The Small Business Administration has faced withering rounds of budget cuts since President Bush took office, but a new study says that the money it spends is effective in helping startup companies.

A Mississippi State University professor, who studied SBA Small Business Development Centers (SBDC) in Pennsylvania, found that companies started with assistance from an SBDC survive longer and grow more than companies without assistance.

Eight out of ten, or 80 percent of SBDC-assisted startups, were still in business eight years after opening, a survival rate nearly 40 percent greater than that of the average startup company, according to the study.