ED Awards TRIO Grants to Hundreds of Colleges

The Department of Education announced more than $186 million in federal college-access funding on Friday, easing concerns that the agency would redirect the money or not award grants at all.

Many colleges and universities are among the 326 entities that received a portion of the $142.5 million awarded to TRIO Talent Search grants, according to a list of the first slate of awardees provided by the Council for Opportunity in Education. The Department also awarded $44.7 million in TRIO Educational Opportunity Center grants to 102 entities.

Between the two programs, the department has until the end of September to announce a second slate of additional awardees.

The announcement brings relief for education advocates worried by the administration’s calls for grant proposals published earlier this year, which said states that applied for Talent Search grants would be eligible for far more money than individual institutions. Educators were also concerned that Educational Opportunity Centers grants would be redirected to workforce-pathway programs.

The Trump administration eliminated funding for TRIO programs in previous budget proposals and terminated more than 120 TRIO grants last year, further driving fears around the future of the programs.

Kimberly Jones, president of the Council for Opportunity in Education, said the initial lists of awards brings “both relief and heartbreak to the TRIO community,” because fewer total grants have been awarded so far.

“We are grateful that the Department ultimately followed the direction of Congress and that hundreds of Talent Search and EOC programs will continue serving students and families,” Jones said in a statement.

Despite the awards, other previous grant recipients are still losing services under the administration’s new funding approach, she said. “The Department made fundamental changes to these competitions that reduced the number of awards and shifted resources away from many proven programs. For the students and communities affected, those decisions have very real consequences.”

Amanda Fuchs Miller, president of Seventh Street Strategies and a former deputy assistant secretary for higher ed programs during the Biden administration, warned against drawing too many conclusions from the initial slate of funding, but from what she’s seen so far, she said it seems like the department is on track to award close to as many grants as it has historically given out, including to many institutions that previously received awards. 

“Ultimately, the way this grant is structured is per student. So, if we care about how many students are benefiting from these services, which are critical … then it doesn’t matter how many grantees there are as long as the department is giving out all the money so that the grantees can do great things to make sure all students have access and can be successful in their postsecondary education,” Fuchs Miller said.

In total, more than 80 percent of the grantees announced so far for both the Talent Search and Educational Opportunity Centers programs are colleges and universities.

The average annual grant amount for the Talent Search program—which aims to increase the number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds who apply to, enroll in and graduate from college—is roughly $437,000, up from $350,000 in the previous grant cycle. This year, the largest annual awards are $10 million for the Executive Office of the State of Ohio and $5.3 million for the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. The remaining 324 entities received $1 million or less per year.

Educational Opportunity Centers grants, which are meant to increase the number of adults in college, averaged roughly $439,000. Of the 102 new grants, the largest awards are $3 million for the West Virginia Council for Community and Technical College Education and $2.9 million for the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission.

Zachary Jenkins, director of a Talent Search program at Marshall University, said the institution received a $625,000 annual grant—the full amount it applied for. He said he was glad to see that the grant program had not been restructured as anticipated.

Jenkins, who previously participated in both the Talent Search program and the Student Support Services programs, said he wouldn’t have made it through college without the opportunities he found through TRIO.

“For me, one of the most important takeaways from this competition is that West Virginia does not need to start from scratch,” Jenkins said in an email. “Existing TRIO programs have spent decades building relationships in schools and communities, developing expertise, meeting federal objectives, and producing results for first-generation and low-income students.”