As Congress decides where next year’s budget cuts will hit hardest, college students on federal financial aid might want to ponder a new way to pay for their schooling.

The Bush administration has predicted historic cuts in governmental services unless Congress starts spending responsibly, Budget Chief Richard Darman announced this week.

Budget cuts amounting to $100 billion might begin by October due to the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings act, which requires across-the-board spending cuts if Congress fails to enact a deficit-reduction program.

Almost all federal programs would be affected by such cuts. More than one million military personnel, most government meat inspectors and a drastic number of air traffic controllers could be dismissed. Also, 1.2 million of the six million college students receiving federal financial aid could lose their aid.

The word from Washington, D.C. is that the threatened cuts are just a scare tactic by the Bush administration to get Congress to reach a budget agreement, the future is still unclear, said Tandi Thomas, education affairs assistant for Rep. Dennis Hastert (R – Batavia).

“Right now, we don’t know what’s going to happen,” Thomas said. “Probably all government services will be impacted (if cutbacks occur), including financial aid funding to a certain degree.”

Thomas said she couldn’t speculate on how severely student loan funding might be hit in the event of a major spending reduction.

“Right now, it’s anybody’s guess. We’ll have to wait and see,” she said.

Brent Robbins, Rep. Harris Fawell’s (R-Naperville) education affairs assistant, said no budget agreement could mean “a massive hit” on government services. Non-defense spending programs could be cut by an average of more than 35 percent, the Bush administration warns.

Robbins also said the federal financial aid program is not exempt from the Gramm-Rudman cuts, but Thomas said Congress could decide to make the program exempt.

She said the financial aid program is already operating under heavy spending reductions from last year.

The current budget summit between congressional leaders and the Bush administration has been going on for more than a month, and Thomas said the fate of endangered programs will become clear when talks conclude.