Bush Budget Has Controversy, But Few Gains
Many student aid programs face funding freeze
By Charles Dervarics

The Bush administration is proposing a funding freeze for many student aid programs next year while cutting a variety of K-12 initiatives, including several projects to promote school reform.

The top Pell grant for needy students would remain unchanged at the current $4,000, while the budget would eliminate some campus-based loans and an incentive program for states to offer their own need-based aid. At the K-12 level, the budget would provide a moderate increase for the Title I program but would cut funds for after-school services and career education while eliminating smaller programs on technology and high school reform.

A year after passage of a K-12 reform law and at a time when lawmakers will consider the renewal of key student aid programs, many advocates were critical of the plan for funding education programs in 2004.

"The president is waging a budget war against poor children," says Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund.

Rep. Charles B. Rangel, D-N.Y., a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus, also criticized the budget as short on specifics. With a deficit projected at $300 billion, "this budget is a recipe for passing along our problems to other congresses, other presidents and other generations," Rangel says.

But administration officials, led by U.S. Secretary of Education Dr. Roderick Paige, said the plan provides moderate increases unavailable to other federal agencies. Overall, the department's budget would increase $1 billion to a total of $61 billion next year.

"We also are proposing to spend our education dollars more wisely," Paige says. "In these times of tight budgets and accountability, we can no longer continue to fund programs that simply are not helping students achieve."

Some of the department's largest programs would get increases. Title I education funds would increase an extra $1 billion, to $12.4 billion. Also, while the maximum Pell grant would not increase, the program would get an extra $1.9 billion to address a growing shortfall triggered by student demand and the recession.