Official Guidance from the Administration and VA Regarding Students Continued Access to Educational Funds
Overview
Given all the concerns that have been raised by the community as a result of yesterday evening’s freeze on Federal grants and loans the educational community has been seeking both interpretations and official guidance in writing to help ensure that students continue to receive access to the funds they need to be able to enter or remain engaged in higher education. The guidance being circulated relates to all forms of educational assistance, including Title IV, Labor, and Veterans Affairs.
Here are official resources that provide the written guidance to this effect.
Second Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget
In implementing President Trump’s Executive Orders, OMB issued guidance requesting that agencies temporarily pause, to the extent permitted by law, grant, loan or federal financial assistance programs that are implicated by the President’s Executive Orders.
Any program not implicated by the President’s Executive Orders is not subject to the pause.
The Executive Orders listed in the guidance are: Protecting the American People Against Invasion Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements Unleashing American Energy Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government Enforcing the Hyde Amendment Any program that provides direct benefits to individuals is not subject to the pause. The guidance establishes a process for agencies to work with OMB to determine quickly whether any program is inconsistent with the President’s Executive Orders. A pause could be as short as a day. In fact, OMB has worked with agencies and has already approved many programs to continue even before the pause has gone into effect.
Any payment required by law to be paid will be paid without interruption or delay.
Q: Is this a freeze on all Federal financial assistance?
A: No, the pause does not apply across-the-board. It is expressly limited to programs, projects, and activities implicated by the President’s Executive Orders, such as ending DEI, the Green New Deal, and funding nongovernmental organizations that undermine the national interest.
Q: Is this a freeze on benefits to Americans like SNAP or student loans?
A: No, any program that provides direct benefits to Americans is explicitly excluded from the pause and exempted from this review process. In addition to Social Security and Medicare, already explicitly excluded in the guidance, mandatory programs like Medicaid and SNAP will continue without pause.
Funds for small businesses, farmers, Pell grants, Head Start, rental assistance, and other similar programs will not be paused. If agencies are concerned that these programs may implicate the President’s Executive Orders, they should consult OMB to begin to unwind these objectionable policies without a pause in the payments.
Q: Is the pause of federal financial assistance an impoundment?
A: No, it is not an impoundment under the Impoundment Control Act. It is a temporary pause to give agencies time to ensure that financial assistance conforms to the policies set out in the President’s Executive Orders, to the extent permitted by law. Temporary pauses are a necessary part of program implementation that have been ordered by past presidents to ensure that programs are being executed and funds spent in accordance with a new President’s policies and do not constitute impoundments.
Q: Why was this pause necessary?
A: To act as faithful stewards of taxpayer money, new administrations must review federal programs to ensure that they are being executed in accordance with the law and the new President’s policies.
VA Department Guidance
Good afternoon School Certifying Official (SCO),
You may have read of the implementation of M-25-13, “Temporary Pause of Agency Grant, Loan, and Other Financial Assistance Programs” released by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
The Department of Veterans Affairs Education Service would like to clarify that GI Bill® payments do not fall under this order and will continue to be made to schools and students without change.
Sincerely,
Education Service
