The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Federal Student Aid on January 29 formally announced that the Pell grant maximum award for the 2016-17 Award Year will only be $5,815, an increase of just $40 from the $5,775 maximum Pell Grant award for the 2015-2016 Award Year. For all of 2015, the expectation was that the maximum award would be $5,915, an increase of $140.  The budget table issued by ED in January this year showed a $70 increase. The maximum award is calculated based on a formula  based on changes in the Consumer Price Index.   Also see: Correction to 2016-2017 Pell Grant Payment Schedules.

While they have not publicly acknowledged this information, CBO has released its Pell grant baseline projection. The great news, is that due to much lower projected Pell grant program costs in the future, a shortfall won’t occur until FY 2022!  There’s is projected a cumulative shortfall between FY 2022 to FY 2026 of $17.872 billion. Click here for CEF table that provides all the numbers.

That is a huge decline from the shortfall based on the March 2015 baseline, which the Committee For Education Funding – a watch dog organization supporting increase funding for all education programs – calculated as a cumulative $31.848 billion between FY 18 and FY 25. So, the first year of a shortfall has been pushed back four years from FY 2018 to FY 2022. CBO will issue an updated baseline in March, which will be the one used for scoring of Pell grants for FY 2017. It probably won't differ much from this January baseline.