September 5, 2025
Written by Noelle Ellerson Ng, Associate Executive Director, Advocacy & Governance
On August 31, the House LHHS subcommittee released its proposal for FY26, funding that would be available to schools for the 26-27 school year.
Top Line Takeaway
At the nominal level—not even adjusting for inflation—the House LHHS FY26 proposal provides less funding per pupil for our nation’s seniors than it did when they were in kindergarten. Adjusting for inflation (meaning actual purchasing power!) the House FY26 proposal disinvests in our nation’s seniors by more than $32 billion compared to levels invested when they were in kindergarten.
Overview
The House proposal largely aligns with the President’s FY26 proposal, including deep cuts totaling more than $12 billion (15%) to USED FY24 levels. While both the House and Presidential proposals include deep cuts, the House approach is substantively different. The House rejects the President’s proposal to consolidate many K12 programs and does not include proposed eliminations of higher education programs. The big cuts to K12 come via the rescission of nearly $3 billion in already-enacted advance funding for FY26 and a deep cut to Title I totaling nearly $5 billion ($3.7 billion plus a rescission of $938 million in funds schools are planning to access Oct 1).
Important Note Related to the October 1 Rescission: Congress hasn’t completed its appropriations work on time since the mid-1990s. They have relied on AT LEAST one continuing resolution (CR) to buy themselves more time to complete the work of funding the government every year for at least the last 15 years. This Congress is returning this week to resume appropriations work that is already far behind in the process. We are spending more energy monitoring the threat of shut down vs how long the first CR will be than fretting excessively over the immediacy of the deep cuts proposed, both because time and history are not indicating the work will be done by October 1 and because we don’t think Congress will pass a final budget as damaging as this proposal.
The House proposal eliminates these programs (aligned with the President’s proposal)
- Title I – special programs for migrant students (HEP/CAMP) ($52 million)
- Title I – state agency: neglected and delinquent grants ($49 million)
- Title I – state agency: Migrant grants ($376 million)
- State assessments ($380 million)
- Title II – Supporting effective instruction state grants ($2.19 billion, plus another $1.7 billion of advance funding that is rescinded)
- English language acquisition ($890 million)
- Teacher quality partnerships ($70 million)
The following programs are slated for deep funding cuts:
- Title I – The Republican proposal would cut Title I by more than $5 billion (27%). The cuts include nearly $1 billion in advance funding that districts are planning to use when they become available on Oct 1.
- Staffing at ED – The House GOP proposal cuts program management at USED by 30%. This funding provides a significant part of the total staffing costs for most of ED’s programs. The bill separately cuts funding for the Office of Civil Rights by 35%.
The following programs are frozen/level funded:
- Child Care and Development Block Grants and Head Start
- Maximum Pell grant, TRIO, GEAR Up (this is in contrast to the President’s budget, which cut or eliminated all three of these)
- 21st Century Community Learning Centers afterschool program
The following programs receive nominal increases, amounts that equate to little more than budget dust, especially in contrast to the deep cuts that undermine critical formula programs:
- Charter schools – up $60 million (13.6%)
- Special education – up $26 million (0.2%)
- Career and technical education state grants – up $25 million (1.7%)
- Indian education – up $5 million (2.6%)
- Rural education – up $5 million (2.3%)
- Title IV-A – up $5 million (0.4%)
- Impact Aid – up $5 million (0.3%)
Looking ahead?
House Republicans will be more likely to support the President’s proposal, not wanting to draw ire, or to be seen in opposition. They will rely on their Democratic colleagues and their peers on the other side of the hill to counter-balance their proposed cuts (cuts that are even deeper than they themselves supported last year!); they will strike the balance of messaging on the proposed deep cuts while letting the appropriations process and internal checks-and-balances make the final FY26 proposal far less damaging (but still very consequential) for our nation’s schools. It is very important to keep in mind that as we rapidly approach mid-term elections, there is a GOP majority that campaigned on promises related to fiscal restraint and responsibility, reigning in the debt and deficit, and better budget control and cuts/savings. They have yet to realize any deep cuts to K12 formula programs, whether via FY25 appropriations (which was level funded) or the reconciliation package (only the tax cuts hit before mid terms; the big ‘savings’ come after mid-terms), which will put explicit pressure on Congress to realize deep savings in FY26 appropriations.