Office of Planning & Budgeting

federal funding


February 14, 2013

TICAS Paper Proposes New Approach to Federal Financial Aid

“Aligning the Means and the Ends: How to Improve Federal Student Aid and Increase College Access and Success” is the Institute for College Access & Success’s (TICAS) white paper for the Reimagining Aid Design and Delivery project, sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (see our recent post for more information). Some of the report’s…


January 29, 2013

Sequester Update

Christy Gullion, Director of Federal Relations, recently provided an update on the sequester–the large, automatic federal spending cuts originally scheduled to take effect January 1st of this year, but delayed until March 1st thanks to a last-minute, bipartisan deal. For background information, please see our most recent post on the topic as well as the brief put out jointly by…


January 22, 2013

Moody’s Gives Higher Education a Negative Outlook

Last week, Moody’s Investors Service issued a negative short-term outlook for the entire sector of higher education based on its conclusion that every traditional revenue source for even the most elite colleges and universities is under pressure. That pressure, according to the report, is the result of nation-wide economic, technological and public opinion shifts, which…


January 2, 2013

Senate and Congress Reach Deal to Avert Fiscal Cliff

Yesterday, the Senate and House of Representatives approved legislation to avert the fiscal cliff. The deal postpones the automatic, across-the-board spending cuts—known as “the sequester”—by two months and increases tax rates only for individuals earning over $400,000 and couples earning over $450,000. The bill also preserves funding for Pell Grants and extends for five years the…


December 28, 2012

Fiscal Cliff Update

Christy Gullion, Director of Federal Relations, recently provided an update on the fiscal cliff–the combination of large decreases in federal spending and simultaneous increases in income taxes set to take effect January 1st. For background information, please see the brief put out jointly by the UW offices of Federal Relations, Planning & Budgeting, and Research.


December 11, 2012

NIH Proposals Could Impact Biomedical Research

On Friday, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) approved a rough implementation plan for a set of initiatives that could affect biomedical studies and the faculty, postdoctoral, and student researchers who conduct them. Three working groups proposed the plan back in June and mean for it to guide, diversify, and improve biomedical research through new grant programs…


September 17, 2012

2012 Democratic and Republican Higher Education Platforms

Now that both Democrats and Republicans have adopted party platforms at their respective conventions, what do we know about their plans for higher education? Below is a quick overview of each party’s higher education goals and associated action steps (past, present, or future) adapted directly from the parties’ formally-adopted platforms: DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM GOAL 1: To…


September 7, 2012

Pell Expenditures Decrease as Recipients Increase

The Pell Grant program, the largest federal student grant program, was expected to be $20 billion short of the $40 billion price estimated for FY12 (which ended July 1). However, the Department of Education surprised many with newly-released data showing the federal government not only spent well under that estimate at only $33.4 billion, but…


June 18, 2012

Research Universities and the Future of America: New NRC Report

In 2009, the National Research Council received a request from Congress for a “report that examines the health and competitiveness of America’s research universities vis-à-vis their counterparts elsewhere in the world”. Responding to the request, the NRC assembled a 22-member panel of university and business leaders and mandated them to identify the “top ten actions…



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