March 9, 2001

Bush's Budget Calls for Substantial Increases for the National Institutes of Health and Pell Grants

By STEPHEN BURD and RON SOUTHWICK

During the presidential campaign last fall, George W. Bush won praise from college leaders when he promised to increase spending on Pell Grants and the National Institutes of Health. Last week, in releasing a blueprint of his first budget, the president demonstrated that the talk wasn't empty rhetoric.

For the 2002 fiscal year, Mr. Bush said he would ask Congress to increase the N.I.H. budget by $2.8-billion, or 13.8 percent, and to raise spending on Pell Grants by about