The Sequester: What is it and what does it mean for you?

If you have been paying attention to the news lately, and likely even if you haven't, you are probably aware of the "fiscal cliff" and the ensuing "sequester" or "sequestration."  Despite its prominence in recent news stories, the sequester remains a mystery to a lot of people.  My goal in this post is to share some information about the sequester to help you understand what it is, and how it may affect you.

To that end, the obvious first question to answer is "What is the sequester?"  The sequester is a set of budget cuts and tax increases that were "intended to reduce the federal deficit by $1.2 trillion as required by the Budget Control Act of 2011" (Council of Graduate Schools, document here).  These cuts were drafted as a response to the deepening economic crisis that began in 2008 and had driven our government towards bankruptcy.  Interestingly, it can be argued that no one ever intended for the sequester to actually occur.  Rather, the sequestration was scheduled to come into effect automatically in January 2013, providing a deadline that would intimidate law makers into agreeing upon a federal budget.  This deadline is what was referred to in the media as the fiscal cliff.

Well, predictably, our law makers were not able to come to an agreement and we fell off the cliff.  The next logical question to ask is "what does that mean for us?"  I've outlined some details of the spending cuts below that are particularly applicable to graduate students and researchers:


U.S. Department of Education Higher Education Program: -$186 million

• Office of Federal Student Aid: -$254 million

U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science: -$400 million


National Institutes of Health: -$2.5 billion

• According to the Council of Graduate Schools "the NIH budget cuts due to sequestration can translate into approximately 2,400 fewer research project grants made to universities and institutes throughout the country."

National Science Foundation Research and Related Activities: -$469 million

• Education & Human Resources: -$76 million
• "The NSF would fund 1,600 fewer research and education grants which would be equivalent to approximately 19,300 fewer researchers, students, and technical support personnel than FY 12"  (Council of Graduate Schools)

Clearly, these cuts are substantial and are not to be ignored.  It is likely that they will have far-reaching and long-lasting impacts on federal funding for research activities (and for federally funded programs across the nation). In the words of Marc Kastner, Dean of the School of Sciences at MIT, "The sequester wreaks its havoc by striking the hardest at particular points in the life cycle of a university researcher...Cuts in budget strike those dependent on other people's grants -- graduate students, post docs and soft-money research scientists."

Underlying this entire discussion is a conflict that has been developing in this country for many years: the trend toward broad-scale defunding of basic science in favor of applied or industry related science (what AAAS CEO Alan Leshner refers to as "quick-turnaround, low-risk" science).  Many law makers have been calling for the federal government to stop funding basic science altogether.  Probably not the best example, but remember Sarah Palin loudly and publicly decrying the use of federal funds to study fruit flies?  I'm not going to touch the politics of Sara Palin with a 10-foot (3m) pole, but this particular example is only one of many that has been voiced in recent years.

The real kicker here is that basic science is incredibly important.  I know I'm preaching to the choir, but I will again quote Marc Kastner in saying that "paying for basic research is a bet a society makes on its future...(for example) it's estimated that the Human Genome Project delivered a return on investment of 141:1 -- $141 in wealth created for every dollar spent on the job."  Some experts believe that not investing in basic science can have devastating economic effects.  The non-partisan Information Technology & Innovation Foundation released a report estimating that the cuts to basic research found in the sequester would reduce the GDP of the U.S. by $200 billion over a nine year period.

So, that brings us to our final section: "How is the sequester affecting us right now, and when is it going to end?"  There is no denying that we are already feeling the effects of these budget cuts.  I personally know of at least one person who lost their PhD funding, as it was coming from a project that was cut due to sequestration.  The EPA still has not announced the recipients of this years STAR fellowships, and the outlook is getting grimmer by the day.  In the words of EPA STAR technical contact, Brandon Jones:

"Yes, the Sequester has put quite a damper on things, including award announcements.  No award decisions have been made and right now we do not have a timeline for those decisions."

Like the EPA, many federal funding agencies are unable to say one way or another how many awards they will be giving in the coming years, or even whether they will be able to continue funding grants and scholarships at all.  One major reason for this is that no one knows how long sequestration will be in effect.  The sequester ends when law makers pass a federal budget, but due to the seemingly universal inability of our law makers to find compromise with one another, it remains unclear when this will happen.  The timing, and more importantly the content, of the new budget will play a large role in determining how federal funding for graduate students will be affected in the coming years.  For example, Obama's most recent budget includes some fairly major changes to federally funded graduate fellowships (though it seems very unlikely to me that this budget will be accepted by law makers).  Check out the details here.

To make this very long story short, no one really knows exactly how the sequester will affect graduate students or when it will end.  In the short term, it's not looking great, but we won't know the long-term outlook until a new budget is passed.

In the mean time keep your chins up and struggle on!

Casey