The 10 Biggest Higher Education Losers In Trump’s Skinny Budget

President Trump has proposed a $163 billion reduction in discretionary federal spending for Fiscal Year 2026, a plan, which if enacted by Congress, would slash funding for a wide swath of education, research, health, environmental, foreign aid and safety net programs.

The cuts are contained in a budget letter and proposal sent by OMB Director Russell T. Vought to Senator Susan Collins, Chair of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, on May 2.

Using language similar to that Trump has often invoked to criticize federal programs he doesn’t like, the letter outlines a 22.6% cut in non-defense discretionary spending below current year levels. It describes such expenditures as “contrary to the needs of ordinary working Americans and tilted toward funding niche non-governmental organizations and institutions of higher education committed to radical gender and climate ideologies antithetical to the American way of life.”

If Congress were to go along with Trump’s so-called “skinny budget” wish-list, here are 10 of the biggest reductions that higher education would experience, ranging across scientific research, financial aid, support for the arts and humanities, and programs designed to increase students’ access to higher education opportunities.

NIH Funding

Trump’s plan would slash $18 billion from the National Institutes of Health’s budget, reducing it from to $45 billion to $27 billion. The document accuses NIH of having “broken the trust of the American people with wasteful spending, misleading information, risky research, and the promotion of dangerous ideologies that undermine public health.”

Claiming that NIH “ has grown too big and unfocused,” Trump calls for a consolidation of NIH funding streams into five focus areas: the National Institute on Body Systems Research; National Institute on Neuroscience and Brain Research; National Institute of General Medical Sciences; National Institute of Disability Related Research; and National Institute on Behavioral Health.

Funding would be eliminated completely for the National Institute on Minority and Health Disparities (-$534 million), the Fogarty International Center (-$95 million), the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (-$170 million), and the National Institute of Nursing Research (-$198 million).

National Science Foundation

NSF would lose $4.9 billion in funding, more than half of its enacted $9 billion budget.

Included in the cuts would be about $1 billion in programs intended to broaden participation in the STEM fields. Also targeted is funding for climate, clean energy, and what is characterized as “woke social, behavioral, and economic sciences; and programs in low priority areas of science.”

Research Support by Other Federal Agencies

Billions of dollars in research support would be eliminated or reduced at several other federal agencies. For example, the Department of Energy would take a $1.1 billion hit to its science budget, thereby “eliminating funding for Green New Scam interests and climate change-related activities.” At the Department of the Interior, the US Geological Survey would see a reduction of $564 million.

TRIO and GEAR UP

All federal funding, amounting to $1.579 billion, would be eliminated for TRIO and GEAR UP, two outreach programs aimed at increasing college enrollment and success for low-income students.

Describing the two programs as “a relic of the past” when financial incentives were needed to motivate colleges and universities to engage with low-income students and increase access, Trump’s plan insists that institutions should use their own resources to increase student access and success.

Federal Work Study

The Federal Work Study program would lose $980 million in funding. It was appropriated $1.2 billion in fiscal year 2024. According to the OMB document, FWS is a “poorly targeted program” and “a handout to woke universities and a subsidy from Federal taxpayers, who can pay for their own employees.”

Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants

SEOG grants would be stripped of their funding to the tune of $910 million. These grants are intended to provide aid to undergraduate students with exceptional financial need to help pay for their education. However, the Trump administration believes that they contribute “to rising college costs” and that colleges have used them “to fund radical leftist ideology instead of investing in students and their success.”

English Language Acquisition

English Language Acquisition would have $890 million stripped from its budget. That reduction would “end overreach from Washington and restore the rightful role of State oversight in education.” The OMB document claims the program is “misnamed” and “actually deemphasizes English primacy by funding NGOs and States to encourage bilingualism.”

Fund for Improvement of Postsecondary Ed

FIPSE is a competitive federal grant program that supports innovative educational reforms and encourages their dissemination. It would lose $195 million in because, according to Trump’s plan, it has “allowed colleges and universities to fund ideologies instead of students, while still raising tuition costs.”

National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, Americorps

Consistent with aims he expressed in his first term, Trump proposes eliminating all funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He also calls for ending support for the Corporation for National and Community Service (operating as AmeriCorps). All three programs have provided grant funding or staffing to a broad range of colleges and universities.

Under a category, titled “small agency eliminations,”the total amount of funding that could be eliminated for all the listed agencies exceeds $3.5 billion. The cuts are described as “consistent with the president’s efforts to decrease the size of the federal government to enhance accountability, reduce waste, and reduce unnecessary governmental entities.”

Department of Education

Trump wants to cut the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights’ budget by $49 million, a 35% reduction. “This rightsizing is consistent with the reduction across the Department and an overall smaller Federal role in K-12 and postsecondary education,” according to OMB.

The Education Department’s budget for program administration would be reduced by $127 million, or about 30%.

U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon issued a statement Friday that Trump’s skinny budget reflects “funding levels for an agency that is responsibly winding down, shifting some responsibilities to the states, and thoughtfully preparing a plan to delegate other critical functions to more appropriate entities.”

President Trump’s proposed budget puts students and parents above the bureaucracy,” McMahon said. “The federal government has invested trillions of taxpayer dollars into an education system that is not driving improved student outcomes—we must change course and reorient taxpayer dollars toward proven programs that generate results for American students.”

While it is unlikely that all of the proposed cuts in Trump’s budget blueprint will be enacted by Congress, the plan sets up what is likely to be a protracted battle with lawmakers over the details of a final budget deal.

Legislators on both sides of the aisle expressed concerns about Trump’s call for the cuts. U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, issued a statement that said the proposal “would set our country back decades by decimating investments to help families afford the basics, to keep communities safe, and to ensure America remains the world leader in innovation and lifesaving research.”

“Look, we’re supportive of this administration, what it’s trying to do,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) claimed, according to Politico. “But with all due respect to anybody, I think the members have a better understanding of what can pass and what can’t than the Executive Branch does.”

But even after Congress reaches agreement on a budget, there is no guarantee that the money it appropriates will be spent according to its wishes. Trump could veto any funding bills, or he could continue simply to withhold the funds for congressionally approved appropriations he dislikes, an action that would deepen growing concerns about the president’s exercise of his constitutional authority.