College Loans Consolidation Blog

Archive for October, 2009

This past week I have reported on what is happening with the FY08 budget, a big part of which is the increase in the Pell Grant from $4,600 this year up to $5,400 by 2012. The question on everyone’s mind is: Where is all that extra money going to come from? Many have speculated that the $2 billion-plus required to cover the increase would come from cutting other federal programs or grants that favor low-income students and their families.

According to a Feb. 6, 2007 article by Karin Fischer titled, “Perkins Career and Technical Education Program Survives but Would Be Cut in Half” that appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, there may be a partial answer. Apparently, President Bush is slashing funding for the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education program that serves low-income families. My guess is that this action is the beginning of several cuts yet to come that likely will cover the $2 billion Pell Grant shortfall.

Funds Slashed, But Program Retained

Fischer wrote, “Under the president’s budget plan for 2008, which was released on Monday, the vocational-education program would receive $617.4-million, down 52.6 percent from the 2006 fiscal year, the most recent year in which a federal budget was signed into law.”

Earlier, Bush commented that the program was “ineffective,” the article said, intending to eliminate it altogether. In fact, according to the article, “In his 2007 budget proposal, President Bush had called for the elimination of all federal technical-educational spending, saying that the Perkins program had ‘produced little or no evidence of improved outcomes for students despite decades of federal investment.’ ”

The article continued, “But administration officials were persuaded not to press again to scrap Perkins after changes were made during the program’s reauthorization last summer (The Chronicle, August 4, 2006).”

Either way you look at it, the money has to come from somewhere, and that means cuts to valuable programs of debatable value, depending upon with whom you talk. This implies growing pains for those who see their funding disappear, pains that likely will be isolated to the low-income college student camp.

Low-Income Students, Community Colleges Most Affected

The intended cut has received much criticism. The article quoted David S. Baime, vice president for government relations at the American Association of Community Colleges, who said, “Our colleges cannot comprehend that an administration that is so laudatory of their work would slash a program that is so essential to their quality. It is just totally bewildering to us.”

This community college segment of the student population is the one that may be hardest hit. “About 40 percent of Perkins funds go annually to community colleges to prepare students from low-income families for the workplace,” the article stated.

Here is the rundown from the article on the specifics of the cuts: “The budget plan would cut the amount of money awarded in state grants through the Perkins program by nearly 50 percent from the 2006 fiscal year allocation, to $600-million. And it would eliminate federal support for the Tech-Prep program, which gives students a technical education spread across two years of high school and two years of community college. About $104.8-million in Tech-Prep grants were awarded in 2006.”