FACT SHEET: House Republican Proposals Hurt Children, Students, and Borrowers, and Undermine Education

Congressional Republicans are holding the nation’s full faith and credit hostage in an effort to impose devastating cutbacks that would hurt children and undermine education, raise costs for hardworking families, and set back economic growth. And they are demanding these slashes while separately advancing proposals to add over $3 trillion to deficits through tax giveaways skewed to the wealthy and big corporations.

While President Biden’s plan invests an additional $11 billion to improve education while lowering everyday costs of essentials like child-care for families, House Republicans’ proposal to cut a broad range of critical programs by 22% will:

• Gut Funding for Low-Income Students. The proposal would cut approximately $4 billion in funding for schools serving low-income children, impacting an estimated 26 million students and reducing program funding to its lowest level in almost a decade—a cut equivalent to removing more than 60,000 teachers and specialized instructional support personnel from classrooms.

• Reduce Support for Students with Disabilities. Under the proposal, as many as 7.5 million children with disabilities would face reduced supports—a cut equivalent to removing more than 48,000 teachers and related services providers from the classroom.

• Slash Mental Health Support for Students. The House Republican proposal would limit educators’ abilities to address student mental health issues and prevent violence, suicide, and drug abuse by cutting Title IV, Part A funding for schools by about $300 million.

• Make College More Expensive. A 22% budget cut would likely eliminate Pell Grants altogether for 80,000 students while reducing the maximum award by nearly $1,000 for the remaining 6.6 million recipients, making it harder to attend and afford college.

Eliminate Student Debt Relief and Borrower Supports. The proposal would cancel the President’s student debt relief plan, keeping much needed emergency student loan relief of up to $20,000 for more than 40 million Americans recovering from the effects of the pandemic. It would also block the creation of new, more affordable student loan payment plans.