainland U.S. These traditionally underserved students face a number of challenges in their pursuit of a higher education, but financial support is often the largest obstacle. Many of these students would have had to face the serious possibility of discontinuing their undergraduate education if Congress had not agreed on extending the grants.

An often-cited statistic is the $1 million more that college graduates can expect to earn during their working years over high school graduates. More important, however, may be the societal contributions of those graduates — the difference they make in their own families, communities and countries.

Higher levels of education are associated with higher civic participation and community volunteering. On the flip side of the coin, higher rates of incarceration plague those with only a high school education when compared with peers who have completed some years of college. Studies have even demonstrated health disparities between college and non-college graduate groups, with the former group predictably boasting the more positive statistics.

As an institution that is committed to serving and advancing the communities of Hawaii and the Pacific region, Chaminade prides itself on providing underserved students access to higher education. Access creates opportunity for individuals to learn, grow and succeed, but also to give back and help their communities progress. These beliefs are reflected in the university’s mission and simply stated in our unofficial motto to "Learn. Lead. Serve."

We are proud to be a partner with the Pell Grant Program, creating access and fostering success in Hawaii and abroad.