Ending weeks of tense debate, Congress and President Obama agreed this week to halt painful automatic cuts in higher education programs for at least 60 days while extending several education-related tax breaks important for low- and middle-income families.
The deal agreed to Jan. 1 would raise income tax rates for the wealthiest Americans, prevent automatic cuts known as “sequestration” for two months and renew several child- and student-friendly tax credits. But education advocates note that the agreement provides only a temporary reprieve from automatic cuts, which would begin in March without additional action by Congress.
“We got a stay of execution as opposed to a full pardon,” said Joel Packer, executive director of the Committee for Education Funding (CEF), an umbrella organization representing many key K-12 and higher education groups.
“The good news is that the sequester didn’t happen. But we’ll face enormous pressures for cuts again in two months,” he told Diverse.
The last-minute agreement averts potentially devastating economic effects of the so-called “fiscal cliff,” in which a collection of tax credits were scheduled to expire at the same time automatic cuts of 8.2 percent would occur government-wide because of lawmakers’ failure to reduce the national debt.
A temporary fix negotiated primarily by Vice President Joseph Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., became the basis for the short-term fix. The Senate overwhelmingly approved the plan by an 89-8 vote, while the House of Representatives approved it by a 257-167 vote, with most Republicans opposing the plan.
By delaying across-the-board cuts, the measure provides relief to nearly all federal education programs. Only Pell Grants would be exempt from the 8.2 percent automatic cuts, which would hit programs such as college work-study, aid to minority-serving colleges and universities and K-12 education aid.
