
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, October 21, 1993                   TAG: 9310210066
SECTION: NATL/INTL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

LONG-TERM SCHOLARSHIPS EXEMPLIFY PELL GRANT ABUSE

More than 4,000 students have collected Pell grants for 11 years or more, and in one case, a student got the federal money for 19 years, Sen. Sam Nunn said Wednesday.

The Education Department discovered the long-term tuition subsidies for 4,095 students when it examined its files to answer a series of questions Nunn had posed as part of a probe by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

"I am not surprised by this revelation," Nunn, D-Ga., said in a statement.

"The Department of Education has been managed so poorly in the past that it did not even know this apparent abuse had been occurring."

The disclosure came as Nunn announced hearings for next Wednesday and Thursday on problems in the program, the government's largest cash aid plan for students in post-secondary education.

Some 3.8 million of America's neediest students received an average of $1,763 each last year in Pell grants at 6,300 eligible schools.

by CNB