The Trump administration announced Monday that it would inject nearly $500 million into historically Black colleges and tribal universities, a windfall funded largely by cuts to programs elsewhere for minority students.

The administration will also redirect money to other political priorities for President Donald Trump, including an extra $137 million for American history and civics education and $60 million more for charter schools.

The increases follow a White House request for a 15% budget cut to the Education Department next year, as Trump seeks support to permanently shutter the agency. History programs will now receive about seven times their expected funding for this year, and charter schools will see a 13% increase.

Administration Cut Money From Parts of Education Budget

To pay for the changes, the administration cut money from other parts of the education budget. The details of the changes were described by three people familiar with the plans who insisted on anonymity to speak about private discussions.

The biggest cut, announced by the department last week, is a $350 million hit to programs that support minority students in science and engineering programs, schools with significant Hispanic enrollment, and other federal grants at minority-serving institutions.

The administration also cut money from gifted and talented programs, which it said use racial targeting in recruitment in some cases, and from magnet schools, which have been used as a tool for combating school segregation.

In a statement announcing the new funding for Trump’s political priorities, the secretary of education, Linda McMahon, said the department was “redirecting financial support away from ineffective and discriminatory programs toward those which support student success.”

The halt of $350 million in federal funding last week targeted seven grants for minority-serving institutions, which are colleges with significant minority student enrollment. The Trump administration eliminated the funding, saying that programs with racial quotas were inherently racist and violated civil rights law.

Instead, that money will be put toward historically Black colleges and universities, which were created to educate Black students at a time when other colleges would not serve them and are open to students of all races. These institutions will receive $1.34 billion this year, 48% more than was budgeted, according to the department.

Lodriguez Murray, a senior vice president at UNCF, previously the United Negro College Fund, said the extra money is a “godsend” for HBCUs. They have been underfunded since their inception, he said, and about 70% of their students come from low-income families.

“We welcome the additional resources,” he said, adding that he believed the money could be substantial enough to make a difference on campuses, even if it is a one-time boost.

Marybeth Gasman, executive director of the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions, said that new spending should not come at the expense of programs aimed at supporting Black and Hispanic students at other schools. She said minority-serving institutions educate more than half of all students of color, and she urged Congress to push back against the executive branch’s unilateral attempt to allocate money.

“None of these institutions should be pitted against each other, which seems to be what the Trump administration is doing,” said Gasman, the associate dean for research in the Rutgers Graduate School of Education.

Tribal Colleges Will Get $108 Million

Tribal colleges, which are typically controlled and operated by Native American tribes and receive federal support, will also get about $108 million this year, double their expected allotment from the Education Department, federal officials said.

Tribal colleges also receive money through the Department of the Interior, funding that the Trump administration had proposed cutting earlier this year, though lawmakers on Capitol Hill have resisted.

The Education Department is muscling the money into Trump’s agenda, with two weeks to go before the fiscal year expires Sept. 30, taking advantage of what is essentially a loophole created by the ongoing partisan standoff in Washington. The changes are a one-time infusion and apply only to this year’s funding.

The money for history and civics education will go to a pet project of Trump, who bemoaned on the campaign trail last year what he viewed in American schools as a lack of national pride. He vowed to find a way to “certify teachers who embrace patriotic values, support our way of life.”

As president, he has threatened to strip funding from schools that stray from themes of “patriotic education.” Now, the federal government will spend $160 million on U.S. history and civics education this year, up from $23 million that Congress had authorized.

The money will pay for teachers’ training ahead of the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding next year. The program will put an emphasis on primary documents from the era of the Founding Fathers, an idea popular in conservative circles.

The money will primarily come from a nearly $140 million cut to teacher training programs that federal officials say were promoting racially “divisive ideology” in the classroom.

Charter schools have also long been a key piece of Trump’s education policy, which emphasizes giving parents more choice.

The first official school visit by Linda McMahon, the education secretary, was to Vertex Partnership Academies, a charter school in New York City. Trump is also seeking an increase for charter schools through his budget request for next year.

Charters — publicly funded but privately run schools — will have $500 million to spend this year, up from the $440 million that federal lawmakers had approved.

To pay for the new money for charter schools, the administration cut $15 million from magnet schools, $9 million from gifted and talented programs, and $31 million from Ready to Learn, which funded PBS shows for young children.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Sarah Mervosh and Michael C. Bender/Maansi Srivastava
c. 2025 The New York Times Company