STCC to lose $1.8 million as feds curtail Hispanic Serving Institution grants

SPRINGFIELD — Springfield Technical Community College learned in the last week that it will not receive $1.8 million in federal funding flowing from its status as a Hispanic Serving Institution.

This $1.8 million was to have been the fifth and final year of a total of $7.3 million STCC was promised back in 2021, said college President John B. Cook.

The money funds staff positions and establishes a STEM — science, technology, engineering, math — center on campus. The federal government told STCC that the money will run out with the end of the current federal fiscal year Sept. 30.

“We are working hard to certainly limit any impact to student experiences for fall semester,” Cook said.

But he is not prepared to, yet, to speculate on what might happen in the next semester. The administration briefed staff on the situation Friday.

“We are concerned,” Cook said. “A place like STCC does important work.”

STCC — where 40% of students are Hispanic — is also pursuing all avenues for reconsideration and appeal.

Colleges and universities qualify as Hispanic Serving Institutions when at least 25% of full-time equivalent undergraduate students self-identify as Hispanic, said the U.S. Department of Education. Other criteria also apply.

But there is a lawsuit out of Tennessee opposing the program and the Trump administration’s Justice Department has signaled that it won’t defend the program in court.

Sept. 10, the U.S. The Department of Education announced that it was repurposing some $350 million nationwide from a raft of minority-serving programs including the Hispanic Serving Institution effort and a STEM program.

“The Department agrees that the racial quotas in the HSI programs are unconstitutional,” the DOE release said. “Due to similar issues with all MSI programs, the Department is using its statutory authority to reprogram discretionary funds to programs that do not present such concerns.”

Cook said: “We know we are not alone.”