I just grateful to Chancellor Mike and everybody here, particularly our my fellow elected officials, and it's great to be here with all of you.
What I'd like to talk about a little bit here today is the Pell Grant program. Now, for those of you who haven't been to college for a while, Pell Grants, basically, are the fundamental building block of student aid provided by the federal government.
But Pell Grants have not always financed educations like we're talking about here today, and some of the various trades. And so if you wanted to go to a community college or a four-year college, maybe you would get a Pell Grant. But if you wanted to become an electrician, or you wanted to become a diesel mechanic or something like that, you weren't able to access that form of student aid.
I think about two or three weeks ago, I was in Abilene, Texas, where the largest data center in the world is being built. There are 6,000 people working on that as I speak, and this is really just the beginning of the artificial intelligence revolution that we're beginning to see. And most of us only vaguely understand where that will take us, but we know the future is going to be different than it is now.
But my point is we need people to help us build those things, and people like me who happen to go to a small liberal arts college and get a four year degree, I'm not going to be able to help you out very much. But these young people, and not so young people who are coming to Texas State Technical College are learning essential job skills that will allow them to provide for their family and become solid members of the of the middle class, which to me, is pretty remarkable.
But I know that 60% of the students here at Texas State Technical College are Pell Grant recipients, and there are more than 65% of Pell Grant recipients at UTRGV. And we know that that getting access to job skills and a good education is necessary to fill some of these workforce gaps that I mentioned a moment ago.
I’m proud that as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill that you've probably heard a lot about, but it's a little hard to grasp because of everything that's included in it, because it's so big, and I want to say beautiful, but it's so big that there are so many moving parts. One of the real things that drove that bill was a desire to avoid a big tax increase with the expiring provisions from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
But as part of that bill, we delivered an historic $10.5 billion in overall Pell Grant funding over the next decade, which, of course, safeguards access to student aid for the next generation of students that we're going to be depending on to help build Texas and to build America.
I'm really delighted to be here with you, Chancellor (Michael Reeser) and Vice Chancellor Hernandez and all the others, and my friends, the mayor and the judge and so many other leaders in this community. So thank you for having me, and I'm ready to listen and learn.
Editor's Note: The above commentary was provided by U.S. Sen. John Cornyn during a roundtable discussion at Texas State Technical College-Harlingen. Cornyn hosted the event to announce an expansion of the Pell Grant Program. He was joined by TSTC Chancellor Michael Reeser, TSTC Vice Chancellor Cledia R. Hernandez, Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño, Jr., Harlingen Mayor Norma Sepulveda, state Rep. Armando 'Mando' Martinez, and UT-Rio Grande Valley Vice President Veronica Gonzales.
