College leaders confident that the federal government's economic stimulus package would pour billions of dollars into higher education should probably take a deep breath. A version of the legislation introduced in the Senate Friday would be somewhat less generous to colleges and students than the financial package unveiled by the House the week before, and while President Obama emphasized science and student aid in laying out his own plan Saturday, Republicans are balking at many of the spending proposals that would most benefit higher education.

On Saturday, President Obama, responding to growing Republican unease over the size and particularly the makeup of the stimulus packages, used his Saturday radio address to offer his most direct argument yet for why the $825 billion investment was necessary, and why Congress should act fast. A four-page summary of the package contained more details than the White House has released previously, emphasizing several key goals important to higher education:

• "Increasing college affordability for 7 million students by funding the shortfall in Pell Grants and increasing the maximum award level by $500."
• "Providing a new higher education tax cut to nearly 4 million students. The plan will create a new $2,500 American Opportunity Tax Credit that is partially refundable. As a result, the nearly one-fifth of high school seniors who receive no tax credit under the current system will receive a tax cut to make college affordable for the first time."
• "Tripling the number of undergraduate and graduate fellowships in science, to help spur the next generation of home grown scientific innovation."
• "Preventing teacher layoffs and education cuts in every state, maintaining key reforms, and ensuring all schools have advanced technology for the 21st century economy."

Those broad goals are consistent with many of the provisions in the version of the stimulus legislation that the House Appropriations and Ways and Means Committees introduced 10 days ago and approved last week, and summaries of the bills that the Senate Appropriations and Finance Committees made public on Friday.

The summaries of the Senate legislation made clear that they lacked details, and that full versions of the measures would not be available until after the two Senate committees formally take them up on Tuesday. Based on available information about the Senate measures, the two chambers' plans have much in common, but the Senate would in several key ways appear to provide less to colleges and students than the House would, as seen in the table below:

The Stimulus and Higher Education

Both bills would send $39 billion to the states to help them stave off cuts to education programs, and another $25 billion that states could use for education and other essential services. Both bills would also increase the maximum Pell Grant by $500 and eliminate the need-based aid program's shortfall.

But the Senate bill, at least based on the summary, appears to provide about $1.7 billion less for Pell Grants than the House version. In addition, the Senate bill would provide billions less for higher education infrastructure needs, less for physical sciences research at the National Science Foundation, and a higher education tax credit that would be somewhat less useful to students from low-income backgrounds.

The entire stimulus package will have much less to offer colleges and students (and beneficiaries of many other social programs) if Congressional Republicans have their way. In speeches and television appearances over the weekend, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, both of whom are prominent members of the minority in their respective chambers, criticized the Democrats' stimulus packages for greatly emphasizing spending that may or may not spark the economy rather than tax breaks that would put money directly into consumers' and businesses' pockets.

Boehner specifically singled out aid for education in his criticism. "[P]roviding $300 billion of this package to states -- $166 billion in direct aid to the states, another $140 billion in education funding -- this is not going to do anything, anything to stimulate our economy, to help the -- our ailing economy," the Ohio Republican said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

If the Obama administration decides it needs to reshape the stimulus package to win over Republicans, some of the new spending contained in these early versions -- much of which would help postsecondary institutions by easing students' tuition burdens, staving off state budget cuts, financing facilities renovation, and bolstering funds for scientific research and jobs -- could disappear.