Eugenie Samuel Reich speculates about the effect on US science should the debt ceiling not be raised by 2 August 2011:
Republicans have made it clear that they will not cut defence spending, and Democrats are keen to protect social security and health-care programmes such as Medicare and Medicaid. Thus, the cuts are likely to fall on the roughly $600-billion discretionary, domestic budget, which includes funding for scientific agencies including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. A reduction of $100 billion, applied across the board, would result in a 17% cut to such agencies.
Excellent discussion of best- and worst-case scenarios and their effect on science, ‘an investment in future prosperity’.
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The current debt ceiling talks also affects graduate students since both sides are considering removing government subsidized graduate and professional loans.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/08/01/higher_education_in_debt_ceiling_deal
Since funding for foreign students is limited, this piece of news does not bode very well for foreign students wishing to pursue their higher studies in the US. Lets just hope things do not go from bad to worse from here onwards.