Tucked inside a House spending measure for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education for fiscal year 2026 is a proposal to name a new type of federal Pell Grant after President Donald Trump.
The president’s sweeping tax cuts and spending package signed into law on July 4 included a provision that created a new grant called the Workforce Pell Grant, which the House appropriations bill seeks to rename as “Trump Grants.”
Beginning next year, students enrolled in career training programs in “in-demand industry sectors or occupations” will be eligible to receive Pell Grants, which are scholarships reserved for undergraduate and other students in the most significant financial need.
The program was created as a way to promote access to education and allows lower-income Americans to receive up to $7,395 annually for up to six years. Unlike student loans, the educational grants usually don’t need to be paid back.
In fiscal year 2023, $31 billion in Pell grants was disbursed to roughly 6.5 million undergraduate students, according to the Education Department.
The awards are named after former Democrat Sen. Claiborne Pell, who was Rhode Island’s longest-serving senator. Pell was reportedly instrumental in getting the program set up in 1973.
In a letter this week, Rhode Island’s congressional delegation argued that the proposal to rename the grants after Trump would “erase Senator Pell’s name from a program that has uplifted generations and replace it with a President whose record on education is defined by cuts and dismantlement is a profound insult to that legacy.”
“These grants should remain rooted in the legacy of Senator Pell, whose name symbolizes opportunity, integrity and the belief that education is the cornerstone of a strong democracy,” the two congressmen wrote.
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