Sen. Banks introduces bill to reserve Pell Grants for American students

Submitted by Office of U.S. Sen. Jim Banks

Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) has introduced a new piece of legislation that would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to require that recipients of Pell Grants be U.S. citizens, a move he said would “put American students first.”

Unveiled Wednesday, Sept. 23, the “Pell for Americans Act” simply states that the federally funded aid grant should only go to American undergraduates, not foreigners.

Despite efforts to restrict eligibility for non-citizens in the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” several classes, including refugees, asylees, immigration parolees, Cuban-Haitian entrants, and “conditional permanent residents,” remain eligible.

In February of this year, the Hill reported that the Pell program “is in financial difficulties with a projected shortfall of billions of dollars that could lead to trouble for students as soon as 2028.”

By the end of this fiscal year, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects the Pell Grant program will be $5 billion in debt. Over the next 10 years, that number jumps to between $104 billion and $132 billion if nothing is done about the issue.

The projections come even after lawmakers gave the program a one-time boost of $10.5 billion in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Sen. Banks said the bill is modeled after a piece of legislation originally introduced by House Democrats in 1994 that had the same stated goal of amending the Higher Education Act of 1965 to direct Pell funds to Americans only.

“In 2026, Socialist-aligned Democrats fight harder for illegal aliens than their own constituents, but back in 1994, they led a bill that would ensure taxpayer-funded Pell Grants are reserved for American students only,” Sen. Banks said. “American taxpayers have no business subsidizing the college tuitions of foreign nationals, and three decades later, I’m proud to reintroduce this commonsense bill to put American students first.”