The Trump administration is holding up hundreds of millions of dollars slated for adult education programs as part of a review of education spending.
The roughly $716 million was supposed to be disbursed to states July 1 and then divvied up among their adult education providers, such as community colleges. But the funding for high school equivalency classes, English as a second language programs and other adult education services never arrived. The news comes as the Trump administration continues to withhold $7 billion from states for K–12 education, including ESL classes and after-school programs, which includes the adult education money.
The freeze is part of a broader “ongoing programmatic review of education funding,” an unnamed spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget wrote in a statement to Inside Higher Ed.
“Initial findings show that many of these grant programs have been grossly misused to subsidize a radical leftwing agenda,” wrote the OMB spokesperson, citing examples of states and schools using the money to support students in the country without proper documentation as well as for a seminar on “queer resistance in the arts,” though the statement made no mention of adult ed programs.
The fate of the withheld funding remains unclear. “No decisions have been made yet,” the spokesperson said.
Now states and their community colleges, which offer a significant share of adult education programs, are scrambling to figure out how to continue providing adult education services despite staggering funding shortfalls.
“If funding is not provided, there are nothing but bad options for institutions,” said David Baime, senior vice president for government relations for the American Association of Community Colleges. He predicts community colleges would have to reduce adult education services, lay off personnel and vie for funds to fill in the gap from states and other sources. But even so, “the funding is so substantial in a number of places that there’s no immediate source of replacing that money.”
He emphasized that adult education programs have received “broad support from both parties for decades”—and they were already underfunded relative to student need.
Adult basic education is “a core function and a core part of the mission of community colleges across the country,” he said.
Adult education is one of several programs on the chopping back in the Education Department’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2026. Officials wrote in budget documents that states and localities are “best suited to determine whether to support the activities authorized under this program or similar activities within their own budgets and without unnecessary administrative burden imposed by the federal government.”
Higher ed advocates worry other programs like the Child Care Access Means Parents in School program that are on the chopping block could suffer a similar fate.
Concerns Across the Country
Community colleges in red and blue states alike are anxiously waiting for the adult education funds to come through.
Heather Morgan, executive director of the Kansas Association of Community Colleges, said if the pause persists beyond two months with no alternative funding, Kansas’s 19 community colleges will have to make “tough decisions” about laying off or furloughing staff.
She added that college leaders were given no notice, leaving them with no time to prepare.
“Situations where funding doesn’t come as expected are real hardships on small colleges and really leave staff in a position of wondering and not knowing what’s coming next,” she said.
Joe Schaffer, president of Laramie County Community College in Wyoming, said the withheld funds risk hurting high-demand, successful adult education programs in the state.
He noted that, historically, the coal and oil industries in the state offered well-paying jobs that didn’t necessarily require a high school diploma. But now, because of changes in technology and the state’s diversifying economy, many jobs do require at least a high school education. Wyoming workers hit with that realization are coming to adult education programs later in life to earn high school equivalency certificates, commonly referred to as the GED.
And the programs work. Roughly 80 percent of Wyoming adult basic education students get a job or enroll in college after their programs, and 84 percent earn a credential beyond a GED. These programs graduate more people with a high school equivalency than any one high school in the state, making the programs arguably Wyoming’s “largest high school,” he said.
Because the state funds half of these programs, he believes Laramie County Community College can make do without the federal funds and continue to offer these programs for another year, with some belt-tightening measures.
But still, the move to withhold federal funds risks “reducing the flow of high school graduates at a time when the workforce pipeline, the talent pipeline, is a concern of everybody across the nation,” Schaffer said.
Morgan agreed that state economies would suffer if adult education programs took a permanent funding hit.
For many Kansans, “this is their option to get out of poverty and to get into a higher-paying job,” she said. “The ability for them to get skilled up is important, and we have to have the resources to do that, and the uncertainty that’s been injected into the system is not helpful in trying to meet our mission, which is to prepare citizens for the Kansas economy.”
