A month after a heated debate over the federal budget brought the government dangerously close to a full shutdown, members of the Tufts community can breathe easier knowing that the budget cuts were less severe than anticipated for local nonprofit service organizations and need-based federal financial aid for college students.
The Fiscal Year 2011 (FY2011) Continuing Resolution will fund the federal government until Sept. 30. The bill cut roughly $38 billion in federal spending, but largely preserved funding for nonprofit service organizations that serve the Medford and Somerville communities and engage student volunteers and graduates.
The passed budget was more conservative than the proposed Republican budget that passed the House of Representatives in February, which would have cut a total of $61 billion.
The passed FY2011 budget made modest cuts to funding for Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), which oversees AmeriCorps, as well as different sources of federal funding of low-income college students.
Tufts service learning spared
The bill cut 6 percent of CNCS funding, a decrease of $72 million from last year. The cut will be felt primarily by programs such as Learn and Serve America, which supports service learning courses, and Retired and Senior Volunteer Programs, a program that engages seniors in volunteer work, both of which were entirely eliminated.
The Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service received $500,000 in federal funding for the Project PERIS (Partnering for Economic Recovery Impact through Service) initiative through Learn and Serve America, according to Tisch College Director and Associate Dean Nancy Wilson.
The Project PERIS funding was a three-year grant, however, and will not be impacted by the cut, Wilson said. She noted that the university had not anticipated renewing the grant after it expires next year.
"Our grant is secure for the time being because it was funded out of last year's budget in its entirety," Wilson said. "[Learn and Serve America] is not a place we thought we would be likely to get money again soon from anyway."
Affording school becomes even harder
The final budget preserved the Pell Grant program, the largest source of need-based grants to college students, with the maximum grant remaining at $5,550. The bill discontinued the year-round Pell Grant program, however, which permits college students who attend college through the summer to receive two grants in a year. The cut will save the government $35 billion over 10 years.
Approximately 50 Tufts students received Pell Grants to subsidize the cost of summer classes last year, earning an average of $1,300 in grant money, according to Director of Financial Aid Patricia Reilly.
"Students were able to get a second Pell to help pay for summer courses to accelerate their degree," Reilly said. "This year they were able to get the grants, and last year they were able to get the grants, and next year that program will be gone."
The bill decreased funding by $20 million for Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (SEOG), which also help low-income students pay for college. Tufts last year received $576,000 in SEOG funding, money allocated to the university and distributed to students with the highest need, Reilly said.
Approximately 380 students last year received SEOG assistance, with an average grant disbursement of $1500, according to Reilly. She said that the university will not know exactly how significant a cut they will experience for a few weeks.
"The cut to the program was not a straight across the board cut and not all schools are impacted the same way," Reilly said. "I think that if we get cut at all it will be a nominal amount."
The university has no plans as of yet to allocate any additional money to financial aid in order to fill the gap caused by the budget cuts, according to Reilly.
"I expect [the cut] will be small enough that it won't impact our students," Reilly said. "Because we don't routinely offer summer financial aid, that's not something we are going to replace. Summer is a discretionary expense."
Nonprofits receive level funding but see no growth
CNCS is still in the process of determining how the cuts will impact its existing grants and renewal grants for other nonprofit organizations it oversees. AmeriCorps, a CNCS-house organization that funds national and local service organizations, experienced a $23 million reduction in funding.
AmeriCorps-supported programs such as LIFT, Jumpstart and Teach for America, however, expect to receive level funding next year.
LIFT, a national organization that trains college students to address the immediate needs of its low-income clients, employs approximately 45 Tufts student volunteers in its Somerville office, according to Colleen Flynn, LIFT Communications and Media Relations Manager. LIFT's site coordinators, who manage the day-to-day operations of the organization's local offices, are paid through AmeriCorps direct grants, Flynn said.
"Right now, LIFT doesn't have any conclusive information about how [the cuts] will affect us," Flynn told the Daily in an email. "We do know that for 2011 we will not be losing any AmeriCorps staff, but we will not be adding any new AmeriCorps staff."
Jumpstart, a national nonprofit that aims to prepare preschoolers in low-income communities for kindergarten, operates in 45 preschools in the Greater Boston area and employs between 50 and 60 Tufts students each year. The organization receives 40 percent of its funding from AmeriCorps and anticipates that it will receive level funding next year, according to Jumpstart Northeast Region Executive Director Susan Werley Slater.
"For Jumpstart, we are in the middle of a three-year continuation grant, so it is pretty hard to change that amount of money during the grant period," Werley Slater told the Daily.
Werley Slater said that while Jumpstart will not be forced to shut down any of its current programs in Massachusetts, the cuts would impact the organization's growth plan. Jumpstart will need to increase its private donations by 18 percent in order to fill the gap.
"It means that if we want to grow we have to think about how we are going to supplement our revenue with private fundraising," Werley Slater said. "We may have to scale back our growth plan because we don't want to roll something out that we can't fully fund."
Job opportunities remain intact
Teach for America, a program that hires recent college graduates to teach for two years in urban and rural public schools, is popular among Tufts graduates. AmeriCorps funding for Teach for America provides corps members with education awards toward future educational expenses or to repay qualified student loans, according to Teach For America Regional Communications Director Kaitlin Gastrock.
"The changes to AmeriCorps' funding will not impact the education awards corps members receive in the 2010-11 school year and it's too early to say how it might affect education awards in 2011-12," Gastrock told the Daily in an email. "It will not impact the number of corps members Teach For America is able to recruit, train and support next year."
Looking to the future
While nonprofit organizations may have largely dodged a bullet for FY2011, they are once again at risk as Congress begins to consider the FY2012 budget.
"2011 was the staging grounds for what we will see in 2012," Jumpstart Government Relations Coordinator Alyson Silkowski told the Daily.
Nonprofit organizations are gearing up to preserve their funding for 2012, engaging in lobbying and efforts to educate congressmen about the importance of public service.
"The thought is to do as much education with members of Congress to know that they know how financially important it is to have these service programs running," Werley Slater said.
Jumpstart is preparing for a long battle ahead, according to Silkowski. She predicts another contemptuous debate and a series of continuing resolutions for the FY2012 budget.
"The rest of the spring and the summer we are going to be as proactive rather than reactive as we can," Silkowski said. "We are going to work as hard as we can to meet the needs of the college students and children and their families by doing as much as we can to make sure the funding for service is preserved."
