Congressman Derek Kilmer visits Lincoln High School
Lincoln High School got a special visit from Derek Kilmer on Jan. 14 when he stopped by to discuss congress with Teacher of the Year nominee Nathan Bowling’s AP Government class.
Kilmer is currently sponsoring a new bill to restore the purchasing power of the Pell Grant program, grants designed to help provide financial aid to college students. Much of his talk revolved around the bill, called the Pathways to an Affordable Education Act. Students also asked about typical days in congress, and what they can do to become politically active. Kilmer detailed his history of getting involved in politics, his door-to-door campaigning and his current goals.
“Congress is a bit of a fixer-upper,” Kilmer told the assembled class of about 30 students in Lincoln’s auditorium about why he wanted to become involved.
Kilmer spent some time talking about his Pathways to an Affordable Education Act to the students, many of whom want to go to college and would likely be using Pell Grants.
“We know that education is the door to opportunity,” Kilmer said. “That’s especially true in an era when more and more jobs, whether you work in a factory or an office park, require some form of higher education. I want to make sure folks don’t leave school with piles of debt that limit them from starting a business or owning a home. One of America’s key tools for making college affordable is the Pell Grant program, but lately it’s gotten rusty. That’s why I introduced a bill to give Pell Grants a shot in the arm so students who qualify can actually use them to cover the costs of getting a degree without taking out burdensome loans.”
Across the nation more than 8 million students receive Pell Grants. But, over time the amount that it covers for attending school has declined. In 1980, the maximum amount a qualifying student could earn through Pell Grants would cover 77 percent of the cost of attending a four-year public university. In 2015, that declined to around 30 percent.
The Pell Grant program was created in 1972 to provide need-based grants to help more students go to college. The awards do not need to be repaid and can be utilized at nearly 5,400 post-secondary institutions across the United States.
“For me, the interest is on a lot of levels. I think education is the door to opportunity, and for a lot of families, including mine, financial aid is the key to that door. My dad was a school teacher, and had it not been for scholarships and student loans, I couldn’t have gone to college; and frankly, that’s a reality for many families, and on top of that, there’s a ton of benefit, not just to the individual, but to us as a society when we educate more people to higher levels. It improves our economic competitiveness, and it improves the ability of that student to pursue his or her dreams, whether that be pursuing a job on a factory floor or in an office. The reality is, not every job is going to require a post-secondary education, but more and more jobs, particularly those that are the highest growth jobs, require some college,” Kilmer said.
Bowling invited Kilmer to his class as part of his philosophy of having real world experts come in to help inform the class. When Bowling gets to meet President Obama in April as a Teacher of the Year nominee, he plans to invite him to one of his classes.
By: Derek Shuck
Source: Tacoma Weekly