On September 10, the United States Department of Education announced it will end several grant programs dedicated to supporting Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs), including Predominately Black Institutions (PBIs).
The announcement follows the U.S. Solicitor General’s determination in July that Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) programs “violate the equal-protection component of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause,” and that the Department of Justice would not defend them in ongoing litigation.
According to the Department of Education, some $350 million in discretionary funds initially allocated for programs supporting MSIs in fiscal year 2025 will be redirected “into programs that do not include discriminatory racial and ethnic quotas that advance administration priorities.”
However, the department will disperse an additional $132 million in mandatory funding to MSI programs appropriated by Congress that cannot be reprogrammed on a statutory basis.
“Discrimination based upon race or ethnicity has no place in the United States. To further our commitment to ending discrimination in all forms across federally supported programs, the department will no longer award Minority-Serving Institution grants that discriminate by restricting eligibility to institutions that meet government-mandated racial quotas,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Diversity is not merely the presence of a skin color. Stereotyping an individual based on immutable characteristics diminishes the full picture of that person’s life and contributions, including their character, resiliency, and merit. The department looks forward to working with Congress to reenvision these programs to support institutions that serve under-prepared or under-resourced students without relying on race quotas and will continue fighting to ensure that students are judged as individuals, not prejudged by their membership of a racial group.”
Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, told University World News that “the removal of federal discretionary funding will cause immediate and significant harm. These cuts will force colleges and universities to reduce academic support services, cut critical infrastructure, and raise tuition costs, which will have a disparately negative impact on first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented students.”
PBIs are institutions enrolling at least 1,000 undergraduate students, whose student body is at least 40 percent Black American students and 50 percent low-income or first-generation students. These colleges and universities are separate from historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Existing federal grant programs for HBCUs are not included in this round of funding cuts.
