{"id":1052132,"date":"2025-03-21T12:38:08","date_gmt":"2025-03-21T16:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/democrats.org\/?p=1052132"},"modified":"2025-03-23T17:51:08","modified_gmt":"2025-03-23T21:51:08","slug":"lower-income-and-rural-students-already-paying-the-price-after-trump-abolished-department-of-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/lower-income-and-rural-students-already-paying-the-price-after-trump-abolished-department-of-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Lower-Income and Rural Students Already Paying the Price After Trump Abolished Department of Education"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Donald Trump\u2019s reckless agenda shutting down the Department of Education is already hitting our public schools and is set to delay<\/a> grants for student aid and pause<\/a> new programs in lower-income and rural communities. With help from billionaire Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Trump is pushing another<\/a> unpopular<\/a> pillar of his Project 2025 blueprint \u2014 and 50 million public school students will suffer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s a look at how Trump\u2019s order to abolish the Department of Education hurts low-income and rural students: <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NPR<\/a>: \u201cEducation Dept. cuts could hurt low-income schools.\u201d \u2026 <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[T]oday, nearly all the statisticians and data experts who help get [certain federal education grants] to schools could be out of a job.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe action essentially tells U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to take all necessary steps toward eliminating the department to the maximum extent possible \u2026 The National Center for Education Statistics, the agency that will have all but three staff workers eliminated, works on \u2018formula grants.\u2019 States and districts primarily decide what to do with these funds. <\/strong>For example, Title I and rural school grants could be used to pay for school staff salaries, transportation costs, technology and extra tutoring.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

USA Today<\/a>: <\/em><\/strong>\u201cAlready, college officials say they have a backlog of logistical questions building up now that fired federal workers have stopped returning their emails.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBrenda Hicks, the financial aid director at Southwestern College, a private school in Kansas, said an employee at FSA who was helping greenlight a new nursing program at her institution was let go last Tuesday. The program was started, Hicks said, so that young people in her rural community wouldn\u2019t have to drive an hour out of town to become nurses. \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe day after the Education Department announced staffing cuts last week, students nationwide briefly couldn’t apply for financial aid. \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMore than 320 employees in the Federal Student Aid office received termination notices<\/strong> last Tuesday, according to a preliminary tally from a union representing federal workers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NPR<\/a>: \u201c[T]he federal government plays an outsize role in helping high-needs schools get the money they need to stay afloat.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCongress established Title I to provide money to K-12 schools in low-income communities. In the current fiscal year, the Department of Education set aside more than $18.38 billion for Title I. Nearly 90% of U.S. school districts benefit from the program, which has historically enjoyed bipartisan support among lawmakers.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP) awards money to low-income and rural school districts.<\/strong> More than a quarter of the country’s public schools are in rural areas. And while REAP is a fraction of the size of Title I \u2014 $215 million for the current year \u2013 Amy Price Azano of Virginia Tech’s Center for Rural Education says those dollars stretch much further in rural communities. \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese federal grants can pay for things like school staff salaries, supplies, technology, tutoring programs and a range of basic services that low-income schools may not otherwise be able to afford.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRural education expert Amy Price Azano says, while rural schools are used to having fewer resources, the loss of REAP funds will strain them even more.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NOTUS<\/a>: \u201cAll income-driven repayment plans, the umbrella under which ICR plans fall, use the same application that was closed after the February court order, as the administration says it is revising it. The American Federation of Teachers sued the administration Wednesday morning for removing the application.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe lack of clarity \u2013 from both the court decision and the Department of Education\u2019s limited communication with respect to the issue \u2013 has sowed fear and outrage that the programs might be eliminated. <\/strong>Without income-driven repayment plans, borrowers worry that their monthly payments would balloon to what they would be on the standard plan \u2013 for some borrowers, the difference could be hundreds of dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

###<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump\u2019s reckless agenda shutting down the Department of Education is already hitting our public schools and is set to delay grants for student aid and pause new programs in lower-income and rural communities. With help from billionaire Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Trump is pushing another unpopular pillar of his Project 2025 blueprint \u2014 and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":293,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1052132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLower-Income and Rural Students Already Paying the Price After Trump Abolished Department of Education - Democrats<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/lower-income-and-rural-students-already-paying-the-price-after-trump-abolished-department-of-education\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Democrats\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-03-21T16:38:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-03-23T21:51:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Black-Logo-White-Fill-For-Email.png?w=1024\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Shelby Reese\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Shelby Reese\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/lower-income-and-rural-students-already-paying-the-price-after-trump-abolished-department-of-education\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/lower-income-and-rural-students-already-paying-the-price-after-trump-abolished-department-of-education\/\",\"name\":\"Lower-Income and Rural Students Already Paying the Price After Trump Abolished Department of Education - 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