Having a graduate in the U.S. Senate is not only a source of pride for colleges and universities, it can also mean wads of cash from the federal government.
A major spending bill under consideration in Congress provides more than $70 million in earmarks for the alma maters of 30 senators, roughly 40 percent of the higher education money earmarked in the legislation, an analysis by The Examiner shows.
The earmarks are tacked on to a $606 billion appropriations bill for Labor, Health and Human Services and Education that was overwhelmingly approved by the Senate last week and that now goes to conference committee to be reconciled with legislation previously passed by the House.
The Examiner’s analysis found that the senators’ old schools comprised 11.5 percent of the 234 colleges and universities designated for special grants. (Some of the senators went to the same schools, with the 30 lawmakers inserting earmarks for 27 institutions.)
But the senators’ alma maters got the lion’s share of the cash, an average of $2.6 million compared with an average of $492,000 for each of the other colleges and universities singled out for earmarks.
The Examiner’s findings were based on figures compiled by two watchdog groups, the Sunlight Foundation and Taxpayers for Common Sense.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., designated $2 million to the University of Kentucky, where he received his law degree, and $10.8 million to the University of Louisville, where he received a bachelor of arts degree.
The University of Louisville is home to the McConnell Center for Political Leadership, which he founded in 1991.
The top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Thad Cochran, R-Miss., awarded $11.4 million to his alma mater, the University of Mississippi. Cochran designated seven earmarks to the school, including $5 million for “phase II for the National Center for Natural Products Research,” located in the Thad Cochran Research Center.
Sen.Richard C. Shelby, R-Ala., earmarked $11 million for his old school, the University of Alabama. The school dedicated Shelby Hall, a $50 million transportation and science complex, in 2004.
Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., inserted $6.4 million for Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va. Byrd, who received his law degree from American University in Washington, D.C., in 1963, enrolled at Marshall in his 70s to complete his bachelor’s degree. He graduated from the school in 1994.
Marshall is home to the Robert C. Byrd Center for Rural Health, the Byrd Biotechnology Science Center and the Robert C. Byrd Academic and Technology Center.
“It’s become one of the hallmarks of the earmark process, getting more and more things named for themselves,” said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense.
University of Virginia political science professor James A. Savage, a critic of alma mater earmarks, said they undermine the tradition of academic peer review to ensure that the best projects receive funding. With earmarking, Savage said, “there is very little accountability for how the money is spent.”
By way of defending the decades-old practice, senators said that if they refrained from earmarking, other lawmakers would snap up the money for their states.
“In the purest world it would be better to have peer review,” not earmarks, said Republican Sen. Charles E. Grassley, who designated $700,000 to the University of Northern Iowa, his alma mater, and $5 million to the University of Iowa, where he attended classes. In the end, Grassley said, “it’s purely a political decision.”
