Pell grants are the foundation of Federal student aid. As someone who attended college with the help of Pell grants and as chairman of the Pell Grant Caucus, I know how important they are for our Nation's low-income students.

I am here to give the American people some straight talk about higher education. Some have said we might have cut financial aid for college students. The truth is we have expanded access to college for our neediest students through the record growth of the Pell grant program.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities, or HBCUs, have played an important role in enriching the lives of not just African Americans, but our entire country.

Because we think financial aid is an important component for low income students that might not otherwise go to college, we want to be able to serve more students with more money, especially the neediest.

We need to make college affordable in price, and also have lower-cost student loans and more available grants for students.

Although there are more students from low-income families with college aspirations and more first-generation college students, we need to do a better job of seeing these students through to graduation.