After a difficult and drawn-out budget cycle, Congress released its final $1.2 trillion spending bill early Thursday morning. The bill would largely match the Senate's proposed budget and avoid billions of dollars in cuts proposed by House Republicans, providing colleges and universities with little new funding for critical programs.
If the bill passes, the Department of Education would receive $79.1 billion, a relatively small $500 million decrease from last year's budget.
“This is pretty much what we expected,” said Emmanuel Guillory, senior director of government relations for the American Council on Education. “We thought it was closer to the Senate proposal than the House proposal.”
Total federal student aid would be funded uniformly at $24.6 billion, about $1.8 billion less than the Biden administration requested. The maximum annual Pell Grant award per student remains at $7,395 under the budget agreement reached in January. The Biden administration proposed doubling the maximum Pell Grant per student, but Congress summarily rejected the proposal.
The fact that the Pell cap will remain stagnant is troubling to many equity advocates. Especially after the Biden administration requested a $750 increase last week. Congress has approved slightly raising that threshold in past years. It has risen $900 since President Biden took office.
“The failure to increase investment in these programs has been particularly damaging to Black, Latinx, and Indigenous students and low-income students,” Augustus Mays, vice president of partnerships and engagement at the nonprofit Education Trust, wrote in a statement. .
The Office of Federal Student Aid will receive just over $2 billion to administer financial aid programs to support initiatives such as launching the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid. That's about $2.9 billion less than the Biden administration requested, but $25 million more than agreed to in January after Congress repeatedly rejected requests for more FSA funding in previous years to support student debt forgiveness and a FAFSA overhaul. has increased.
The spending bill also requires agencies to provide “timely updates” on progress in implementing the long-delayed and error-ridden new FAFSA, including how to “mitigate the impact of delays on students and families.”
Funding for Federal Work-Study programs also remains at $1.2 billion. The Republican-led House proposed repealing the program entirely last November.
Craig Lindwarm, senior vice president for government affairs at the Association of Public Land-Grant Universities, said it's a good thing there are no major cuts, but the spending bill is also nothing to celebrate.
“It’s hard to get excited about this level of funding,” he said. “This is not surprising given the budget problems Congress is experiencing. “Nevertheless, we are seeing legislation that does not provide the funding needed to address the affordability challenges facing higher education.”
Funding to strengthen minority-serving institutions would increase slightly, including a nearly $5 million increase in funding for historically black colleges and universities and a $1.1 million increase for Hispanic institutions. But the Strengthening Institutions Program, which provides grants to support financially struggling colleges and universities, would be cut by $10 million.
Lindwarm said the relatively low funding is especially disappointing for under-resourced institutions serving the most underserved college students.
“It's good to see a small number of bills increasing, but we're not yet at the level we need to be to support the institutions we're asking for,” he said.
The plan would also allocate $65 million to community colleges for career and educational training programs. It would not fund the $500 million free community college plan proposed by the Biden administration.
failure to fund research;
Research-intensive institutions would also see cuts under the proposed plan. Although it is much smaller than what the House proposed last year. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) will receive $46.7 billion, $378 million less than the budget enacted in January last year.
That's because although Congress allocated an additional $300 million to NIH in this spending bill, that's less than half of what NIH lost when funding under the CURES Act expired in 2016.
“It’s definitely disappointing,” said Debbie Altenburg, APLU’s vice president for research policy and government affairs. “That level of funding will not allow us to make the sustained investments we need in biomedical research.”
Congress also continues to fall short of funding levels authorized in the landmark CHIPS and Science Act passed in August 2023. In the fiscal year 2023 budget, the National Science Foundation received about $1 billion in additional funding to implement the measure, but Congress did not renew its commitment this time. Under the proposed spending bill, NSF would receive $9.06 billion, about $840 million less than in 2023.
Altenburg said the silver lining is that controversial policy riders proposed by House Republicans, such as provisions to eliminate NSF's climate change research and diversity, equity and inclusion spending, were not included in the final bill.
“We are in a better place than we could have ever been,” she said.
End of a confusing cycle
The federal budget for fiscal year 2024 was passed last January and included 12 budget bills that were scheduled to be passed by October 1, the end of the last fiscal year.
Congress hasn't met that deadline since 1997, but this year's deadline was particularly delayed. Half of the budget was passed earlier this month. The final package of six spending bills ends a long and painful cycle defined by defaults, deep cuts, threats of shutdowns and bitter disagreements, especially among members of the House Republican caucus. Throughout this cycle, Congress passed a number of temporary measures to keep the government open, one of which led to the ouster of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
The bill package will likely face a vote before the end of this week. If it is not passed by the end of the week, the government will be forced into a partial shutdown.
Congressional leaders eventually agreed to follow through on last summer's cuts to avoid defaulting on federal debt earlier this year. This meant that budget makers had flexibility in allocating funds, but spending on domestic programs was largely flat.
Still, higher education lobbyists and experts did not have high hopes for large-scale investments in the Pell Grant program or other priorities. Proposed cuts and general hostility toward the Department of Education from Republican lawmakers have rocked the higher education sector, including the failed student debt relief agenda, the disastrous implementation of the new FAFSA and disagreements over the scope of the Supreme Court's affirmative action ruling. On defense. Highly anticipated reforms, such as free two-year college admissions and expansion of the Pell Grant, will have to wait at least a year.
But it could be worse, Guillory said.
“We are pleased there are no more cuts, but we are advocating for the necessary increases, especially in areas where inflation is not taken into account,” he said. “Still, we’re basically seeing funding at all levels here. “In a regulatory environment like this, this is a win.”
Katherine Knott contributed reporting to this article.