Tag: slashes

  • Trump’s FY26 budget plan slashes Education Department programs

    Trump’s FY26 budget plan slashes Education Department programs

    This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

    President Donald Trump on Friday proposed wide-ranging cuts to federal higher education spending in his fiscal 2026 budget request, calling to eliminate some grant programs altogether and for states to take over others like Federal Work-Study. 

    The budget request offers a broad look at Trump’s priorities, which include shaving 15.3% off the U.S. Department of Education’s budget, a move in line with his broader plan to shutter the agency. Across the federal government, Trump’s request would eliminate some $163 billion in nondefense domestic spending, including the dramatic cuts to education programs.

    U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement Friday that the budget reflects “funding levels for an agency that is responsibly winding down, shifting some responsibilities to the states, and thoughtfully preparing a plan to delegate other critical functions to more appropriate entities.” 

    Presidential budget proposals are akin to executive wishlists and are never enacted as introduced. And Trump’s budget request for the 2026 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, faces key obstacles before it could be approved. Even though Republicans control both the House and Senate, at least one GOP lawmaker has already objected to some of Trump’s proposed cuts.

    But other party leaders signaled a willingness to embrace Trump’s proposals. 

    “The American people sent Republicans to Washington to lower costs and rein in wasteful government spending,” Tim Walberg, chair of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, said in a Friday statement. “The budget proposal President Trump released today not only gives us a blueprint but shows us it is possible to deliver on this promise.” 

    Student aid takes a blow

    The budget takes aim at Federal Work-Study, which provides part-time jobs to students who need help paying for college. Under the program, the federal government covers up to 75% of students’ wages. 

    Trump’s proposal calls for a $980 million reduction in funding for the program, which was appropriated $1.2 billion in fiscal year 2024. 

    In his budget plan, the president called for Federal Work-Study to be run by the states and the colleges “that financially benefit from it.” 

    “Reform of this poorly targeted program should redistribute remaining funding to institutions that serve the most low-income students and provide a wage subsidy to gain career-oriented opportunities to improve long-term employment outcomes of students,” it says. 

    Trump’s proposal would also eliminate funding for Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants, which assist undergraduate students who have “exceptional financial need.” The program was allocated $910 million in fiscal 2024 — all of which would be cut under Trump’s budget. 

    The budget document accuses the grants of contributing “to rising college costs” that colleges have used to pay for a “radical leftist ideology.” Colleges that receive these grants pass the money onto students, and the institutions must contribute 25% of their own money for those awards. 

    Two other programs are on the chopping block: TRIO, which provides support for middle school through college students from disadvantaged backgrounds, and Gear Up, which helps low-income students prepare for postsecondary education. Trump’s budget called these programs a “relic of the past when financial incentives were needed to motivate” colleges to increase access to low-income students. 

    “Today, the pendulum has swung and access to college is not the obstacle it was for students of limited means,” the budget document claims, saying higher education institutions should use their own resources to recruit students. 

    Together, the programs received nearly $1.6 billion in fiscal 2024, all of which would be cut under Trump’s plan. 

    The budget documents released Friday did not address funding for Pell Grants, the largest student aid program.

    Source link

  • U.S. Department of Education slashes staff

    U.S. Department of Education slashes staff

    This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

    The U.S. Department of Education announced March 11 that it’s cutting its workforce nearly in half–a move that Education Secretary Linda McMahon said is a first step toward eliminating the department.

    Roughly a third of staff will lose their jobs through a “reduction in force,” the department said in a press release. Combined with voluntary buyouts, the Education Department will have just under 2,200 employees by the end of the month, compared with 4,133 when President Donald Trump took office with promises to shutter the department.

    The layoffs represent a significant escalation of Trump’s efforts to reduce the department’s role in education, which is mostly run by states and school districts. Already, the administration has canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and contracts that paid for education research, technical assistance to states and school districts, and teacher training programs.

    Affected staff will be placed on administrative leave starting March 21, the department said. Ahead of the announcement, workers were told to leave the office by 6 p.m. Tuesday and that the office would remain closed until Thursday “for security reasons.” McMahon later said this was standard corporate process when layoffs occur.

    “Today’s reduction in force reflects the Department of Education’s commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers,” McMahon said in a press release. “I appreciate the work of the dedicated public servants and their contributions to the Department. This is a significant step toward restoring the greatness of the United States education system.”

    The Education Department administers major federal funding programs such as Title I, which provides extra money to high-poverty schools, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, which supports special education. It also investigates civil rights complaints and oversees an accountability system that pushes states to identify low-performing schools and provide them with additional resources.

    Exactly how the layoffs will affect specific programs was not immediately clear. A former Education Department staffer, who spoke with Chalkbeat on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose the information, said the entire Office for Civil Rights teams based in Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Cleveland, Boston and New York were let go. That represents half of regional civil rights offices.

    The department said all divisions are affected but did not describe specific positions that were eliminated. In the press release, department officials said all functions required by law will continue.

    Only Congress can eliminate the department, but such deep cuts could leave the department a shell of its former self.

    Appearing on “The Ingraham Angle” on Fox News shortly after the layoffs were announced, McMahon said Trump had given her a clear mandate to shutter the department. She said she would work with Congress to do that. Immediately cutting these positions would help the federal government send more money to the states, she said.

    “I said ‘OK we have to identify where the bloat is, where the bureaucracy is, and we’re going to start there,’ McMahon said. “We need to make sure that that money does get to the states.”

    Trump is expected to sign an executive order to start the process of eliminating the department, but has not yet done so. Conservatives say that for decades the department has failed to adequately address low academic performance and is a bloated bureaucracy.

    On Fox, McMahon reassured viewers that programs such as IDEA would still be funded through congressional appropriations. Asked what IDEA stood for, McMahon responded, “I’m not sure I can tell you exactly what it stands for except that it’s programs for disabled needs. It’s my fifth day on the job, and I’m really trying to learn quickly.”

    Conservative state school chiefs said in a letter to McMahon last month that they need more flexibility in how to use federal money, rather than following complex rules that ensure specific funding streams benefit certain student groups.

    Public education advocates fear that if money flows unrestricted to states, there’s no guarantee it will help the most vulnerable students. Even without an executive order, they worry that administrative changes could affect the department’s ability to perform basic functions.

    Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, condemned the layoffs.

    “Denuding an agency so it cannot function effectively is the most cowardly way of dismantling it,” she said in a statement. “The massive reduction in force at the Education Department is an attack on opportunity that will gut the agency and its ability to support students, throwing federal education programs into chaos across the country.”

    Sheria Smith, president of the American Federation of Government Employee Local 252, which represents 2,800 Education Department employees, said the union will fight back against the layoffs and against what she called a misinformation campaign about the department’s work.

    “We must ask our fellow Americans: do you want your and your children’s rights enforced in school? Do you want your children to have the ability to play sports in their school districts? Do you need financial aid for college? Are you a fellow civil servant that relies on student loan forgiveness? Does your school district offset property taxes with federal funding?” she said in a statement.

    “If yes, then you rely on the Department of Education, and the services you rely on and the employees who support them are under attack.”

    Shortly after she was confirmed, McMahon sent a message to Education Department staff describing a “final mission” that would affect staffing, budgets, and agency operations.

    Department staff were given one-time offers of up to $25,000 to retire or resign in advance of a “very significant reduction in force.” More than 500 employees took some form of buy out.

    Another 1,300 employees are losing their jobs through the reduction in force, McMahon announced.

    Employees who are laid off will be paid through June 9.

    This story has been updated to include comments from Linda McMahon on Fox News, reaction to the layoffs, and additional information about affected offices.

    Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

    For more on education policy, visit eSN’s Educational Leadership hub.

    Latest posts by eSchool Media Contributors (see all)

    Source link

  • ‘Self-inflicted wound’: Widespread alarm as Trump administration slashes NIH funding

    ‘Self-inflicted wound’: Widespread alarm as Trump administration slashes NIH funding

    UPDATE: Feb. 11, 2025: A federal judge late Monday barred the National Institutes of Health from enforcing massive cuts to grant funding for researchers’ indirect costs, a move widely decried by universities and other research institutions. 

    U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley issued restraining orders in two separate cases filed earlier Monday against NIH, including one by 22 state attorneys general and another by the Association of American Medical Colleges and other groups. A third lawsuit — brought by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, the American Council on Education and the Association of American Universities — was also filed late Monday. 

    Regarding the AAMC case, Kelley wrote that plaintiffs would “sustain immediate and irreparable injury” without a restraining order against the NIH funding cap. Along with restraining orders, Kelley required NIH to provide biweekly status reports confirming regular disbursements.

    Dive Brief:

    • A coalition of 22 attorneys general filed a lawsuit in federal court on Monday seeking to block the National Institutes of Health’s newly announced research funding cuts.
    • NIH announced Friday it would cut roughly $4 billion a year worth of funding for indirect research costs such as administration and facilities — by capping reimbursement for these expenses at 15% for current and new grants. 
    • Research institutions have previously negotiated individual indirect cost rates, with an average of 27% to 28%, NIH said. Organizations, universities and researchers quickly raised alarms about the cuts, warning they could hurt important medical research and the economy.

    Dive Insight:

    NIH framed its unilateral decision to cut indirect costs as bringing them in line with practices at nonprofits such as the Gates Foundation, which caps indirect costs at 10% for higher education institutions, and the Rockefeller Foundation, which sets a 15% ceiling for colleges and universities.

    In a Friday memo outlining the new policy, the agency said the new cap would “allow grant recipients a reasonable and realistic recovery of indirect costs while helping NIH ensure that grant funds are, to the maximum extent possible, spent on furthering its mission.”

    The same day, the agency flagged on the social media platform X the “old” indirect cost rates negotiated by Harvard University, Yale University and Johns Hopkins University — which are all between 63.7% and 69% — as well as those institutions’ endowments ranging from $13 billion to $53 billion. 

    NIH noted that of the $35 billion it spent on grants in fiscal 2023 to universities, medical schools and other research institutions, about $26 billion went to direct research and $9 billion went to overhead in the form of indirect costs. 

    Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, described NIH’s move as an illegal violation of an appropriations bill that prohibits modifications to NIH’s indirect cost funding. Murray also said that the move will shift costs onto states rather than reducing them.

    In their lawsuit, the attorneys general argued, “Without relief from NIH’s action, these institutions’ cutting-edge work to cure and treat human disease will grind to a halt.” 

    They pointed to the legislation flagged by Murray that protected indirect reimbursements: During President Donald Trump’s first term, his administration in 2017 included a 10% cap in its budget proposal, but Congress responded the next year with an appropriations provision prohibiting NIH from modifying reimbursement rates, the lawsuit said.

    Filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, the 59-page lawsuit — brought overwhelmingly by Democrat-led states — seeks both preliminary and permanent injunctions blocking NIH from enforcing the rate cap. 

    Many in the higher education sector reacted with dismay over NIH’s move.

    The decision “sabotages the decades-long partnership that has ensured U.S. global leadership in life-saving medical research,” American Council on Education President Ted Mitchell said in a statement on Friday. 

    “This decision is short-sighted, naive, and dangerous,” Mitchell added. “It is a self-inflicted wound that, if not reversed, will have dire consequences on U.S. jobs, global competitiveness, and the future growth of a skilled workforce.”

    Mark Becker, president of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, described NIH’s policy change as a “direct and massive cut to lifesaving medical research.” 

    “NIH slashing the reimbursement of research costs will slow and limit medical breakthroughs that cure cancer and address chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease,” Becker said in a statement. APLU noted that funded indirect costs include patient safety, research security and hazardous waste disposal. 

    Jeremy Day, director of the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Comprehensive Neuroscience Center, said on social media that NIH’s cut would “cripple research infrastructure at hundreds of US institutions, and threatens to end our global superiority in scientific research.” 

    Meanwhile, institutions are grappling with what it means for their research programs going forward. The University of Michigan, for instance, said in a statement that NIH’s indirect cost funding supports development and maintenance of its laboratories as well as information technology and administrative support for regulatory compliance. 

    “This change would result in a significant decrease in the amount that U-M receives from the federal government to conduct vital research,” the university said. 

    Others echoed the warning. In a statement, the University of Wisconsin-Madison said NIH’s directive would “significantly disrupt vital research activity and delay lifesaving discoveries and cures.”

    “Indirect costs contribute to everything from utilities charges to building out the laboratories where science is done, to infrastructure for clinical trials of new medicines and treatments,” the university said.

    Source link