Funding Increased For Low-Income Students
In his first State of the Union address, President Obama hailed education as one of the most crucial investments in America's future. Noting that rising tuition costs are putting a postsecondary degree out of the reach of many Americans, he called on colleges to reduce their costs and pledged that the federal government would do its part to make higher education more accessible.
Obama's recently released proposal for the fiscal year 2011 federal budget demonstrates that he's serious about that commitment. In spite of a general federal spending freeze that is slashing many departments' financing, the budget preserves the current expenditure on most education funding programs. Even better, it gives a significant influx of cash to the Pell Grant Program, adding over $7.8 billion to the grant pool for low-income students. This would raise the maximum annual Pell Grant from $5,550 to $5,710. The budget also proposes to make the Pell Grant Program a federal entitlement, which would protect it in the long run from the ups and downs of the Congress appropriations process.
Other programs that were increased include funding to developing institutions such as tribal colleges and historically black colleges, as well as direct funding of adult education and federally-funded state grants for vocational education.
The education community has responded warmly to the budget announcement. Robert Berdahl, president of the Association of American Universities (AAU), released a prepared statement yesterday commending Obama and declaring that 'this budget underscores the President's strong conviction that the nation's investments in the people and ideas that lead to discovery and innovation are critical to short-term economic recovery and, especially, to long-term economic prosperity.'
The 2011 budget proposal also increases funding for several major scientific research agencies for the purposes of job creation. This also benefits higher education because many of these organizations provide crucial grants and support for institutional research. Higher education-related highlights of the fiscal year 2011 budget include:
Program or Agency Percent Change from FY 2010 to FY 2011
Pell Grant Program +29.2%
Federal Work Study 0%
Supplemental Grants 0%
Academic Competitiveness and Smart Grants -100%
Perkins Loan Program 0%
Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership -100%
Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need 0%
National Institutes of Health +3.2%
National Science Foundation +8.0%
Energy Department - office of science +4.4%
National Endowment for the Humanities -3.7%
National Endowment for the Arts -3.7%
The Pell Grant Program isn't the only big winner in education. Community colleges could also see a major increase in funding under the American Graduation Initiative (AGI), which allocates $10.6 billion to 2-year colleges across the country in an effort to strengthen and educate America's workforce. The AGI calls for an additional five million community college graduates by 2020 and includes several initiatives to modernize facilities, add online learning opportunities and increase the impact and effectiveness of community college programs. President Obama proposed the AGI last summer, and it was passed through the House in the fall of 2009. The education community is now waiting for the bill to move through the Senate, although many fear that controversial issues such as healthcare will keep pushing the AGI aside.
Teacher training also received some additional funding, part of Obama's efforts to reform K-12 education by improving America's teachers. The budget adds allocations for Teacher and Leader Pathways, as well as state grants for effective teachers and direct funding for effective teaching and learning in science and mathematics.
Losing Sight of the Humanities
The budget's biggest losers in education were the humanities. As the table above indicates, both the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) suffered a 3.7% cut in their budgets. This reinforces the administration's habitual prioritization of the STEM subjects - science, technology, engineering and mathematics - over the humanities. Although the STEM subjects are clearly important for boosting technological innovation and development, many education leaders caution that the humanities teach essential skills such as analytical writing, critical reading and understanding culture, ethics and other global issues. As a recent study points out, these broad 'liberal arts' skills are precisely what U.S. employers say are lacking in recent college graduates.
Furthermore, scholars such as Derek Bok, author and former president of Harvard, note that there's more to a liberal education than just preparing students for their vocation. The humanities teach students to be independent thinkers and citizens, preparing them to be active participants in a free democracy. Without the humanities, colleges and universities run the risk of losing sight of their core mission: not simply to train, but to educate.
Besides, as Berdahl points out in his letter from the AAU, while the $6 million the administration will save by cutting funding to the NEH could put a big dent in funding to humanities research and education, it will barely be noticed in the federal budget.
