On Jan. 27, the White House released a memo saying that they would be putting a freeze on federal funding such as grants and loans. This caused an uproar across the country with many people anxious and furious. The White House did not clarify what they meant by this, initially leaving citizens confused. Many believed that these funding cuts would have taken away the opportunity to go to college or receive any assistance from the government in an attempt to downsize budgets and rebuild our economy.
The next day the White House released a new statement rescinding the previous memo causing even more confusion amongst citizens. On Tuesday afternoon a federal judge blocked part of the Trump administration’s aid temporarily, and many believe the administration rescinded the statement due to the political pressure put on them by the majority of Americans. Many faces for the democratic party declared they would be facing these claims in court if something does not change.
If these freezes do go through, what would that mean for our country? For the youth that wants to go to college the use of FAFSA would be eliminated making college prices much less affordable. Many people would not be able to attend colleges outside of their hometown and some may not even be able to do that. Big Ivy league schools would most likely not be affected by this however because of the class of people that usually attend. Smaller schools like ones in Montana may be affected more though with less people attending.
These cuts will have widespread implications beyond education. Federal grants cover everything from Homeland Security to criminal justice and human health. They can be awarded for all sorts of things and pay for much more than people realize. On average the Federal government awards 500 billion dollars in grants a year, helping out millions of Americans and even foreign citizens. Sciences would take a huge hit from this as well, many people don’t realize how heavily funded and backed new sciences are by the U.S government but if they stopped our country would fall behind in the constant race to accomplish and further scientific practices.
The White House said that they were only planning on freezing grants to a few departments, but did not specify what those were. They also claimed that it was all blown out of proportion by social media but many believe that this is not true and that the retaliation was too much.
