Here’s why funding public education and research funds America’s future

Federal funding for education and research has been critical to America’s competitiveness and innovativeness. The recent budget blueprint released by the administration projects deep cuts to several student aid programs, including programs that aid low-income and minority students, and decreases in funding for agencies that support research, including the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

The proposal also eliminates funding for the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities, funding that has been critical to creative thought and expression and to the historical and cultural development of our communities.

If enacted, the proposal can have a profound negative impact on our nation’s ability to sustain its competitive position in science, technology and education.

Federal policies and funding starting with the 1862 Morrell Act to establish land-grant universities, and continuing through the 1945 GI Bill, the 1963 Higher Education Facilities Act and the 1972 Basic Education Opportunity Grants (renamed Pell Grants in 1980) have been essential to the democratization of access to higher education.

These actions have enabled millions of U.S. residents to have access to post-secondary education, an opportunity that in many ways is uniquely American. College enrollment in colleges increased from about 2 million in 1965 to over 20 million in 2014. More recently, enrollment in post-secondary institutions increased by 21 percent between 1994 and 2004 and by 17 percent from 2004 and 2014.

Access critical

Access to post-secondary education is even more critical at this time. Workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher accounted for 73 percent of the 11.6 million jobs gained in the recovery after the Great Recession. With an increasing proportion of students entering our institutions from low income and under-represented communities, it is imperative that the federal government continues to expand support for those populations if we are to avoid a highly segmented society with a permanent underclass population.

Federal funding has also been the catalyst for research conducted in our universities that has been the backbone for America’s global innovation and competitiveness, while being equally important to enrich both undergraduate education and graduate education at our institutions. This research has enabled the United States to develop and sustain a leadership role in manufacturing, medicine, national security, the internet and computer technology, and unparalleled productivity gains in manufacturing, agriculture and transportation, among other industry sectors.

Furthermore, university research creates new technologies, new businesses, new industries and new jobs. A liberal arts education, supported in so many ways by National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities, is exactly the training ground for jobs and careers that we cannot now envision or even anticipate. While industry-based research funding is needed to complement federal research funding, it is no substitute for basic and foundational research funded by federal investment through agencies like National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation – research that is critical to addressing society’s major challenges.

It is fair for the public to hold us, in education, responsible and accountable for outcomes, whether it is the number and quality of our graduates and student access and affordability, or it is the impact of our universities’ research work. But decreasing or eliminating federal support for education and research is shortsighted and it will have a significant negative impact on our competitiveness in the global marketplace – in terms of our home-grown human talent and our innovativeness in improving the safety and quality of our lives.

I hope that we can partner with the federal government to position our education enterprise for the benefit of our citizens and our future. And, in the process, work on outcomes that can better demonstrate that funding in public education and research is funding in America’s future.

This story was originally published April 21, 2017 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Here’s why funding public education and research funds America’s future."