Senate Votes Down Higher Ed Funding

An amendment to reduce cuts to the higher education budget and increase student aid floundered in the Senate on Tuesday.

Senators Edward M. Kennedy ’54-’56 (D-Mass.), Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), and Susan M. Collins (D-Maine) proposed an amendment that would provide an additional $6.3 billion to the discretionary spending for education.

The increase in funding would have gone towards raising Pell Grants from $4,050 to $4,500 and restoring programs including the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) and Perkins Loans, both of which were eliminated by President George W. Bush’s recent 2007 fiscal year budget cuts.

GEAR UP targets low-income students in an effort to prepare them for higher education and the Perkins Loan is a low-interest loan for students with demonstrated financial need.

“These programs are crucial for access to college and access to the American dream for all students, no matter what their background or financial means,” Collins said in a statement, before the amendment went to a vote in the Senate.

The amendment failed in a 50-50 split.

Both Collins and Kennedy said they were disappointed by their amendment’s failure.

“By rejecting our amendment, the Republican Senate turned its back on countless struggling students in communities around the country,” Kennedy said in a statement. “It’s wrong to deny them the help they need to afford the skyrocketing cost of college.”

While Collins expressed disappointment, she also said in a statement that she would continue to work for increased funding for higher education.

Harvard Director of Federal and State Relations Suzanne Day said that she was concerned about the amendment’s failure and the future of the discretionary education budget.

Day also said that it is still too early to determine the consequences of the federal fiscal year budget for 2007. Any amendment has to pass through the Senate and the House of Representatives, which has indicated that it won’t be considering budget resolutions until two weeks from now, according to Day.

Though Kennedy, Menendez, and Collins’s amendment failed in the Senate this week, another amendment proposed by Senator Arlen Specter (R-Penn.) and co-sponsored by 22 senators to increase funding by $7 billion for health, education and training, and low-income programs passed in the Senate yesterday in a 73-27 vote.

—Staff writer Claire M. Guehenno can be reached at guehenno@fas.harvard.edu.