NASA faces education budget cuts

Agency’s leader says changes are a ‘focused’ effort

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s proposal to cut NASA’s 2018 budget means its education office, which creates programs for students from grade school through college, would be eliminated. But Robert Lightfoot Jr., NASA’s acting administrator, assured senators the agency’s focus on education won’t change.

Lightfoot spent much of his time before the Senate space committee defending the agency’s proposed $19.1 billion budget, a drop of $561 million from current spending.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Space Grant program, founded in 1989 to expand science, technology, engineering and math education access, as well as the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, or EPSCoR, designed to improve regional research infrastructure, would both end under the current proposal.

But Lightfoot said many education programs including grants, research challenges and prizes are funded by areas other than the education office and would not be affected.

Education programs under NASA’s Science Mission Directorate would see a $10 million budget increase, according to Acting Chief Financial Officer Andrew Hunter. The agency’s budget blueprint calls the changes a “more focused education effort.”

“Our missions do inspire the next generation as much as the hands-on work does,” Lightfoot said. “That’s what we’re trying to do.”

The promise of continued challenges and prizes didn’t quell senators’ fears that shuttering the education office would hurt STEM education in smaller communities.

“(The budget cuts) could have a chilling effect on the educational programs that NASA is offering across the country where otherwise they might not be available,” Republican Sen. Shelley Capito of West Virginia said. In 2015, 205 West Virginia students, 10 percent of whom are minorities, participated in Space Grant programs.

NASA funds Space Grant associations in all 50 states, plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.

The House Appropriations Committee has proposed increasing NASA’s budget by $800 million over the Trump budget, giving the agency close to $20 billion. The committee is expected to vote on the increase after Congress returns next month.