“We, at the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, are immensely concerned by the cuts proposed in the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and related agencies (Labor-H) FY-25 Appropriations Bill by the House majority.
The proposed bill takes the extreme measure of cutting the funding in half for both the Federal Supplemental Equal Opportunity Grant (FSEOG) program and the Federal Work Study program. Both of these programs have been integral to low-income students having access to and completing higher education for decades. We vehemently oppose these crippling cuts and are shocked that elected officials would even consider such a measure that so greatly damages the social mobility of their constituents.
Additionally, the bill holds flat the current maximum Pell Grant award. Given the current inflationary environment, this essentially serves as a cut to the buying power of Pell. This comes on the heels of the Pell Grant award being held flat for the upcoming 2024-25 school year, and would mean three consecutive years without an increase enacted.
While we acknowledge and appreciate that the bill does include a modest $18 million, or 2%, increase to Title III and Title V programs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Predominantly Black Institutions (PBIs) and other Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs). The benefits of that modest increase would stand to be far outweighed by the damage caused by the potential enrollment impacts of the vast reduction in student aid programs that our students depend upon to attend school.
Additionally, this proposed bill would eliminate the Research and Development Infrastructure Grant Program for HBCUs and MSIs, which has been funded for two consecutive years at $50 million via the Fund for Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) in the Department of Education and requested to be funded at $100 million by the Biden administration in its FY25 budget. This program is critical to expanding the research capacity at our institutions and the research and innovation capacity of our nation as a whole. For our nation to remain globally competitive in the research and innovation space, it is imperative that we build the research capacity at HBCUs and other institutions with tremendous potential that have been under-invested in to this point.
Each of these programs are vital to the sustainability of under-resourced institutions like HBCUs or to the students that they enroll, as FSEOG, Work Study and Pell are all key to ensuring that our students have the resources to persist towards graduation.
A postsecondary degree remains the key to unlocking the gateway to the middle class in our country, depriving low-income students of access to higher education will only serve to damage the global competitiveness of our nation.
Recognizing that this draft, prior to potential floor amendments to the House bill and the release of the Senate’s version of the bill, is just a step in the long process of funding our government, TMCF remains committed to working in a bipartisan manner to advance the interests of HBCUs, PBIs and low-income students as a whole. We look forward to continued conversations with members from both sides of the aisle and in both chambers of Congress that lead to an appropriations bill that properly invests in our institutions and low-income students, regardless of where they matriculate, landing on the President’s desk for signature.”
Dr. Harry L. Williams
President & CEO
Thurgood Marshall College Fund
