There are those who complain that Congress does not care about the concerns of the little guy. But those people do not attend Alaska Christian College.
The school, founded five years ago and affiliated with the Evangelical Covenant Church, has 37 students. It is not accredited and does not grant degrees. It offers, instead, certificates in biblical studies at the end of a student's first year and certificates in biblical and general studies to those who complete a second. Over the past two years, Congress has given the school more than $1 million.
That amounts to a significant chunk of the school's annual operating budget, although its president declined to say exactly how much. It is also an unusually large amount of federal aid for a school its size, some outside education policy experts said. It has proved enough to attract critics -- more critics, perhaps, than the school has students -- who complain that the school is a thoroughly religious institution that, by law, is not eligible to receive the money.
The Anchorage Daily News criticized the appropriations last year, writing in an editorial that "Alaska's congressional delegation might just as well have put a $1 million check in the church collection plate." The American Civil Liberties Union is looking into the case. But the school's most important critics these days are 3,600 miles away in Wisconsin, where the Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation is suing the Education Department to rescind the funding.
The advocacy group, which supports maintaining a strict separation between church and state, contends in a lawsuit filed last month that the subsidies amount to an unconstitutional government endorsement of a religion. The government is allowed to give money to schools with religious affiliations. But the money must be used for secular purposes -- which, the group contends, the Alaska school does not have.
"It has no purpose except to proselytize. It is not, truly, a college. It doesn't even offer math or English," said Annie Laurie Gaylor, the group's co-president. "We have something called the separation of church and state, and that is what they are violating with this kind of appropriation."
ACC President Keith Hamilton rejected those complaints, pointing to the school's course offerings -- choir, physical education, a class in leadership -- that he said have little to do with religion. He also said the school, which is predominantly Native American and has applied for accreditation beginning in 2007, helps students make the transition from high school to college.
"It's essentially a Christian college, not a Bible school," he said. "Bible schools traditionally only teach Bible courses. We're broader than that."
The money has come in chunks, the most recent of which -- $430,000 -- was buried in a catch-all spending bill Congress approved last year. That money came out of the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, an obscure government program.
But in recent years, the fund has been increasingly used to pay for lawmakers' earmarks -- also known as pork -- to benefit schools back home. The Education Department said it would forgo the annual competition this year, saying lawmakers did not give the program enough money to cover their earmarks, the financial commitments to previous, multiyear projects and a new round of grants.
Some experts bemoan the trend toward earmarks, contending that the money is now granted according to connections rather than merit. Lawmakers say they know constituents' needs better than officials in Washington.
A spokesman for Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), who took credit in a November news release for finding the $430,000 for ACC, did not return calls seeking comment. The Education Department also declined to comment on the suit.
