Bush budget takes aim at student aid and research

Community colleges are urged to make their voices heard in competition for federal funds

Community colleges would see a net loss in funds under the President's budget

Minority students are making gains in higher education, report shows, but gaps remain

Risk-management experts advise colleges on how to avoid lawsuits

Bush budget takes aim at student aid and research
One-third of programs to be dropped would come from the Education Dept.

In the $2.57-trillion spending plan for 2006 that the president sent to Congress last week, he proposed eliminating 150 government programs, a third of them in the Education Department alone, and provided very small increases for the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, the two largest sources of federal funds for academic research.

"It's a budget that reduces and eliminates redundancy," Mr. Bush said last week. "It's a budget that focuses on results. Taxpayers in America don't want us spending their money on something that's not achieving results."

The president proposed budget for the Education Department would eliminate:

The Perkins Loan program, which lends money to low- and middle-income families.

The Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education program, which provides funds to community colleges for career programs.

The Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnerships program, or LEAP, which matches every dollar a state spends on need-based aid.

Upward Bound and Talent Search, which are both TRIO programs for disadvantaged students.

Gear Up, which mainly helps middle-school students prepare for college.

The Robert C. Byrd Honors Scholarship Program, which provides merit-based scholarships and was originated by and named for one of the president's harshest Congressional critics, Sen. Robert C. Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat.

Although some of the savings would be funneled into bigger Pell Grants for needy students, that provision did little to placate college leaders.

"This really is an effort to take money from the left pocket and put it in the right," said David L. Warren, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. "I think our task ahead is to say, 'Mr. President, thank you for recognizing the centrality of the Pell Grant. It cannot be at the expense of these other programs.'"

Among research programs, the president slashed funds for basic research within the Agriculture, Defense, and Energy Departments and at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Those cuts came despite calls by scientists, including members of Mr. Bush's own science-advisory committee, to pump up federal support for the physical sciences, which has been flat or declining in recent years.

If Congress goes along with the president's blueprint, it would mark the first serious effort to trim the growth of the federal government since Republicans gained control of Congress in 1995. But given that Mr. Bush's proposals for higher education touch some politically popular programs, they are likely to face stiff opposition on Capitol Hill, even with Republicans in charge of both chambers of Congress.

"Every single one of these programs has a fan on Capitol Hill," said a Republican aide on the Senate Budget Committee, who noted that every president since Ronald Reagan has tried to eliminated the LEAP program without success. "Congress will have a lot to say about these programs before anything is finalized."

The Chronicle of Higher Education
February 15, 2005

Community colleges are urged to make their voices heard in competition for federal funds

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce, delivered the heads-up at the National Legislative Seminar, which was sponsored by the Association of Community College Trustees and the American Association of Community Colleges.

"It seems to me we need to be focusing our public dollars on public, nonprofit institutions," Mr. Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, said to applause.

For-profit institutions have lobbied hard for changes in some provisions of the Higher Education Act, which is up for renewal, or reauthorization, this year. Those changes, if enacted, would allow the proprietary colleges to compete for grants from the Strengthening Institutions program, which doles out some $80-million annually, mostly to help community colleges improve their infrastructure and build up their endowments.

Two other laws that affect federal funds for community colleges -- the Perkins Job Training Act, which President Bush proposed eliminating last week in his 2006 budget request, and the Workforce Investment Act -- are also up for reauthorization in the current session of Congress.

The confluence of legislative activity may be partly responsible for this year's strong showing of community-college officials at the annual policy powwow. Some 1,200 people are attending the conference, up from the 800 or so who have come in previous years. Laura Bush is scheduled to speak at the conference this morning, and on Wednesday the new U.S. secretary of education, Margaret Spellings, will address the group.

Mr. Van Hollen noted that community colleges have been showered with unprecedented attention -- and appreciation -- from their local communities and from federal lawmakers in recent years. The congressman urged the colleges to use the resulting increase in visibility and make their voices heard.

George R. Boggs, president of the community-college association, added that for-profit institutions have spent a lot of money to lobby on Capitol Hill (The Chronicle, July 30, 2004).

Community colleges may lack that kind of money, he said, but "our strength is in our numbers."

The Chronicle of Higher Education
February 15, 2005

Community colleges would see a net loss in funds under the President's budget

Although President Bush has consistently praised community colleges, including as recently as in his State of the Union address this month, the budget he released last week provided them with a mixed message about where they stand among the administration's priorities.

In one part of the spending plan for 2006, the president called for abolishing the $1.33-billion Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education program, which gives some $400-million annually to community colleges to train students from low-income families for jobs.

In addition, he proposed slashing funds for adult education and literacy by 63 percent, to $215-million.

But in another area of the budget plan,the president proposed $125-million in new funds to support community colleges' dual-enrollment programs, which allow high-school students to take college-level courses for credit.

He also put into the spending plan his $250-million proposal from last year for community colleges to train workers for high-growth fields like health care and information technology.

The bottom line would be a net loss in federal funds for community colleges, lobbyists say.

While the budget "opens up some promising new policy approaches," said George R. Boggs, president of the American Association of Community Colleges, it also "scuttles some well-established, proven programs that greatly enhance the ability of our colleges to fulfill their missions."

Change in Policy

Chrisanne L. Gayl, policy director at the Workforce Alliance, a Washington-based advocacy group, said that the proposed elimination of the Perkins program signaled a shift in policy because the move would help pay for the president's plan to expand the No Child Left Behind Act to high schools.

"We see it as a move away from career and technical education to a focus at the high-school level on academic skills," Ms. Gayl said. "We think it would have a serious impact on the services that community colleges would be able to provide."

In a report to Congress last summer, the Bush administration said that the Perkins program "produced little or no evidence of improved outcomes for students."

Community-college officials dispute that conclusion. Nick Kremer, executive dean of community, industry, and technology education at Cerritos College, in Norwalk, Calif., said the $1-million his institution gets annually from the Perkins program is used for professional and curricular development and to keep equipment up to date in ever-changing high-tech fields.

Without the money, he said, "I'm just not sure how we would meet those needs in an area like health occupations."

Community-college officials said they were caught off-guard by the proposal to eliminate the Perkins program outright and worry about their chances of saving it.

"We think that this environment is different from previous years," said David S. Baime, vice president for government relations at the association of community colleges. "The emphasis on deficit reduction is shared on all corners of the Hill, and we take it very seriously."

The Chronicle of Higher Education
February 15, 2005

Minority students are making gains in higher education, report shows, but gaps remain

The number of minority students enrolled in American colleges more than doubled over the past decade, according to an annual report released on Monday by the American Council on Education. From 1991 to 2001, African-American, Hispanic, Asian-American, and American Indian enrollments increased by 51.7 percent, to more than 4.3 million students.

But minority students still lag behind their white peers in other key categories, such as the percentage of students who go on to college after high school, says the report, "Minorities in Higher Education: Twenty-First Annual Status Report," which was released to coincide with the council's annual meeting here this week.

"These persistent gaps in college participation among whites and minorities tell us that we must be more creative and imaginative in developing strategies and finding additional resources so that more students of color are successful on our campuses," said William Harvey, vice president of the council and an author of the report.

From 2000 to 2002, 45.5 percent of white high-school graduates, age 18 to 24, enrolled in college, compared with only 39.9 percent of African-American students and 34.0 percent of Hispanic students.

"That's a gap that we just have to close," said William E. Kirwan, chairman of the council's Board of Directors and chancellor of the University System of Maryland.

Some minority groups also lagged behind in terms of how many students went on to receive degrees. Of students who enrolled in the 1995-96 academic year, 58.0 percent of white undergraduates got bachelor's degrees within five years, compared with only 42.0 percent of Hispanic students and 41.8 percent of African-American students. Moreover, 36.4 percent of black students were no longer enrolled and had not completed a degree after five years.

The report has some bright spots. Hispanic students had the largest percentage increase in enrollment from 1991 to 2001, up 75.1 percent to more than 1.4 million students. And African-American and Hispanic students more than doubled the number of master's degrees they earned, while their Asian-American peers had an increase of 87.8 percent and American Indians a jump of 97.1 percent.

For the first time this year, the report includes a category for students who chose not to report their race or ethnicity to their college or university. In 2000 there were 938,000 such students, who now form the fourth-largest group, behind white, African-American, and Hispanic students.

"We're paying attention to this group," said Mr. Harvey. "We're trying to get a better understanding" of who these students are. Many of those students may be multiracial and could be considered minority students, said another of the report's authors, Eugene Anderson, a senior research associate at the council.

The report used data from the U.S. Department of Education and the Census Bureau, as well as analysis of data from the department's Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System.

Among other findings for the decade from 1991 to 2001, the report says that:

African-American students' enrollment grew 36.9 percent, Asian-American enrollment increased 53.7 percent, and American Indian enrollment grew 35.0 percent. White students' enrollment fell 4.6 percent, reflecting a drop in the country's population of white people age 18 to 24.

Of students who began college in 1995-96, 62.3 percent of Asian-American undergraduates had earned bachelor's degrees within five years, compared with 58.0 percent of white students.

By discipline, the largest increase of bachelor's degrees earned by minority students were in the health professions, biological and life sciences, and business.

Of doctoral degrees awarded, African-American students saw an increase of 88.9 percent, Hispanic students had an increase of 69.3 percent, and American Indians gained 48.3 percent. Asian-American women had an increase of 103.6 percent, compared with only 11.7 percent for their male counterparts.

The number of full-time faculty members who are members of minority groups increased from 65,000 in 1993 to more than 90,000 in 2001.

The report is not yet online. Previous years' editions are available on the council's Web site.

The Chronicle of Higher Education
February 15, 2005

Risk-management experts advise colleges on how to avoid lawsuits

A national expert on higher-education risk management says that colleges need to do more to bolster their defenses in an increasingly litigious environment.

Janice M. Abraham, president and chief executive officer of United Educators Insurance, said Monday at a session of the American Council on Education's annual conference that colleges and universities should, in the area of employment liability, take steps to prevent retaliation claims, a "new hallmark" of higher-education law. Litigants aren't just suing over discrimination in the workplace, but over retaliation by their supervisors for having complained of such discrimination.

In the area of student affairs, said Ms. Abraham, administrators should not let misguided fears of privacy rights prevent them from taking action to protect students' safety, by notifying the parents of students whose anorexia has put them in grave danger, for example.

One third of employment-discrimination claims handled by United Educators, a risk-management and insurance company with 1,200 institutional members, now involve retaliation, said Ms. Abraham. "It's rare for us to see a new claim coming in where the plaintiff's attorney doesn't slap some form of retaliation" on the suit, she said.

When an employee files an initial discrimination complaint, a college should "put the kid gloves on," she urged, and not allow supervisors to react bitterly to complaints they may judge to have little merit. Even when a discrimination claim is dismissed, she said, a plaintiff often wins a related retaliation claim.

Though the number of employment claims may be leveling off, "the overall cost of these claims continues to increase significantly," said Ms. Abraham, noting that nationwide, median jury awards have increased by 66 percent in the past four years.

To strengthen a college's defense against claims by employees of unfair treatment, anti-discrimination training is critically important, Ms. Abraham said. Some of her clients have noted, with exasperation, that more training sessions produce more complaints, she said, but "people's knowing where they should go to complain is a huge step in the right direction." Colleges should aim to resolve discrimination complaints through internal grievance processes rather than in court, she said.

(Kathryn C. Bender, associate general counsel at the Catholic University of America, who moderated the session, recommended that colleges refer to training as "policy seminars" to attract faculty members who "refuse to be trained.")

With respect to students, a "consumer mentality" of "I paid (blank), and I deserve (fill in the blank)" is playing out in the liability arena, Ms. Abraham said, particularly as "helicopter parents" hover over their children. "We're seeing a great increase in universities' being held accountable" for the actions of students, said Ms. Abraham.

The adjudication of a wrongful-death suit filed against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in state court by the family of Elizabeth Shin, a student who committed suicide in 2000, will provide "an important legal framework for how ... institutions will be held liable or not for student suicides," said Ms. Abraham.

Meanwhile, she said, colleges should understand that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act "has absolutely no restrictions" on parental notification in the case of an emergency, in which a student is endangering himself or others. "Which case would you rather defend?" she asked -- one of privacy violation or one of wrongful death?

In the area of students' mental health, Ms. Abraham also recommended that colleges:

Examine their medical-leave policies and "decision-making hierarchy" to determine when a student can be sent home for medical reasons.

Limit access to the means of suicide, securing poisons and controlling access to high places.

Involve faculty and staff members across the campus by setting up teams to assess the progress of troubled students.
Allan L. Shackelford, a lawyer in private practice who also spoke at the session, suggested ways that institutions could deal with liability more broadly. He recommended that colleges:

Perform background checks -- to learn of any criminal convictions and to verify credentials -- on adjunct and part-time faculty members, even for adult-education programs that have become "sacred cash cows."

Improve requirements for personnel screening in contracts with outside companies that hire people who come into contact with students.

Ensure that waivers of liability and other risk-transfer agreements between colleges and their students and faculty and staff members identify all potential risks.

An audio recording of the session, "Limiting Campus Liability: Who's Going to Sue You Next?," will be available on a CD-ROM of all conference sessions. The CD-ROM can be ordered for $49 at the conference or for $119 from Sound of Knowledge on the company's Web site or by calling 858-635-5969.