As a high-profile congressional “super committee” nears final deliberations on a $1.2 trillion deficit reduction plan, higher education advocates are launching mobilization efforts to protect programs promoting college access for low-income students and students of color.
This committee of six Democrats and six Republicans has until Wednesday to agree on additional cuts in government spending required over a 10-year period.
“They’re looking at everything,” says Jason Delisle, director of the Education Budget Project at the New America Foundation. “It’s defense versus education versus transportation,” he told Diverse. “There’s no area of the budget that’s been left unturned.”
Meanwhile, representatives of historically Black colleges and universities have sent out alerts urging its members and supporters to contact members of Congress opposing cutbacks, which they said could total $85 million for HBCUs and predominantly Black higher education institutions.
“Cutting federal support for HBCUs would shoot an already weak economy in the foot,” said Johnny C. Taylor Jr., president of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. HBCUs employ more than 18,000 professors, counselors and other staff, providing an economic boost to their communities that would be at risk with cutbacks.
“Local businesses and national companies depend on the money that the colleges, their employees and students spend,” Taylor said, noting that Black colleges generate a total economic impact of $13 billion nationwide.
Formally known as the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, the closely watched “super committee” must produce a blueprint with more savings to meet requirements of last summer’s debt ceiling agreement. So far, Democrats and Republicans on the panel have not agreed on a deficit reduction plan, with Republicans largely opposed to tax increases and Democrats seeking to protect vital programs.
