Reply #170: Higher Education Funding Cut by $89 Billion Over 10 Years in Obama Budget

[Better Believe It]

Stopgap Spending Bill Severs Array of Education Programs
By Alyson Klein
March 3, 2011

The stopgap federal spending bill that President Barack Obama signed into law yesterday almost certainly spells the end of federal funding for more than a dozen education programs, at least for two weeks, quite possibly for good.

The bill would scrap all federal funding for the current year for a number of programs that were considered "earmarks" under congressional rules, because they got non-competitive funds, directed just for them. Some senators protested on behalf of the groups, but it may have been too late—the cuts went through anyway.

The list of funding cuts includes:

National Writing Project—$25.6 million
Teach for America—$18 million
Reading is Fundamental—$24.8 million
National Board for Professional Teaching Standards—$10.7 million
New Leaders for New Schools—$5 million
Arts in Education—$40 million
We the People—$21.6 million
Close Up fellowships—$1.9 million
Exchanges With Historic Whaling and Trading Partners—$8.6 million
Thurgood Marshall Legal Educational Opportunity program—$3 million
B.J. Stupak Olympic Scholarships—nearly $1 million

The programs could get money from the department under other funding streams. But more likely than not, most of them aren't going to get any more funding from the feds, possibly forever.

Read the full article at:

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2011/03/short-term_measure_cuts_a.html


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Higher Education Funding Cut by $89 Billion Over 10 Years in Obama Budget
By John Lauerman
February 14, 2011

President Barack Obama, who has called for the U.S. to lead the world in college graduates by 2020, proposed budget cuts that would reduce support for higher education by $89 billion over 10 years.

Obama’s $77.4 billion spending proposal released today would cut a provision allowing some college students to get two Pell grants in a year and a program that lowers interest rates on loans for graduate students. The changes will reduce 2012 higher education outlays by $10 billion while raising spending for kindergarten through high school education 6.9 percent to $26.8 billion, the Education Department said.

Under current rules, some students who have received a Pell grant for the regular school year can get a second grant to cover summer classes. Obama’s budget would eliminate that option, along with subsidized loans for students in graduate school, the budget documents said.

The proposal is a signal that both Democrats and Republicans want to see the Pell grant program shrink, said Jarrel Price, an analyst with Height Analytics in Washington who studies the effect of government policy on for-profit colleges. “There’s unanimous agreement that 2012 funding will face severe cuts,” he said today in a telephone interview. “It’s still a challenge to see the exact impact it will have on revenues and enrollments.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-14/higher-education-funding-cut-by-89-billion-over-10-years-in-obama-budget.html


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Obama budget would cut children’s hospitals’ graduate education funding
by Brandon Glenn
February 18, 2011

President Barack Obama’s federal budget proposal would eliminate a $318 million fund for graduate medical education at children’s hospitals.

The budget cuts would take a $32 million toll on children’s hospitals in Ohio, and could squeeze tight hospital budgets even further, the Columbus Dispatch reported. If Obama’s budget proposal is adopted, Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus would stand to lose $8 million that it uses to help train about 220 pediatricians, pediatric subspecialists and dentists every year.

About one-third of Nationwide Children’s spending on graduate medical education comes from the federal program, Dr. John Mahan, director of the hospital’s pediatric residency program, said.

The National Association of Children’s Hospitals said it was “dismayed and disappointed” in the proposal.

“What our nation cannot afford is to further jeopardize children’s access to physicians trained to meet children’s unique healthcare needs,” the group said in a statement.

http://www.medcitynews.com/2011/02/obama-budget-would-cut-childrens-hospitals-graduate-education-funding/


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Statement by N.A.C.H. President and CEO Lawrence McAndrews on Elimination of Funding for Pediatric Training in the President’s Budget

Children’s Teaching Hospitals Are Dismayed and Disappointed
For Immediate Release
February 14, 2011
Contact Gillian Ray, Norida Torriente
703-797-6027/6059

(Alexandria, VA) — The National Association of Children’s Hospitals (N.A.C.H.) is dismayed and disappointed with President Obama’s recommendation to eliminate the Children’s Hospitals Graduate Medical Education (CHGME) program in fiscal year 2012. The proposed elimination of the CHGME program would have a dramatic negative effect on the pediatric workforce pipeline at a time when children’s timely access to pediatric care is already impaired.

The elimination of CHGME would challenge the nation’s ability to meet goals for children’s health care and pediatric medicine that the administration itself has set in the areas of primary care, patient safety, quality and innovation. Currently, the CHGME program helps fund the training of 5,400 full time equivalent residents annually. Less than one percent of all hospitals, independent children’s teaching hospitals that receive CHGME train 40 percent of all pediatricians, 60 percent of whom are primary care pediatricians. Pediatric teaching, clinical care and research work hand in hand at children’s hospitals, allowing physicians, residents, fellows and research scientists to advance innovations that improve quality, safety, efficiency and outcomes of patient care.

Furthermore, the greatest workforce shortage in children’s health care is pediatric specialty care. Children’s hospitals receiving CHGME train 43 percent of pediatric specialists. The elimination of CHGME would exacerbate the current national shortage of pediatric specialists such as neurologists, surgeons and pulmonologists. These shortages result in delayed care and appointment wait times that can be as long as three months. What our nation cannot afford is to further jeopardize children’s access to physicians trained to meet children’s unique health care needs.

Enacted in 1999 under the Clinton administration, the CHGME program provides children’s teaching hospitals with federal support comparable to what other teaching hospitals receive through Medicare. The program helped correct an unintentional inequity in GME financing. The program is currently funded at $317.5 million. Before the enactment of CHGME, the number of residents in children’s hospitals’ residency programs had declined over 13 percent. The enactment of CHGME has enabled children’s hospitals to reverse this trend and to increase their training by 35 percent.

CHGME is vital to the future of pediatric care in this country. Elimination of this program puts children’s health and health care at unnecessary risk.

#30

The National Association of Children’s Hospitals (N.A.C.H.) is the public policy affiliate of the National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions. Representing more than 140 freestanding acute care children’s hospitals, freestanding children’s rehabilitation and specialty hospitals, and children’s hospitals organized within larger medical centers, N.A.C.H. addresses public policy issues affecting children’s hospitals’ missions of service to the children of their communities, including clinical care, education, research and advocacy.

http://www.childrenshospitals.net/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Newsroom&CONTENTID=55664&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm