#higher-education-funding

#higher-education-funding

Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

A new grant competition from the Department of Education redirects federal funding intended for college student success programs to four areas aligned with the president's priorities. Critics say those four areas have little to do with access and retention. Congress appropriated $171 million for the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) to be used toward seven established programs, including Basic Needs, Veteran Student Success and Rural Postsecondary Education Development.

Leadership is a team sport," said Hoekstra, Edgerley Family Dean of the FAS. "In the FAS we have been working on big issues, from the state of discourse on our campus to academic rigor to real financial challenges. These aren't problems that any one person can solve. It's about working together and rowing in the same direction.

States awarded $18.6 billion in aid to students during the 2023-24 academic year, a 12 percent increase from the previous academic year, according to the National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs' annual report.

"There are a variety of very significant concerns that Americans have with higher education that are not unrelated to the topics the Trump administration cites or references as justifications for their crackdown," said Matt Baum, the Marvin Kalb Chair of Global Communications at the Harvard Kennedy School, a public policy professor and one of the survey researchers. Still, "the fact that Americans have these concerns doesn't necessarily translate to agreeing with the corrective measures the Trump administration is advocating and implementing."

Bay Area universities lost more than $2 million in funds after the Trump administration announced it was rerouting money meant for minority-serving institutions to charter schools and other educational programs, an analysis by Bay Area News Group has revealed. In September, the Department of Education announced it was ending $350 million in discretionary funding for several minority-serving grant programs, alleging the programs were racially discriminatory because qualifying schools must maintain a percentage of minority students in their total student enrollment.

Gov. Newsom is acting like an extortionist. His threat to withhold university funding unless schools publicly oppose President Trump's demands is political coercion. Public universities should not be strong-armed into adopting the governor's preferred positions. Their mission is education and open inquiry, not serving as instruments of partisan pressure. What makes this especially troubling is the hypocrisy. Newsom built his political brand by criticizing Trump for using federal funds as a political weapon.

"Our 'why' is simple: to level the playing field in West Virginia and Appalachia," the Smiths said in a statement. "We hope this gift ensures that every student with the dream of an advanced degree has the opportunity and support to achieve it-while also showing what's possible for the future of higher education in our region and beyond."

University budgets across the country are broken. Overall revenue and accumulated financial support appear to be declining for a wide variety of reasons. New funding policies, administrative reorganizations such as those at the Department of Education, lean fiscal times for states, diminished regard for higher learning, fewer requirements for degrees among employers hiring for entry-level positions and the impact of artificial intelligence all come together to reduce the pool of new students, tuition revenues and grants.