President Biden’s FY 2024 budget requests a 14% increase in appropriated funding for the Department of Education, to $90 billion, with familiar proposals in higher education targeted at college affordability.
 
In keeping with the last two budgets, this year’s request for funding the federal student aid programs continues to be generous, using a combination of discretionary and mandatory funding. For the Pell Grant program, the budget requests an increase of $820 ($500 in discretionary and $320 in mandatory funds), which would bring the maximum grant to $8,215.  This increase would continue the administration’s push to double the maximum grant by 2029.
 
In the current political environment, it is unlikely for the mandatory funding proposals to be considered in Congress.
 
For the campus-based aid programs, the budget requests level funding of $910 million for the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (SEOG) and $1.23 billion for the Federal Work-Study (FWS) program. Increases are requested for the TRIO (to $1.3 billion) and GEAR UP (to $408 million) student preparation and support programs.
 
As with the Pell Grant increase, this year’s proposal for free community college is bifurcated into a new $500 million discretionary proposal, which would be added to the $90 billion mandatory proposal as seen in the Build Back Better legislation.  The new initiative, called Accelerated Success, would provide two-years of free community college for students enrolled in high-quality programs that lead to a four-year degree or a good-paying job. 
 
The budget also proposes investments in Titles III and V, including the Strengthening Institutions programs for low-resourced institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), and Minority-Serving Institutions (MSI). The budget proposes a $128 million increase overall, to a total of $1.4 billion, for these programs. As in previous proposals, the budget also requests $30 billion in mandatory funding for two years of subsidized tuition for students from families earning less than $125,000 who are enrolled in a four-year HBCU, TCU, or other MSIs, as a parallel to the free community college proposal.
 
The release of the president’s budget kicks off the FY 2024 budget and appropriations process. The next steps are for congressional committees to hear from agency heads, consider the details of the administration’s request, and decide how to craft a congressional budget resolution.
More details are expected to be released from the administration next week, which will provide greater insight into program costs and assumptions.