In a time when congressional earmarks are under fire by the White House, presidential candidates and the general public, everybody could use a reality check.

Earmarks allow congressmen to include projects on appropriation bills, projects that can be used to improve the community they know best -- their own. The additional funding requests can be added even after open debate on a bill has ceased, a key detail that has come under fire nationally.

To make one point explicitly clear, we wholeheartedly disagree with the practice of pork barrel spending. A politician's use of public money for personal gain is unethical, immoral and disgraceful.

Case in point -- the aborted $400 million "bridge to nowhere," connecting a set of obscure Alaskan communities already well serviced by ferries. According to USA Today, it would have needed to be as long as the Golden Gate Bridge and taller than the Brooklyn Bridge.

But there is no "bridge to nowhere" at Penn State.

Pork barrel spending is just a negative type of earmarking. When these earmarks are used for academia, though, we welcome them with open arms.

In February, non-partisan watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense released a report listing earmarks for Penn State. They included: $5.6 million to the Penn State Cancer Institute, requested by Rep. Tim Holden, D-Pa.; $3.9 million for solid oxide fuel cells, requested by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa.; and $8 million for defense-related research, requested by Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.

A more recent report from The Chronicle for Higher Education listed Penn State as being No. 22 nationally and first among Big Ten schools for the amount of money received from earmarks.

To us, all this shows is a true interest from local politicians in improving and funding university research. There is no direct political gain for them.

Had it not been for the circumvention of burdensome debate, there is a good chance those monies would have never ended up in the hands of Penn State researchers.

Besides, it is simply unreasonable to think that politicians should or even could look over that many additions to every appropriation bill. Efficiency is not necessarily a bad thing.

The problem, however, is that pork barrel spending still exists, even in the academic world. But that problem is with individuals, not the system. The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 allows the public to see where the money is being spent.

So to those who oppose earmarking as a practice, take a look at how local politicians are using it. We think you'll find that when it comes to the university, it's money well spent.