Professors Fight Phantom Federal Budget Cuts

Accuracy in Academia ^ | June 1, 2017 | Malcolm A. Kline

[Academiadotorg]

The professoriate is fighting what it perceives as federal budget cuts to higher education proposed by the Trump Administration. Yet and still, it is difficult to find those cuts in the Trump budget proposals.

"We already knew from the Trump administration's initial 'skinny' budget proposal, released in March, that higher education would be on the chopping block," Kelly Hand writes on the academe blog maintained by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). "The fleshed-out budget proposal released on May 22 details cuts that would have a devastating impact on student aid, the arts and humanities, scientific research, and international education."

"Following up on our March statement opposing the initial budget proposal, the AAUP released a follow-up statement last Friday reiterating our opposition to a budget that aims to eliminate important student loan and loan-forgiveness programs, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Arts and to slash funding for the Federal Work-Study Program, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Funding, and the Fulbright Scholar Program."

Actual cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Institutes of Health, and National Science Funding are hard to find in the budget. It should be noted that NEH officials claim that their agency is being shut down. Coincidentally, even Republican leaders in Congress do not know how many Obama holdovers are still employed in the executive branch.

Nevertheless, the latest Trump budget does have quite a bit to say about student loans and student aid...

[Academiadotorg]

Criticizing any president's budget is a worthwhile exercise but you should really read it first.

[Rurudyne]

I’m all for cutting all federal funding of education among the several States.

Along with elimination of all programs not linked to actual service or employment.

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

"The single IDR plan would cap a borrower’s monthly payment at 12.5 percent of discretionary income. For undergraduate borrowers, any balance remaining after 15 years of repayment would be forgiven.

Maybe I'm just being a thickhead, but this seems to almost guarantee that many people won't pay back even close to what they took out.

[Academiadotorg]

good point, and it goes against the narrative on “Trump budget cuts.”