The Department of Education said Tuesday that the pause on federal grants and loans will not affect\u00a0student loans\u00a0or financial aid for\u00a0college.<\/p>\n
The freeze, which could affect billions of dollars in aid, noted an exception for Social Security and Medicare. The pause \u201cdoes not include assistance provided directly to individuals,\u201d according to the White House memo that announced the pause on Monday.<\/p>\n
The pause\u00a0gives the White House time to review government funding for causes that don\u2019t fit with President\u00a0Donald Trump\u2019s policy agenda, according to Matthew J. Vaeth, acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.<\/p>\n
The memo specifically cited \u201cfinancial assistance for foreign aid, non-governmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Department of Education said the freeze also has no bearing on the\u00a0Free Application for Federal Student Aid\u00a0for the upcoming year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe temporary pause does not impact Title I, IDEA, or other formula grants, nor does it apply to Federal Pell Grants and Direct Loans under Title IV [of the Higher Education Act],\u201d Education Department spokesperson Madi Biedermann said in a statement.<\/p>\n
In addition to the federal financial aid programs\u00a0that fall under Title IV, Title I provides financial assistance to school districts with children from low-income families. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, provides funding for students\u00a0with disabilities.<\/p>\n
The funding pause \u201conly applies to discretionary grants at the Department of Education,\u201d Biedermann said. \u201cThese will be reviewed by Department leadership for alignment with Trump Administration priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pause could affect federal work-study programs and the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant, which are provided in bulk to colleges to provide to students, according to higher education expert\u00a0Mark Kantrowitz.<\/p>\n
However, many colleges have already drawn down their funds for the spring term, so this might not affect even that aid, he said. It may still affect grants to researchers, which often include funding for graduate research assistantships, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the memo says the funding pause does not include assistance \u2018provided directly to individuals,\u2019 it does not clarify whether that includes money sent first to\u00a0institutions, states or organizations\u00a0and then provided to\u00a0students,\u201d said Karen McCarthy, vice president of public policy and federal relations at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.<\/p>\n
Most federal financial aid programs are considered Title IV funds \u201clabeled for individual students\u201d and so would\u00a0not be affected by the pause, McCarthy said, but all other aid outside Title IV is unclear. \u201cWe are also researching the impact on campus-based aid programs since they are funded differently,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you have programs that are serving 20 million students, there are a lot of questions, understandably,\u201d said Jonathan Riskind, a vice president at the American Council on Education. \u201cIt is really, really damaging for students and institutions to have this level of uncertainty.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, called on the Trump administration to rescind the memo.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is bad public policy, and it will have a direct impact on the funds that support students and research,\u201d he said. \u201cThe longer this goes on, the greater the damage will be.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Department of Education said Tuesday that the pause on federal grants and loans will not affect\u00a0student loans\u00a0or financial aid for\u00a0college. The freeze, which could affect billions of dollars in aid, noted an exception for Social Security and Medicare. The pause \u201cdoes not include assistance provided directly to individuals,\u201d according to the White House memo […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":14439,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}