Marshall Anthony Jr., senior policy analyst for Higher Education at the Center for American Progress, testified on the importance of expanding access to higher education before the House Ways and Means Committee on June 29, 2021.1
Chairperson Pascrell, Ranking Member Kelly, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I appear before you as a researcher on higher education, but I have also lived the failures of the higher education system.
As a young, Black man from a low-income, single-parent household, I received the maximum Pell Grant throughout my undergraduate studies to help pay for college. But I did not have enough financial aid to cover other necessities such as housing, food, textbooks, or transportation. That meant when I should have been sleeping, I spent countless nights staring at the ceiling worrying about expensive course materials that professors required me to purchase. It also meant canceling my meal plan in order to pay for gas to get to campus and participate in internships. And it even meant chipping in at times to help my family cover a utility bill.
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