The U.S. Department of Education has announced it will end discretionary funding to many Minority-Serving Institutions (MSI) grant programs.
Wenatchee Valley College received $490,245 through the grant program in 2023, and total funding through 2028 was anticipated at $2,750,338, according to the college website.
The WVC grant funding was used to “improve outcomes and institutional culture for Latinx, low-income, and first-generation students at WVC,” according to an announcement of the program.
The impacts of lost grant funding to WVC were not immediately available from the college at the time of this article.
The federal agency believes the MSI grant programs discriminate by conferring government benefits exclusively to institutions that meet racial or ethnic quotas. Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced the U.S. Solicitor General’s determined that the Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) programs “violate the equal-protection component of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.”
“Discrimination based upon race or ethnicity has no place in the United States. To further our commitment to ending discrimination in all forms across federally supported programs, the Department will no longer award Minority-Serving Institution grants that discriminate by restricting eligibility to institutions that meet government-mandated racial quotas” — Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
McMahon said her agency will try to work with Congress to re-envision the programs to support institutions that serve underprepared or under-resourced students without relying on race quotas.
The grant program for WVC was among several the Dept. of Education plans to redirect into programs that do not include racial and ethnic quotas.
- Developing Hispanic-Serving Institutions (Title V Part A); and
- Promoting Post-baccalaureate Opportunities for Hispanic Americans (Title V Part B).
- Strengthening Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions (Title III Part A);
- Strengthening Predominantly Black Institutions (Title III Part A);
- Strengthening Asian American- and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (Title III Part A);
- Strengthening Native American-Serving Nontribal Institutions (Title III Part A);
- Minority Science and Engineering Improvement (Title III Part E);
Approximately $350 million in funds was to be allocated to support these programs in fiscal year 2025.
