Federal Pell grants, the largest federal grant program offered to undergraduates in the United States and designed to assist students from low-income households, had 9.4 million recipients in 2011. Since then, the number of recipients has steadily declined, falling to 6 million recipients in 2022. Pell grant recipients nearly doubled from 2005 to 2010, likely due to increased funding, allowing more students from disadvantaged backgrounds to gain access to higher education.