Statement by U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona on the President’s Fiscal Year 2024 Budget

The Biden-Harris Administration today released the President’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2024. The budget details a blueprint to grow the economy from the bottom up and middle out, lower costs for families, protect and strengthen Medicare and Social Security, and reduce the deficit by ensuring the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share – all while ensuring no one making less than $400,000 per year pays more in taxes. 

“As an educator and a father, I know that nothing unites America’s families more than the hopes we share for our children, and that’s why the Biden-Harris Administration is pushing for bold investments to ensure all students have equitable access to schools that welcome and support them, inspire their love of learning, and prepare them to succeed in whichever career they choose,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “President Biden’s latest budget proposal calls on Congress to act with urgency and provide our schools with the resources needed to raise the bar in education by promoting academic excellence and rigorous instruction, improving learning conditions, and answering unmet challenges like the educator shortage and the mental health needs of our students. Our administration is also pushing for dramatic new investments in high-quality preschool that provide all our youngest learners with a sturdy bridge to elementary school success. The Biden-Harris budget also supports the Department of Education’s efforts to boost global competitiveness by expanding opportunities for multilingual learning, redesigning high schools to include multiple pathways to college and career, and supercharging state and local efforts to make free community college a reality nationwide.”

The budget makes critical, targeted investments in the American people that will promote greater prosperity and economic growth for decades to come. At the U.S. Department of Education (Department), the budget will:

• Achieve Academic Excellence: Accelerate Learning for and Deliver a Comprehensive and Rigorous Education for Every Student
• Provides $5 billion for Title I to close opportunity and achievement gaps in our nation’s schools and help schools sustain programs that support students’ academic recovery from the impacts of the pandemic, a $2.2 billion increase above FY 2023.
• Proposes a new $500 million demonstration program for school districts to expand high-quality public preschool in schools and community-based settings, including Head Start, for children eligible to attend Title I schools. 
• Provides an additional $7 billion over FY 2023 enacted levels for Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) programs, including a $2.1 billion increase for Part B grants to states and preschool programs, a $392 million increase for Part C grants to support proposed reforms to expand early intervention services for underserved children, a $150 million increase in grants to recruit and retain special education personnel, and a $20 million increase to improve outcomes for military-connected children with disabilities.
• Includes new support for schools to design and adopt formative and diagnostic assessments to support effective teaching and learning.

• Boldly Improve Learning Conditions: Eliminate the Educator Shortage and Support Student Mental Health and Well-Being in Every School
• Invests $3 billion in educator preparation, development and leadership, including $30 million in Hawkins and $132 million in Teacher Quality Partnerships to build a diverse and well-prepared teacher pipeline, $200 million to support school-based models of distributed leadership, and $303 million to address shortages of special education teachers.
• Provides a total of $578 million, with $428 million dedicated to meeting the mental health needs of our students, school staff and teachers by increasing the number of school-based counselors, psychologists, social workers, and other health professionals, and proposes a new $150 million investment to support colleges and universities develop campus-wide strategies to address student mental health needs including hiring additional providers on their campuses.
• Provides $178 million to the Department’s Office for Civil Rights, a 27 percent increase compared to the FY 2023 enacted level to ensure that the Department of Education continues its leadership to protect equal access to education through the enforcement of civil rights laws.
• Provides $368 million to expand Full-Service Community Schools that provide integrated student supports for students and their families, more than doubling funding for this program.

• Create Pathways for Global Engagement: Provide Every Student with a Pathway to Multilingualism and Ensure Every Student Has a Pathway to College and a Career:
• Provides $2 billion to support English learners through research-based and effective bilingual education and language instruction programs under Title III.
• Elevates the multilingual teaching workforce, by providing $90 million to build multilingual teacher pipelines through Grow-Your-Own initiatives and provide professional development in multilingual education for existing school staff and teachers; and $10 million for post-secondary fellowships to bolster the multilingual educator pipeline.
• Provides $25 million for grants to states and local education agencies to improve and expand instruction in world languages.
• Includes $1.47 billion for Career and Technical Education state grants, an increase of $43 million, and a $200 million investment to re-design our high schools to build career and college pathways and align with our post-secondary system.

• Make Postsecondary Education Inclusive and Affordable: 
• Proposes to increase the maximum Pell Grant to $8,215 for the 2024-2025 award year.
• Advances President Biden’s call to expand free community college across the nation and includes $500 million for a new discretionary grant program that provide up to two years of free postsecondary education through high-quality community college programs that lead to good paying jobs or four-year degrees.
• Advances strategies to improve postsecondary attainment, degree completion and student success through increased funding for the Postsecondary Student Success Grants, $30 million to support the systems development to enable students to access non-student aid public benefits, and a new proposal to create a Postsecondary Education Advancement Technical Assistant Center.
• Enhances institutional capacity at HBCUs, TCCUs, MSIs, and low-resourced institutions, including community colleges, by providing an increase of $429 million over the FY 2023 enacted level.
• Makes significant investments in Federal Student Aid, providing $2.7 billion in essential support to student loan borrowers as they return to repayment, critical improvements to student loan servicing, and ensures the successful administration of its financial aid programs. The request provides a $620 million increase over the FY 2023 enacted level.

Building on the President’s strong record of fiscal responsibility, the Budget more than fully pays for its investments—reducing deficits by nearly $3 trillion over the next decade by asking the wealthy and big corporations to pay their fair share. 

For more information on the President’s FY 2024 Budget, please visit: https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/.