NEWPORT, R.I. -- State flags were lowered to half-staff Friday to mourn the death of former Rhode Island Sen. Claiborne Pell, a Newport blueblood who represented a working-class state and created federal education grants that helped millions of Americans afford college.

Pell died Thursday at his Newport home after a long battle with Parkinson's disease. He was 90. 

Gov. Don Carcieri ordered state flags lowered in tribute until Pell is laid to rest. Carcieri, a former math teacher, called Pell "one of this country's greatest statesmen" and credited him with helping lower- and middle-class people seek higher education. 

Pell's funeral service will be held at 10 a.m. Monday at Trinity Episcopal Church in Newport. A reception will follow at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina University. Burial will be private. 

Pell, a Democrat, is best-known for sponsoring legislation creating the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant program, which passed in 1972. The awards, which provide direct aid to college students, were renamed "Pell Grants" in 1980. When Pell retired, they had aided more than 54 million low- and middle-income Americans. 

Pell also sponsored a 1965 law establishing the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He left office in January 1997 after six terms. 

"Senator Pell's vision of an America in which the doors of higher education would not be barred for any worthy student, and a nation in which greater access to the arts would be granted, has enriched us, as individuals, and as a country," Attorney General Patrick Lynch said.