UGA and Tech presidents: The fiscal cliff looms
Michael F. Adams is president of the University of Georgia. G.P. “Bud” Peterson is president of the Georgia Institute of Technology. With their football teams about to face off next week, the presidents co-authored a guest column on the fiscal cliff and its impact on higher education.
By Michael F. Adams and G.P. “Bud” Peterson
It’s no secret that our universities have a century-old rivalry in sports, but what isn’t as well known is that Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia are partners, collaborating in areas ranging from energy and health research, to teacher education, to strengthening local economies around the state.
Together, our two public research universities provide educational opportunities for 56,000 students and conduct $900 million in research each year, spanning everything from national defense to cancer treatments to Internet security. This research is not only critical to preparing students for good jobs and careers, it is essential if Georgia and our nation are to remain globally competitive while improving the lives of all citizens. But now, much of the federal funding for this important research is in jeopardy because of the so-called fiscal cliff, or sequestration, which is scheduled to go into effect on Jan. 1.
If sequestration becomes a reality, it will affect every major public research university in the nation — and this will impact jobs, the economy and, most importantly, our state’s future.
Nearly everyone agrees that sequestration would be a disaster. In 2013 alone, it would result in a $12.5 billion reduction in federally funded research and development across the U.S., causing an estimated 200,000 job losses, disrupting multi-year research projects, and hampering growth-inducing investments.
While we, as a nation, must get our fiscal house in order, we must do so in a way that helps ensure a prosperous future for our children and grandchildren. Our country faces some very difficult decisions over the next few months. The challenges will require us to set aside partisanship to hold a national dialogue around our nation’s priorities. We commend the leadership of Sen. Saxby Chambliss, former Sen. Sam Nunn and other national leaders who have been willing to work toward a long-term fiscal plan based on the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles Commission debt plan.
Last month, the Task Force on American Innovation, which includes private corporations, research universities and professional associations, sent a letter to the president and congressional leadership with a simple yet critical challenge: develop a plan for debt reduction while keeping the nation on the path to innovation and economic growth by prioritizing spending on science and technology. We support this challenge and urge our congressional leaders to act in a bipartisan way to address our nation’s fiscal challenges, while preserving the research and innovation that will allow us to stay competitive in the global economy.
Much of America’s competitive advantage in innovation can be linked back to university research. Lasers, the Internet, GPS, enhanced agricultural productivity, countless medical devices, life-saving breakthroughs in fighting disease in humans, animals and plants, and more would never have been developed without federally funded long-term research. In our increasingly global environment, if we reduce our investment in education and research while other countries increase theirs, we could compromise the very advantages that have made America strong.
Recently Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia were named by SmartMoney Magazine as No. 1 and No. 4 in the nation, respectively, for return on investment for graduates. It is a tribute to the University System of Georgia that two of its universities are in the top five in the nation in return on investment. The economic impact of both universities on Georgia’s economy is in the billions. And these are just two of America’s outstanding research universities. Imagine the regression in our economy — and in U.S.-based innovations — if sequestration were to result in the elimination of almost 9 percent of federally funded research and development in 2013 alone. Ripples would be felt here in Georgia and throughout the nation.
There is no doubt our leaders have tough choices ahead. We must courageously address the nation’s debt crisis, but we must also preserve the strength in America’s educational system. No other investment holds as much promise for providing the long-term solutions we need for economic growth and prosperity.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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80 comments Add your comment
Private Citizen
November 18th, 2012
12:57 pm
Those of you who believe “we already pay too much taxes” and believe in laissez-faire governing, etc. remember it during the coming doctor shortage. http://www.ajc.com/news/news/training-bottleneck-worsens-georgia-doctor-shortag/nSTrw/ from the article comments: the problem is that medical schools and governments can’t find enough money to pay for residencies.
Attentive Parent/Invisible Serfs Collar
November 18th, 2012
1:05 pm
UGa has been selling off what Georgia schoolchildren can learn in K-12 in return for multimillion dollar grants through its College of Education. The PRISM grant of 2003 was preceded in 2002 by the largest research grant in UGA history to indenture Georgia with the integrated math fiasco.
I listened to Bud Peterson give a speech last year where he claimed governments HAVE to direct economies. In fact I took good notes and wrote up his horrifying, economically illiterate, statist vision. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/and-governments-must-facilitate-everything/
Both men seem to have a tragic vision of education as a gigantic Give Me Whatever I want Scheme for the Politically Connected living at Taxpayer Expense. Federal, state, and local.
mountain man
November 18th, 2012
6:37 pm
“So you are saying charters do pick and choose their population and keep out those who “do not belong” just like Tech & UGA?”
Students SELF-SELECT getting into charters: only the parents who CARE about their kid’s education will apply. And the idea is that even if “undesireable” students get in, they will be expected to live within the rules and not allowed to dictate their own as happens in tradiational schools.
bootney farnsworth
November 18th, 2012
9:23 pm
@ private
the beauty of America is you are free to babble about things you know nothing about.
but consider this – while you have the right to expose your ignorance, should you really
be so determined to use it?
Fred ™
November 19th, 2012
1:10 am
bootney farnsworth
November 18th, 2012
12:28 pm
comparisons of us and Europe are stupid and pointless.
like apples to air conditioners.
++++++++++++++++++++++
Just like comparisons to you and a real college professor……….
crankee-yankee
November 19th, 2012
6:27 am
mountain man
November 18th, 2012
6:37 pm
“…only the parents who CARE about their kid’s education will apply.”
Ergo any parent that does not apply to a charter does not care about their child’s education.
A somewhat broad brush you are painting with.
mountain man
November 19th, 2012
6:43 am
“Ergo any parent that does not apply to a charter does not care about their child’s education”
That is not a logically true statement. Just because a thing is true does not make its converse automatically not true.
Parents who care have a host of options (now) – charter school, private school, home schooling, working with existing school to try to make it better. The parents who DON’T care are satisfied to leave their kids in the failing schools.
Week in Review, or Cautiously Optimistic :: NEWScience Policy
November 19th, 2012
7:27 am
[...] As negotiations continue, research organizations continue to sound the horn on the potential impact of sequestration. A group of research universities organized through the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities (APLU), the Association of American Universities (AAU), and the Science Coalition have launched a new website called Science Works for Us which demonstrates the state-by-state impact of sequestration to academic research. The American Institute of Biological Sciences has also released a video explaining how sequestration could impact federally supported research. In addition, a number of op-eds and articles have popped up around the country warning of the impact of sequestration on academic research, including these from the Boston area, the Chicago area, Duke, and Georgia universities. [...]
Private Citizen
November 19th, 2012
10:20 am
sequestration – an amount of money equal to the difference between the cap set in the Budget Resolution and the amount actually appropriated
bootney you’re hardly a neutral party. If you work as a professor (or variant of) in the UGA system, you’re party to loading students with great amounts of debt. It is not a minor or small matter. One difference in being a K-12 government schools teacher and teaching in the UGA government schools university is that when you teach in the university system you are, in great part, assisting the finance system to indenture people through debt slavery, the average being $25k per student when the leave. The students take the debt with them like a suitcase they drag around for a long time. If you wish to ridicule the rest of the world that does not do this, so be it.
Private Citizen
November 19th, 2012
10:29 am
mountain man, you left parents who love their children and do not have a working car. The lady I just tutored had the non-working car parked out from in the grass, blown water pump and questionable time chain. They use the car like a locker full of stuff. While I was there, the daughter stopped by and got the keys to the car to get something. This lady has worked diligently her whole life and is currently working with as much dedication as anyone I have seen in higher studies. Things will go better for her now that someone from her church got her a computer and she does not have to rely on rides to get back and forth to the school to do her coursework work in the computer lab. Thank goodness I do not know how to replace a timing chain. I’d probably be over there with jack stands and wrenches. Plus, I can’t stand transverse engines.
they sure got a lot of Kia cars in the poor neighborhood – Kias everywhere
Mitch
November 19th, 2012
10:58 am
Big problem with the University System is keeping up with the State and Nation’s needs. Right now,we are desperate for real world economist. People who know how the world works. What works well and what does ot. Our Legislatures and Congess are filled with college grads who just simply do not understand the economy. Engineers and mathmetitions are of little value when the Legislators have sent the factories packing.
Also, just for fun, I would like to see an audit of the Athletic Associations and the results released to the public. Who is getting all that money.
» Morning Reads For Monday November 19, 2012 Marvin Arrington Jr.
November 19th, 2012
11:03 am
[...] Items – Presidents Adams (UGA) and Peterson (GT) agree the fiscal cliff is a bad thing. – Tech, UGA students awarded Rhodes Scholarships. – The Braves want the area around Turner Field [...]
Mountain Man
November 19th, 2012
11:27 am
“mountain man, you left parents who love their children and do not have a working car.”
I am sorry that not everyone has a working car. Some parents (who care) work it out through bus transportation ( or getting rides with neighbors). They could also band together and create a charter school that provides bus transportation. Or they could work with their existing school to solve the problems of discipline, attendance, social promotion that have bedeviled systems.
Private Citizen
November 19th, 2012
11:29 am
Mitch – and Emory just vaporised their economics department. -Got to wonder about these places where those with the magic combination “MBA & a law degree” are running things. They’re run over anybody to make a world that looks like them. More of that neo-con neo-liberal creative destruction.
Want an econ degree? Don’t go to Emory. They don’t have one. How can you have a business school without an econ department? hides head in shame
Private Citizen
November 19th, 2012
11:31 am
I am sorry that not everyone has a working car.
No you’re not. And apparently charter school = no bus service. Good idea though from you – the problem solver.
Prof
November 19th, 2012
12:43 pm
@ Private Citizen, November 19th, 10:20 am: ‘ bootney you’re hardly a neutral party. If you work as a professor (or variant of) in the UGA system, you’re party to loading students with great amounts of debt. One difference in being a K-12 government schools teacher and teaching in the UGA [USG?] government schools university is that when you teach in the university system you are, in great part, assisting the finance system to indenture people through debt slavery, the average being $25k per student when the leave.”
This is ridiculous. What does the worker have to do with the management practices of the place where he or she works?
FYI
November 19th, 2012
2:17 pm
@ Bootney Farnsworth. As you’ve noted often on Get Schooled, you were one of those laid off at Georgia Perimeter College. On several blog-threads, you’ve implied that you were a professor there. (”As someone who has served several decades in higher education…”) Yet on the blog-thread “Bloody Monday: Layoffs at GPC,” June 18, 2012, you were a very frequent blogger about the unfolding events, and it’s clear from what you wrote that you were a staff member who had worked there for a fairly long time.
First of all, as you noted there often, the 282 who were laid off were either staff-members or part-time adjunct faculty, mostly the former. The latter would not be considered professors by any stretch. You yourself stated in many places that you were a staff member: “Almost every cut I heard of was of people like me who were relatively politically unconnected, worker bees. if anyone of significance – and higher wage – was eliminated, I didn’t hear about it.” Faculty do not term themselves as “worker bees”!
My sympathies are with you as a laid-off GPC staffer, but you clearly were NOT a professor.
UGA and Georgia Tech Presidents Sound Warning on Research Cuts
November 19th, 2012
4:42 pm
[...] Georgia UGA and Georgia Tech Presidents Sound Warning on Research Cuts Posted on November 19th, 2012 in Athens/Gainesville As Congress and President Obama work to settle on a budget deal and avoid the self-imposed “fiscal cliff” of mandatory spending reductions, they must take care not to undermine university research, UGA and Georgia Tech’s president’s argue in a recent opinion column. [...]
UGA and Georgia Tech Presidents Sound Warning on Research Cuts
November 19th, 2012
5:31 pm
[...] As Congress and President Obama work to settle on a budget deal and avoid the self-imposed “fiscal cliff” of mandatory spending reductions, they must take care not to undermine university research, UGA and Georgia Tech’s president’s argue in a recent opinion column. [...]
Veritas 753
November 19th, 2012
6:22 pm
1. Rik Roberts, “I don’t have any numbers to support it, but every time I have stepped onto a college campus in the last few years there has been major construction going on. When I drive around, the only real construction I see is at government facilities. These people talk about how cash strapped they are, but they seem to be the only ones with the funds to keep building and growing. Something has to end. I say let us fall off that cliff and begin to pick ourselves up once we hit the bottom.”
Rik: Check it out. Only two buildings at Georgia Tech have had any public money in them in the past decade. All else is either financed by the GT Foundation or by direct philanthropy.
2. Lance: Private Citizen, where do you think the money to pay for those student’s come from? It comes from a heavily taxed public. Check it out: What percentage of Georgia Tech’s operating budget (expenditure) comes from the taxpayer? 17%. Let me put this another way. The taxpayer invests 17 cents and Georgia Tech generates another 83 cents on its own. That is about the best return on investment I know of. If you could get that kind of return in the market, we would all be billionaires.
The problem here is that you guys actually believe the stuff you write without checking to see what the facts actually are. That is one reason we need Colleges and Universities. Someone has to concern themselves with the facts rather than simple minded beliefs without basis.
UGA and Georgia Tech Presidents Sound Warning on Research Cuts | Athens Georgia
November 19th, 2012
11:13 pm
[...] As Congress and President Obama work to settle on a budget deal and avoid the self-imposed “fiscal cliff” of mandatory spending reductions, they must take care not to undermine university research, UGA and Georgia Tech’s president’s argue in a recent opinion column. [...]
Private Citizen
November 20th, 2012
12:21 am
Veritas, you’re out of your mind if you think we’re “heavily taxed” when we have no public health care and are exploited on cost of tuition for state university. A number of people around the world would be slapping their knees saying “Oh no, can you believe it?” If we’re heavily taxed where does the money go? because it sure does not go to services for us. No chop, but you take this American condition of debt slavery and do not know of anything else. I spoke to a friend on the phone today on this topic and he said it (services) will never happen, the public has been told socialism = communism = bad bad bad for the last 50 years. Well, let me tell you something, you’re getting totally worked over in the USA and you don’t even know it!!!
prof – sorry for the punch in the gut – Oomph! (summon b&w depression era NY/Hollywood movie). Maybe when a great percentage default on their loans something will change. I Have a Dream – to open a private university, cash only, come as you are.
Private Citizen
November 20th, 2012
12:26 am
Veritas – START READIN’ http://www.oecd.org/ Leave the hillbilly ozone and join the civilized world.
Private Citizen
November 20th, 2012
2:16 am
prof What does the worker have to do with the management practices of the place where he or she works?
I think you’ve arrived at a Buddhist question. Let’s look at the rule book.
Noble Eightfold Path.
1. Right Understanding
2. Right Thought
3. Right Speech
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
6. Right Effort
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration
The five precepts
To refrain from taking life (non-violence towards sentient life forms)
To refrain from taking that which is not given (not committing theft)
To refrain from sensual (including sexual) misconduct
To refrain from lying (speaking truth always)
To refrain from intoxicants which lead to loss of mindfulness (specifically, drugs and alcohol)
Private Citizen
November 20th, 2012
2:17 am
pardon the bold. not closing html tag, prof
Prof
November 20th, 2012
2:38 pm
@ Private Citizen. Judging from your posts on this blog for the last few weeks…in which you noted that you are currently unemployed…I would say that you sound very much like an Occupy Atlanta person no longer in Woodruff Park who wishes to direct our attention to a great many social causes unrelated to the blog topics.
Private Citizen
November 20th, 2012
8:52 pm
prof, I regret that you wish to marginalize me as other than an individual. Social issues are highly related to education topics. It is a mystery to me that you are not shoutin’ it from the rooftops that kids do not have eyeglasses. And yes, I really do not doing a study abroad from my U. S. university and realising the professors I’m studying with charge a fifth of what I’m my university to study with them. Good luck on those three-author papers you maybe publish to keep your porcelain nice and shiny. I wonder if you live in the land of politics or the land of ideas, because ideas come from people but since you’ve got your game figured out this seems immaterial to you. Look bud, I’ve lived a lot of places and seen a lot of things. PS I must have hit a nerve. Good. unemployed? has a ring to it, doesn’t it? I like it. I sure did a lot of work today for someone “unemployed.” Currently have more gigs than time to do them. I feel a little guilty for my colleagues stuck in the box taking orders, processing directives. You’ve kind of confirmed my impression of Athens.
Private Citizen
November 20th, 2012
9:09 pm
to clarify, said impression being that Athens has the quality of being provincial. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/provincial
Prof
November 20th, 2012
10:00 pm
@ Private Citizen. I’m not in Athens. Everything I’ve published has been single-authored. You sure didn’t “hit a nerve”–it just seems ludicrous to criticize someone because he or she can’t change the policies of his or her employer.
Private Citizen
November 21st, 2012
7:05 pm
Prof, I wrote you a big reply and it got lost in the ether. Thank you for the dignified response.