Big cuts loom for education: 574,000 jobs at risk
(February 11, 2009)
By Greg Toppo
The first look ever at how the USA’s economic downturn could affect education finds that states probably will cut an estimated 18.5% of spending over the next three years, an $80 billion drop that could eliminate 574,000 publicly funded jobs.
The analysis, by Marguerite Roza, a senior scholar at the University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education, comes as congressional lawmakers begin working out a compromise on the economic stimulus bill. The Senate approved an $838 billion package Tuesday; the House of Representatives earlier approved an $819 billion plan.
The new analysis “obviously confirms what we have feared: that there is so much at stake now and we’re really trying to stave off catastrophe,” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said.
The projection doesn’t account for the effect of stimulus money, but Roza says the reality could actually be worse than she predicts, because she didn’t include dropping local funding; it’s too difficult to track at the moment. “We know for sure that local money is going to go down,” she says. “We just don’t know if it’s consistently or erratically.”
Duncan, who talked about the need for the congressional stimulus during a visit to a high school Tuesday in Virginia, says Congress has a “historic opportunity” not just to keep educators on the job but to improve education nationwide.
“We have to keep people employed and we have to educate,” he says. “I’d argue that we have to educate better.”
Publication: USA Today
Cutting the budget in higher ed makes no sense to improve the economy. The job losses alone disprove any notion that this will improve the economic situation. Not to mention the countless students who may not be able to afford school after the cuts in scholarship money or raising tuition costs. Fewer professors also means fewer scheduled classes and/or more crowded classrooms, diminishing the quality of ones education at the university level. These potential graduates are the future of economic prosperity. Income is positively correlated with education. Therefore, cutting into higher education translates to cutting in future income. Less money means less spending. Less spending does not improve the economy. So how is this helping??
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