Black Schools Hit by Funds Ax as Bush Erases Aid Gain William McQuillen and Matthew Keenan
Thu Mar 20, 9:31 AM ET



March 20 (Bloomberg) -- 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.

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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, the oldest being Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, which began in 1837 as the Institute for Colored Youth. 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 Morehouse, 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 to comment.

Edith Bartley, the 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.

Bush Signature

``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.'''

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.

One day Crowley, even you might be able to get an education...

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Asshelmets.com http://www.asshelmets.com/forum/showthread.php?t=39117

"The tragedy of homo sapiens is that the least fit to survive breed the most." ~ Robert Malthus

I was hoping that someday you might produce something more than Idiot Noise DammitBoy![sic], but I see now that you are, in fact, incapible.

My education was excellent by nearly anyone's standard, and I am proud of it.

Also, it's documentable; unlike your validity.


Are you going to run-off now, or perhaps complain about receiving homosexual PM's from me which you cannot show us?

What?

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WHEN LIBERALS ARE CRYING.....WE HAVE DONE SOMETHING RIGHT !!!!!!!

What schools need to do is give kids the tools they need to think, reason, puzzle, daydream, and just plain figure crap out. If you have a smart kid, you need to challenge him, esp at a young age. I wind up paying significant ca$h each summer for my little guy to participate in an honors program- its worth the money, but why can't the school board DO something more?? You see, if ya don't keep them occupied, they'll look over your shoulder when you're on AWE & assert things like "Those people are crazy, dad."

I try to reassure him that they're actually having fun........

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The voters get what they deserve.

http://www.stephaniemiller.com

I agree with you. And are you ever disappointed that rather than having your kid challenged by those things you mentioned, everything is halted or slowed down to wait for kids who either don't care or just "can't" get it and give up trying?
Along with that, add in the kids who refuse to show any respect for the teachers and/or other students thanks to laws that, yet again encourage trouble.
In a perfect world, kids from all classes of life go to school and are taught life skills and respect for others by their parents. They all have parents concerned with keeping on top of their school work as well. Sadly, that is not what schools are about anymore. Those parents are still out there, but they are not the majority anymore...not here anyway.

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WHEN LIBERALS ARE CRYING.....WE HAVE DONE SOMETHING RIGHT !!!!!!!

Crowley doesn't make sense because he is a liar and a fraud.

His three word posts, usually consisting of shut up and a cuss word or two - usually misspelled, are indicative of his lack of education, intellect, wit, and imagination.

In short, he is a dullard, a village idiot and a boring predictable one at that...

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Asshelmets.com http://www.asshelmets.com/forum/showthread.php?t=39117

"The tragedy of homo sapiens is that the least fit to survive breed the most." ~ Robert Malthus

The one response every single kid in their "excel program" will give you is: "I wish the other kids would pay attention so we can all learn something in class." We do seem to get all the 5-percenters in Cub Scouts- probably because the parents care.......
A great scene: the administrator of the gifted/talented program is introducing it to a meeting of the parents- using the language of a third grade teacher; I felt the need to ask if she'd explain it that way to our smart little finks that way- rec'd a no. "So why are you talking down to the people whose genes produced(!) those smart little people!!" Got a great crowd reaction.....

__________________
The voters get what they deserve.

http://www.stephaniemiller.com

"Crowley doesn't make sense because he is a liar and a fraud."

Wasn't it you who claimed to be receiving homosexual PM's from me , Dammitboy![sic]?

Who's the proven liar?

You are, ya cum dumpster...

__________________
Asshelmets.com http://www.asshelmets.com/forum/showthread.php?t=39117

"The tragedy of homo sapiens is that the least fit to survive breed the most." ~ Robert Malthus