Federal Student Aid Unaffected by Freeze on Financial Assistant Funds
By: Olivia Schleede
On Jan. 27, President Trump announced a freeze of federal aid in accordance with his promise to cut federal spending. While this could be understood as a dozen different things, what does it actually mean for federal assistance to be frozen? And does this affect college and university students who rely on federal loans?
The answer to the latter is no. As a student, your federal aid is not impacted by the freeze. This means Pell Grants and Direct Loans, as well as other forms of federal student assistance, will not be impacted by the president’s memo. In fact, as of now, the memo has been withdrawn by the Trump Administration after it was blocked by a federal judge.
Who would have been affected by the freeze, though? The Office of Management and Budget named 2,600 programs in the original memo issued, stating that “financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal” must be halted.
Despite being paused by a federal judge, this likely will not be the end to such events. Two days following the memo, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “The executive orders issued by the president on funding reviews remain in full force and effect and will be rigorously implemented by all agencies and departments. This action should effectively end the court case and allow the government to focus on enforcing the president’s orders on controlling federal spending.”
Sources:
Leave a Reply