The College Readership Program, which provided free copies of The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today on campus for the past three semesters, has been suspended due to lack of funding.

Georgetown University Student Association Vice President Jason Kluger (MSB ’11) said that some of the five university entities that provided $5,000 each last year for the program could not afford to fund the program this year due to budget cuts tied to the economic recession.

Will Cousino (SFS ’12), InterHall’s vice president for student advocacy, identified last year’s program sponsors as InterHall, GUSA, The Corp, the Office of the Provost and the Office of the Senior Vice President.

Cousino said that InterHall was forced to significantly decrease funding it would have made available for the program this year due to budget cuts. He said the program was not central to InterHall’s mission and was therefore chosen for reduced funding. Cousino also said the Office of the Provost and Office of the Senior Vice President did not offer as much money as they had in the last three semesters.

“Their stance has certainly changed from the past,” he said.

GUSA President Calen Angert (MSB’11) said the sponsors were working to continue the program in some form.

“We’re trying to scrap for funds for it,” he said. “Even if we can’t continue it in its current form . we hope to keep it running in some form. . We have some committed funds from a few groups, but it’s nowhere near the $25,000 that we need,” Angert said.

The sponsors are looking for ways to reduce the costs of the program to around $10,000, Cousino said. He also said the program had received a tentative pledge of an undisclosed amount of money from the McDonough School of Business Dean’s Office.

Kluger said The New York Times recently contacted GUSA to discuss offering only that paper through the program.

The College Readership Program was launched as a pilot program in the spring of 2008 and operated as a full-fledged initiative last academic year, Cousino said. In the fall of 2008, the last semester for which statistics are available, an average of 187 copies of The Washington Post, 170 copies of The New York Times and 102 copies of USA Today were picked up daily.

“It’s definitely something that we want to see continued,” Angert said.”