The U.S. Senate voted early Friday to remove a controversial provision from a budget plan for 2005 that would have changed the way the maximum Pell Grant is set each year.

The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate appropriations subcommittee in charge of setting the Education Department's budget -- Sens. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Tom Harkin of Iowa -- jointly introduced an amendment to strike the provision from the budget resolution. Working late into the night Thursday, the Senate passed the amendment by a voice vote and soon afterward approved the entire budget resolution by a vote of 51 to 45.

The provision was identical to a proposal, which was part of President Bush's 2005 budget request, that was meant to prevent lawmakers from allocating less money than is needed to cover the costs of Pell Grants in a given year. Administration officials said that doing so was essential to curtailing the growth of a $3.7-billion shortfall in the program's budget (The Chronicle, February 27).

The appropriators, however, objected to the provision because they said it would make it much more difficult for them to raise the maximum Pell Grant without making cuts to other programs under their jurisdiction, like spending for elementary and secondary education or the National Institutes of Health.

Because the amendment was considered to be making only a technical change to the resolution, there was no debate over it on the Senate floor. But Allison Dobson, a spokeswoman for Mr. Harkin, said that the two senators fought for the amendment because they wanted to maintain the appropriators' "flexibility to increase spending on Pell Grants."

The budget resolution included several other provisions important to colleges. The measure reserves, for example, $3.7-billion for Congress to use to pay off the shortfall, which has plagued the Pell Grant program over the last several years (The Chronicle, March 9).

It also puts into reserve $5-billion that lawmakers can use on the federal student-loan programs when renewing the Higher Education Act "to make college more accessible and affordable," according to Senate Budget Committee documents. For instance, the money could be allotted to increase the federal student-loan limits or to reduce the fees that borrowers must pay to get their loans.

In addition, the Senate on Thursday approved an amendment, sponsored by Sen. Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican, calling on Congress to increase the maximum Pell Grant to $4,500 for the 2005 fiscal year, which begins on October 1. President Bush has proposed keeping the maximum award at $4,050.

College lobbyists, however, were not enthusiastic about Mr. Coleman's amendment. Under the proposal, lawmakers would have to make cuts in other popular programs, unrelated to higher education, to raise the maximum Pell Grant. The likelihood of that happening, the advocates said, was pretty slim.

While Mr. Coleman said that he was offering the amendment because "it is good for our young people," the higher-education advocates said they believed he did so to undercut support for an alternative amendment offered by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, that they had championed. Mr. Kennedy's amendment would have called on Congress to raise the maximum Pell Grant to $5,100, and would have paid for it by closing certain tax loopholes.

Spending levels that are set in budget resolutions are ultimately symbolic because the measures are nonbinding. The resolutions determine only the broad outlines of how much the federal government can spend in a given year. Lawmakers will decide how much money to provide to each program when the Appropriations Committees of the House of Representatives and Senate draft spending bills for the 2005 fiscal year. These bills then must be approved by the two chambers and signed by the president.

However, changes that are made to budget rules in the resolution do stick. That's why college lobbyists are happy that the provision changing the way the maximum Pell Grant is set was removed from the resolution.

"We are tremendously relieved," Cynthia A. Littlefield, director of federal relations for the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, said of the approval of amendment offered by Senators Specter and Harkin.

Still, the lobbyists expect leaders of the House Budget Committee to include the provision in their chamber's version of the budget resolution, which is scheduled to be introduced this week. If so, these advocates say they will have another battle on their hands.