Time has run out. Since Congress was unable to agree on a bill to fund the government or President Obama’s largely disputed health-care initiative, the government has shut down.
For the University of Oregon and other public universities, if the government shutdown lasts less than a week, the effects will be minimal.
“From a student aid perspective, we don’t expect any impact at all,” said Jim Brooks, director of financial aid and scholarship at the UO. “The federal aid programs are forward funding, so although the federal offices may be closed, students won’t feel the impact.”
According to the education department, the annual allocations for the school year have already been allocated and do not require further congressional authorization. The office of financial aid at the UO stated that the education department will continue to award students aid and service student loans.
The office for research, innovation and graduate education at the UO has been monitoring the federal budget discussions to prepare for the challenges that the shutdown will create.
“A short-term shutdown may impact only a relatively small number of our sponsored activities; a longer closure could put significant pressure on campus financial and personnel administration supported by federal awards,” read a message sent out from the vice president for research and graduate studies at the UO.
According to USA Today College, the full impact of the shutdown on public education is unknown, “though it would certainly severely curtain the cash flow to school districts, colleges and universities.” More than 90 percent of The U.S. Education Department’s 4,225 employees are furloughed during the shutdown.
Roughly 20 percent of school district funding comes from the education department’s funds and over 14 million students receive student aid in the forms of grants and loans at over 6,600 schools through both Pell Grants and Direct Student Loans. If the shutdown is prolonged, these payments could be delayed due to a lack of employees to process the payments.
The highly anticipated government shutdown went into effect on Tuesday, October 1, 2013. The Democratic-controlled Senate and the Republican-controlled House were unable to agree on the twelve yearly appropriation bills to fund the federal agencies and set spending priorities. The House recently passed a funding bill that delayed the Affordable Care Act for one year, as well as repealed a tax on medical devices. The Senate rejected the measure and after voting several more times, Congress was unable to come to an agreement, thus beginning the first government shutdown in 17 years.
In years of similar dispute, Congress resorted to stopgap budgets to keep the government funded, but Congress was unable to agree on how to execute the new stopgap. The last stopgap passed on March 28 and ended on September 30.
A government shutdown does not mean all government functions will evaporate. Functions related to national security, public safety or programs written into permanent laws, such as Social Security, will still continue to be carried out.
The office of management and budget recently ordered federal agencies to evaluate and separate employees into “essential” and “non-essential” workers to prepare for the anticipated shutdown. Roughly 1.3 million essential employees will continue working, albeit without immediate pay. An estimated 800,000 non-essential federal workers will be sent home during the shutdown.
There is no estimate on how long the government shutdown will last.