This is exactly why we need to vote!!! :x :x
Black colleges' hopes unmetDiscord on Bush's advisory board has slowed drive for funding increases
By BOB KEMPER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/19/04
WASHINGTON — President Bush has increased funding for historically black colleges, but a proposal that school officials had hoped would more than double the colleges' share of federal higher education aid has been diluted in an internal dispute among Bush's advisers.
Bush came close to keeping his campaign pledge to increase direct aid to the more than 100 schools by $437 million over five years, falling about $10 million short even though Congress added to the increases Bush proposed.
But the White House opposed other initiatives to aid black colleges, including a plan to set aside at least $5 million a year in research grants for schools serving blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans. The administration said the proposal appeared to create race-based preferences, which it opposes.
And possibly the most significant blow to the colleges' hopes for greater funding was the breakdown of a special commission Bush appointed to advise him on how to strengthen support for black colleges and universities.
The commission was originally expected to propose an annual increase of more than $2 billion in funding for black colleges. But, wracked by infighting, it has only just submitted its first report to the White House — two years late and with its chief recommendation so watered down that some commission members and school advocates said it no longer holds promise of meaningful change.
"It would have been better, more desirable if he had gotten the report before this time," said Louis Sullivan, chairman of the advisory panel and former U.S. health secretary and former president of the Morehouse School of Medicine.
'Critical juncture'
In a letter to Bush that accompanied the report, Sullivan said historically black colleges "are at a very critical juncture," echoing concerns voiced by other advocates of predominantly black colleges who note that many schools, including Morris Brown College in Atlanta, are in such financial peril that they may close.
The commission's breakdown, which came less than a year after Bush appointed it with great fanfare in early 2002, robbed school advocates of the kind of ammunition they need to press the case for additional funding on Capitol Hill, activists and congressional aides said.
The panel originally was expected to recommend that 10 percent of all federal funding for higher education be earmarked for black colleges. That would have more than doubled current funding for the schools to nearly $4 billion annually within three to eight years.
But the report recently sent to Bush, and made publicly available Friday, now simply urges the president to "adopt a long-range goal" of increasing funding for black schools to 10 percent. It sets no timetable for Bush to act or for federal agencies to achieve that level of funding.
Black colleges now receive about 6 percent of the federal government's total spending on higher education. But specific funding levels vary widely among federal agencies because black colleges, lacking the necessary infrastructure, often are not able to compete for research funding, school officials said.
Advocates of the set-aside said forcing agencies to give a certain portion of their money to the black colleges was the only way to end the perceived second-class status of those schools. Opponents, however, argued that it would create a "quota" system and would be a non-starter in an administration that has gone to the U.S. Supreme Court to oppose race-based solutions in education.
"Most members felt a goal was a more realistic idea, that a set-aside was not practical," said Ronald Mason, president of Jackson State University and an advisory board member.
Set-aside battle
The fight on Bush's advisory commission over the 10 percent recommendation was chiefly responsible for the panel's delay in issuing the report and led to the resignation of the panel's first chairman, Benjamin Payton, president of Tuskegee University in Alabama.
Commission members said the leader of the fight against the set-aside proposal was Harold Doley Jr., an investment banker and former trustee of Clark Atlanta University who once told the Chronicle of Higher Education that the only way to save some financially strapped black colleges was to merge them with bigger schools.
Payton and Doley did not return a reporter's phone calls.
Sullivan replaced Payton last year.
"Clearly, the advisory commission was behind schedule. My job when I came in was to get the commission back on track," Sullivan said.
Members of the advisory commission's staff played down the significance of the dispute among board members.
Wilbert Bryant, counselor to Education Secretary Rod Paige on historically black colleges, called the fight over the 10 percent set-aside "one minor area of the report that caused some concern." Leonard Dawson, Bryant's deputy, said the delay didn't cause "any problem in the funding with respect to the institutions."
"The president is making good on his commitment even without the report," Dawson said.
Advocates for black colleges, however, said Bush's emphasis on direct aid to black colleges obscures the overall funding picture for those schools and other administration efforts that curtailed financial assistance.
The White House pushed lawmakers to strip from the Senate energy bill a provision that would have provided at least $5 million a year in grants for research on renewable energy sources to colleges serving minority students.
Bush also has been criticized for not pushing congressional budget writers to allocate nearly $19 million in new funding for historically black land-grant universities, which is part of an agriculture authorization bill but has not been fully funded. Congressional aides said lawmakers expect to increase funding to land-grant universities this year, but are unlikely to provide the full $19 million.
"The whole problem we've had is one of delays," said Willie Meaux, who lobbies on behalf of a group of black colleges in Washington. "In reality, when it comes to the real funding, the money hasn't been there."
Lawrence Davis, an advisory board member and chancellor of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, said he's still hopeful the 10 percent goal will be realized.
"If you look into the heart of our institutions the kindest word I can use is we've been under-funded," Davis said. "We really need these resources for basic needs on our campus."
I just registered to vote on Friday. He talked a good game around election time and now it looks like he doesn't have to live up to his word. I hope the commission can reach a consensus that would provide hbcu's with the much needed financial and land grant support, but somehow I doubt it.
yeah this is real sad, because the majority of HBCU's are either broke or very close to being broke. and its a damn shame that only 6% of the total funding for education goes to black schools!!
I agree that funding should definitely go to more HBCU's, and of course I'm not going against funding going there because I am going to one, albeit a private school. But there are 3000 schools in America and only slightly over 100 HBCUs. That means that HBCUs only make up like 3% of the total schools in the country...
Now, the recent consensus is that about half of those schools (1500) are public. I'm not sure how many of the 100 HBCUs are public, but I know that even counting the private ones, that would still only come up to 6%...so perhaps the funding is right? We have to remember that HBCUs only make up a small portion of all public schools, so we can't expect Bush to devote 50% of the funding to less than 6% of the schools.
In this case, I think that Bush actually did make a good-faith effort to increase HBCU funding, ironically enough, more of an effort than any of his predecessors of any political affiliation. The question addressed in the article was whether the government will mandate that all funding will have 10% allocated to HBCU's, which is highly optimistic. It would be great if it happened, though.
I think that this is a case of asking for a mile to get an inch. By having such a high goal, they might not expect to get it but at least get something more than we have now. The same way you haggle over a used car - make an offer that you know is too low in order to get some slack over the price that you can actually live with. Holla!
