House Fiscal Year 2021 Education Spending Bill Includes Slight Boost to Student Financial Aid – NASFAA
The House Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-H) Appropriations Subcommittee on Monday released its fiscal year 2021 spending bill, which would provide a total of $73.5 billion in discretionary funds for the Department of Education (ED), an increase of $716 million from fiscal year 2020 and $6.9 billion from the president’s budget request.
The measure counters President Donald Trump’s budget proposal that offered a slew of new policy proposals aimed at setting loan limits for students and parents and restructuring the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA), alongside significant cuts to federal student aid programs — part of an overall $5.6 billion cut to ED.
“This spending bill determines the critical federal investments in health, labor, human services, and education, and builds on this subcommittee’s efforts at the center of the health and economic crises, both of which have exposed serious disparities,” Subcommittee Chairwoman Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said. “The programs in which we are investing create opportunities and allow America to realize its values and promise. We must work together to deliver the people in this country to the dawn of recovery, not abandon them to an economic collapse.”