The Traveler

President Obama signed off on the $787 billion stimulus package aimed at jumpstarting the economy Tuesday, and $2.1 billion will make its way to Arkansas amid mixed student opinion.

More than $370 million will be put into education. Higher education could receive a share that would fund UA projects including renovations to aging facilities, new classrooms and research facilities.

"It's a monetarily irresponsible policy," said Jacob D. Holloway, an ASG senator and president of Campus Greens. "There will be a larger and larger national debt left for my generation to pay for."

The economy needs to be restructured before we invest our money in it, Holloway said.

"Most benefits will take too long before we actually see them," graduate Sam Khamooshi said.

Arkansas will also receive $730 million for Medicaid, $358 million for highways, $133 million of Title 1 funds for public school students in poverty and $113 million for special education spending in the package.

A proposal to include colleges and universities in a stimulus package was signed in December by more than 40 higher education leaders including UA System President B. Alan Sugg.

An open letter published in The New York Times and The Washington Post Dec. 16 asked for 5 percent of the stimulus plan to be set aside for higher education facilities.

Graduate Nancy Mitchell was optimistic about the stimulus package making a difference, but voiced her concern over the possibility of starting continuing programs with stimulus money.

"Money probably shouldn't just go to starting new types of programs," Mitchell said. "They'll have to continue to be funded when the money is gone."

Gov. Mike Beebe has said the state would not start continuing programs with the stimulus money.

Obama has been criticized for the doomsday rhetoric he used in getting the package passed. The recession has been referred to as the worst since the Great Depression, and the gloom and doom has hardly enticed an angry, nervous and cash-strapped American public to go out and spend.

The current unemployment rate of 7.6 percent is below the 1982 peak of 10.8 percent, and nowhere close to the 25.2 percent peak in 1932.

The longest recessions since WWII have lasted 16 months, occurring twice. The current recession is 14 months old; the stimulus package is not predicted to take full effect until 2010.

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