3 Things to Know About Trump’s Higher Ed Grant Competitions

Over the last two months, the Department of Education has announced a series of higher education–related grant programs collectively worth more than $600 million. The results of those competitions, which are slated to play out in the months ahead, could offer a key glimpse into how the Trump administration intends to use taxpayer dollars to advance its political agenda, higher education funding experts say.

Colleges and other groups are seeking funding to support college access, student success and underresourced institutions, among other programs. As of Thursday, applications for nearly all the key awards overseen by the Office of Postsecondary Education have opened. Some are still live and open to applications. Others have since closed and are now being evaluated. 

Grant competitions are traditionally a rather bureaucratic process that attracts little public attention. But now, as the Trump administration outsources grant oversight to other agencies, proposes major cuts to federal funding and declares that any awardee that doesn’t align with the administration’s interpretation of civil rights law could lose access to federal funding, policy experts are following the process closely.

As they do, here’s what you need to know.

1. New Priorities Outline the Agenda

When the Trump administration reviews the grant applications, officials will be looking to see how well the programs support the department’s priorities: strengthening workforce development, advancing artificial intelligence in education, returning power to the states and promoting patriotic education.

The Education Department proposed the priorities last year and took public comment on those proposals. The agency recently finalized the final priority, on patriotic education.

Applicants whose programs align with one or more of the priorities as listed in each individual grant competition can earn extra points, boosting their application’s score in the review process and improving their overall chance of being selected as a grant recipient. (There also absolute priorities that must be met in order to be considered and invitational priorities that are optional.)

Last year, the Trump administration canceled grants that did not align with its priorities but did so before the priorities were codified; the legality of those decisions were challenged in court. This year, the priorities outlined in the grant competitions are perfectly legal, policy experts say. But that doesn’t mean they exist without pushback. Higher education experts and members of Congress alike have voiced concern that, though technically legal, Trump’s priorities defy the original intent of the grant programs, specifically pointing to the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, the collection of college-access programs known as TRIO and the Strengthening Institutions Program.

“FIPSE, TRIO and SIP are a comprehensive reflection of how [the Trump administration] is using executive authority in ways that contravene Congress and are disruptive to students,” said Jon Fansmith, senior vice president for government relations at the American Council on Education. “Setting priorities is a power granted to them by Congress, but it was granted without the assumption it would ever be used this way to fundamentally reshape programs.”

2. ‘Cookie Cutter’ Approach to Grant Programs

In general, the Trump administration has chosen to apply many of the same priorities, whether or not they truly fit with the grants up for consideration, policy experts say. And in doing so, the Education Department could add administrative burden for colleges that are applying, especially those that are smaller and may not have a team of staff members dedicated to grant writing.

For example, one of the FIPSE grant programs focuses on basic needs. Historically, these grants have supported college food pantries, affordable housing operations, transportation systems, childcare and other vital resource-based programs that help prevent students from having to choose between their mental and physical health and staying enrolled. But this time around, the Trump administration listed returning education to the states as a competitive priority and included connecting students with work-based learning as an invitational priority within basic needs.

That means that in order to earn preference points, programs would have to be carried out by state agencies. Similar concerns were raised when the TRIO Talent Search program, announced in earlier this spring, placed an emphasis on preparing students for the workforce through apprenticeships rather than traditional two- and four-year degrees. Several members of Congress from both parties have since called on the Education Department to rethink the TRIO competition.

Again, because the priorities were formally established through rule making, the department’s decision to incorporate them is not illegal, said Amanda Fuchs Miller, president of Seventh Street Strategies, a higher ed consulting firm.

“They are just sometimes fitting a square peg in a round hole to get to their priorities,” she said. “It’s not illegal. It’s not wrong. You should [set] the grant programs to meet your priorities. This is one tool in your toolbox as an administration … So, I don’t have any problem with that. But I think there are some examples where I feel like it’s a little bit of a stretch, because it doesn’t really align with that specific grant program.”

Miller, who oversaw higher ed grant programs during the Biden administration, believes that past administrations have been more selective about which priorities they apply to which grant competitions.

“It’s almost sad to me that they’re making all these grant programs look exactly alike. They all involve postsecondary success, but in different ways. Congress spends a lot of time writing these bills, developing and shaping these programs,” she said. Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s approach to enacting priorities is “very cookie cutter” and “not the intent of how we best support colleges.”

Another obstacle presented by Trump’s priorities is the need for institution-based initiatives to develop partnerships with a state agency in order to be recognized. Historically, many grant applicants have been based at and served an institution. In fact, in some cases the legislation creating a grant program requires applicants to be institution-based. But now, as part of its priority to return education to the states, in some cases the department is only awarding extra points to applicants that can prove partnership with a state higher education agency or a certain number of other public institutions.

In doing so, the department is making it harder for some colleges to apply for critical grant programs, said David Baime, senior vice president for government relations at the American Association of Community Colleges.

“Demonstrating that partnership is going to be particularly difficult in some large states that don’t have strong central administrations for their community college systems,” he said. “And even if they do, that’s just a high bar to clear.”

3. More Federal Agencies Are Involved

This time around, it’s not just the Department of Education involved in doling out higher ed–related grants, and in some cases, the traditional peer-review model for evaluating applicants is not set in stone.

The more public-facing of the two major changes to this year’s grant competitions is that they are no longer run solely by ED. Through a series of interagency agreements, the Trump administration is now working with the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Interior to conduct ED’s various grant programs. Not much will change up front, as the terms of the competition are still set by ED and it will largely be ED staff members overseeing the competition, just from a different desk in a new office.

But experts say that where disruptions could occur is on the back end after award recipients are selected. Since other agencies will manage the funding, colleges will have to use different technical systems to retrieve their aid. For example, ED uses a system called G5, but Labor uses the Payment Management System. It’s a technical software change, but learning the difference could be a burden for colleges with limited resources.

The other potentially significant but lesser-known change involves how grant recipients will be selected, policy experts say. Historically, executive branch agencies have depended on a peer-review system in which third-party experts are paid to review applications and score them based on a rubric provided by ED. The applicants with the highest scores receive the aid they applied for in order until funding runs out.

But according to an August executive order signed by President Trump, agencies have been instructed to use peer review as an “advisory” component of the application, not “de facto binding.” Instead, it says agencies should defer to “senior appointees” to take charge of awarding or denying new federal grants. In certain circumstances, like all TRIO grants, federal law requires the peer-review and rank-order model to be used when selecting grant recipients. But in all other cases, under the executive order the grant-selection process could become highly politicized.

So far, all competitions announced will still include a peer-review process. Based on the competitions that have already been conducted, Baime from AACC said the institutions he represents haven’t experienced any direct overrides of rank order. But very few have been completed from start to finish and there’s no guarantee the Education Department will adhere to all peer-review scores moving forward, which Miller from Seventh Street says is a major concern.

“You’re spending all this money and all these resources to go through the whole peer-review process and then you could just pick the applicants that you want to give the grant to. I’m not saying [the Trump administration] will do that for certain, but they are not hiding the fact that they may choose to do that, and to me that’s a huge problem,” she said.