The House Appropriations Committee last week approved a FY 2022 funding bill for Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, which includes substantial increases for student aid and scientific research. The measure largely aligns with President Biden’s FY 2022 budget.
Overall, the legislation provides $27.2 billion for federal student aid programs and another $3.43 billion for higher education programs, an increase of $889 million from FY 2021 and $122 million above Biden’s budget request. The bill would increase the maximum annual Pell Grant award by $400. Other parts of the bill also go beyond what Biden requested, including for the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant and the Federal Work-Study programs.
“Low-income college students have been disproportionately harmed by the pandemic. Colleges have experienced declining enrollments of low-income students, particularly among students of color and students at historically under-resourced institutions,” ACE and other higher education associations wrote in a letter in strong support of the measure.
Notably, the bill includes language that would make DACA recipients eligible for Title IV financial aid.
On the research side, the bill increases funding for the National Institutes of Health to $49 billion, up $6.5 billion from FY 2021. This total includes a $3.5 billion increase for the base budget (an 8.2 percent increase) and $3 billion for the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health.
However, even if the legislation passes the narrowly Democratic-controlled House as is, its highly partisan nature means there’s unlikely to be consensus in the Senate. The likely outcome is another long protracted fight that won’t be resolved until the end of the year.
For more details, see Inside Higher Ed.