Education Dept. Sees Small Cut in Funding Package That Averted Government Shutdown

Education Week

Matthew Stone

March 27, 2024

The $1.2 trillion funding package that will keep the federal government operating through September includes a cut of about $100 million to the U.S. Department of Education’s budget even as it provides small increases to key K-12 programs and holds the line on others.

President Joe Biden signed the funding package into law over the weekend after it passed the House on March 22, and the Senate early the next day, averting a partial shutdown. The package combines six annual spending bills to pay for different parts of the federal government, which had been operating on stopgap measures in the absence of a final budget for the 2024 fiscal year that began last October.

The Education Department will receive $79.1 billion for the fiscal year that lasts through Sept. 30.

That’s about $100 million less than the department’s final budget for the 2023 fiscal year, a drop of about 0.2 percent. And it’s far short of the $90 billion Biden had requested for the department in his initial 2024 budget proposal, which he unveiled a year ago, in March 2023.

But even with the overall cut, lawmakers provided increases of $20 million each to Title I grants that support services for low-income students and Individual with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, funds that help schools cover special education costs. Title I and IDEA are the two largest federal funds for K-12 schools.

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