In late July, the Senate Appropriation Committee, in a bipartisan effort, marked up the Fiscal Year 2026 Labor-HHS-Education spending bill and rejected President Trump’s proposed spending cuts.

Rather than agree to make deep reductions in the U.S. Department of Education’s budget, the Department will receive $79 billion in discretionary funding. The bill also funds all student aid programs and provides the additional $10.5 billion to address the Pell Grant shortfall that was included in the July reconciliation bill.

The bill provides a Pell Grant maximum of $7,395 for the 2026-2027 award year. Congress will need to continue to address the full funding of the Pell Grant program to avoid annual funding shortfall hurdles. The changes made to family farm and small businesses calculations will exacerbate the shortfall, as likely will the new Workforce Pell provisions.

The Senate bill also levels funds for Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (SEOG), Federal Work-Study (FWS), TRIO, GEAR UP, and Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN), which were all proposed to be eliminated in the President’s budget.

Other programs proposed for elimination in the president’s budget were maintained but with slight cuts, including Title VI International Education, Teacher Quality Partnership Grants, and Title III-Part A Strengthening Institutions Grants.

The House Appropriations Committee also marked up their Labor-HHS-Education bill. The House level funded most programs but proposed to eliminate SEOG and to cut FWS by 40%. The House Committee also proposed a 15% cut to the Department of Education’s funding.

The differences between the Senate and House bill must be resolved before a final FY 2026 funding bill can be enacted and signed by the president. If they do not agree on final amounts by September 30, Congress can once again enact a continuing resolution to keep the government running or can let funding lapse and cause a government shutdown.

For more information, please email WAICU Executive Vice President of External Relations Rebecca Larson.