(U-WIRE) BERKELEY, Calif. - An estimated 84,000 students could be denied access to federal Pell Grants and hundreds of thousands of others could see their awards reduced because of changes to the federal financial aid formula.

A report released by the Congressional Research Service, a branch that undertakes research for the U.S. Congress, presented the first details of how the change, first reported by The New York Times, will impact thousands of college students nationwide.

The change could reduce the Pell Grants program by $270 million and affect as much as $5 billion of the $90 billion national financial aid pool, according to the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

The Pell Grant is an award generally for low-income undergraduates, providing anywhere from $400 to $4,000. The Pell Grant program is not increasing its maximum award this year.

Close to 40,000 students ÷ about one-third of UC's undergraduates ÷ received a Pell Grant in the 2000-01 school year, according to the UC Office of Federal Governmental Relations.

But it is not solely Pell Grants that will suffer from the financial aid formula change. The formula determines not only how federal aid is distributed, but also how the state and the university distribute financial aid.

Many of the other effects of the data change have yet to be reported.

The formula generates the expected family contribution from data submitted by students in the FAFSA-the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

Substituting more recent tax data into the formula, a change in the formula overestimates family income by using tax data from three years ago in 2000, when the economy was booming.