According to the weekly Chronicle of Higher Education, UH got about $17 million, topped only by Pennsylvania, Florida and California.

The money, often described as "academic pork," is going into a share of a pricey new Air Force telescope on Mount Haleakala, underwater research, and aquaculture and agriculture programs.

An annual study by the Chronicle found that money Congress added to the budget for specific university projects nationwide dropped from $600 million in 1995 to $299 million this year. The drop was the steepest ever and left a few states shut out entirely.

But Hawaii's share dropped only slightly, from about $20 million in 1995.

Observers were quick to cite a reason for the success of tiny Hawaii: "It's spelled I-N-O-U-Y-E," said one UH official.

Sen. Daniel Inouye is the senior Democrat on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, where much of the academic "pork" is parceled out. He is credited with securing much of the money for UH through a controversial process known as earmarking.

Academic earmarking, which started about a decade ago, allows members of Congress to designate money for specific university projects without going through the usual reviews and public hearings. The money is usually earmarked in the appropriations subcommittees, which is why positions on those panels are coveted.

But not all universities and not all members of Congress are disciples of academic earmarks. Rep. George E. Brown, Jr., D-Cal., ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Science, refuses to support the process.

"Academic earmarking replaces the judgment of experts on which proposals are most worthy with the judgment of politicians," said Brown this week. "I've been in Congress three decades, so you can believe me when I tell you that politicians as a whole are not qualified to make such decisions."

But schools in states like Hawaii, with willing and well-positioned lawmakers, can reap big benefits from academic earmarks. The five states with the most earmarks this year all have senior members on key appropriations committees.

UH is not shy about pursuing federal money. Besides maintaining close ties with Inouye, the school employs Cassidy and Associates, regarded as the best-known, best-connected academic lobbying firm in Washington.

This year, UH will pay Cassidy $269,000, according to Dean O. Smith, the school's senior vice president for research and development.

But while UH officials pursue federal money, they say they do not aggressively pursue earmarks.

"We don't go looking for this (money)," said Smith. "Often, the world goes looking for us."

For example, he said, Hawaii's location makes it a logical site for the telescope, which will be used by both the Air Force and UH.

He insisted the school does well in the more traditional peer review process for awarding research money. But he said some programs, such as agriculture research, don't lend themselves to peer review.

Moreover, while UH is listed as a participant in all the funded projects, Smith said the university's connection to some - such as a $6 million disaster center - is minor.

Minor or not, both UH and Inouye have raised some eyebrows with their success at snaring earmarked federal money, which critics say does not always reward the most deserving scientific projects.

"This is scarce money and it should be distributed on the basis of competition and merit review, not on the basis of politics," said Cornelius J. Pings, president of the Association of American Universities, which represents the nation's major research universities.

Because the projects funded are not scrutinized by experts or competitors, said Pings, many are "sheer nonsense."

Thomas A. Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, a congressional watchdog group, agrees.

"It's a very ineffective and inappropriate way to use scarce education money," Schatz said.

"It appears that the spoils are going to the people who control the purse strings, not to those who need it."

For his part, Inouye has no qualms about earmarking money for his home state, said his Honolulu office chief of staff, Jennifer Goto Sabas.

"The University of Hawaii does well in peer review in the areas they decide to pursue, but there are some areas where the state needs special help, and that's where we come in," she said. Inouye, she said, "is comfortable that the projects selected are good and do benefit the state."

Sabas noted that peer review is not a perfect process either, as it tends to favor big-name, Ivy League-caliber universities and freeze out other schools.

Even as Hawaii's success this year is being scrutinized, the school and the state seem destined to be big winners again next year.

The 1997 defense spending bill is almost sure to include another plum for UH: $45 million to build a Navy oceanography vessel.

The money will not be earmarked for a particular school, but both Inouye and UH officials expect the ship to go to the university to replace its current research ship, the Moana Wave, which is being retired next year.

The new ship has been criticized as costly and wasteful by the Navy and mainland oceanographers, but Inouye has won support from key members of Congress.

The $45 million is expected to be approved when Congress wraps up spending bills in the next several weeks.