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Category: Higher Education

Senate appropriators push back on ED cuts during budget hearing

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Education Secretary Linda McMahon faced backlash from both sides of the aisle on Tuesday during a Senate Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on the President’s proposed FY27 budget. The President’s budget requests $76.5 billion for the Department of Education, a $2.3 billion decrease from the 2026 enacted level.

TRIO programs were a major point of discussion, with nearly every Senator expressing support for the programs, and questioning McMahon over proposed cuts. Several Senators also used their time to draw attention to the department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which is facing a 35% funding decrease. In March 2025, the Trump administration fired over half of OCR’s lawyers and staff and shut down seven of the twelve regional OCR offices. In a heated exchange between Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), McMahon denied responsibility for these staffing cuts, but said the department was working to hire more lawyers to work through the backlog of cases.

Several senators also highlighted the dismantling of the department, and questioned McMahon on restructuring, including the plan to shift the $1.7 trillion student loan portfolio to the Treasury Department, and moving special education to HHS. Throughout the hearing, McMahon defended the budget cuts and promised that consolidation and restructuring would deliver better results for students and families. In her testimony, she remarked:

“In November of 2024, the American people elected President Trump with a clear mandate: to sunset a 46-year-old, $3 trillion, failed education bureaucracy in Washington, DC, and return authority to where it belongs—to parents, teachers, and local leaders. Amid record-low test scores and record-high numbers of students buried in debt, Americans want results. Today, I can confidently attest that we are delivering on the vision of educational renewal that, for decades, many promised but none delivered.”

Dept. of Ed Proposes Stricter Rules on Low-Earning College Programs

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Last week, the Department of Education released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would establish a postsecondary education accountability framework imposing stricter rules related to federal student loans and earning thresholds.

Under the proposed rule, if the typical graduate of a particular program does not earn as much as a high school graduate, the program would be ineligible for federal student loans. Similarly, graduate programs would need to demonstrate leading to earnings above those of an average bachelor’s degree holder.

These accountability measures stem from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and the agency characterizes this as the latest step in a promise to “break the cycle of low return on investment for students and taxpayers.”

The full NPRM can be found here.

More Details on Administration Budget Request

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We will continue to provide updates over the next several days and weeks but here are a few more details about the Administration budget request.

NIH

The $41 billion requested at the program level for the agency requests a $5 billion cut below the current year’s program level.  The budget summary argues that NIH “broke the trust of the American people with wasteful spending, misleading information, risky research, and the promotion of dangerous ideologies that undermine public health.”  To partly address that, the Administration is seeking to eliminate three centers or institutes:

  • National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, which, according to the budget documents, is “replete with DEI expenditures”; 
  • Fogarty International Center; and,
  • National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health

ARPA-H

The agency would see its budget decrease from $1.5 billion to $945 million in FY2027.

ED

Additional programs would see lower funding levels or eliminated altogether under the budget proposal, including:

  • TRIO– $0 (currently at $1.19 billion)
  • GEAR-UP– $0 (currently at $388 million)
  • GAANN– $0 (currently at $19.5 million)
  • Federal Work Study– $123 million (currently at $1.24 billion)
  • Institute of Education Sciences (IES)– $261.3 million (currently at $790 million)

NSF

The budget request seeks to cut NSF by nearly 55%, reducing the current budget of $8.8 billion to $4 billion. Within this, there would be major cuts across the board, including: 

  • Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction: $173 million (currently $251 million), a 31% decrease 
  • NSF Total General Science and Basic Research: $3.3 billion (currently $7.1 billion) a 53% decrease
  • STEM education programs: $151 million (currently $1.1 billion), an 86% decrease
  • Within “Research and Related Activities,” funding for the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate is eliminated 
  • The Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate is cut by $658 million, and the Technology, Innovations, and Partnerships (TIP) Directorate is cut by $548 million
  • Consistent with a focus on “maritime dominance,” the request also includes $900.0 million in new mandatory authority to be used for construction of an Antarctic Icebreaking Vessel

Administration Releases FY2027 Budget Proposal

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As expected, the Trump Administration released its FY2027 budget request today.  The initial set of budget documents published this morning can be found here.

Our office will continue to provide further updates as we review the documents but some of the initial proposals are as follows:

Health and Human Services

  • $111.1 billion is proposed for the entire agency, which would represent a cut of $15.8 billion, or 12.5%, below the FY2026 level.
  • For NIH, the Administration is looking to cut the agency by $5 billion, to a total base funding level of approximately $41 billion.

Dept of Education

The Education Department would see a cut of $2.3 billion, or 2.9%, below the FY2026 level, for a total of $76.5 billion.

  • The maximum Pell grant would remain the same at $7395.  Additional funds are being proposed to fill a shortfall in the program
  • Once again, the SEOG program is targeted for elimination.
  • Minority Serving Institutions (MSI) programs would be cut by $354 million
  • Title VI International Education Program would be eliminated (currently funded at $81 million)

National Science Foundation

Like last year’s budget proposal, this year’s also seeks to drastically cut NSF.  Overall, the Administration would fund NSF at $4.0 billion, a cut of $4.8 billion, or nearly 55%.

Department of War

As expected, the Administration calls for a budget of $1.5 trillion for the agency, which would represent an increase of more than $440 billion, or 44%.

One of the priorities for the department is “maritime dominance.”

NASA

NASA would seen an overall decrease of $5.6 billion, or 23%, to $18.8 billion for FY2027.

Within NASA, the Science Mission Directorate would be cut by $3.4 billion, with 40 “low-priority” missions eliminated.

Space Tech would be cut by $297 million and the Office of STEM Engagement, where Space Grant is housed, would be cut by $143 million.

Department of Energy (DOE)

Dept of Energy would see a bump of $4.8 billion, or about 10%, to a total of $53.9 billion

The Office of Science and ARPA-E would both see cuts, with Science slated for a decrease of $1.1 billion and a $150- million cut targeted for ARPA-E.

NOAA

The Administration is once looking to cut NOAA, with the FY2027 budget calling for a $1.6-billion decrease and proposing to fund the agency at $4.0 billion.

Dept of Interior

Interior is being targeted for a cut of $2.3 billion, or nearly 13%, and would receive a total of $15.9 billion in FY2027 under this budget.

Please check back here for additional updates.

Trump administration announces student loan office will move to Treasury Department

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As part of the Trump administration’s ongoing pledge to dismantle the Education Department, the agency plans to shift the federal government’s student loan portfolio to the Treasury Department.

Moving the nearly $1.7 trillion portfolio out of ED has been a longtime goal for conservatives. In March, President Trump caught many by surprise by announcing the student loan portfolio would transfer to the Small Business Authority, a move which promoted immediate backlash and legal challenges. The Treasury Department has been a more popular choice for others in the administration. Following the announcement on Thursday, Secretary Scott Bessent said, “Treasury has the unique experience, the operational capability and the financial expertise to bring long overdue financial discipline to the program and be better stewards of taxpayer dollars.”

Senior officials at ED did not offer a timeline or estimated cost of this move, but said it would unfold in three stages, beginning with shifting management of student loans for borrowers in default. Those loans add up to $180 billion, roughly 11% of the student loan portfolio. Eventually, the Treasury Department plans to take responsibility for all student loans.

A fact sheet provided by the administration highlighted decades of mismanagement with the student loan portfolio, and promised that with this change, students and families “will continue to receive the high-quality service they have come to expect under the Trump administration.”

But critics feel undertaking a move of this magnitude will be costly and complex, the latest in a string of interagency agreements that aim to gradually dismantle the Education Department. Shutting down the department would require Congressional approval, but the Trump administration has moved to transfer more responsibilities away from ED throughout the last year. In November, the department moved the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Office of Postsecondary Education to the Labor Department.