Dive Temporary:
- Congress has delayed — for the fourth time — a choice to finalize the fiscal yr 2024 finances by extending a seamless decision for allocations to the U.S. Division of Schooling and a number of other different businesses from March 8 to March 22. President Joe Biden signed the laws Friday.
- In a 320-99 vote within the Home and a 77-13 vote within the Senate on Thursday, Congress additionally moved a March 1 deadline to March 8 for a couple of half-dozen different businesses, together with the Agriculture and Transportation departments. Had Congress not acted, a authorities shutdown for these businesses would have begun Saturday.
- The persevering with decision features a measure that amends the FAFSA Simplification Act to stop a method change that might have expanded the Pell Grant program for low-income faculty college students. The Schooling Division had introduced the change simply this week.
Dive Perception:
In a Tuesday announcement, the Schooling Division stated it was updating the way it calculates the help college students will obtain to totally align with the FAFSA Simplification Act. That technical change was anticipated to permit extra college students entry to Pell Grants within the 2024–25 award yr.
After Thursday’s Home vote, Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., rating member of the Committee for Schooling and the Workforce, pushed again in opposition to the congressional motion. “Now, on account of this laws, subsequent yr, fewer college students may have entry to the Pell Grant, and lots of college students who do obtain the Pell Grant will obtain much less monetary help.”
He added, “At a time when faculty has turn into more and more unaffordable, we must be doing all we are able to to assist college students succeed. I’m extraordinarily disenchanted on this consequence, and I’ll proceed to battle for expanded entry to the Pell Grant sooner or later.”
Committee Chair Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., took a unique tack. In an announcement, Foxx stated the Schooling Division’s growth would “cripple the Pell Grant program” by making a $7 billion funding hole subsequent yr.
“As we speak’s accountable CR [continuing resolution] places a cease to the Division of Schooling’s reckless motion, whereas nonetheless enabling college students to get the monetary support info they want in a well timed style and making certain the Pell Grant is secure sooner or later for households really in want,” Foxx stated.
This example represents yet one more hitch within the fraught rollout of the brand new Free Software for Federal Scholar Support. The discharge of the shape got here virtually three months later than regular, giving highschool college students and households much less time to finish it and faculties much less time to calculate monetary support affords.
On the Okay-12 stage, the federal finances delays mustn’t impression the day by day operations of college districts. Nevertheless, prolonging federal finances choices can have an effect on state and native finances planning and hamper some companies offered by the Schooling Division.
For instance, a 2022 GAO report stated that in persevering with resolutions, Schooling Division journey funds could also be inaccessible, limiting employees’s capability to go to grantee places for on-site program monitoring.
Based on a 2023 report from the Congressional Analysis Service, a analysis arm of Congress, there have been persevering with resolutions in all however three of the 47 fiscal years because the begin of the fiscal yr was modified to Oct. 1 beginning in FY 1977. The final fiscal yr and not using a persevering with decision was FY 1997.
Elementary and secondary educators are particularly anxious about revenues this yr because the final of the federal COVID-19 emergency funding carries an obligation deadline of Sept. 30.
