NEW YORK (MainStreet) — Pell Grants will go under the knife if the House of Representative's version of the Republican budget that was introduced on Tuesday becomes law.

The GOP wants to whack federal spending by about $5.5 trillion during the next decade. Cuts would not kick in until October 1, the start of the 2016 fiscal year, but it would influence spending priorities for the rest of the decade and likely beyond.

Changes to Pell Grants would make this grant program "permanently sustainable" according to the budget, and "serve students today and in the future."

The plan, and the spending cuts, would freeze the maximum Pell Grant for ten years and roll back some recent expansions of the program. The plan is for the 2016 fiscal year, which starts on October 1, but it would set spending priorities for the coming decade.

House Republicans proposed similar cuts to Pell in April 2014 and in the past but to no effect. But this year is different because the party now controls both chambers of Congress. The Senate is expected to release its own spending plan on Wednesday.

Although there's currently a surplus in Pell, there will likely be a shortfall later in the decade, perhaps as soon as 2017. The Department of Education (ED) estimates that about 25% of recent increases in the maximum award have taken place during the Obama administration.

About 14% of those increases is due to recent changes in the needs-analysis formula used by ED that have made more students eligible for the grants.

A November 2014 report by the Young Invincibles, a Millennial lobbying and research organization, titled Closing the Race Gap: Alleviating Young African American Unemployment Through Education underscored the impact of Pell. It stated that "African Americans who receive Pell Grants are more likely to earn degrees than those without, and are more likely to earn those degrees in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields." The current maximum annual grant is $5,645.

The report, written by Rory O’Sullivan, Konrad Muggelstone and Tom Allison found that “the purchasing power of Pell Grants is shrinking as the cost of tuition rises.” The report added that college costs covered by next year’s maximum Pell Grant will be the smallest since the program was founded. First created at the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant in 1973, they were renamed Pell Grants in 1980 after Senator Claiborne Pell, a Rhode Island Democrat.

According to the budget, some 14% of the increase in Pell Grant spending is because of recent changes to the formula that analyzes student needs, which has increased by number of Pell-eligible students. The GOP has homed in on the spike.

"Increasing eligibility to those with higher incomes drains resources from those who need the most help," the budget states.

--Written by John Sandman for MainStreet