Education Secretary Weighs In on Hurricane-Relief Costs, Rising Tuition, Accountability, and Title IX
By Kelly Field, The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 22, 2005

At a luncheon on Wednesday at the National Press Club, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings fielded several questions pertaining to higher-education issues, including college costs, accountability, compliance with Title IX, and the impact of Hurricane Katrina. Following are excerpts of her responses to four paraphrased questions, along with analysis of some of her replies.

Question: Congress is looking for ways to offset the costs of the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. Do you anticipate any cuts to programs within the Education Department?

Answer: Obviously, there are programs that the president has called for trimming or eliminating, some of them in my department ... those are things that will be on the table.

Analysis: Ms. Spellings did not specify which programs might be cut. However, judging from the president's budget request for the 2006 fiscal year, it appears that several student-aid programs could be on the chopping block. Among them are the Perkins Loan program, which lends money to low- and middle-income families; the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education program, which provides funds to community colleges for career programs; the Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership, or LEAP, which matches every dollar a state spends on need-based aid; Upward Bound and Talent Search, two of the TRIO programs for disadvantaged students; and Gear Up, which helps middle-school students prepare for college (The Chronicle, February 18).