Describing the “single largest investment in higher education ever,” U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Geneva, lobbied for better financial aid for college students at NIU Monday.

“I have [a] daughter who has just completed her undergrad degree, and I have son who has just entered his first year of law school,” Foster said. “I cannot stress enough how important making expenses for higher education affordable for students is significant.”

Known as the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, the law would increase funding to Pell Grants by $40 billion. The grant program provides need-based grants to low-income undergraduate and certain graduate students.

Foster said this increase would give $6,900 to students in 2019, compared to $5,500 to students in 2010.

In addition, Foster said the bill would “cut out the middleman” by switching over all new education loans to the Direct Loan program. It would mean the end of the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP), which has been in place since 1965. Direct Loans are loans from the federal government itself, while FFELP loans are processed through third-party financial institutions. The switch, Foster said, would save students and families money.

Foster added that the bill would also simplify Free Applications for Student Aid (FAFSA), by allowing families to use “the information based on their tax returns.”

Other aspects of the bill include $10 billion to “strengthen community colleges,” and $8 billion to “transform early learning programs.” Later in an interview, Foster said he had looked at research on investing in pre-kindergarten children. Compared to children who did not receive the same kind of investment, Foster said “you get your money back many times over.”

However, Foster said this kind of payout occurs 25 to 30 years later.

“It’s very hard to get politicians to invest in things that don’t have a payoff in the next election,” Foster said, stating that this is the reason why education and scientific research do not always receive the best funding. Foster said that if he worried more about his political survival, he would not care about college education.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., was passed in the House on Sept. 17. Foster said the bill is in the Senate, but because the system is “clogged with health care reform,” he does not know when it will be passed.

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