President Biden’s 2025 Budget: Creates Educational Opportunity for the Next Generation
The President's 2025 budget makes investments in education from preschool through higher education. These investments support students throughout their lives, bring high-quality learning within reach, support teachers, and make college more affordable. Taken together they give students the chance to thrive throughout their schooling and will ultimately produce a better educated and more flexible workforce.
Investing in our Littlest Learners
The budget provides $200 billion to create a federal-state partnership that delivers free, high-quality preschool to four-year-olds. Parents get to choose the provider – either public school, child care providers, or Head Start. States may use this funding to expand preschool to three-year-olds once it is available to all four-year-olds. To further improve the quality of early education, the budget also increases Head Start funding by a total of $544 million, which will go to increasing staff pay to ensure parity between Head Start teachers and public school teachers with similar qualifications.
Along with an expansion in child care affordability, the budget puts substantial resources behind early childhood education and care. Investments in early childhood education have been shown to help children both in the immediate term as well as set them up for success across their lives in improved school readiness, long-term health outcomes, reduced criminal activity, and increased college attendance. These investments also support parents, and in particular have been successful in increasing labor force participation rates of mothers with young children.
Improving and Supporting K-12 Education
Importantly, this budget invests a substantial $18.6 billion in funding for Title I schools, which provide high-quality education for low-income students and exist in 90 percent of school districts in the U.S. It also adds $8 billion in mandatory funding for Academic Acceleration and Achievement Grants to help speed learning recovery after the pandemic and to close opportunity and achievement gaps – a continuation of efforts started by the American Rescue Plan.
The budget also supports improving mental health care for students by providing an additional $216 million for mental health programming. To reduce educator shortages exacerbated by the pandemic, the budget invests $388 million in teacher quality and training, and teacher incentive funds. It also makes investments in students with disabilities, by adding $14.4 billion to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) State Grant funds, which support special education services for preschool through grade 12 students. And to support multilingual learners, the budget invests $940 million in the English Language Acquisition program to help students attain English proficiency, along with an additional $72 million for schools to hire more bilingual teachers.
Opening Pathways to Higher Education
The budget makes a commitment to higher education by increasing the maximum Pell Grant by $100 and putting the Pell on a path to double the maximum award by 2029 for students who attend public and non-profit institutions. It also invests $90 billion to expand free community college through a federal-state partnership and adds increased funding to subsidize tuition for students from low- and middle-income families attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs) and Universities or Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs).
The budget addresses the rising cost of college by investing $12 billion for the Reducing the Costs of College Fund which provides awards to public institutions that provide affordable quality education. Additionally, the President provides $7 billion for the Classroom to Career Fund, which provides money for states to stand up programs that give access to at least 12 transferable dual-enrollment credits while students are in high school. Additionally, that funding supports evidence-based strategies at higher education institutions to increase college graduation rates, reduce cost burdens for students, and lower the costs per graduate. The budget also invests $19.4 billion to eliminate origination fees on federal student loans. Additionally, the budget provides for greater institutional capacity at HBCUs, TCCUs and MSIs by providing $30 billion in tuition subsidies. The budget also provides an additional $100 million discretionary investment or research and development infrastructure at these institutions.
Republicans Want to Increase Education Costs for Families
In contrast, the House Republican 2025 budget cuts education and federal financial aid. It supports legislation that increases the cost of college by reducing access to student aid and affordable loan repayment, repeals consumer protections to regulate predatory educational institutions, and adds politics into the accreditation process. This is in stark contrast to the President's budget, which reflects that when we invest in students all through their lives they, their families, and their broader communities benefit. Unlike the Republicans' dark vision for America, the President's plan will set us up for prosperity, stability, and thriving.