New Threat to American Competiveness Discussed at Senate Hearing

“an altogether new problem has arisen since the Gathering Storm report was prepared. This new challenge deals with an issue that, to the best of my knowledge, was unforeseen by any of our committee’s members -- most assuredly not by myself.

“We had noted in our report that our nation’s great research universities were among America’s most significant assets in the crusade to create jobs -- along with our freedom and our free enterprise system. It is noteworthy that it is our universities that produce the talent we need to compete as well as much of the knowledge. Even today, according to The Times of London, the top five universities in the entire world and 18 of the top 25 are located in the United States.

“But these same institutions are now endangered. The share of their operating expenses funded by state governments is rapidly declining and now represent the lowest fraction of such resources in a quarter of a century. In three decades state financial support of higher education as a fraction of personal income has, on average, declined by 71 percent. One result is, for example, that at the highly regarded public universities in California, tuition and fees have grown by 240 percent in the past dozen years. Throughout the nation tuition and fees at public universities have increased by an average of 85 percent over the past decade, net of financial aid.

“Faculty have on average seen their salaries decline by 1.2 percent during the past year -- not including the effect of inflation; layoffs are not uncommon among junior faculty; and teaching loads are increasing. This reduction in state support is, in effect, privatizing our public universities - with much of the cost being shifted to the students - thereby fundamentally threatening the continuation of the American Dream. On the other hand, it may be appropriate for our universities to reconsider their own priorities and even their raison d’être. According to USA Today, major college football coaches receive an average compensation of $1.47 million per year, ‘a jump of nearly 55 percent in six seasons.’”

“It seems foregone that America’s universities are going to have to remake themselves, and how well they are able to do so will have either a profound positive or negative impact on America’s overall competitiveness. As this occurs, it will be of the utmost importance for government at all levels to recognize this challenge and, among other things, provide adequate funding of basic research; appropriately fund operating budgets; pay the true cost of research grants; increase need-based financial aid; and enable private universities to continue to build their endowments.”

“The 2007 act authorized the doubling of funding for the National Science Foundation, major research accounts at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science within seven years. Unfortunately, Congress did not follow its own direction with appropriations, slowing the doubling period to 15 years. The 2010 reauthorization attempted to find some middle ground with an 11-year doubling path, but, again, appropriations and the President’s request levels have not followed, pushing the doubling out to 18-years. Still, these science agencies have fared better than many and are better off on funding than they would have been without this effort. I will continue to push for full funding of these vital research and education activities.”

“The achievements of the legislation can be reasonably viewed as substantial from the perspective of analyzing what may have happened in the absence of the legislation. Key achievements that were enabled by the Acts include important expansions to the power of Federal agencies to implement innovation prize programs, the creation of Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E), funding for the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST), substantial funding for programs at the National Science Foundation (NSF), the harder-to-measure-enabling of agencies to implement programs consistent with the spirit of the COMPETES Acts. . .

“perhaps most importantly, the maintenance of a tenuous but consistent bipartisan consensus to preserve the funding of physical science and engineering programs even in the face of budgetary difficulties of historical proportions. It is reasonable to conclude that, absent the authorization of funding for science and engineering programs called for by the COMPETES Acts, the level of commitment to these areas would have waned over the past half-decade that U.S. leadership in science and innovation would have suffered as a consequence.”

“the current rate of funding increase for physical sciences and engineering is not appreciably greater than it was prior to the COMPETES legislation.

“Whether one views this as a success or not depends substantially on the perspective that one takes: Federal investment in physical science and engineering has not kept pace with the specifications of either COMPETES Act; however, in contrast to many areas of the federal budget, funding for these areas has not declined. Thus, investment in these areas . . . relative to other budget priorities is greater than it was prior to the COMPETES legislation and is likely substantially greater than it would have been . . . .”