U.S. Department of Education Revokes Waivers to California and Oregon Universities Using Federal Funding to Provide Services to Illegal Immigrants

Today, the U.S. Department of Education revoked waivers to California and Oregon colleges and universities that are using federal funds to provide services to illegal aliens under the Performance Partnership Pilots for Disconnected Youth (P3). The mission of the P3 Program is to allow states and localities to integrate program funding across federal agencies to improve the systems serving disconnected youth, not provide entitlements to illegal immigrants. Through P3 waivers approved during the Biden Administration, colleges and universities diverted taxpayer-funded TRIO program services meant for low-income students, first generation college students, and individuals with disabilities to illegal immigrants. 

“American taxpayer dollars will no longer be used to subsidize illegal immigrants through Department of Education programs,” said Acting Under Secretary James Bergeron. “The TRIO Program was designed to provide support and guidance to disadvantaged Americans as they navigate the road to and through postsecondary education. The Department will not allow the true purpose of the program to be corrupted to advance an American-last agenda.” 

The U.S. Department of Education sent notices to the impacted colleges and universities through the California Higher Education Collaborative and Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission today. 

Background: 

The Consolidated Appropriation Act of 2014 created the Performance Partnership Pilots for Disconnected Youth (P3), which authorizes states to enter into pilots to use funding from across multiple federal discretionary programs to support efforts to improve the systems serving America’s youth and their outcomes. 

Under the Biden Administration, the Department approved a P3 waiver allowing illegal immigrants to receive TRIO Program services. The TRIO Programs are federal student aid programs authorized under Title IV of the Higher Education Act designed to identify and provide additional academic and career services for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds. TRIO includes eight programs targeted to serve and assist low-income individuals, first-generation college students, and individuals with disabilities through the academic pipeline from middle school to postbaccalaureate programs. 

California’s waiver began in November 2022 and was set to expire in September 2026. 

Oregon’s waiver began in October 2023 and was set to expire in in September 2027. 

Contact

Press Office

press@ed.gov

(202) 401-1576

Office of Communications and Outreach (OCO)

College student's classroom is the farm where he works (CBS Evening News)

At a time when college is unaffordable for many, some schools are re-imagining higher education, shifting their curricula from general knowledge to providing free training for specific jobs. Mark Strassmann reports from Merced, California.

Austerity in California

Ben Unglesbee at Higher Ed Dive this week wrote about the coming budget cuts to the University of California System and the Cal State University System. Something that EdSource, a California-based media outlet, has been reporting on for months.

Those devastating cuts, amounting to $650 million, are part of a long and important history of US higher education and austerity, beginning with Ronald Reagan when he was Governor of California. Those ideas, at least in part, continued under other administrations, as they reduced higher education for working-class citizens, especially African Americans, while giving greater opportunities to foreigners, including elite noncitizens. 

These policies and other regressive actions drove millions of folks out of California. And those policies have spread to other states, making higher education less accessible and less responsive to working-class Americans.  It's no wonder that so many have become cynical about the higher education system.  

For now, the UC System can absorb these funding losses, but the Cal State System and the people who are served by that system, will not be as resilient. On a small scale, this is another symptom of the decline of US democracy and the slow decline of the American Empire, something few folks in higher education will admit, or even discuss.  

Related links:

University of California Academic Workers Strike For Economic Justice

State Universities and the College Meltdown

A People's History of Higher Education in the US 

Higher Education and the American Empire

The Harsh Truth Behind the Los Angeles Wildfires (Stephanie Pincetl)

UCLA Professor Stephanie Pincetl is calling the wildfires in Los Angeles a biblical-level catastrophe at least a century in the making. Pincetl teaches at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and is Director of the California Center for Sustainable Communities, specializing in land use and the interaction between urban development and wildfire risks.