Congressional Budget Cuts

[Zahar Berkut]

So by now many of you have probably heard that education-- including some scholarships and fellowships in international education/studies under "Title VI"-- are getting chopped in the new national budget. It's unclear to me what effects this will have. I already know that international Fulbright applicants applying for study in the US are taking a hit, and I expect the same to happen for U.S. applicants for study abroad, though I'm not able to say how much the numbers will be affected, or in which countries.

Any thoughts?

Here's a link to a short blog post on the international education cuts: "Programs that fall under the Title VI umbrella include National Resource Centers, grants to universities for modern foreign language study; the Foreign Language and Area Studies fellowships; Language Resource Centers, which research teaching and learning of foreign languages; and centers for international business education and research, among others. Many emphasize languages and regions that are considered strategically important or are infrequently studied, Kazanjian said.The Education Department also administers Fulbright grants for doctoral dissertations, faculty research, group projects and seminars abroad."

http://saveourforeignlanguages.wordpress.com/2011/04/16/congress-cuts-foreign-language-funding/

[fumblewhat]

Here's a link to a short blog post on the international education cuts: "Programs that fall under the Title VI umbrella include National Resource Centers, grants to universities for modern foreign language study; the Foreign Language and Area Studies fellowships; Language Resource Centers, which research teaching and learning of foreign languages; and centers for international business education and research, among others. Many emphasize languages and regions that are considered strategically important or are infrequently studied, Kazanjian said.The Education Department also administers Fulbright grants for doctoral dissertations, faculty research, group projects and seminars abroad."

http://saveourforeig...nguage-funding/

Worrying. Though one of the experts quoted in the article you linked suggested that the Department of Education may have some discretion about where the $50 million will be cut:

“It remains to be seen how much flexibility they’re going to have to not cut Title VI for $50 million,” Kazanjian said. “They would have an ability to shift things around, to my knowledge. Hopefully they’ll do that in a way that won’t be so devastating to these small programs.”

The Dept. of Ed. already assured my department (which in turn assured me) that my FLAS funding would not be touched for the coming school year. I'm hoping this indicates Good Things more generally for the language and area studies initiatives that the Department of Education supports... But it does seem like the wind is blowing in the opposite direction. Maybe the 2012-13 school year will be a bleaker picture.

Here's another article on the matter from the Chronicle of Higher Education:

http://chronicle.com/article/Language-and/127122/

[Zahar Berkut]

Very glad to hear your school's FLAS won't get touched in the coming year (I'm starting in the fall with a FLAS award, and I've been hesitant to contact my program and ask about it). Thanks for the Chronicle link, too.