President Donald Trump’s proposed budget, released Monday, could particularly impact Georgia’s 22 technical colleges and its nine accredited historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos highlighted some proposals that include:
- $2 billion for Career and Technical Education State Grants to support programs in high schools and colleges. Georgia has 22 technical colleges.
- $749.2 million for HBCU programs, an increase of $44 million over the current enacted fiscal year level. Georgia has nine accredited HBCUs.
- $150 million, an increase of $137.4 million, to fund science, technology, engineering and math activities led by HBCUs and Minority Serving Institutions located in federal Opportunity Zones.
"This budget proposal is about one thing — putting students and their needs above all else," said DeVos.
Some organizations had concerns about the budget, such as:
- it limits graduate student and parent student loan borrowing.
- it eliminates the Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which allows not-for-profit and government employees to have their federal student loans canceled after 10 years of on-time payments.
- cuts 6%, or about $424 million, from the National Science Foundation's research and development budget.
“The administration’s Fiscal Year 2021 budget request falls far short of the investment needed to secure the U.S.’s position as the world’s preeminent economic power,” Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) President Peter McPherson said in a statement.
Trump's $4.8 trillion budget could impact Georgia in other ways. It includes $93.6 million to continue deepening Savannah's harbor but includes cuts to the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Trump's budget proposal, which includes an 8% decrease in the overall education department budget, is unlikely to be approved in its entirety in a fractured Congress that must sign off on government spending.
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