A new House proposal would redefine what it means to be a “full-time student” for the purposes of Pell Grant eligibility — and in doing so, quietly cut financial aid for more than a million students from low-income backgrounds.

Buried in Section 30031 of the House’s FY25 budget reconciliation bill is a provision that would tie full Pell Grant eligibility to completing at least 30 credit hours per year. That’s 15 credits per term —up from the long-standing 12-credit standard per term used by nearly every college, state agency, and scholarship program.

This is not just a bureaucratic change. It’s an intentional reduction in financial aid for students in need, disguised as a fiscally responsible policy to help students graduate faster.

Let’s be clear: this is a cut to affordability and access. Full stop.

If Congress is serious about helping more students earn degrees that lead to good jobs, it should invest in affordability and support—not create new bureaucratic barriers that push students out.

More than 6 million students currently receive Pell Grants each year. At most four-year colleges, about 1 in 4 undergraduates rely on Pell. At community colleges, it’s often more than half —sometimes as high as 70% of the student body. Many of those students attend part-time — and under this proposal, would lose access to the full Pell Grant. The new definition risks leaving community college goers in the lurch, even when they’re making steady progress toward a degree.

Even students currently considered full-time would be affected. More than 1.1 million students nationwide are enrolled in 12–14 credits per term — students who, under the new definition, would no longer be classified as full-time despite being on track academically. According to the National College Attainment Network (NCAN), this provision would strip as much as $1,500 from the maximum Pell award for students taking 12 credits per term.

These aren’t students slacking off. They are student-parents, first-generation college-goers, part-time and full-time workers, caregivers, and STEM majors navigating demanding course loads. They’re doing exactly what higher education asks of them: enrolling, persisting, and planning their coursework with intention. And they’re being penalized for it.

The language of “on-time completion” masks a policy of exclusion

Supporters of the proposal frame it as a way to encourage faster graduation. But that narrative ignores the deeper truth: time to degree is a resource challenge, not a credit-counting issue. Students take longer to graduate because they face structural barriers — financial pressures, family obligations, limited course offerings, inflexible schedules, or loss of credits when transferring. This bill only exacerbates these problems. Instead, this policy would force students to take on more courses than they can afford or realistically complete — just to keep the financial aid they rely on. Make that make sense.

And it would force colleges into chaos.

Most college campuses, state systems, and financial aid offices use the 12-credit definition of full-time. This proposal would force a complete overhaul of financial aid, academic advising, course scheduling, and even degree requirements — at a pace that institutions are not equipped to manage. Changing those systems often requires years of academic governance and new infrastructure. Meanwhile, students will feel the confusion and instability immediately.

The impact won’t stop at traditional campuses.

This redefinition of full-time status would also disrupt how states, systems, and scholarship providers structure financial aid packages — many of which align with Pell’s standards. It risks disqualifying students from other financial supports simply because they’re following a flexible, intentional pathway to and through college.

It could also undermine alternative routes to students getting credentials — like prison education programs, stackable certificates, or part-time-to-full-time transitions — used by working students. Even high school students earning college credit might find themselves caught in a tangle of outdated definitions and new eligibility thresholds.

Ironically, this move also undercuts recent bipartisan efforts to expand Pell Grant eligibility to short-term and workforce programs — many of which don’t meet current full-time credit thresholds.

In short: this isn’t just about policy language. It’s about real consequences for how colleges design programs, how students map out their education, and how states support nontraditional students.

Units don’t equal degrees. Degree requirements do.

This policy assumes that students can simply “add more credits” each term. But course planning doesn’t work that way — especially in programs with sequenced or lab-intensive requirements. For student-parents, that assumption is especially out of touch — more credits often mean more childcare needs, and more strain on already stretched budgets. It also penalizes students who did exactly what they were told to do in high school: those who took AP, IB, or dual enrollment courses to cover general education and prerequisites, so they could focus more intentionally on major coursework once in college.

Take a first-year student in a STEM major: if they’re enrolled in chemistry, math, and physics in the fall (already a heavy lift), they’ll now be forced to add a fourth, unrelated class just to meet the 15-credit threshold. That “extra” class likely won’t move them closer to graduation — and in many cases, it may create academic overload or delay needed courses in future terms.

What’s more, federal law already requires students to make Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) in order to maintain eligibility for Pell Grants and other federal aid.

That means students must meet GPA thresholds and show they’re making progress toward a degree — not just accumulating credits. In other words, there is already a safeguard in place to ensure students are using federal aid responsibly. This new policy would override that thoughtful standard with a blunt, one-size-fits-all rule that prioritizes credit counts over real academic progress.

In fact, colleges already struggle to get enough students through foundational courses like math, biology, and English in their first year. This bottleneck is one of the most long-cited barriers to on-time degree completion — and it has nothing to do with how many credits students want to take. Without major new investments in classrooms, labs, and faculty, requiring students to take more credits won’t accelerate graduation. It will just increase frustration and churn.

This approach could actually lead to more wasted credit hours, not fewer. Students might end up taking electives they don’t need or courses that don’t count toward their major just to qualify for full Pell aid. Meanwhile, if colleges can’t expand degree-relevant course offerings each term —especially in high-demand fields — students won’t even have the option to take meaningful credits that help them graduate sooner.

The result? Students may accumulate credits without accumulating progress.

This isn’t about accountability. It’s austerity.

The Pell Grant is one of the most effective tools to expand college access and upward mobility for students from low-income backgrounds. This bill uses the language of reform to mask a simple reality: it’s a funding cut, with the harshest impacts falling on those who can least afford it. It’s a conflicting message: expand access on paper, but limit who actually qualifies in practice. It also threatens to deepen the student debt crisis — particularly for Black students, who are more likely to rely on loans when grant aid falls short. And it comes at the exact moment when many of these same students are also facing cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, and other essential supports that help them stay enrolled and meet basic needs.

At EdTrust, we believe that policies should reflect how students actually live and learn — not how policymakers imagine them. If Congress is serious about helping more students earn degrees that lead to good jobs, it should invest in affordability and support — not create new bureaucratic barriers that push students out.

Don’t call this a fix. It’s a retreat from the promise of college opportunity.