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Capitol Hill debates higher education budget cuts

PITTSBURGH - Dave Griffith, director of governmental and public affairs at the U.S. Department of Education, laughed nervously when asked about a proposed cut to educational funds that may severely limit several forms of federally funded aid for the nation's colleges and universities.

"I doubt the cuts will happen, but I don't know where the money to support (the programs) will be found," Griffith said.

Members of the House subcommittee for labor, health and human services, and education appropriations will decide Thursday on spending for the higher education appropriations bill. Some project the cuts may equal $5.96 billion, the largest in the nation's history. The decision comes one week before the end of the federal fiscal year.

Opinions differ greatly concerning how much money higher education could actually lose.

Griffith said that "accounting gimmicks," such as requesting advance funding to financially support educational gaps and circumvent spending caps in other departments, would help for now.

However, advance funding would involve usurping next year's funding for this year's spending needs.

"We'll be in the same position next fiscal year," Griffith said.

Funds allocated for the Defense Authorization Bill, plus funds for bills introduced by the Department of Treasury and the Department of Interior, are coming from funds originally earmarked for the education committee, Griffith said.

"The problem lays in the fact that both defense and domestic programs are now under the same category, so funds are taken from one to support the other," he said.

Due to spending caps placed on other departments, the 12 additional appropriations bills up for implementation had to get the extra money they needed somewhere-in this case, $12 billion to $16 billion in money originally allocated to the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee.

"We have suggested that the level of allocation is not enough and will cause cutbacks to education. Our plan is to, at the very least, keep the funds at last year's level," said David Kohn, press secretary for committee head Rep. John Porter, R-Ill. "Congressman Porter actually fought the passing of any cuts."

A spokesperson for Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who also is a member of the committee, said Congress will have to make sharp cuts to labor, health and education programs unless spending caps that limit the spending of other departments are removed.

"Everyone keeps taking money from the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Appropriations Subcommittee because they're the only ones not to have a bill called up yet," said Jamie Pueschel, legislative director for the United States Student Association in Washington.

Two weeks ago, USSA organized a national "call-in" day, imploring students to protest what they concluded will be a cut of 18 percent, based on the amount of funding last year compared to the proposed amount of funding this year. The cut, however, may be steeper than that.

According to Pelosi's spokesperson, the cut could be as high as 33 percent.

Tom Lion, also of the U.S. Department of Education, said the Clinton administration is doing everything possible to prevent the cuts, which would affect recipients of the federal Pell grants and work study programs, as well as the Gaining Increased Awareness and Readiness to Undergraduate Programs and the TRIO programs, such as Upward Bound and Talent Search.

However, this will only happen if Congress is able to override the president's veto of the budget reform, Lion said.