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House Republicans want to keep funding flat for the Pell Grant program and the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights in fiscal year 2025 while slashing the budget for the Office of Federal Student Aid. Those are among other cuts rolled out in a spending plan released Wednesday.
The Labor–Health and Human Services appropriations subcommittee will meet this morning to review the legislation, which also includes the budgets for the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services.
The spending plan is the opening salvo in what will likely be another contentious fight over how to allocate limited federal dollars. Lawmakers overseeing appropriations are technically bound by a deal reached in spring 2023 to avert a default on the federal government’s debt, which set spending levels for fiscal years 2024 and 2025. Under the deal, federal spending on nondefense programs can only increase by up to 1 percent. Democrats say that cap “will mean pain,” while Republicans argue that it’s needed to reduce federal spending.
While President Biden requested $3.3 billion more for the Education Department’s overall budget, the House Republican plan would give the agency $11 billion less than what it received in the current fiscal year.
Alabama representative Robert Aderholt, the Republican chair of the subcommittee, said in a statement that the bill “provides needed resources to agencies for administering vital programs, while also reining in reckless and wasteful spending,” and it “lays a strong foundation for the path to transparency and fiscal responsibility.”
The draft bill text is light on specifics about how exactly Republicans would dole out $72 billion in discretionary funds for the Education Department—and doesn’t go into detail on programmatic cuts they’ll call for. A budget summary says the legislation eliminates 17 programs, maintains 2024 funding levels for the Pell Grant—which Democrats hope to raise—and boosts funding for Gallaudet University, the nation’s oldest institution for Deaf and hard-of-hearing students.
According to the bill text, the Office of Federal Student Aid would get about $1.5 billion—some $529 million less than its current funding. The Biden administration had requested $625 million more for the cash-strapped agency that’s grappling with a number of projects, including next year’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid.
A summary from House Democrats on the appropriations committee says the Republican plan would cut funding for federal work-study programs in half. The GOP plan also guts a program that provides subsidized childcare for low-income parents enrolled in a postsecondary program, as well as the research and infrastructure grant program for historically Black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions.
“Republicans are in the midst of a full-scale attempt to eliminate public education that makes the American Dream possible,” said Connecticut representative Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the committee, in a statement. “This bill is dangerous and threatens programs and services that Americans depend on at every stage of their life.”
