Colleges that depend on research funding, military members looking for tuition assistance and those who need information from the monthly government jobs report all are suffering under the current government shutdown.
One of the most high-profile changes – at least in the financial world and among those who track unemployment in the United States – was the absence Oct. 4 of the monthly jobs report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, a division of the Department of Labor.
The first Friday of every month is usually when the jobs report is issued, but none came out. That’s because the government shutdown has led to employees being furloughed and programs halted.
The Labor Department issued a statement this week saying that “due to a lapse in funding, the Employment Situation release which provides data on employment during the month of September … will not be issued as scheduled on Friday.
“An alternative release date has not been scheduled.”
A similar message could be found at the Department of Education site, which was not being updated by the end of the week. Visitors to the site were greeted by the following message:
“Thank you for visiting ED.gov. Due to a lack of appropriations, ED activities have been curtailed and most employees are on furlough. ED.gov will not be updated during the shutdown. Updates will resume and ED will return to normal operations as soon as funding is restored”
The education site also says that many essential functions have been stopped, including any transactions via Ed.gov, and that any inquires made to the department will likely go unanswered during the shutdown. There also may not be any updates to the site itself.
On the plus side, the site reports that “there will be limited impact” to the federal student aid application process, or the actual delivery of federal aid to students.
Florida Toay also compiled a list of impacts on higher education by the government shutdown. They include:
- Sexual assault investigations are paused. The federal education department’s Office for Civil Rights has been forced to stop its probe into the mishandling of sexual violence cases on several campuses, including the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and the University of Virginia.
- Military academies are affected. The U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y., has already completely shut down. Classes have been canceled at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. Campus services have been cut, keeping students from checking books out of the library in Annapolis and to closing the media lab, training centers and library at Colorado Springs.
- Research funding is cut. Because it is categorized as “nonessential,” all scientific research at public universities has been halted.
- Scholarly resources not updated. In addition to the federal websites not being updated, a lot of the resources managed by the federal government are closed (such as the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institute and the National Archives).
- Limited veteran services. Florida Today reported that the main hotline to answer student veterans’ questions is disabled. Tuition assistance also has been halted for military members.
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