CollegeBound Blog

CollegeBound Blog

National Institutes of Health Limits Political Science Funding

Blog, Colleges, General, News

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on 3/21 that the US Senate appropriated funds to continue research at colleges and universities, however deep cuts are in store for political science research.  Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma strongly disagreed with the foundation’s spending priorities.  He “sent a letter last week to the NSF’s director, Subra Suresh, listing a series of agency-financed projects he considered a waste of taxpayer money. His list included several involving political science, including studies of voter attitudes toward the Senate filibuster and of the cooperation between the president and Congress.”

“Michael Brintnall, executive director of the American Political Science Association, who called it a dangerous act of political interference in science…(citing a) NSF-sponsored political-science … study of school districts and government that informed many of the efforts by mayors in recent years to improve school-system governance.” [read more]

About Jane Manley