Bucking a national trend towards increased spending on lobbyists, Tufts ranks low on the list of big spenders.
Colleges and universities have come to rely more and more upon federal grants, forcing them to earmark more funds for lobbyists in order to have a chance for success in Congressional appropriations committees.
National spending on lobbying by institutions of higher education doubled between the years of 1998 and 2003 to approximately $61.7 million.
The rise in lobbying corresponds with a jump in Congress' spending on grants directed to a single university or college. Since 1998, total spending of such grants has quadrupled from $495 million to $2 billion.
These grants, called "earmarked funds," have colleges and universities in stiff competition for lobbyists.
"[Hiring a lobbyist is] like advertising," Professor Emeritus of Economics at Pennsylvania State University Irwin Q. Feller told The Chronicle of Higher Education. "But then all the other firms in that industry start advertising too. Then no firm can afford not to advertise."
Not only has university spending on lobbying increased, but the number of institutions hiring lobbyists has also more than doubled, from 240 in 1998 to 558 in 2003.
Universities hire lobbyists to shape and polish requests for federal money and ensure that they are filed in the governmental department most likely to dispense funds.
However, a study by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Toronto found that universities have a much higher chance of receiving funds if their state representative or senator is on the appropriations committee.
The study found that "a one percent increase in lobbying expenditures by a university without representation ... results in a 0.15 percent increase in earmarks," while if the university is represented by a senator, the increase is on average 0.35 percent.
Furthermore, colleges with representation on an appropriations panel had returns varying from $11 to $46 to the dollar in 2003.
Still, smaller colleges and universities are relying on expensive lobbyists to compete with much larger state universities.
Tufts, however, has yet to put a marked financial emphasis on lobbying. Out of the 558 academic institutions spending money on lobbying, Tufts ranked 349 in expenditure.
Tufts paid $60,000 to lobbyists in 2003 compared to the top spender, the University of California system, which spent $1.24
million.
Most students on the Hill remain unaware of spending on lobbying, but some expressed reservations when the situation was explained to them.
"Shouldn't they just put the money straight to the things [the money is marked for] instead of to ask the government for them?" sophomore Miriam Leuin said. "It seems sort of round-about."
President Larry Bacow was unavailable for comment at time of press.
Tufts' low expenditure on lobbying is particularly unusual in the context of Boston-area schools. Boston University ranked fourth nationally in lobbying, spending $800,000, and Harvard was seventh at $520,000.
But Tufts Associate Professor of Economics David Dapice said that while academic spending on lobbying has increased, federal government spending on education has remained minimal.
"Total federal support to education is modest, about $13 billion to private [institutions] and $20 billion for public [institutions]," Dapice said. "That is $33 billion out of over $2,000 billion in spending."
Federal funds most often go towards projects like new buildings and facilities. Occasionally, universities will lobby for policy changes, such as when Yale lobbied the government regarding prescription drugs for medical education during the time of the Medicaid Bill.
