Broken Promises

"The blood is ankle deep over there," said a Washington lobbyist for the National Education Association.

"Everybody's been out knifing."

He was talking about the U.S. Office of Education, a sedate institution that is not ordinarily a scene of such gore. The reason for the change: the White House budget experts wanted next year's federal aid to education cut by about 10%. That meant squeezing more than half a billion dollars out of an overall budget now providing $5.7 billion.

Just last spring President Nixon and Congress promised the nation's colleges and universities a vastly expanded program of aid through the new Higher Education Act. Nixon's only criticism at the time was that the bill should have gone even further in "equalizing opportunity for all." HEW Secretary Elliot Richardson called it "landmark" legislation. Democratic Representative John Brademas of Indiana hailed it as the most significant higher education law since the Land-Grant Act of 1862. The measure included two unprecedented steps: 1) direct aid of up to $1,400 a year--"basic educational opportunity grants," immediately nicknamed BOGs --to any needy and qualified student in the nation, and 2) direct operating subsidies to virtually all colleges and universities. The new law's big problem was its price: an estimated $20 billion spread out over the next three years.

Money. Not even the most optimistic college president expected Nixon to ask for all of the money authorized by the bill. They did hope for at least token funding this year, followed by more substantial sums later on. As Joseph Cosand, deputy federal commissioner for higher education, put it: "The legislation only cracks the door. The next question is what goes through it." Last week, with the 93rd Congress convening in Washington, the likely answer seemed to be: Very little.

It now appears that Nixon will ask Congress for no money at all for the aid-to-institutions part of the new law. Some older programs--such as funds for college libraries--may disappear entirely.

Students themselves will get more generous treatment in direct aid--Nixon will ask for about $600 million for BOGs for the remainder of this fiscal year, on top of the $600 million already being spent for other federal student-aid programs. Next year BOGs will get roughly $900 million under the tentative Nixon budget, but this will not increase the $1.2 billion total available for student aid because the additional money for BOGs will be balanced by cuts in the older programs. The program will aid some 2 million students, but it will fall about 25% short of their estimated need of $1.6 billion. Says the Rev. Paul Reinert, president of St. Louis University and chairman of the Association of American Colleges: "The total education budget is pretty clear--now it's a matter only of shuffling the funds around to look as good as possible."

In the shuffling, these funds will be spread more widely--or thinly--than before. Such assistance used to be limited to students at "accredited" institutions of higher learning, those that met the standards of regional associations.

The new law permits aid to students at many types of nonaccredited institutions such as secretarial schools and training classes for technicians.

Bleak as the outlook is for higher education, it may turn out to be even bleaker for elementary and secondary schools. The overall aid budget of $3.5 billion will be cut substantially. Nixon is proposing that Congress pass a special revenue-sharing act for education, but this will depend on complicated distribution formulas and on a bill that is still being written.

As the full impact of the proposed cuts began to sink in last week, key education lobbyists met with Capitol Hill staffers to plan a counteroffensive. They will get little encouragement from Caspar ("Cap the Knife") Weinberger, who directed the cost cutting at the Office of Management and Budget and now is taking over at HEW. If Weinberger continues to emphasize thrift, as he undoubtedly will, the fight for more education money will shift to Congress, where, Indiana's John Brademas predicts, "it's going to be a mean, divisive, disagreeable two years."

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