Editorial: Sequestration hurts higher education

This weekend was a miserable one for higher education.

Because of this weekend, 100,000 students will be eliminated from federal work-study programs in the next fiscal year.

Because of this weekend, many upcoming freshmen receiving federal financial aid — about half of the 1.5 million first-time students enrolling next year — will not be certain of the size of the aid packages when matriculating.

Because of this weekend, federal research spending will drop by about $12 billion, or 8 percent, in the next year alone.

But finally, because of this weekend, all of these cuts might not happen because of something that might happen next weekend or the weekend after.

We sit at a time of extremely high uncertainty regarding federal funding for higher education. While most of our efforts and concerns over the past couple of years have been over uncertainty in Harrisburg, one broad case of inaction has made these trials pale in comparison.

Democrats and Republicans, in a spectacular display of statesmanship, crafted a bill, now known as the sequester, from which dramatic cuts would be imposed on military and domestic spending if legislators could not compose a replacement bill by March 2.

As the Friday deadline passed, a deep fog of finger-pointing has allowed the cuts to emerge untouched. Nobody is taking responsibility for anything; both parties accuse the other of taking the country hostage as they pursue ideological purity.

There are two problems here, with the more obvious simply being the cuts themselves. While they do spare Pell Grants, the cuts on the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants hit low-income students particularly hard. Other cuts to college preparatory programs such as TRIO and Gear Up further damage disadvantaged students.

But even if these cuts are inevitable and analysts decide these are actually the most wasteful dollars the federal government outlays, the sequester process makes it impossible for the non-powerful to properly plan.

Students face real decisions when deciding between smaller community colleges and larger state schools that are entirely based on finances. These students should not be considered pawns in a larger chess game of Capitol Hill insiders.

Universities also share the burden of last-minute budgeting. As outlined in Chancellor Mark Nordenberg’s report to the Senate Council in January, Pitt and other schools face very difficult choices and “damage that also could be irreversible.”

It’s an ugly situation that doesn’t engender any public trust or faith in government. In a more sane world, if cuts needed to happen, they would be done openly and under the auspices of a full, honest discussion. Legislators would own their cuts, and everybody — from rich to poor — could actually try to develop plans to help mitigate the burdens.

But that’s not today’s world. For the foreseeable future, it seems that uncertainty wins the day.