Tweets, E-mails Fly to ‘Save Pell’

Students are planning to take on the government in their media today, staging a one-day blitz of tweets, emails and other electronic messages to members of Congress and President Barack Obama, demanding that cuts to collegiate Pell Grants be excluded from continuing debt negotiations. It’s part of a continuing campaign to spotlight what the grants have enabled students to accomplish.

Pell Grants, which have become the backbone of college financial aid for low-income students, have grown by millions of recipients during the recession and now help support about 10 million college students. That large amount of money – about $30 billion in the current budget – makes it a massive target for the debt trimmers.