By Catherine Brown, Senior Director, Policy and Advocacy
Reading time: Three minutes
On August 1, the US Senate Appropriations Committee passed its Labor, Health and Human Services (LHHS) and Education spending bill for fiscal
year (FY) 2025. The bipartisan Senate package, which passed out of the Appropriations Committee 25 to three, increases the maximum Pell Grant by $100, bringing the total max Pell to $7,495. The House Appropriations
Committee passed its LHHS spending plan in July 10, largely along partisan lines, maintained
level funding for the Pell Grant.
The Senate bill provides more than the House bill for most higher education programs (in some cases, like Student Aid Administration, a lot more). The increased funding levels underscore how much National College Attainment Network (NCAN) members’ hard
work paid off as well as the headwinds we face to double the Pell Grant. Below is a short summary table of NCAN’s major spending priorities, which our members advocated for during our 2024 Hill Day and in follow-up email campaigns.
Program
FY24
FY25 Budget Request
FY25 House Bill
FY25 Senate Bill
Difference FY24 vs FY25 Senate Bill
Pell Max
$7,395
$8,145
$7,395
$7,495
+$100
Student Aid Administration
$2,058,943
$2,659,126
$1,529,126
$2,158,943
+$100,000
Federal Work-Study
$1,230,000
$1,230,000
$615,000
$1,230,000
$0
SEOG
$910,000
$910,000
$455,000
$910,000
$0
Federal TRIO Programs
$1,191,000
$1,211,000
$1,191,000
$1,211,000
+$20,000
GEAR UP
$388,000
$398,000
$388,000
$393,000
+$5,000
Postsecondary Student Success Grants
$45,000
$45,000
$45,000
$50,000
+$5,000
As you can see, the maximum Pell Grant was increased by $100 in this bill, an improvement over the FY24 spending bill, which level funded Pell. Still, $100 is not enough to keep pace with inflation and NCAN is continuing to call for doubling the Pell
Grant to address the eroding purchasing power of Pell.
Student Aid Administration also received an increase over last year’s spending level. The Senate bill provides a $100 million over FY24. The Biden Administration requested $2.6 billion for FY25, or almost 25% more than what the agency in the Senate bill.
This funding discrepancy has hindered the agency’s ability to deliver a timely and fully functional FAFSA.
The bill also includes report language urging a timely FAFSA launch this fall. Report language is not a federal requirement, but it serves to
express the intent of Congress. This report reads, in part:
"The report expresses the Committee’s concern about the challenges students and institutions faced due to the difficult launch of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) for the 2024–2025 award year. The report strongly recommends that ED
ensures that the FAFSA is available on October 1 and ensures full functionality for the 2025–2026 FAFSA upon launch. In advance of the October 1 launch, the report urges a timely release of the Federal student aid estimator, the FAFSA demonstration
site, communication and training materials, a user-friendly Pell look-up table, eligibility and technical guides and a quick, effective, and secure process for attaining an FSA ID. The report urges ED to communicate a timeline for the complete 2025–2026
FAFSA launch as soon as possible and directs ED to provide weekly briefings on the timeline, consumer testing and bug fixes on the 2025–2026 FAFSA and related processes. The report directs ED to utilize outreach processes to identify and assist students
who have begun but not successfully submitted a complete FAFSA application for both the 2024–2025 FAFSA and the 2025–2026 FAFSA. Lastly, the report directs ED to provide a detailed launch plan for the FAFSA for the upcoming award year no later than
10 days after enactment of this act."
What’s Next?
Congress is in recess for August (making it a GREAT TIME to reach out to your Member of Congress and urge them to INVEST in Pell and other higher education programs), so we
will have to wait to see how the federal spending process unfolds. The House and Senate bills will have to be passed by each chamber and reconciled before a final spending package can be signed into law. Funding bills are typically signed into law
around the end of the federal fiscal year on September 30. But recent years have not been typical and the FY24 plan was signed on March 9, 2024, after multiple continuing resolutions were enacted to prevent the government from shutting down. Only
time will tell, and your NCAN policy team will, as always, keep you posted.
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