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Category: Student Aid

Senate HELP committee to vote on key bills

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 On Thursday, February 26, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee will vote on several significant bills regarding access to quality education and health care.

The bills under consideration include:

  • S. 1602, Mathematical and Statistical Modeling Education Act
  • S. 1558, Understanding the True Cost of College Act of 2025
  • S. 3747, Home School Graduation Recognition Act
  • S. 1782, Charlotte Woodward Organ Transplant Discrimination Prevention Act
  • S. 1552, Living Donor Protection Act of 2025
  • S. 3315, Health Care Cybersecurity and Resiliency Act of 2025

Date: Thursday, February 26, 2026

Time: 10:00 AM ET/ 9:00 AM CT

Location: 430 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Link to watch live

Administration Seeks to Dismantle ED by Moving Programs to Different Agencies

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While publicly acknowledging earlier this year that Congressional approval would be needed to officially terminate the Education Department, the Administration announced today a series of Interagency Agreements (IAA) to move vast portions of its portfolio to other agencies in an effort to dismantle it from the inside.  The announcement from ED is available here.

Specifically, ED is proposing to move six sets of programs to four other federal agencies:

  • Programs  currently under jurisdiction of Office of Higher Education (NOT Title IV student financial aid programs) and the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education would be transferred to the Department of Labor– the factsheets for these agreements are here and here.
  • Most of tribal and Native American education programs would be moved to the Department of Interior– the factsheet is available here.
  • International Education and Foreign Language Studies would be shipped to State Department– the factsheet on that transfer is available here. 
  • Two sets of programs would be moved to the Department of Health and Human Services:  Foreign Medical Accreditation and Child Care Access Means Parents in School– the factsheets for these proposed moves are here and here.

Additional reports about the proposed moves are available here, here, and here.

Although these moves have been proposed by the Administration, they are unlikely to be the last word on this front.  We should expect legal and other challenges to today’s annoucements.

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House Republicans passed their multi-trillion-dollar reconciliation package this morning, a major victory for Speaker Johnson and President Trump. The passage comes after weeks of infighting amongst Republicans, with both moderate members and conservative hardliners threatening to withhold their support over certain provisions. Eventually, after a meeting with President Trump and last-minute changes made by Republican leadership, the bill passed by a 215-214-1 vote. Every House Democrat voted no. Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Warren Davidson (R-OH) were the two Republicans who voted against the legislation. House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-MD.) voted present.

The legislation includes $3.8 trillion in tax cuts and cuts to Medicaid and SNAP coupled with the phase out of clean energy tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act. These programs were cut in order to offset the impact of the extension of President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, and the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill will result in $698 billion in cuts to Medicaid and $267 billion in cuts to SNAP.

Additionally, the bill makes significant changes to higher education legislation — particularly student borrowing. If signed into law, this package would cap lifetime borrowing for a student or their parents at $200,000 and eliminate entirely subsidized student loans and Grad PLUS loans. The bill also includes changes to Pell Grant eligibility, the creation of a risk-sharing program for universities, and would cap the availability of federal aid to the median cost of a specific program nationally.

The reconciliation package now heads to the Senate for consideration, where it will likely be significantly altered.  While reconciliation bills are not subject to the filibuster in the Senate, meaning only a simple majority is needed for passage, there are stricter rules around what can be included in the Senate. Furthermore, many Senators have expressed misgivings over many of the cuts made by House lawmakers.

 

 

 

McMahon confirmed as Secretary of Education

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The Senate voted along party lines on Monday evening to confirm Linda McMahon as the next Secretary of Education. McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive and wealthy Republican donor, served as the administrator of the Small Business Administration in the first Trump Administration. She now leads a department that President Trump has proposed eliminating.

A former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment and chairman of America First Action, a pro-Trump Super PAC, McMahon has been a longtime ally of President Trump. She launched two unsuccessful campaigns to represent Connecticut in the Senate and previously served on the Connecticut State Board of Education for one year. She has also served as a trustee at Sacred Heart University for over a decade.

McMahon told reporters during her confirmation process that she “wholeheartedly” agrees with President Trump’s mission to dismantle the “bureaucracy in Washington” and return education to the states. She added that her goal is to make the Education Department “operate more efficiently,” not to defund programs. Her confirmation, however, comes in the midst of an aggressive government overhaul project, led by Elon Musk, that has targeted the department and its employees. On Friday, employees in the department were given an offer of up to $25,000 if they agreed to retire or resign by the end of the day. President Trump has also told reporters that he hopes McMahon will “work herself out of a job.”

McMahon will now take over leadership of the department of over 4,200 employees in charge of sending federal money to schools, administering college financial aid, and managing federal student loans.

Sen. Appropriations Committee Finishes Its Work, Clears Last 4 Bills

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By clearing the last four bills yesterday, the Senate Appropriations Committee has reported out all 12 spending bills for a fiscal year for the first time in five years.  The committee reported out favorably yesterday the following FY2024 spending measures:  Labor-HHS-Education; Defense; Interior and the Environment; and Homeland Security.  Unlike the situation in the House, where the leadership had to pull the Agriculture spending bill from a floor vote because it lacked enough support even among the Republicans, the committee process in the Senate yesterday was very bipartisan.  The Interior bill passed by a vote of 28 – 0, the Defense bill was approved 27 – 1, the Labor-HHS bill was adopted 26 – 2, and the vote was 24 – 4 on the Homeland Security legislation.  

Labor-HHS-Education

HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

  • NIH

The Senate legislation would fund the National Institutes of Health at a total of $47.8 billion, an increase of $943 million above the current level.  The total includes $1.5 billion for ARPA-H, which represents level funding under the Senate version of the bill.  Within the NIH, the bill would increase, among other programs, mental health and Alzheimer’s research by $100 million each and while cancer research would see an increase of $60 million.

  • Title VII Health Professions and Title VIII Nursing Programs

The legislation proposes to fund the Title VII Health Professions programs at a total of $529 million, an increase of $20 million.

At the same time, the Title VIII Nursing programs would see a total of $302.5 million, a $2-million increase over this year.

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

  • Student Aid and Higher Education
    • Pell Grant– The maximum award would increase by $250 to $7,645
    • SEOG– $900 million (a decrease of $10 million)
    • Federal Work Study– $1.22 billion (a decrease of $10 million)
    • International Education– $85.7 million (level funded)
    • TRIO– $1.19 billion (level funded)
    • GEAR UP– $338 million (level funded)
    • GAANN– $23.5 million (level funded)
  • Institute of Education Sciences (IES)
    • IES would be funded at $793 million, a cut of $14.5 million

Interior

USGS

  • Climate Adaptation Science Centers– $63.1 million (level funded)
  • ShakeAlert– $29.6 million (level funded)

NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES

  • $207 million (level funded)

Defense

Under the committee-approved bill, defense basic research would be see an increase of 10.5 percent for a total of $3.22 billion.

  • Army basic research:  $672.5 million (an increase of 5.8%)
  • Navy basic research:  $793.5 million (an increase of 15.2%)
  • Air Force basic research:  $711.9 million (an increase of 16.3%)
  • Defense-wide basic research:  $862.3 million (a decrease of 7.0%)
  • DARPA:  $4.1 billion (0.7% increase)

Both chambers are now in recess until after Labor Day.