Federal Pell Grant Debate

I'm not sure if this topic is best suited for this newsgroup, but I will
give it a go.

I see higher education for what it is - a building block to successful,
productive (higher economic activity and resulting tax revenue) citizens.

Furthermore, I favor a system that, through taxpayer dollars, redistributes
wealth into others hands for the purposes of acquiring secondary education.
This is the only form of wealth redistribution I am advocating within the
confines of this particular discussion. Citizens should not necessarily be
left to their own devices in financing their education. Without government
financial aid, a lot of otherwise capable individuals might toil in the
lower class unnecessarily throughout their lives for lack of higher
education. That's not good for anyone.

In discussing matters of educational finance within my network of contacts
(family, friends, and business associates), I come across countless numbers
of college students who are the beneficiary of federal Pell Grants. Almost
without exception, each of these students describes a situation (occurring
every semester in which they are enrolled and receive a Pell Grant)whereby
the difference between their college expenses and the Pell Grant is
distributed directly as a refund for their private use.

Through further discussion with these students, their comments are replete
with tales of video games, auto insurance payments, vacations and other
frivolities (not in any way definable as an education expense) - paid for
courtesy of these refunds.

As a taxpayer, this is an absolute outrage to me; that the general taxpaying
population is subsidizing non-essential and irresponsible consumption in the
name of financial aid for education. Certainly, limitations exist in trying
to extrapolate from the relatively tiny cross-section of students I have
taken testimony from (there are innumerable variables), but I have every
reason to believe that a sizable and statistically significant chunk of this
grant money, nation-wide, is being applied to the recipients in a manner
contrary to its design and purpose.

I suppose it could be argued that the system is designed in such a way that
deviant fund use is negligible in light of the increased productivity of the
citizen over the course of his entire lifetime, but it seems to me that
systemic remedial action would not be difficult to achieve, and that doing
so (removing the government-sponsored acquisition of video games, etc.)
would have no effect on the future productivity of the student. Instead,
appropriately targeted grant monies should result in a greater number of
students receiving them. How many more students (who get turned down) might
receive assistance if only the overrages were cycled back to the government?

Any thoughts? Am I way out of line here? Flawed logic?