Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

11. Department of Education · Notable · Needs Congress

Block-grant institutional funding, narrowed to HBCUs and tribal colleges

Attempted

327 11. Department of Education

“Funding to institutions should be block-granted and narrowed to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and tribally controlled colleges.”

What has happened

  1. Attempted

    Under the heading "Defending the Constitution", the fiscal year 2027 Budget Request asks Congress to fund only Howard University, the Strengthening HBCUs, HBGI and HBCU Master's programs and the Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities and Tribally Controlled Postsecondary CTE programs, and to eliminate the Strengthening Institutions Program and every Minority-Serving Institution line - Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian-serving, Predominantly Black, AANAPISI, Native American-serving Nontribal and Hispanic-serving. That is exactly the narrowing the Quote asks for, as a request. Nothing in either budget block-grants institutional aid; Title III and Title V remain separate categorical programs.

  2. Attempted

    The ED-DOI partnership fact sheet records, in a footnote to its list of Office of Postsecondary Education programs, that "the Department is currently winding down several grant programs that allocate resources based upon the racial or ethnic composition of an institution's student body, with preferences for students who are Native Alaskan or Native Hawaiian", and that Interior will help wind them down in an orderly manner. That is the narrowing half of this ask, under way administratively for part of the Minority-Serving Institution portfolio.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • The block-grant half needs Congress and has not been requested, let alone enacted. The narrowing half is a request plus an administrative wind-down of part of the portfolio, which is weighed as attempted rather than partial.
  • The half of this ask that needs an act of Congress rests on one negative search, run once for the program transfers and eliminations on pp. 325–327.
Action
restrict
Object
Federal funding to postsecondary institutions
ID
821