government's overall spending increases, Muncie Congressman Mike Pence said Thursday.
But he wouldn't say yet if he would allow that to happen.
Pence will return to Washington, D.C. next week for Congress' Fall Session, when legislators will decide how to fund the nation for the next fiscal year.
Part of that funding will include money for the Pell Grant.
The Pell Grant, with a maximum of $4,050, helped subsidized the cost of attending Ball State for more that 3,000 students this fall, said Bob Zellers, director of scholarships and financial aid.
Last year, Zellers said, Ball State and the government distributed $8.5 million in Pell Grants, and all of it went to the neediest students.
"That's why the funding is so important," he said.
The funding would also counteract the spurt of tuition increases. Indiana's universities, on average, rasised tuition by 13 percent last school year.
That's three percentage points higher than the national average, according to a study by the Washington Higher Education Coordinating Board.
Ball State's tuition hike this year reflected the state average until the $1,000 tuition increase, which created a 23 percent increase.
Kent Weldon, the deputy commissioner for the Indiana Commission for Higher Education, said earlier this year that college affordability has become the state's No. 1 higher education problem.
In July, Pence and other House Republicans voted to not change the amount of the Pell Grant.
The Senate, however, approved an amendment by Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, that increased the maximum to $4,500.
The amounts will clash next month when the two chambers meet to reconcile the two bills.
Pence will not have a formal say in the compromise, but he will have to vote on it.
Currently, he says, the chance of increasing the grant looks "less and less possible" with a $480 billion deficit looming over legislators' heads.
But he said he'll have to look into it further before deciding.
"I certainly want constituents, and particularly your readers, to know I support the Pell Grant," he said.
Pence said it's possible to revive the Pell Grant if Congress would kill its nationwide prescription drug plan.
"That would be about $400 billion in found money," Pence said.
The entitlement, the largest since 1965, would give aid for prescription drugs to all seniors on Medicare, regardless of their financial need.
Pence, a fiscal conservative, denounced the bill in July, saying it could double or triple payroll taxes by the year 2025.
On Thursday, he denounced it again, calling it an "enormous burden."
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