The Trump administration late Friday released additional information that fleshes out its fiscal year (FY) 2026 budget proposal to Congress. The new materials fill in some additional details for higher education and workforce programs that were not contained in the “skinny” budget released a month ago.
As the skinny budget made clear, the budget request contains deep proposed cuts or eliminations of many programs that community colleges care about. Overall, the U.S. Education Department (ED) is cut by 15%. The programs eliminated include Adult Basic Education, HEA Title III-A Strengthening Institutions, Childcare Access Means Parents in School, TRIO, GEAR UP, Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants and International Education.
The fuller budget materials indicate that the administration is proposing to cut the Pell Grant maximum award from $7,395 to $5,710, a decrease of $1,685. The budget includes the same level of discretionary funding that the program has received for several years, but notes that because of recent changes made to the program that add to its cost, that amount of money is now only sufficient for a reduced maximum award.
Elsewhere in the ED budget, the HEA Title III programs – other than the Strengthening Institutions Program, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Tribal Colleges and Universities – would be level funded. The budget would set aside $5 million to increase community college HBCU grants. The Biden administration’s last budget in FY 25 earmarked $10 million for this purpose. The Title V Hispanic-Serving Institutions program would also be level-funded, as would the Perkins CTE program.
Federal Work-Study (FWS) would be cut from $1.23 billion to $250 million. The administration has proposed that work-study students’ employers pay 75% of their wages, with FWS filling in the remaining 25%. Currently, it is the opposite. With this change, the administration says that $1 billion in total aid would be available for Work Study students.
Cuts for DOL, NSF programs
The full budget also sheds additional light on deep cuts to U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) workforce training programs.
The budget proposes eliminating a host of DOL programs, including the Strengthening Community College Training Grants and Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act Title I formula programs, and replacing them with a Make America Skilled Again (MASA) block grant to the states. However, the block grant would be a 24% decrease in funding compared to what is currently spent on the individual programs. Ten percent of the MASA funds would be earmarked for registered apprenticeship activities.
Job Corps, a major DOL program in which many community colleges are involved, would be eliminated.
Deep cuts are also proposed for the National Science Foundation (NSF). The primary NSF community college program, Advanced Technological Education, does not appear to be specifically named in the request, so the proposal’s potential impact on the program is unclear.
One thing the budget materials do not disclose, for the most part, is how FY 25 funds would expend at the programmatic level. In most cases, the proposed FY 26 program levels are compared to FY 24. The administration was required to send to Congress a detailed FY 25 spending plan by the end of April but reportedly the plan that was sent was bereft of details. The administration is expected to soon submit a package of proposed rescissions of FY 25 funds to Congress.
Also important to note is that the administration’s budget request is the first step in the annual appropriations process for discretionary programs. It is not related to the budget reconciliation legislation currently being considered by Congress, which deals with the tax code and mandatory spending.
AACC continues to urge community colleges to communicate their strong opposition to Pell Grant cuts contained in that bill. (Pell is both a discretionary and a mandatory program.)
