Congressional Cuts Largely Spare ICC
WASHINGTON, D.C. ― Even as federal government funding for education continues to experience cutbacks, programs that affect Illinois Central College and its students have managed to keep most, if not all, of their financing.
During the third week of January in our nation’s capitol, The House and Senate Appropriations Committees released their bipartisan proposal for the dispersing of federal dollars to operate numerous agencies and entities for the remainder of the fiscal year. Before the week was over, the bill, H.R. 3547, was passed by both the House and Senate, and the 2014 Consolidated Appropriations Act was law. This is the first such bill since sequestration cuts went into effect last year.
In this budgetary bill, which funds everything from the Smithsonian to the Secret Service, funding for the U.S. Department of Education was, according to the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT), reduced by $811 million from fiscal year 2012 levels. And yet, despite these cuts, the ACCT said that “no priority community college program” will be adversely affected.
Perhaps the only item to have an increase in funding is the Pell Grant program. Pell Grants are funds that college students can be given after applying for federal financial aid, and the maximum amount receivable was just increased slightly to $5,730 due to an automatic, scheduled increase.
Other programs like GEAR UP and TRIO, which help individuals from disadvantaged or low-income backgrounds to receive an education, received the same amount of funding as before the 2012 sequestration. Although, according to Herbert DeCosta, chief grants development officer at ICC, simply maintaining funding may not be as good as it sounds.
“Costs increase every year as employees get raises or the price of materials rise, so normally every program needs a certain increase [in funding],” said DeCosta. “Even if you keep funding at the same level, that is already kind of a cut.”
One program that did get a cut in funding is a Title III grant program that awards funds to institutions of higher education so they can make significant improvements. ICC has applied for these grants in the past, but it is a very competitive application process and the grants are difficult to obtain.
“This may affect us,” said DeCosta, “because it means next year it’s going to be even harder for us to get one because there’s less grant money to apply for.”
The financial plan laid out by this congressional bill is intended to last until the end of the government’s fiscal year on Sept. 30. after which it will be up to congress to once again reevaluate federal funding.