‘A Big Blow’ — Dept. of Ed cuts funding for Minority Serving Institutions

On September 10th, the U.S Education Department announced the end of $350 million in discretionary funding for MSI grant programs.

Feature image via Flickr. Published under CC License 2.0

David Lee spent the summer working on a grant application for the Asian Pacific American Student Success program (APASS) at Oakland’s Laney College, which he has directed for eight years. The program is sustained by federal funding that for decades has been committed to Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) – colleges where a majority of the students are ethnic minorities. 

Lee has to reapply for a grant every year in a competitive application process; the beefy document he prepared outlines the program’s work in counseling, English tutoring, and generally supporting the community college’s Asian students. 

But it seems nobody ever read it. On September 10th, two days before the U.S Education Department was supposed to notify the grant recipients, it instead announced the end of $350 million in discretionary funding for MSI grant programs like the one sustaining APASS.

Instead of an acceptance letter, Lee received a notice of his termination effective this month. 

“What happened on Wednesday was not something that I thought was in the realm of possibility,” said Lee. “It’s a big blow… a big blow for all of us who care about work for students.” 

Seven programs are getting cut, including funds for Hispanic-serving institutions, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian–serving institutions, predominantly Black institutions, Asian American, Native American and Pacific Islander–serving institutions and Native American–serving nontribal institutions. Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and tribal colleges are unaffected. 

Last year, 831 public and private institutions were either formally designated as MSIs or met the qualifications to be one, according to Rutgers University’s Center for Minority Serving Institutions. At Laney College, which is 22% Asian, at least 64% of the total student body is considered economically disadvantaged. 

“That’s what has been a real gut punch for me too,” said Lee. “All these programs serve our students who just want to pursue their educational journey.” 

The Education Department says MSI programs “discriminate by conferring government benefits exclusively to institutions that meet racial or ethnic quotas.” U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said that programs aimed at supporting specific enrollment requirements for minority students were inherently racist and unconstitutional. 

“Stereotyping an individual based on immutable characteristics diminishes the full picture of that person’s life and contributions,” said McMahon, who added that they will “reenvision these programs to support institutions that serve underprepared or under-resourced students without relying on race quotas.” 

However, higher ed advocates say that the programs are not discriminatory at all, but rather corrective of lingering racial inequity in education. 

“Calling MSIs ‘racial quotas’ is not only misleading, it erases their very purpose,” said The Coalition, an advocacy organization working against systemic inequality in community colleges. “MSIs do not grant ‘privileges’ based on race. They exist because generations of students were systematically excluded from America’s colleges and universities.” 

Student impact at Laney

Narmandakh Suurinburneebaatar immigrated from Mongolia 17 years ago. She first enrolled at Laney in 2013 to learn English, but without support she struggled. She tried again in 2016, but faced the same problems. She dropped out and began working as a delivery driver, “because a delivery person doesn’t need to speak.” 

But in 2023, she committed to return.

“Because I got a kid, and kids in school use a lot of emails. I missed my son’s important days because of miscommunication. So when my son started going to school, I started coming to college.” 

Suurinburneebaatar credits APASS as the reason she was able to recommit to her education because of the range of support it offered.

“They really helped me stay in focus and communicate with the other students, making community, making friends, and making me comfortable at the school,” says Suurinburneebaatar. “So now I like to come to school every day. First I would just come to learn English, but now I’m going to get some degrees.”

Many of the student workers in APASS are mothers too, some from Mongolia. The office became a central hub, where they could gather and watch each others’ kids.

Suurinburneebaatar is now pursuing a degree in business administration, and started a Mongolian student club to support immigrants facing the same problems she once had. They organized learning and cultural events for both students and parents. 

“If parents don’t know what to do, the kids can lose their way. We’re giving information to the parents too, so then our kids can get a better education and better support from their parents.” 

Laney Student Services says there’s state funding to help the APASS student workers get new campus jobs, and a counselor for next school year. The vibrant office by the college’s abandoned pool will be repurposed for storage, but they continue to receive interest in the club. 

“We’re not only supporting each other for school things. We discuss how we’re going to live better in America,” says Suurinburneebaatar. “Whenever we need help, we ask the APASS directors, but if they’re gone, where are we going to go?”

Seemingly contradictory 

Mike Hoa Nguyen is associate professor of education at UCLA and leads an initiative studying the specific impact of MSIs. 

He says that the Department of Education’s rationale for cutting the programs “doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

“The Department of Education stated that they view these programs as unconstitutional. Well, they don’t get to determine constitutionality. That is something that the courts have to determine, particularly for a program that was established by Congress and authorized by Congress in federal statutes.”

The U.S Solicitor General determined in July that HSIs “violate the equal-protection component of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause,” and that the Department of Justice would not defend HSIs in ongoing litigation. The Department of Education agrees, and cites “similar issues with all MSI programs” as the reason for the cuts. 

However, Nguyen points out a distinction made in the budget that he finds contradictory. 

When these MSIs were established by Congress, they created both discretionary funding and mandatory funding – referred to as Part A and Part F.

The FY26 Department of Education budget request asks for maintained or increased funding for mandatory Part F MSI programs – at the same time that Part A programs for the same institutions were reallocated over being deemed discriminatory and unconstitutional. 

“If the funds weren’t constitutional, they would be able to eliminate and reprogram the Part F mandatory funds too, but they’re unable to do that because it has not been tested in the courts yet,” says Nguyen. 

The U.S Department of Education did not respond to requests for comment. 

Nguyen adds that MSI programs are enrollment-based, and have nothing to do with admission quotas. A majority of Minority Serving Institutions are community colleges with high acceptance rates. 

“So there isn’t any racial balancing or racial quotas. You apply, you’re in,” says Nguyen. “And we know that when they do go and have resources on campus, that they not only succeed and uplift themselves and their families, but also enhance the economy.” 

For now, the students who relied on MSI programs, like Narmandakh Suurinburneebaatar at Laney, will have to finish their education without the support system that made college possible for them in the first place. 

“At the end of the day, what they’re doing is cutting funding from students who need it the most,” says Nguyen. “It’s just cruel.”

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The above article by Christopher Alam is reprinted here with the permission of American Community Media, a partner of East Palo Alto Today.

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