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Credit: Shalina Chatlani
Trump returns to cuts in higher ed budget proposal
Jeremy Bauer-Wolf
Feb. 10, 2020
Dive Brief:
The Trump administration on Monday released its $66.6 billion budget
proposal for the U.S. Department of Education, which would slash the
agency's funding by about 8%.
Among its provisions, the budget plan would eliminate subsidized
federal student loans and the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF)
program. It would also open Pell Grants to students in nontraditional,
short-term programs and to certain students who are incarcerated.
Higher ed experts say the cuts are largely familiar from previous budget cycles and have little chance of passing Congress.
Dive Insight:
For the last four years, the White House has proposed deep budget cuts
to the Education Department that Congress hasn't just ignored — it has
veered in the opposite direction.
In his fiscal 2020 plan, for instance, Trump tried to consolidate GEAR
UP and TRIO, grant programs that benefit low-income students. Congress
instead kept them separate and gave them cash infusions. The
administration is pushing similar aid restructuring in this year's
budget proposal.
A president's financial plan is typically designed to signal the
administration's intentions for the country. And it is expected to
undergo significant revisions with lawmakers before reaching its final
form. However, observers bemoaned that Trump's fiscal 2021 request
would reintroduce politically unappetizing ideas that have failed to
make headway for years.
Among those is ending PSLF, which helps teachers, government employees
and other public servants by canceling their debt after they make
consistent payments for 10 years. This recommendation was in the
previous budget and Congress did not adopt it.
Trump's proposal also attempts to erase Federal Supplemental Education
Opportunity Grants (SEOG), which the administration in budget documents
deemed duplicative to Pell. However, experts say they are necessary
given that the latter no longer offsets a majority of the cost of a
four-year education.
Although the administration says SEOG is not well-targeted to those who
need it, the vast majority of its recipients also get Pell, Jonathan
Fansmith, director of government relations at the American Council on
Education (ACE), said in an interview. "So it supplements (the) Pell
Grant," he said. "To say it's not targeted ... It seems like a cut they
don't have a rationale for."
One 2017 study found Pell Grants cover less than 30% of the average
cost of tuition, room and board, and other expenses at public four-year
colleges, compared to nearly 80% in 1975.
In its latest proposed budget, the administration is attempting to
broaden Pell to include incarcerated individuals who expect to be
released within five years. However, it did not add money to the
program, keeping the maximum award flat at $6,345 from fiscal 2020.
The Education Department has also proffered that students can't pay for
training in certain sought-after fields because federal law prohibits
them from accessing Pell. To this end, the budget request would expand
Pell eligibility to include "students enrolled in high-quality
short-term programs that lead to a credential, certification, or
license in a high-demand field."
Fansmith said ACE has generally supported Pell being used for shorter
programs, but noted others in academe have criticized the results of
such offerings. Students may pursue them expecting to pay little for a
credential that can help them get a high-earning job but end up
struggling to find employment.
Further, the administration's latest proposal fails to spell out
standards "to ensure those programs don't become just another waste of
students' time and money," Clare McCann, deputy director for federal
higher ed policy at left-leaning think tank New America, told Education
Dive.
The budget request also radically reduces funding for Federal
Work-Study to $500 million. Trump floated trimming the program during
the last budget debate, but Congress boosted it to $1.2 billion. This
is at odds with the administration's publicly stated desire to
reinvigorate the initiative by focusing on new, career-oriented
opportunities.
"It's not the same to add those elements to Work-Study, but if you have
policy goals, you don't accomplish it by gutting funding," Fansmith
said. "It's a really backwards way of doing it."
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