Widespread cuts on the U.S. Division of Schooling and its potential closure stand to drastically hurt the funds of traditionally Black schools and universities — and even perhaps shut some campuses, consultants say.
Following mass layoffs which have lower roughly half of the Schooling Division’s workers, President Donald Trump signed an govt order in March directing the closure of your entire federal company “to the utmost extent applicable and permitted by legislation.” A number of teams are difficult the order to shutter the company.
The nation’s roughly 100 HBCUs obtain billions annually from federal applications, together with federal scholar help — a lot of which flows via the Schooling Division, Terrell Strayhorn, director of analysis on the Middle for the Examine of HBCUs at Virginia Union College, mentioned in a March interview.
Establishments that depend on federal grants from the Schooling Division for analysis, campus enhancements and scholar companies might face monetary insolvency, Strayhorn mentioned. That would result in deep program cuts, restructuring, layoffs, and, for probably the most weak HBCUs, campus closures, he mentioned.
A lot continues to be unknown concerning the affect of the Schooling Division’s cuts or how the company’s closure would play out, Strayhorn mentioned. However “all situations appear to create dangerous dangers for HBCUs,” he mentioned.
Congress must authorize the full closure of the Schooling Division. Nonetheless, the Trump administration has already lower a whole bunch of tens of millions value of the company’s grants and proposed large reductions to its applications and companies for the federal authorities’s fiscal 2026 funds.
“That is extra than simply bureaucratic reshuffling — these cuts threaten the very presence and long-term sustainability of some HBCUs,” Strayhorn mentioned.
Nonetheless, the Trump administration has additionally just lately expressed help for HBCUs.
An April 23 govt order acknowledged HBCUs ought to have “equal alternatives for participation in Federal applications.” It additionally created a board of advisors on HBCUs to “enhance the capability of HBCUs to offer the highest-quality schooling to an rising variety of college students,” although such a panel existed earlier than Trump’s second time period.
Nonetheless, the mass layoffs on the Schooling Division have already disrupted some important companies on which HBCUs rely, significantly with grant processing and technical help, mentioned Strayhorn.
“Reducing [the Education Department] is slicing scholar success,” Strayhorn mentioned.
What might get lower?
The strikes by the Trump administration are “deliberately” wrecking “past restore” features undertaken by the Schooling Division, Denise Smith, deputy director of upper schooling coverage and senior fellow at The Century Basis, a left-leaning suppose tank, mentioned in an interview in March.
The cuts to the company might disrupt tens of millions of {dollars} in federal funding and mortgage applications for college hiring, campus infrastructure and scholar help companies, together with these for veterans, mentioned Strayhorn. The Strengthening HBCUs Program, for instance, gives direct monetary help to these establishments to assist them enhance their tutorial, administrative, and monetary capabilities, he mentioned. The destiny of that, and different applications are “in danger,” he mentioned.
The Trump administration’s fiscal 2026 funds proposal requires eliminating federal funding for the same grant program for schools, known as Strengthening Establishments, which the White Home accused of being “used to advertise DEI, inconsistent with the Administration’s priorities and Govt Orders.”
The Minority Science and Engineering Enchancment program helps STEM schooling at predominantly minority establishments. If that funding dries up, it might additional marginalize Black students and restrict alternatives for superior STEM schooling, graduate research and analysis, Strayhorn mentioned.
The Schooling Division’s closure might additionally strip HBCUs of civil rights companies — because the company’s Workplace of Civil Rights might both be defunded or moved underneath the U.S. Division of Justice, mentioned Strayhorn.
The Schooling Division in March shuttered seven of its 12 civil rights enforcement places of work, letting a whole bunch of its staff go. Trump’s funds proposal additionally requires slashing OCR’s funding by $49 million, which might quantity to a 35% discount.
Gutting the division might additionally make it more durable for HBCU college students to safe monetary help and result in extra scholar mortgage debtors coming into into default, Strayhorn mentioned. Different increased schooling consultants have additionally voiced issues about disruptions to scholar help.
Trump has shared plans to maneuver the U.S.’s scholar mortgage portfolio from the purview of Federal Pupil Support to the Small Enterprise Administration. However it’s nonetheless unclear whether or not scholar help can be managed by SBA and if such a transfer might make making use of for help more durable, mentioned Strayhorn.
Different applications might be impacted attributable to potential cuts within the employees who oversee them, or they’re eradicated altogether, Strayhorn mentioned. That features Federal Work-Examine, which gives part-time jobs to college students with monetary wants, and the Second Probability Pell program, which permits college students who’re incarcerated to obtain federal monetary help to earn levels via HBCUs and different schools,
To arrange for the cuts and potential loss in federal funding, some smaller HBCUs began contingency planning by figuring out important applications they function and discovering methods to make sure their continuity, mentioned Strayhorn. These establishments are additionally strategizing methods to help college students if their monetary help is disrupted, he mentioned.
A handful of faculties mentioned they’re additionally reviving and revisiting a number of the methods that emerged throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, mentioned Strayhorn.
For instance, leaders are implementing distant companies, providing short-term fee plans to college students for tuition, and are in search of new private-sector investments for grants that assist college students full their credentials, he mentioned.
LeMoyne-Owen School, primarily based in Memphis, Tennessee, launched a program that may pay again $20,000 annually to a few of its graduates who’re working however earn lower than $45,000 yearly. This system is partly funded via its endowment, in accordance with native media.
Establishments are additionally partaking with their state representatives to allow them to safe further help for his or her amenities, Smith mentioned.
However, “the historic underfunding on the state stage raises critical issues about whether or not states are keen to truly guarantee these establishments obtain help they want impartial of federal help,” Smith mentioned.
‘We’re undoubtedly involved’
HBCUs face federal losses from businesses aside from the Schooling Division.
The College of Maryland Japanese Shore is amongst the 19 HBCUs established underneath the Morrill Act of 1890, which aimed to open land-grant schools for African Individuals in states that had discriminatory admissions insurance policies at their present land-grant establishments.
However a loss or decline of federal funding from the U.S. Division of Agriculture might be devastating for such 1890 land-grant establishments.
The Trump administration indefinitely paused the scholarship program for the establishments’ college students in February earlier than reinstating it days later following public outcry.
1890 establishments additionally obtain analysis and extension program funding from the federal authorities that states are required to match. Traditionally, many states haven’t matched the quantity these traditionally Black establishments are owed — even whereas adequately matching funding ranges for predominantly White land-grant establishments.
Over the previous three many years, 16 states have collectively underfunded their land-grant HBCUs to the tune of over $12 billion. Maryland alone owed the College of Maryland Japanese Shore $321 million throughout that point, in accordance with a 2023 letter to the state’s governor from the previous secretaries of the Schooling and Agriculture departments.
Since quickly pausing the scholarship program, the Trump administration has signaled help for the 1890 land-grant establishments’ funding, urging states to “present the required State matching funds,” in the April 23 govt order.
A good portion of the College of Maryland Japanese Shore’s assets come from grants issued by totally different departments throughout the federal authorities, such because the Agriculture Division, mentioned Robert Vickers Jr., the college’s vp for strategic communications and advertising and marketing.
And, like many HBCUs, the college operates on a good funds. Any disruption in anticipated funding “might have an enormous impact on our skill to coach our college students, to help our communities,” he mentioned.
College of Maryland Japanese Shore leaders are monitoring developments on the federal stage, and consulting with their federal, state and native stakeholders so they’re “ready to guarantee that there are not any important interruptions of our regular operations,” mentioned Vickers.
“However we’re undoubtedly involved by what’s occurring,” Vickers added. “Something that may reduce the monetary help that we get from the federal authorities might instantly have an effect on the American exceptionalism that we’ve been accustomed to for generations.”