Education is the Exception, Finally

As President Obama and his aides unveiled the administration's fiscal 2011 budget with lots of talk about reining in discretionary spending, they largely exempted programs important to higher education from the budget restraint they urged.

Not every higher education-related program would fare well under the budget blueprint; the administration would hold funding for many student aid programs other than Pell Grants at their 2010 levels and eliminate a handful of others; end the Department of Labor's Career Pathways Innovation Fund (a $125 million grant program for community colleges); and slice the budget of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

"At a time when most government spending is being frozen, President Obama is investing in education -- a clear reflection of the president's deep commitment to education," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a telephone news conference Monday. "The president has set a goal that America once again will lead the world in college completion by the end of the decade, and to do that, we need to improve the education at every level. This budget puts us on a path to success and meeting that goal. We have to educate our way to a better economy."

Read the full Inside Higher Ed article