Cuts Mean South Carolina May Not Qualify for Stimulus Money

South Carolina has cut spending on higher education so much that it may not be eligible to receive $143-million in federal money under the stimulus bill that Congress passed earlier this month, the Associated Press reports. State education officials and members of South Carolina’s Congressional delegation are scrambling to see whether they can find a way around changes in a provision in the stimulus bill that makes the money available only to states that have maintained their own education spending at given rates. In earlier bills, a similar provision calculated a state’s eligibility by looking at its total education spending, but the latest measure requires states to maintain spending levels for both K-12 and higher-education programs. South Carolina’s total spending would have met the earlier requirement, but cuts to money for colleges apparently mean it fails the newer test.