A student walks along the campus of Howard University, an HBCU, on Oct. 25, 2021 in Washington, D.C. Howard is an HBCU. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration said Monday it will redirect $495 million in additional funding to historically Black colleges and universities as well as tribal colleges. 

The U.S. Education Department’s announcement came just days after the administration decided to gut and reprogram $350 million in discretionary funds that support minority-serving institutions over claims that these programs are “racially discriminatory.” 

The department last week said it would cease funding for seven grant programs that go toward institutions that serve students who are Black, Indigenous, Hispanic and Asian, as well as initiatives for minority students pursuing science and engineering careers. 

The agency argued that these programs “discriminate by conferring government benefits exclusively to institutions that meet racial or ethnic quotas.” 

Charter schools, civics education

Meanwhile, the department is also diverting $60 million toward grants for charter schools, and will award a total of $500 million for these schools, which receive public funds and are a form of school choice. The umbrella term “school choice” centers on programs that offer alternatives to one’s assigned public school.

The agency also said it’s investing more than $160 million total in American history and civics grants — a $137 million increase in the funds Congress previously approved. 

In its announcement, the agency said “these investments will be repurposed from programs that the Department determined are not in the best interest of students and families.” 

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said her department “has carefully scrutinized our federal grants, ensuring that taxpayers are not funding racially discriminatory programs but those programs which promote merit and excellence in education,” in a statement Monday. 

She added that the administration “will use every available tool to meaningfully advance educational outcomes and ensure every American has the opportunity to succeed in life.” 

There was no breakdown made available Monday as to which programs or individual institutions would gain funding.

HBCU ‘godsend’

Lodriguez V. Murray, senior vice president for public policy and government affairs at UNCF, which supports historically Black colleges and universities, said the extra funding is “nothing short of a godsend for HBCUs,” in a statement Monday.   

“We are grateful to have worked with the Trump Administration, Secretary McMahon, and her Department of Education team in achieving this one-time infusion of grant funding,” Murray said.  

Murray noted that “HBCUs are currently and have been underfunded since their inception” and “while we are grateful for these funds, we are still under-resourced.” 

The National Center for Education Statistics noted that in 2022, there were “99 HBCUs located in 19 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.” 

File photo of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, which is among the nation's largest Hispanic-serving institutions. Hispanic-serving institutions and other colleges and universities serving students of color will lose funding under a recent U.S. Education Department decision. (Photo by Hugh Jackson/Nevada Current)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education announced it will withhold $350 million of congressionally approved funds to minority-serving colleges and universities and divert the funds elsewhere, saying that the institutions’ admissions quotas are discriminatory.  

The move eliminated fiscal 2025 discretionary funding for institutions that serve students who are Asian, Black, Indigenous and Hispanic, as well as a program for students of color pursuing careers in science and engineering. It’s consistent with President Donald Trump’s longstanding objective to eliminate programs that center on diversity, equity and inclusion.

“To further our commitment to ending discrimination in all forms across federally supported programs, the Department will no longer award Minority-Serving Institution grants that discriminate by restricting eligibility to institutions that meet government-mandated racial quotas,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement.

McMahon cited a July opinion from the U.S. Justice Department that it was unconstitutional for federal funds to go to Hispanic-serving institutions based on the student body makeup.

That opinion reversed a decades-long record of the federal government setting aside funding for higher education institutions that have a significant portion of students from racial or ethnic minority backgrounds. 

The schools affected by Wednesday’s announcement are Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian-serving institutions; Black institutions; Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-serving institutions; Native American-serving nontribal institutions; and institutions receiving Minority Science and Engineering Improvement grants. 

The announcement was vague about where the money would go instead, saying only it would be diverted “into programs that do not include discriminatory racial and ethnic quotas and that advance Administration priorities.”

Up to 800 schools affected

Democrats swiftly condemned the move, which is likely to face legal challenges.

Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, the ranking member on the U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee, said in a statement that the move undercut efforts to help students of color reach financial stability.

“These institutions are effective engines of economic mobility because they meet students where they are and are dedicated to educating the whole person,” Scott said in a statement.

Roughly 5 million students are enrolled in the more than 800 minority-serving institutions across the country. The schools aim to help students of color and students from low-income backgrounds pursue higher education. 

Most of the minority-serving schools receive funding based on racial quotas, except for Black institutions and tribal colleges, whose designations are based on their historical missions to educate Black or Native American students.

The Department of Education will also reprogram funds from a program to develop Hispanic-serving institutions and from a program promoting postbaccalaureate opportunities for Hispanic Americans.

McMahon argued that because most minority-serving institutions require that a percentage of the student body reflect the racial background the institutions serve, it violates the constitutional guarantee of equal protections. 

Administration cites equal protections

McMahon pointed to the Justice Department’s July memo saying it would not defend a suit brought by the state of Tennessee against Hispanic-serving institutions. 

The Supreme Court has explained that ‘[o]utright racial balancing’ is ‘patently unconstitutional,’” U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote to House Speaker Mike Johnson. 

“And its precedents make clear that the government lacks any legitimate interest in differentiating among universities based on whether ‘a specified number of seats in each class’ are occupied by ‘individuals from the preferred ethnic groups,’” Sauer wrote.

The U.S. Supreme Court case that Sauer cited in his letter to Johnson is the 2023 decision to strike down affirmative action in college admissions that found two prominent universities’ consideration of race in acceptances violated the U.S. Constitution.

Most minority-serving institutions, about 70%, are Hispanic-serving institutions, according to Rutgers University’s Center for Minority Serving Institutions.

David Mendez, the head of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, an advocacy group, said in a statement that the loss in funding is “an attack on equity in higher education.”

“Cutting this funding strips away critical investments in under-resourced and first-generation students and will destabilize colleges in 29 states,” Mendez said. “The funds granted to HSIs have never supported only Latino students. These funds strengthen entire campuses, creating opportunities and resources that benefit all students, especially those pursuing (science, technology, engineering and math) fields, as well as enhancing the communities where these colleges and universities are located.”