The Trump administration announced a sweeping redirection of education funds this month, sending nearly $500 million to historically Black colleges and universities and tribal colleges. The move, described by supporters as a long-overdue investment, was made possible by trimming programs elsewhere in the education budget, The New York Times reports.
South Carolina State University, Orangeburg (Chris B./Flickr Creative Commons)Alongside the infusion for HBCUs, the administration also boosted funding for civics and history education — rising from $23 million to $160 million — and increased support for charter schools by $60 million. Together, the changes amount to a one-time shift of priorities, taken just before the end of the fiscal year, using flexibility created by Congress’s reliance on stopgap spending bills.
HBCU leaders praised the additional money, saying it will have a real impact on institutions that have historically struggled with limited resources. Lodriguez Murray of UNCF called it a “godsend,” noting that about 70 percent of HBCU students come from low-income families. Tribal colleges, which also benefited, will see their Education Department funding roughly double.
But the gains came at a cost. To offset the new spending, the administration cut $350 million from other minority-serving institutions, including Hispanic-serving colleges and universities with large Black and Latino student enrollments. Funding for gifted and talented programs, magnet schools, and PBS’s “Ready to Learn” initiative was also cut. Critics argue that while HBCUs deserve more support, the reallocation pits institutions against each other and reduces overall equity.
Marybeth Gasman, who directs the Rutgers Center for Minority-Serving Institutions, told the Times that minority-serving institutions collectively educate more than half of the students of color in the United States. She welcomed help for HBCUs but warned against cutting other programs.
“None of these institutions should be pitted against each other, which seems to be what the Trump administration is doing,” she said.
The political calculus is hard to ignore. President Donald Trump has often aligned himself with HBCUs in an effort to build goodwill with Black voters. During his first term, he secured more than $250 million in annual funding and canceled $300 million in federal loan repayments for HBCUs. At the same time, he has criticized diversity initiatives, cut teacher training programs, and promoted “patriotic education” — themes reflected in this year’s budget shuffle.
Charter schools, another Trump priority, saw a sizable bump. Charters are publicly funded but privately operated, and have long been a central part of his education agenda. Meanwhile, the Education Department under Trump has scaled back enforcement of racial discrimination cases and shifted its Office for Civil Rights to focus on complaints from white students.
For HBCUs, the immediate impact is clear: more resources for campuses that have long been underfunded. For other colleges serving minority students and for public schools losing resources to charter schools and block grants, however, the cuts may be deeply felt.
Editorial
It’s difficult to see this year’s funding shift as anything other than a political trade-off. On one hand, HBCUs and tribal colleges deserve every dollar they can get; the historic underfunding of these institutions is indisputable. On the other hand, pulling money away from other minority-serving institutions, from gifted programs, and from schools working to integrate students undermines the broader goal of equity.
Education policy should not be a zero-sum game, where one group’s gain comes at another’s loss. If the administration truly values equity, it should increase investment across the board rather than reshuffling limited dollars to score political points. The result of this one-time infusion may help some campuses in the short term, but it leaves behind questions about sustainability, fairness, and whether students of color as a whole are better served.
