Despite continued conversation in Congress about an impending budgetary crisis for the Pell Grant program, the Congressional Budget Office released a report Wednesday stating that the grant currently has a budget surplus and that future shortfalls will be much smaller than expected, according to Inside Higher Ed. The Pell Grant, the federal government's student aid and loan program, has a $9.2 billion surplus for 2013, due to eligibility changes and the elimination of loans for graduate students. The Pell Grant will be $2 billion over budget in 2015 rather than the $8.7 billion shortfall that was previously predicted. While future budgetary concerns remain and Congress foresees the need for a long-term plan to maintain the Pell Grant's solvency, the report has alleviated imminent concerns about a potential crises in the next few years, Indside Higher Ed reported.
Students and faculty at Gustavus Adolphus College have published documents that criticize the actions of Jack Ohle, the college's president, on a website titled GustieLeaks, Inside Higher Ed reported. Modeled after WikiLeaks, the site features anonymous posts detailing years of confidential administrative letters and survey results to call for Ohle's immediate removal. According to online users, Ohle has undervalued the student body, poorly managed the school's financial resources and undermined dealings with faculty. The online tool has allowed students, faculty and alumni to cooperate in gathering evidence of Ohle's wrongdoing, including evidence that he had violated school policy twice as the former president of Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa.
Members of ScienceWorksForU.S. and other academic re-search institutions urged Congress on Tuesday to stop across-the-board spending cuts set to take effect next month, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported. According to the research group, the automatic spending cuts would reduce federal support of university research by an estimated $95 billion over the next nine years. The cuts were created to reduce the federal deficit and were supposed to be implemented last month, but have been postponed until March 1. The coalition of national university researchers, however, aims to eliminate the research funding cuts altogether and claims that reduced support would cause the loss of scientific and medical research crucial to the country's economy, according to The Chronicle.
Compiled by Axel Hufford
