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Most of the universities and colleges in America went through one of their worst financial crunch following major budget cuts this year. Educational field in the nation has not seen such bad times in many decades. According to a non-profit organization Commonfund Institute’s estimate, endowments went down by 19% this year which is a major hit for the institutions.

Dollars started disappearing rapidly with States withdrawing support for higher education. For example, this month saw student grants that are need based being reduced to a great extent in Oregon. This situation has been forcing colleges to devise ways and means of reducing costs and managing with whatever funds they have access to.

There is a plan to raise fee by a whopping 32% by the University of California which fuelled the protests by students. Saratoga Springs, NY located Skidmore College plans to cut down on the number of staff. At least 70 staffs will be sent out by the college in the month of February.

Low income students benefited to a certain extent as a 13% increase in the Pell Grant was approved by the law makers squeezing the Federal coffers. This signalled their strong commitment to provide access for the under privileged students to college education.

The Pell Grant program itself faced a challenge this year as there was a surge of enrolments in colleges this fall. The program faced a $18 billion shortfall which was three times more than last year’s shortage according to a recent report by the Associated Press.

Many different proposals were unveiled to support the Federal policy of providing education access to all. To ensure and emphasize that students who gain access to colleges complete their education successfully is the sole aim of many recent proposals initiated by the President.

These proposals also lean towards offering rewards to colleges that ensure students persevere and complete their graduation. American Council on Education is a group of universities and colleges and Terry Hartle, this council’s lobbyist says that President Obama does not want higher education to be a revolving door. Rather he wants this system to be an open door to all who want to be educated.

In order to equip the workforce of the nation to survive in the global economy, President Obama also proposed an allocation of $12 billion for community college reforms. Anthony Carnevale, the Center on Education and the Workforce, Georgetown University’s director says that until now, more focus was only on the four-year institutions. This is the first time in history that attention is being given to the two-year schools.

Other vital initiatives include boosting of the Pell Grant program by providing direct lending from the Government rather than through the Federal student loan program that is bank based. This will generate quite a bit of savings which will be used to boost these priorities. This bill has been however generating a lot of controversy and is expected to face stiff resistance in the Senate though it was passed with relative ease in the House.