The new Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 provides much needed help for Nevada students. Nevada Senator Harry Reid led the Senate in passing improvements to the health insurance reform law enacted earlier this week.

In addition to improving upon the historic health insurance reform law, this bill helps Nevada students trying to pursue higher education at a time when the state is slashing assistance for it. The education provisions of this bill will increase the maximum Pell Grant and ensure annual increases to match the rising cost of college. It also invests in college access and completion programs to help more Nevada students stay in college and complete their degrees. Nevada students will see the following benefits:

• An estimated $120 million in additional Pell Grant funding, helping nearly 3,000 more low- and moderate-income students afford a college education. The bill annually increases the maximum Pell grant from $5,350 to $5975 by 2017. An additional 13.5 billion is pumped into Pell grants to cover the massive influx of new students returning to school during the recession. Last but not least, an additional 36 billion will be spent on Pell grants over the next 10 years.

• Nevada colleges and universities will receive $7.5 million over the next five years for default prevention, financial literacy and debt counseling, and other programs to retain and graduate more students.

• Nevada community colleges will be eligible to apply for millions of dollars in grant funding to improve educational or career training programs.

• Starting in 2014, college graduates in Nevada will be able to cap their loan payments at 10 percent of their net income, and have their student loans forgiven after 20 years of making payments.

“We took a good law that reformed health insurance and we made it better,” said Reid. “Not only did we close the donut hole so our seniors won’t have to decide between groceries and medicine, we took care of students. Young adults can now stay on their parents’ health insurance plan so they can continue to study and look for work without losing coverage. We also boosted assistance so that more young people can afford to pursue higher education. These improvements will strengthen the new law and help a lot of Nevadans in the process.”

In a time when Nevada is facing unprecedented budget cuts to its higher education system, it is good to know that we have representatives in Washington like Senator Harry Reid who are looking out for Nevada college students.