When Rep. Ric Keller, a Florida Republican, read in the "St. Petersburg Times" in 2003 about a twice-convicted rapist who was receiving Pell Grant money for computer classes, he was appalled. The man, who had served 24 years in prison, had been awarded about $15,000 in Pell Grants since 1999, when he was sentenced to a civil-commitment center intended for sex offenders deemed unready to be set free. Keller, the ranking minority member of the U.S. House of Representatives' higher-education subcommittee, introduced an amendment to legislation to reauthorize the Higher Education Act that would prevent residents of those civil-commitment centers from receiving the grants. After five years in the making, the bill finally cleared Congress in late July, and President Bush is expected to sign it.