Hello and welcome back to The Markup, Inside Higher Ed’s weekly roundup of all things higher ed policy. I’m your host, Jessica Blake, IHE’s federal policy reporter.
In the last week, what had been a temporary restraining order concerning alleged race-based college admissions became a more long-term block as a federal district court judge issued a preliminary injunction, preventing the Trump administration from requiring public institutions to submit detailed disaggregated data.
Originally, the court order only applied to the 17 Democratic-led states whose attorneys general challenged the president’s demand in court, but as of Wednesday dozens more colleges, including a few private institutions, were conditionally included. The block prevents the White House from using said data to penalize what it claims are race-based admissions practices.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s campaign to crack down on what it considers illegal diversity, equity and inclusion practices scored another victory as the University of Missouri pulled funding from its Black student government and other minority-serving student organizations. The university said Department of Justice guidance required the shift in funding, but students argue the guidance isn’t law.
This Week’s Big Story
After Congress told him no, President Trump is once again trying to make steep cuts to higher education funding.
The administration walked back some of its proposals from last year, lessening the degree to which his cuts would affect research funds from the National Institutes of Health. Trump also proposed a one-time injection of $10.5 billion to the Pell Grant in hopes of addressing this year’s $5.5 billion shortfall. (Experts say it will take another $6.5 billion on top of what Trump proposed in order to resolve both this year’s pre-existing debt and the $11.5 billion shortfall projected for the year ahead.)
Yet, the White House has refused to budge when it comes to the end goal of shuttering the Education Department. And in order to fund the Pell Grant Band-Aid, the president had to make cuts somewhere. The proposal zeroes out funding for all minority-serving institution grant programs, the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, the Strengthening Institutions grant, TRIO and GEAR UP, among others.
But, as one former Education Department attorney put it, “the president’s budget proposal carries about the same legal weight as a Christmas list written in crayon.” Congress refused to make the education cuts Trump proposed last year, and there’s been no sign that it is going to change this time around.
