The super committee's failure to come up with the required $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction over ten years triggers sequestration, across-the-board cuts to security and non-security spending. These cuts will slice about $55 billion from non-security spending for each of the next ten years. What does this mean to real programs, like the federal Work-Study program, which funds part-time jobs for undergraduates? In 2010 spending for the federal Work-Study program was around $32 per college-age person in the U.S. Sequestration, combined with other recent mandated spending cuts, will reduce non-security discretionary spending by around 28 percent relative to 2010 levels, a reduction of $9 from Work-Study, down to $23 per college-age person.

View federal work-study spending since 1993, as well as notes and sources, here.