The earmarks began in the 1998 fiscal year -- two of them were inserted into the appropriations legislation with little controversy. But as they grew, it became easier to cut the merit-based programs, said Longanecker, who directs a program that won a grant six years ago.
His organization, the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education in Boulder, Colo., was awarded a grant to develop tutoring, academic advising, personal counseling, career counseling and orientation programs for students taking online classes. Last fall, it submitted two of the 1,300 applications for the competition that ended up being canceled.
Because leaders in education subjected applicants to intense analysis and critique, a project awarded a FIPSE grant was considered prestigious. Multiple applications were sometimes combined in a single grant if staff determined that the projects were compatible.
When a program officer saw similarity between two grant applications in 1987 and asked the scientists to work together, a long-term partnership was started between Priscilla Laws, a physicist at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., and Ronald K. Thornton, a physicist at Tufts University in Medford, Mass. After 18 years, Laws said, "we're still collaborating."
The fund's careful grant management has often served as a signal to private foundations that they should consider funding certain programs.
"When FIPSE comes to us and says they have an idea that they think should be scaled up, that says someone has looked at this. It has met some kind of test of innovation," said Alison R. Bernstein, who started her career at FIPSE and is a vice president at the Ford Foundation.
The staff at FIPSE was rare among the federal bureaucracy. Most grant examiners held doctorates. Many came from academia, and time in the agency was considered a steppingstone to a position as dean or provost.
Yet these days on Capitol Hill, "there almost appears to be an antipathy to expertise," Longanecker said. "There are congressmen who say, 'I know more about what we need in higher education than experts. I know better than what the research shows.' "
Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio), chairman of the House subcommittee that sets FIPSE's appropriations, expressed similar sentiments this year when he told the Chronicle of Higher Education: "FIPSE doesn't have all the knowledge in the world. The bureaucracy in Washington doesn't always have the last word on what is valuable to society."
