The realm of academia can appear sheltered from the rest of the world, secluded in a bubble of knowledge accumulation and dissemination. But with Tuesday’s shutdown of the federal government — the first in 17 years — the world of real politics is currently intruding on the realm of higher education in an alarming way that will surely pose a disturbance to colleges around the nation.
Depending upon the length and severity of the shutdown, areas essential to daily college functions, such as financial aid, research funding and support for archives and museums could become inaccessible. An extended shutdown would hurt a number of important economic sectors in the country, including higher education.
With the government shutdown, the prolonged closure of federally run agencies and departments would certainly be a blow to the United States’ infrastructure, and education is no exception to that phenomenon. While Pell Grants and other federal forms of financial aid are largely unaffected in and of themselves, the Department of Education has stated that an extended shutdown would “severely curtail the cash flow” of federal funds to colleges. The money is there, but employees are not present to direct appropriation of funds. What is more, an extended shutdown would delay fund allocation later in the year for incoming classes of students.
Research funding, especially that from the National Institute of Health, would also suffer, and grant decisions — traditionally made in late fall or early winter — could be pushed back. Many museums, archives and databases are also temporarily unavailable, given that there is federal ownership of some data or artifacts. Though these effects would not directly cease operations at a university, they definitely present potential obstacles and challenges that could seriously disrupt the tightly wound college industry.
Though many Republicans have suggested that now is the time to make a stand, their determination will affect higher education — which has equally important public and private components — in a negative fashion. Necessary services that require federal funding have been halted — and if that continues, universities will have to compensate quickly. Calendars and planning for financial aid and research funds would be thrown into misalignment. It’s all well and good to make a political stand, but one that so undermines the industry of knowledge production in the country is misguided at best.
Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board: its editor, Rachel Occhiogrosso, and its members, Daniel Jeon, Hannah Loewentheil and Thomas Nath. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.
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