Senate Increases Pell Grant Awards by $100
The Senate Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee took a different approach to FY 2025 funding than the House Committee on Appropriations providing a total of $231.34 billion for the largest federal non-defense agencies, which is $45.5 billion more than the House bill overall. The full committee approved the bill with an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 25-3.
The bill would boost the Department of Education budget by $8 billion, for a total allocation of $80 billion. The Senate used the increase to provide for a $100 increase for the Pell Grant maximum award, among other proposed education program increases.
The bill’s proposed $100 increase would take the Pell Grant maximum award to $7,495 for the 2025-26 award year. The bill would also level fund Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants and Federal Work-Study; provide a $20 million increase for TRIO and a $5 million increase for GEAR UP. The bill also increases funding for the Titles III and V Strengthening Institutions grants, Teacher Quality Partnership grants, Basic Needs grants, and Student Aid Administration.
In contrast to the House bill, the funding levels were negotiated by the bipartisan leadership of the subcommittee and presented to the full committee for approval. The report accompanying the Senate bill includes over $206 million in congressionally directed spending projects from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), which includes many projects at private, nonprofit colleges and universities. The House bill did not include project funding.
The Senate committee report also includes important language communicating the committee’s interests about a variety of topics in higher education and requesting specific action from the Department of Education, such as:
- FAFSA 2025 Launch: The Education Department just announced that next year’s FAFSA will launch on December 1, not October 1. (See more: New Developments in the FAFSA Saga)
- Promoting Safe Campuses: encouraging the Office of Federal Student Aid to include institutions where known anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim hate crimes have occurred in Clery Act assessments and reviews.
- Campus Anti-Semitic Activity: encouraging the department to offer guidance to institutions for the development of campus policies to combat religious-based discrimination, harassment and other incidents; to encourage the reporting of such incidents; and to take appropriate disciplinary action.
- Foreign Influence and Section 117: strongly urging the department to work with institutions to fully comply with Section 117 foreign gift reporting; to report on any action taken to address undue foreign influence on campus; and to report on the presence of any Confucius Institutes or successor programs in existence and if those programs have received federal funding for foreign language programs.
- Campus Climate Survey: requesting a briefing from the department on the pilot campus climate survey instrument from the Violence Against Women Act of 2022 and its plans to consult with stakeholders, provide an analysis of the campus climate survey landscape and the appropriateness of the federal survey.
- College Costs and College Transparency List: directing the department to prominently display on its website the College Affordability and Transparency List and to note on the College Scorecard profile of any institutions that is on the transparency list.
- NCES Data Collection on Admissions Surveys: deeming beneficial the data collection from admissions surveys to determine the use of legacy status, and the Early Action/Early Decision processes.
The next step after the August recess for the FY 2025 funding process will be for Congress to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open through the elections – most likely until early December. While the House and Senate funding levels are currently very far apart, appropriators in both chambers acknowledge that these are the first steps in a process that will be negotiated in the post-election lame duck session.