Posted on 01/14/2009 1:14:12 PM PST by bs9021
Academic “Stimulus” Takes Shape
by: Bethany Stotts, January 14, 2009
As Accuracy in Academia (AIA) reported in December, a coalition of academic associations lobbied the federal government to appropriate up to six percent of the upcoming stimulus bill for higher education infrastructure and financial aid. With current estimates of the stimulus bill standing at as much as $850 billion, the suggested six percent would total approximately $51 billion.
According to Politico, the education sector as a whole, including higher ed and other K-12 programs, might receive as much as $140 billion from the stimulus bill, although the final text of the legislation has not been released. “The numbers are sure to be refined as House and Senate Appropriations Committees complete their drafts this week. But like Medicaid, education has clearly emerged as a favorite channel through which Washington will pump massive amounts of aid to states struggling with huge budget deficits aggravated by the economic downturn,” writes David Rogers, senior congressional reporter.
Indeed, the actual cost of the stimulus bill has been fast trending upward. On the campaign trail, Barack Obama said the bill would cost $175 billion; new estimates then varied widely, from $500 billion to $600 billion. The Associated Press assigned a price tag of $775 billion to the bill on January 6.
Rogers reports that the stimulus package, as currently drafted, will likely include:
• $80 billion for “state and local education budgets;”
• $20 billion for “school construction projects;”
• a $500 increase for Pell Grant recipients, “with an estimated cost of about $15 billion over two years;”
• “Additional aid” to “be provided through traditional routes, like Title I or special education programs;” as well as
• a new block grant program, price tag unstated by Rogers...
(Excerpt) Read more at campusreportonline.net ...
And heeeeere come the tuition hikes . . . .!
If bossism and patronage and offices for sale are good enough for Ci-cago, they’re good enough, by golly, for Academe.
How will the professional idolaters of the One be rewarded otherwise?
The politicians in washington have completely lost their minds. Their actions have become a grave threat to this country
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
On my campus, they are having an “Inauguration Day Luncheon.” Funny, I don’t remember such a thing when Bush was inaugurated.
more student aid means higher tuition. congress should tell all colleges that take government money to cut tuition, board, and student fees by 20% or lose all government funding. make up the difference from their trust funds and alimni. or cut salaries of overpaid, under achieving, anti-american professors and cut worthless programs like feminazi studies, racial studies, and most of the soft sciencces like socialogy. too many peoeple who go to college shouldn’t be there and would be better off with a GOOD vocational skill.
but what do i know. i have been doing technical illustration for 20 years and have 2 associates degrees in graphics but no bachelors. so some hr catbert person is going to hire some graduate with a ba and no experience over me because the has a ba?
Money for “education” sounds like a good idea, but:
1) IMO, even if the USA produces great engineers, the powers that be will find excuses to import workers to replace them, or ship the jobs overseas. And since students know that, more of them will go into other fields, like law, and again IMO, we don’t need more lawyers.
2) As another poster pointed out, universities have replaced History with “Herstory,” various ethnic studies, etc. Not entirely, but IMO, to a disturbing extent.
3) Two words: William Ayers.
The pattern has been clear for 30 years: the more money made available to “help pay” for education, the higher the education costs. Our tuitions have gone from about $12k when I first got here 23 years ago to almost $30k. You’ll find that the amount of “student aid” has increased almost exactly proportionally.
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