Chronicle
of Higher Education: The so-called supercommittee of 12
congressional Democrats and 12 congressional Republicans
admitted yesterday that it had failed to carry out its charge:
to reach agreement on a series of deficit-reducing measures.
The failure triggers automatic spending cuts, which include a
$3.54 billion reduction in the budget of the Department of
Education. If the automatic spending cuts go through as
scheduled in 2013, student-aid programs will lose $134 million,
which will affect some 1.3 million students. The
Chronicle's Kelly Field reports that the cuts to
Education are especially severe because they come on top of
cuts imposed in 2011 on career and technical education and
college preparatory programs.
