What’s in the “Big Beautiful” Bill? | First Look: Senate Budget Reconciliation Text | ED Moves to Shift Programs to Other Agencies

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Rewriting the way we learn, work, and live.

Published Jun 16, 2025

When it comes to education policy and funding, big changes are in the works. And in the past week, the nature and scope of those changes came further into focus.

Last month, we reported on the House version of budget reconciliation (H.R. 1 – “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”).
On May 2, FY2026 appropriations process began in earnest, with President Trump’s “skinny budget” request which called for a reduction in the maximum Pell grant amount and consolidation of K-12 funding streams.
Last week, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee shared its reconciliation proposal.

Against that backdrop, it's important to remember that the Trump administration’s budget proposal is just that: a proposal. No one really expects a cut to max Pell, and the impact of consolidation of funds will ultimately play out at the state level—which is where most of the action tends to be in the K-12 context anyway. Further, while we now have both the House and Senate’s version of budget reconciliation, we don’t yet know which education provisions will be sent to the President’s desk for signature.

So, how should you be forecasting whether and which of the many highly-consequential policy proposals before Congress will become law?

To help you cut through the noise, we checked in with our Education Insiders (a curated list of policymakers and influencers who are close to the action in Washington) to get their take. (It should be noted that our Insiders took the survey after the House version was passed and before the Senate HELP proposal was released.)

View the Results

Timing. President Trump set a deadline of July 4, 2025 for enacting the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) into law. 60% of our Insiders believe that Congress will pass the budget reconciliation legislation by the end of July 2025, before its August recess.
Workforce Pell. 73% believe that the final passed legislation will include a version of Workforce Pell (AKA “Short-term Pell”), which was also included in the Senate version.
College Risk Sharing. 64% said that Congress would not pass the proposal for risk sharing, which would put institutions “on the hook” for a portion of unpaid student loan debts. The House-passed version includes risk sharing, but the Senate proposal released earlier this week does not.
Pell Eligibility. One of the more controversial components of the House-passed bill was a change in the requirements for full-time Pell eligibility (from 12 credit hours per semester to 30 credit hours per year). 50% of Insiders believed that the proposal would pass with changes to the House version. Others were split on whether the changes would pass untouched or be excluded entirely from the final version. The Senate HELP proposal did not include the House changes.
School Choice. The House-passed version of the OBBBA included the text of the Education Choice for Children Act (ECCA) which would create an expansive federal tax credit scholarship program. 65% of Insiders believe that the ECCA language will pass (likely with changes from the House-passed version). We do not yet know if the Senate proposal will include ECCA language.

Though budget reconciliation continues to dominate policy conversations on the Hill, it’s also important to keep an eye on the FY2026 appropriations process which is underway and will demand an increasing share of Congressional attention in the coming few months. The House Appropriations Committee is not set to consider the majority of federal education program spending until late July, but Insiders are already skeptical. 47% think that Congress will pass a full-year continuing resolution (CR) for all federal programs (i.e., federal funding will remain at FY 2025 levels for FY 2026).

In the days and weeks to come, our team will continue to track what’s happening in Washington and around the states. Got questions? Get in touch.

We’re also covering:

Top 5 “What We’re Reading” Articles of the Week
Senate HELP Committee Releases First Draft of Budget Reconciliation Bill
Court Filing Reveals Early Plans to Shift Education Programs to Other Agencies
ICYMI: More Education Litigation to Watch
ED Outlines Stricter ID Verification Requirements for Federal Student Aid

Senate HELP Committee Releases First Draft of Budget Reconciliation Bill

Last week, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) released text for the “Big Beautiful” budget reconciliation bill’s education provisions. As expected, the bulk of the committee’s text focuses on postsecondary provisions that more readily lend themselves to larger-scale savings.

The House version of the bill, H.R. 1 – One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed by a 215-214 vote on May 22.

So, what’s in the Senate HELP version of the bill?

Workforce Pell (AKA “Short-term Pell”) — The text largely conforms to the version passed by the House, which would allow Pell grants for short-term programs, including those offered by for-profit and online programs. The Senate version also proposes new requirements for programs to demonstrate outcomes and creates a pathway for non-accredited programs to become eligible. As we’ve noted before, although short-term Pell has had several near-miss opportunities to be passed into law, it now seems its long journey toward enactment may be nearing the finish line.
Gainful Employment for All? — One of the major changes from the House bill is a new Senate accountability measure, which would require programs to meet an earnings threshold in order to remain eligible for federal loan programs. Undergraduate “degree” graduates must, for example, have a median earnings higher than the median high school graduate in their state. Graduate program graduates must have median earnings higher than the median bachelor’s degree graduate in their state in their field. Programs would lose eligibility if they fail this annual test twice within a three-year period. The measure is similar to the earnings threshold in the Biden administration’s Gainful Employment rule; however, rather than solely applying to for-profits and non-degree programs, the Senate test would apply to all institutions.

Go deeper: W/A Sr. VP Noah Sudow and Director Alex Davis more closely examine what’s in—and what’s been left out of—the Senate version of the bill, and break down what happens next on our blog.

Top 5 “What We’re Reading” Articles of the Week

Want to receive our daily summary of education industry and policy news? Sign up for What We’re Reading.

Trump’s AI in Schools Goals Collide With Education Agency Cuts [Bloomberg, subscription model]
K–12 Leaders Love the Four-Day School Week, But a New Study Shows that it Doesn’t Do What They Hope [The 74]
Children’s well-being shows both progress and setbacks, Kids Count finds [K-12 Dive]
Survey: Parents Lack Awareness of Postsecondary Options [Inside Higher Ed]
In the AI era, tech talent strategies need a wake-up call [Fast Company]

Court Filing Reveals Early Plans to Shift Education Programs to Other Agencies

Newly disclosed court documents show that the U.S. Department of Education entered into agreements earlier this year to begin transferring oversight of key programs, including career education grants and student loan collections, to the Departments of Labor and Treasury. Those actions have since been paused following a federal court order in May. [Education Week, subscription model]

Why it matters: The agreements offer a clearer view into how federal agencies were preparing to implement recent policy directives focused on reorganizing ED’s responsibilities. While Secretary McMahon has consistently said that only Congress can formally close ED, the agreements reflect early efforts to explore alternative structures for delivering core services. [POLITICO Pro, subscription model]

Driving the News

An agreement signed in May would shift $2.67 billion in career and technical education grants from the Education Department to the Department of Labor, including oversight of Perkins Act funds and adult education programs.
A separate deal finalized in April sent nine staffers to the Treasury Department to help restart collections on defaulted student loans. The detailees included staff from the Federal Student Aid office and the department’s default collections unit.
The Treasury arrangement reportedly followed the end of a contract with a loan collections vendor, at a time when the department was managing reduced staffing after layoffs.

What’s next: Both agreements were paused under a May 22 injunction from a federal judge, who temporarily blocked further layoffs at the department. The administration has twice appealed the ruling, with its latest request now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

ICYMI: More Education Litigation to Watch

SCOTUS Decision on K-12 School Liability in Disability Cases

Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling in A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools, Independent School Dist. No. 279. The ruling overturns a March 2024 decision from the 8th Circuit, which required students with disabilities and their families in certain areas of the U.S. to meet a heightened legal standard (“bad faith or gross misjudgment”) when submitting discrimination claims related to education under the ADA and Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

Tennessee AG and SFFA Sue ED Over HSI Grants

On Wednesday, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti (R) and Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education, arguing the Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program (authorized by Congress under Titles III and V of the Higher Education Act) is discriminatory because it excludes colleges and universities that “fall below its arbitrary ethnic threshold of 25% Hispanic students” from certain funding opportunities.

The case, State of Tennessee v, U.S. Department of Education, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee in Knoxville. [Reuters]

Historic Settlement Marks Victory for Collegiate Athlete Pay

On June 6, a federal judge granted final approval to the $2.75 billion class-action settlement House v. NCAA, effectively ending the NCAA’s amateur model and setting new standards for collegiate athlete pay.

The agreement creates a new system that allows schools to pay athletes directly, under a salary cap, beginning in July 2025. Under this framework, schools can allocate up to $20.5 million annually to athletes’ salaries and will utilize roster limits instead of traditional scholarship caps.
The agreement further provides retroactive compensation to athletes who were denied name, image, likeness (NIL) opportunities between 2016 and 2021, and establishes a third-party clearinghouse to be responsible for monitoring future NIL sponsorship deals for fair market value.

But it’s not over yet. The settlement has already been appealed by eight female athletes who argue it violates Title IX. [NPR; ESPN; The Associated Press]

ED Outlines Stricter ID Verification Requirements for Federal Student Aid

In an electronic announcement released June 6, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) announced plans to tighten identity verification procedures for federal student aid. According to the Department, this new effort is an attempt to combat rising financial aid fraud, in which scammers are increasingly impersonating students (lately, with the help of AI) to access millions of dollars in federal education grants and loans.

“When rampant fraud is taking aid away from eligible students, disrupting the operations of colleges, and ripping off taxpayers, we have a responsibility to act,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon in a statement June 6.

Catch Up Quick

Financial aid fraudsters, often referred to as “ghost students” or “bots,” bilk the federal student aid program by enrolling at institutions and staying enrolled just long enough for financial aid to disperse.

In California alone, financial aid fraudsters stole more than $13 million in state and federal student aid in 2024 (more than double that of the year prior), and one-third (34%) of community college students in the state were determined to be fake by the Chancellor’s office. [The Associated Press; Fortune, subscription model; CalMatters]

What’s the Plan?

The Department will develop a new internal screening process to assess FAFSA submissions in order to identify cases of identity fraud. The goal of this new screening would be to reduce—and eventually, eliminate—the need for higher ed institutions to complete V4 verifications of students, an often time-intensive process for schools. The Department hopes to roll out the screening this coming fall.

This summer, we’re teaming up with ISTE+ASCD to co-host the third annual Solutions Summit, a gathering for edtech executives, product leaders, and entrepreneurs driving innovation in education.

Taking place on Sunday, June 29, at the first-ever co-located ISTELive and ASCD Annual Conference in San Antonio, Texas, the Solutions Summit offers a unique space to explore what’s needed to design effective, scalable tools that support educators and learners.

This year’s program will spotlight AI infrastructure, cutting-edge research, and market signals shaping the future of education technology. Through hands-on workshops and expert-led discussions—including by Whiteboard Advisors' very own David DeSchryver and Anna Edwards—participants will dig into the building blocks of high-impact solutions and share insights that bridge product design with instructional practice.

Job Opportunities

Prince George’s County Public Schools in Maryland announced yesterday that it would be “[separating its] employment relationship” with Superintendent Millard House II following a no-confidence vote from the county’s largest teacher’s union. House’s last day as superintendent will be June 18 after a two-year tenure. [WUSA CBS 9]
The Gates Foundation welcomed Ben Miller as Senior Program Officer, Policy and Finance. Miller most recently served as Principal Deputy Under Secretary, among other roles, in the U.S. Department of Education during the Biden administration. Prior to that, Miller was vice president of postsecondary education and senior policy analyst at the New America Foundation.
Deb Adair joined the advisory board of the newly-formed Newstate University, the first skills-first, competency-based university in the U.S. Adair is currently the CEO of the nonprofit Quality Matters; previously, she served as president of the International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE).
Steve Johnson, founder and principal of EDSENSE, announced on LinkedIn his new role as Interim Chief Academic Officer at Drew University, a private non-profit institution in New Jersey. Johnson also previously served as senior vice president of innovation at National University and senior vice president of campus transformation at Southern New Hampshire University.
W/A alum and recent Harvard M.Ed. graduate Tobias Martin joined edtech venture firm GSV Ventures as a Technical Lead. Congratulations, Tobias!

Looking for your next opportunity in education? Check out our W/A Jobs, which features 3,504 career opportunities from 303 organizations across the education industry. A few roles that caught our eye over the past week:

ISTE is hiring a Arlington-based Senior Marketing Manager to lead marketing efforts for their Digital Products and Professional Learning products.
Lovevery is hiring a remote Senior Data Engineer to support the organization’s cross-functional analytics efforts.
Degreed is hiring a remote SVP of Customer Operations to support strategy, planning, and execution across the organization’s revenue-generating teams.
Hack The Box is hiring a remote Head of Field Marketing to design and execute regional marketing programs across the U.S.
Duolingo is hiring a Pittsburgh-based Corporate Development Manager to support the company’s M&A and market research processes.

Visit W/A Jobs

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