Deep federal spending cuts that both Democrats and Republicans had hoped to avoid were set into motion March 1, as Congress failed to act in time to prevent or postpone the reductions. The $85-billion cut to the federal budget, known as sequestration, leaves colleges uncertain about how reductions in federal appropriations will affect them.
Leading up to the deadline, university leaders and advocacy groups urged Congress to head off the sequester. Both parties introduced bills in a last-ditch effort to avoid the cuts—both of which failed to pass—and President Obama met with party leaders to discuss possible ways to reverse the sequester after it took effect. But all of those efforts failed to halt the first phase of cuts.
At a time when the country’s economy is starting to recover, Mr. Obama said, “we shouldn’t be making a series of dumb, arbitrary cuts to things that businesses depend on and workers depend on,” like education and research.
Legislators and colleges are now looking to March 27, by which date Congress must pass a continuing resolution to finance government operations for the rest of the 2013 fiscal year or face a government shutdown. Some college administrators and advocates hope that in addition to avoiding a government shutdown, such a bill could negate parts, if not all, of the sequester.
Though the White House has warned that the cuts will have severe consequences for some student-aid programs, university research, and college-preparatory programs, colleges and students are still waiting to hear how they will be affected.
“This is an unprecedented situation, which makes it very difficult for us to anticipate what will happen next,” said Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president for government and public affairs at the American Council on Education.
Lasting Effects
While the details are uncertain, no one is sanguine about the possible effects.
Among the areas hit the hardest will be federal support for university research. The White House cautioned that sequestration will force organizations like the National Science Foundation to make 1,000 fewer research-grant awards, which could result in the loss of thousands of jobs for students and scientists.
Darrell G. Kirch, president of the Association of American Medical Colleges, said in a written statement that the cuts would affect research not just this year, but for many years to come. Decreases in NIH spending, he said, would delay medical progress and contribute to “the loss of the next generation of scientists.”
Jian Liu, a professor of chemical biology and medicinal chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, conducts research to produce a synthetic version of the blood thinner heparin with money from the National Institutes of Health. Heparin is used in a number of surgeries and cancer treatments.
If the financial support he receives from the agency to finance his work is cut, Mr. Liu said, he will have to lay off a technician and a graduate student.
Even if the money were reinstated in the future, Mr. Liu said, the setback would still be significant because of the time it would take to hire and train people to fill the lost positions.
Some student-aid programs, like the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant and Federal Work-Study, would be cut by millions of dollars, although those cuts wouldn’t take effect until July 1, when the financial-aid program year begins.
The uncertainty in financial-aid support complicates an already daunting process for students and their families, said Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.
“Many discussions have focused on finding simplicity in financial-aid programs,” he said. “We have to start re-emphasizing predictability.”
The association has released estimates of the reduced 2013-14 individual campus-based allocations for the opportunity-grant and work-study programs.
Community and technical colleges will also see reductions in both of these programs, but many officials are more concerned with potential reductions to the federal Pell Grant program.
‘Still Hopeful’
Though the Pell program is protected during the first year of the sequester, community colleges will be monitoring the situation if the cuts are not reversed, said David Baime, senior vice president for government relations and research at the American Association of Community Colleges.
A more immediate concern, however, is whether colleges will be able to provide the necessary work-force education to meet employer demands, he said.
Federally backed college-preparatory and employment-and-training programs will also see significant reductions as a result of the sequester.
TRIO and Gear Up, which help prepare low-income and minority students for college, will be cut by $42.8-million and $15.4-million, respectively. Federal employment-and-training programs will be cut by $450-million, excluding nearly two million workers from those services.
“We’re still hopeful,” Mr. Baime said. “Nobody likes the sequester, and hopefully Congress and the president will find a way to negate most if not all of it.”
Discussions in Congress, Mr. Hartle said, may quickly turn to the March 27 deadline for passing a continuing resolution to finance government operations for the rest of the fiscal year. Federal research agencies like the NIH and NSF face a second fiscal crisis as a result of that situation: They still don’t know what their regular, pre-sequester budgets are for the coming year.
Many college administrators are also hoping that a continuing resolution could bring some relief from the sequester cuts. House Republicans introduced a bill on March 4 that would avert a government shutdown and ease some of the spending cuts in the Defense Department. Now that the bill has passed the House, it is likely that Democrats in the Senate will push for other “add backs” to mitigate the sequester’s effects, Mr. Hartle said.
Correction (8/22/2013, 8:14 p.m.): This article originally misstated the job title of Terry W. Hartle. He is senior vice president for government and public affairs, not president, of the American Council on Education. The article has been updated to reflect this correction.