Today, the White House asked federal agencies to provide plans to reduce their budgets by 5 percent by eliminating the worst-performing programs. This request is part of the White House’s pledge to freeze spending unrelated to national security over the next three years.

Among the programs to be considered for reductions include several higher education related programs. 

At a news conference today, Peter Orsazg, President Obama’s budget director, singled out mathematics and science education, youth mentoring, and job training as potential higher education programs that may be reduced.  He noted that the federal government offers more than 110 programs focused on science, technology, and math education (STEM), 100 mentoring programs, and 40 employment programs.

According to Orszag, “this redundancy wastes resources and makes it harder to act on each of these worthy goals.”