The U.S. Department of Education's 2026 Budget Slashes Public School Support and Student Aid

NEW YORK, June 2, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon has unveiled what the Network for Public Education (NPE) is calling the most destructive budget in the Department's history. The fiscal year 2026 proposal eliminates $8.5 billion in Congressionally funded programs—abolishing 10 entirely and collapsing 18 others into a drastically reduced $2 billion block grant. That's $4.5 billion less than what those programs received last year.

NPE describes the budget as partisan. Among the programs, states are now prohibited from supporting with block grant funds:

• Support for migrant children of agricultural workers
• English Language Acquisition grants
• Community schools offering health and wraparound services
• Teacher leadership and effectiveness programs
• Innovation and research for school improvement
• Comprehensive Centers, including for students with disabilities
• Desegregation technical assistance
• The Ready to Learn early childhood education program

"These aren't just budget cuts—they're calculated eliminations of programs serving the most vulnerable," said Executive Director Carol Burris. "McMahon is dismantling the supports that give low-income, working-class, and English learners a fair shot. Even a program for veterans gets the axe."

Burris notes McMahon justified slashing aid for migrant students by claiming the program encourages "ineligible non-citizens" to misuse taxpayer funds—a claim she refutes. The majority of these students are U.S. citizens or legally present.

Higher education is also under fire.

• Pell Grants are cut by $1,400 on average, slashing the maximum from $7,395 to $5,710.
• Federal Work-Study loses $1 billion—an 80% reduction.
• TRIO programs for veterans and campus childcare for student-parents are wiped out entirely.
• In total, $1.67 billion in college student support has been allocated.

NPE President Diane Ravitch characterizes these cuts as "shortchanging young people who want to go to college. Simply put, it's a plan to undermine our future. This budget abandons America's neediest children and our public schools."

Yet amid these cuts, the federal Charter Schools Program is increased to $500 million. Simultaneously, McMahon's allies in Congress are advancing the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA), a $5 billion voucher scheme designed to subsidize private and homeschool tuition.

"This is not a budget—it's a roadmap to privatize education, under-educate America, and destroy public schools," said Burris. "It's cruel. It's deliberate. And it puts corporate interests above America's children."

To learn more about these cuts, visit https://networkforpubliceducation.org/

Contact: Carol Burris
[email protected] 
(646) 678-4477

SOURCE Network for Public Education