Senate to Universities: Drop Dead

Any illusion that higher ed has entered a new era of as a high government priority has been shattered by the Congressional negotiations over the stimulus package. The Senate has come to a "bipartisan compromise" that comes to about $820 billion before interest. It includes $116 for infrastructural improvements, $250 billion in tax cuts, and this:

Under the terms of the deal, Senate Democrats agreed to cut some $100 billion from their original proposal. Spending for the states and education took the biggest hit, compared with the House bill. State fiscal stabilization funding was cut back $40 billion, school construction dropped $16 billion, and a proposed $3.5 billion line for higher education construction was zeroed out.

Unfortunately, the states are where people actually live and spend their money, so it would make sense to send money there. In states like California, 100% of bond-dependent University of California construction has been put on hold, so some piece of $3.5 billion would have been exactly the stimulus we're supposed to get. They're our damn tax dollars, and we've already spent nearly that amount on bailing out banks that were blown up by genius executives who in many cases earn in one year what a beginning college teacher earns in a thousand.

In California, Pell Grant students were already facing freezes and rollbacks in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed budget. The new round has Pell Grant funds being paid as I.O.U.s, and UC and Cal State having to swallow the cost by not charging Pell Grant students the missing amount until it's made up. And this is in fact a federal program.

Completing the good news from yesterday, the National Science Foundation reported that the federal R&D funding in FY 2008 is nearly 5% below that of FY 2007 (after inflation), and down over 7% from FY 2005. Basic research fell an incredible 25% percent.

This is bad for knowledge and bad for university products. The only good news is that it may be another nail in the coffin of the failed funding policies of public higher education leaders that I analyzed in the Chronicle of Higher Ed last year and have posted here. This defeat might start forcing more public universities finally to admit how dependent they are on public money, and fight to get it back. The events this week show just how badly off the game they are.