Stimulus package bribes state governments to spend more money on education

The Chronicle of Higher Education has this:

States would have to meet a minimum bar for spending on higher education in order to benefit from money set aside in the economic-stimulus legislation to help states limit cuts in appropriations to public colleges.

The legislation, which has passed the House of Representatives and is being debated in the Senate this week, says that states must spend at least as much on their public colleges in the 2009 and 2010 fiscal years as they spent in the 2006 fiscal year to be eligible for money for higher education under a “state fiscal-stabilization fund.”

The House and Senate bills would provide $79-billion for that fund, including $39-billion for states to distribute to public colleges and elementary and secondary schools, and $25-billion for states to spend on “high-priority needs,” which could include education. . . .