President Donald Trump wants to wipe out funding for programs at Minority-Serving Institutions, such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-Serving Institutions and others, according to his fiscal year 2027 budget proposal.
It marks the White House’s latest attempt to remodel higher education, as the president’s spending plan also seeks to apply Pell Grants to short-term workforce credentials.
Billions in higher education program eliminations
The budget would decrease discretionary Department of Education spending by $2.3 billion from fiscal year 2026, which aligns with the administration’s continued attempts to reduce the cabinet’s footprint.
In one of the most significant reductions in recent budget history, the budget proposes $2.7 billion in program eliminations. Among the most dramatic changes is how it effectively eliminates MSI designations, which the Department of Justice determined was unconstitutional in December 2025 due to a focus on racial or ethnic enrollment quotas.
The administration began reprogramming MSI funding in 2025 toward HBCUs and Tribally-Controlled Colleges and Universities due to their “demonstrated record of expanding higher education access,” the budget notes.
| Program | Budget Impact |
| Minority-Serving Institutions Programs | −$354 million |
| Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) | −$136 million |
| International and Foreign Language Education | −$81 million |
| Additional Higher Ed Program Eliminations | −$2.1 billion |
| Federal Pell Grants (increase to address shortfall) | +$10.5 billion |
| Workforce Pell (new short-term credential expansion) | New authority |
Foreign language education, FIPSE and other programs are targeted for massive cuts for being ideologically driven or to help restore state oversight over education.
Research cuts proposed
Although housed in the Department of Health and Human Services, the proposed $5 billion reduction to the National Institutes of Health proposes eliminating several institutes and centers, and broadly targets research spending that the plan characterizes as duplicative, wasteful or ideologically motivated.
The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, the Fogarty International Center and the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health are specifically targeted for cuts.
Additionally, the budget introduces a government-wide prohibition on the use of federal funds for academic journal subscription and publishing fees unless required by statute or pre-approved by an agency. This provision directly affects research universities’ library budgets and open-access publishing infrastructure.
Pell Grant expansion
The administration requests a $10.5 billion increase for federal Pell Grants, bringing total Pell funding to $33 billion, and maintains the discretionary maximum award at $6,335.
However, the more structurally significant change is Workforce Pell—an expansion of Pell Grant eligibility to short-term programs of less than one academic year that prepare students for in-demand jobs. Workforce Pell is designed to redirect some federal student aid toward community colleges, vocational schools and employer-aligned credential programs rather than traditional four-year degrees.
“Workforce Pell… expand[s] eligibility to high-quality, short-term programs that prepare students for in-demand jobs more quickly and cheaply than traditional college degrees,” the budget reads.
