Way back in January, during his State of the Union address, the
president offered a proposal that had both Democrats and
Republicans clapping.
It was something that didn’t happen much that night. The
speech was peppered with references to tax cuts, rebuilding Iraq,
and marriage “protection.” Those sitting on the left
side of the aisle weren’t exactly thrilled.
Partisanship has since been oriented around President Bush and
his supporters or critics, rather than around party lines. Richard
Clarke and Paul O’Neill have hit the bestsellers list,
liberal talk radio hit the airwaves, and the one-year Iraq
anniversary passed with protests worldwide. Even the Mars funding
debate was fueled by pro- and anti-Bush partisans.
Open-minded cooperation with this president, at least on the
public front, is dead.
Which is why Bush’s offer to give $250 million in federal
funds to community colleges for job training seemed, at least in
January, to promise that he could avoid infighting when it comes to
higher education spending.
Think again.
The country’s 1,200 two-year community colleges are often
neglected financially by state and federal lawmakers in favor of
their four-year cousins. Public four-year universities have higher
profiles, bigger budgets, and serve larger student bodies.
Most politicians, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger included, still
champion the community colleges as an inexpensive, good-quality
alternative, even as they propose to increase fees and reduce their
budgets.
These schools (just over 100 in California) are convenient for
politicos of both major parties looking for an easy cause to
champion. Their wallets, however, aren’t committed ““
and furthermore, they aren’t cooperating with each other.
Turns out Bush’s proposal has run up against Republican
opposition in Congress, and its widespread appeal is disintegrating
now that Bush has made cuts that effectively cancel out his
original offer.
A key Republican on the Congressional subcommittee charged with
overseeing the Education and Labor Department budgets is now
objecting about the cost of Bush’s proposal, according to the
Chronicle of Higher Education. And he worried at a hearing last
Thursday that the emphasis on job training might be lost to
academics instead.
In the 1990s, even amid the decade’s recession, community
colleges focused heavily on job training and teaching industry
skills. Enrollment was steady, even though budgets were declining.
Now there is a renewed interest in job training ““ yet
enrollment is increasing and budgets are falling.
But job training really isn’t the biggest problem these
schools are facing right now. Two million jobs have been lost in
the past three years, to the economy or abroad, and a brand new
batch of qualified employees isn’t exactly what the economy
is looking for.
And most importantly, the money probably won’t make much
of a difference ““ if the proposal even makes it past
Congress. Simple division comes out to only about $200,000 per
school, and Bush is already planning to cut funds from other
programs that funnel money into these campuses. Among these is a
$300 million cut from the Carl D. Perkins program, which is used to
give students career and technical training.
Go figure.
The Bush administration is talking out of both sides of his
mouth, so to speak. That $250 million proposal, which might have
won the president some supporters in higher education, was a
tease.
E-mail [email protected] if you want to fib on your
tax return and chat about those increasing student fees.