Bush Cuts Aid to Historically Black Schools

By William McQuillen and Matthew Keenan

March 20 (Bloomberg News [HERE]) -- When it comes to America's more than 100 historically black colleges, the Bush administration is giving with one hand and taking back with the other.

President George W. Bush signed a law in September adding $85 million to the annual support of $238.1 million for Spelman College, Grambling State University in Louisiana and the other schools, saying it would help low-income Americans earn degrees and prepare them to compete for U.S. jobs. The Bush administration's new budget cuts aid to the schools by the same amount, angering Democrats who helped provide the money.

``It's devastating, a devastating effect, these kinds of cuts,'' Senator Edward Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who heads the Senate education committee, said in an interview in Boston. ``It doesn't make sense to cut back in terms of vitally needed education programs.''

North Carolina Central University in Durham says students who are training to become special education teachers may see support for their program eliminated. Efforts to recruit minority students to become math and science teachers may be slashed at dozens of the colleges.

Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina gets about $4.2 million from the U.S. government, partly to provide tutors for chemistry and computer-science programs, said Everette Witherspoon, the university official who monitors such funding. The money, more than 4 percent of the budget, also supports an honors program and evening classes.

``They would be scaled back,'' Witherspoon said. The cut would hurt efforts ``to compete as a mainstream university.''

In Harvard's Shadow

Education Department officials defend the conflicting policy actions, saying the cutback returns funding to previous levels.

``We have to make tough budget decisions in priorities with discretionary spending,'' said Samara Yudof, a spokeswoman for the Education Department. ``Our budget reflects that.''

The government defines historically black colleges and universities as those established primarily to educate African- Americans before 1964, when the doors to most institutions were closed to them. Some were founded even before the Civil War. Today, they represent about 3 percent of U.S. colleges and universities and account for about one-fourth of all African- American college graduates.

Winston-Salem had $21.8 million in endowment assets on June 30, ranking 676th among 785 North American colleges and universities reporting figures. Harvard University's $34.9 billion fund, the world's biggest college endowment, is about 1,600 times larger. Wake Forest University, also in Winston- Salem, has a $1.2 billion endowment.

Alumni

Martin Luther King Jr. graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta, author Alice Walker from Spelman in Atlanta, and civil- rights leader Jesse Jackson from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University in Greensboro.

Maceo K. Sloan, a Durham, North Carolina financier, graduated from Moorhouse, and Harold E. Doley Jr., founder and chairman of Doley Securities Inc. in New Orleans, is an alumnus of Xavier University of Louisiana. Sloan couldn't be reached and and Doley declined comment.

Edith Bartley, director of government affairs for the United Negro College Fund, said the budget is inconsistent with the federal government's historic commitment to black colleges. The Fairfax, Virginia-based organization raises money, disburses it to 39 private black colleges, and provides scholarships.

``It's very disheartening,'' Bartley said. ``Under the current economic state that we're facing right now, that puts our schools in a position of meeting more challenges.''

`Tough Budget Decisions'

House Republicans last year attacked the added spending for historically black institutions, as well as for colleges that predominantly serve Latinos and Native Americans, saying it didn't provide direct aid to students. Representative Howard ``Buck'' McKeon, ranking Republican on the House education committee, said at a hearing last week that funding for black colleges has more than doubled from $109 million in 1995.

Bush now is seeking ``significant mandatory and discretionary savings that are essential to meeting'' his goal of eliminating the federal deficit by 2012, according to an Education Department budget summary issued last month.

The Bush budget would increase total federal spending by 6 percent for fiscal 2009. The proposal raises Defense Department spending by 7.5 percent as the U.S. pours money into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Domestic spending, excluding defense and homeland security, would rise about 1 percent.

``Iraq is being played as a way to tramp down on domestic priorities,'' said Faiz Shakir, the research director at the Center for American Progress, a Democratic policy-research group in Washington. ``When talking about funding for black colleges, I imagine the White House response is, 'We don't have money for that.' ''

Bush Signature

In September, Bush signed the College Cost Reduction Act to increase the value of grants to students from low-income families, and to provide more money for the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Program. The law required $85 million in annual spending for those schools, allowing them to enhance facilities and to recruit and retain professors.

Bush's budget, proposed Feb. 4, reduces other funding to the schools by the same amount.

The majority of students attending the schools served by the United Negro College Fund are from families earning less than $30,000 a year. To help serve those students, the schools' costs are kept 40 percent below those at comparable ``majority'' institutions, Bartley said.

Spelman, which placed 75th in the U.S. News and World Report ranking of liberal arts colleges, has tuition and fees totaling $27,800. That's less than the $43,160 at similarly ranked Ursinus College in Pennsylvania.