A newly released budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 outlines exactly which federal programs in higher ed the Trump administration is willing to shrink to cut spending across the board.
President Donald Trump’s “skinny budget” aims to cut $163 billion in non-defense spending. The proposal called out “institutions of higher education committed to radical gender and climate ideologies antithetical to the American way of life.” It also cites woke ideology as one reason for cutting programs targeted in the new spending plan.
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Trump proposes cutting TRIO and GEAR UP—accessibility programs for low-income students—by more than $1.5 billion. The budget proposal indicated that institutions of higher education should pay for their programs and that federal support isn’t necessary because “the pendulum has swung and access to college is not the obstacle it was for students of limited means.”
Federal work study could be cut by $980 million, and the administration suggested that its remaining funding should be redistributed to low-income students as a wage subsidy for career-oriented programs. “In its current form, FWS is a handout to woke universities and a subsidy from Federal taxpayers,” the proposal read.
Other programs facing the axe include:
- Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (-$910 million): “[C]ontributes to rising college costs that [institutions of higher education] have used to fund radical leftist ideology instead of investing in students and their success.”
- English Language Acquisition (-$890 million): “To end overreach from Washington and restore the rightful role of State oversight in education…”
- Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Ed (FIPSE) and Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (-$195 million): The budget proposal states that institutions of higher education and states should be solely responsible for this funding. It also claimed the program “allowed colleges and universities to fund ideologies instead of students.”
Trump proposes cutting funding for the Department of Education and its civil rights office by at least 30% each to reduce unnecessary personnel and its ability to “push DEI programs and promote radical transgender ideology.”
