How Congress’s Budget Could Hamper Trump ED Agenda

Following a year of unprecedented funding decisions that often ignored congressional orders and redirected taxpayer dollars to different programs than the ones originally intended, Congress has had enough.

New legislation to fund the government for the fiscal year includes a number of significant changes that Democrats argue will prevent the Trump administration’s unilateral decisions to defund some grant programs and move money to others.

These new restrictions—which can be found throughout the appropriations bill for the Department of Education and other sections of the 11-part funding package that was signed into law last week—are part of what policy experts describe as a bipartisan attempt to rebuke the Trump administration’s budget proposal and restore Congress’s power of the purse.

Historically, the language of these budget bills has largely stayed the same, serving as little more than a template into which lawmakers plug that year’s dollar amounts and policy riders. Meanwhile, the bulk of the budget’s details, like how much should go toward each specific project or grant, were housed in a separate report known as the Joint Explanatory Statement.

For decades, presidents from both parties have mostly treated the supplemental report as law. But during the first year of Trump 2.0, the president used his executive authority to reroute dollars from one project to another within the same account. This allowed him to shore up resources for his priorities while leaving other critical programs high and dry.

For example, the Department of Education took funding from traditional grants focused on student basic needs, veterans’ success and rural colleges, instead putting it toward accreditation reform, short-term job training and artificial intelligence. It also moved to end grant programs for minority-serving institutions, reallocating those dollars instead to historically Black colleges and universities.

The Trump administration justified these actions by arguing that the report was not law. They also added that the government was operating under a continuing resolution, or an extension of the prior year’s budget, and no new report was written in tandem with the CR bill.

But this year, lawmakers from both parties agreed to say explicitly that following the explanatory statement was not optional. This tactic, which policy experts referred to as “inclusion by reference,” can be seen throughout the package in relation to a number of grants and agencies, including at ED and the National Institutes of Health.

One former Republican aide noted that Trump is not the first president to bend the rules of the explanatory statement, which up until now has not technically held the power of law. But even that source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to their current nonpartisan role, acknowledged that any past moves from Democratic administrations were dwarfed by those from Trump.

All in all, experts agreed, Congress was sending a message.

“Particularly from an appropriator mindset, the changes to the bill show that even Republicans are concerned about their lack of ability to hold those strings of the purse and direct where funds actually go,” the former aide explained.

What Are the New Restrictions?

Specifically within the bill that outlines funding for the Education Department, lawmakers used inclusion by reference to dictate how the $3.2 billion in the higher education account will be spent. This means that if the Trump administration were to reallocate any funding between programs like TRIO, CCAMPIS or the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, it would be illegal.

The bill also references report language when it comes to MSIs, which the Trump administration defunded after claiming that they are discriminatory and unconstitutional because they require colleges to enroll a certain percentage of students from a particular racial or ethnic background to qualify. That language does allow the executive branch to move funds from specific grant programs, such as for Hispanic-serving institutions, to a broader grant called the Strengthening Institutions Program, which is open to any underresourced college. But Jared Bass, senior vice president of education at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, said even that is a win compared to last year.

“Most of the institutions that qualify for the more specific MSI programs would be eligible for the Strengthening Institutions Program. So the department’s reprogramming authority is very limited,” said Bass, who previously served as a Democratic aide on the House Appropriations Committee. “It seems like the Appropriations Committee was trying to have a safety net to make sure that these institutions would still be able to compete and receive funding regardless of what games the Trump administration may play.”

The bill also includes language requiring the agency to maintain whatever “sufficient staffing” is needed to execute its statutory authorities and to give Congress three days’ notice and justification before canceling any grants. Congress also put forth explicit spending requirements for the Institute of Education Sciences—a central education data collection and research agency that was gutted by the mass layoffs last spring.

Bass and others say those provisions appear to push back on the Trump administration’s attempt to dismantle the department.

“The appropriators have taken a stance here that they believe that the department should continue,” said Bryce McKibben, senior director of policy and advocacy at the Hope Center at Temple University. “It’s worth trying to push the agency to justify its decisions, particularly when it comes to the levels of staffing [and] the transfer of money … It’s a step in the right direction.”

McKibben, who previously served as the senior policy adviser for the Democrats on the Senate education committee, also noted that lawmakers added language in the report that directs the department to provide biweekly briefings about the seven interagency agreements it’s using to outsource some programs to other departments. But that language doesn’t carry the same power as the sufficient staffing requirement since it is not referenced directly in the bill. Still, he sees it as a win.

“Even though it’s not a foolproof way of preventing any future monkeying around with the potential dismantling of the department, it does significantly raise the bar for what the administration will have to do to prove that all of these interagency agreements are the right way to approach it,” he said.

But Will Guardrails Work?

The former Republican aide and other higher ed policy experts who spoke on background, however, see some of the new provisions as mere messaging strategies, especially when it comes to the interagency agreements. They’re skeptical Congress will be able to actually rein in the Trump administration’s actions.

The Education Department noted in a statement Tuesday that the legislation doesn’t preclude the agency from partnering with other federal agencies to manage education programs.

“The FY26 appropriations bill does not preclude the department from partnering with better-positioned federal agencies to manage federal education programs. We will continue to deliver successes through these partnerships, further solidifying the proof of concept that interagency agreements provide the same protections, higher-quality outcomes and even more benefits for students, grantees and other education stakeholders,” Press Secretary Savannah Newhouse said.

The department declined to comment on other restrictions that were explicitly referenced in the bill, like MSI spending.

The former Republican aide Inside Higher Ed spoke with doubted that Republicans will strongly enforce the new restrictions, in part because they were likely added to get Democrats on board.

It usually takes 60 votes for a bill to pass in the Senate, so Democratic support is often needed to pass a bill. And while the House only requires a simple majority, as of now Republicans only have a one-vote majority, so even there Democrats can hold a lot of influence, which “folks sometimes diminish,” the source said.

“Obviously there is discontent on the Republican side, but in order to get Democrats to vote for the bill, they had to have a number of provisions so that made the left [feel] like it was getting what it needed out of the bill,” they explained.

Still, Democrats in both chambers are counting these changes as a win.

“We saw that there was a great need for us to make it crystal clear, without any sort of wiggle room, that the amount we funded for programs, including higher education programs, are to be followed under our law,” said a current aide to Rep. Rosa DeLauro, ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee. He later added that the changes that made it into the bill accomplished that and “will be quite consequential for how [the Trump administration] will be able to run programs at the Department of Education and the Office of Postsecondary Education this year.”

Sen. Patty Murray, ranking member on the high chamber’s appropriations committee, added that even if the Trump administration breaks the law and ignores these new restrictions, adding them to the bill will “help ensure students and communities … succeed in court.”