Earlier this month, the Trump administration pulled $2 billion in mental health grants only to restore them a day later. The whiplash left many educators frustrated, in particular because grants for student mental health through Project AWARE were part of the package. While the administration’s sudden action created unnecessary chaos for schools, the programs funded by Project AWARE deserve closer scrutiny. Despite good intention and bipartisan support, decades of research show these approaches simply don’t work.
Project AWARE (Advancing Wellness and Resilience in Education) grants were established after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting to connect more students with preventative mental health services. As Education Week reported, 139 grantees were receiving AWARE awards when the cut came.
Project AWARE funds go to mental health programs that fit a public health model targeting widespread awareness, prevention, and early intervention. Called “prevention” programs for short, they educate students and school staff about the signs and symptoms of mental health conditions and emotional states, encourage and destigmatize mental health treatment, and expand access to screening and services for students whether or not they exhibit need. These programs have a worthy goal: prevent crises by identifying struggling students earlier.
The issue is the evidence. Across several decades of evaluations, researchers consistently have hopes for these prevention programs yet fail to find meaningful improved outcomes. Compared to not being in place, school-based universal prevention programs don’t reduce diagnosed mental health conditions, don’t improve academic outcomes, don’t show the right kids are connected to treatment, and don’t demonstrate that treatment received is effective.
Consider mental health awareness training—often called by its brand name, Mental Health First Aid—a common way for Project AWARE grants to be spent. Every randomized controlled trial conducted by researchers independent of the Mental Health First Aid program has found it to be ineffective. I have reviewed the 33 top-cited publications and most empirically rigorous evaluations plus 13 impact case studies promoted on the Mental Health First Aid website. Not one of the studies found benefits for individuals who may have been in mental health crisis or needed treatment. In one study, college students with resident advisers who’d been trained in the prevention program were less likely to receive treatment or informal support than students without trained RAs, even if students had indicated distress.
Claims of success largely rest on the wrong measures, like how many people were trained or how confident trainees feel they can help in a crisis. Training more confident people hasn’t translated into better outcomes for students. And when trained individuals were given simulated situations with depressed and suicidal patients, they reported feeling more confidence in their knowledge and ability to step in, but they didn’t use what they’d been taught.
School-based universal prevention programs don’t reduce mental health conditions ... and don’t show the right kids are connected to treatment.
Even the numbers trained are not impressive: Between 2018 and 2024, Project AWARE grants and mental health awareness training grants not part of Project AWARE received over $800 million in federal appropriations. Fewer than 1.4 million individuals were reportedly trained in those years, less than 3% of the approximately 50 million students and 3.5 million teachers in public schools.
The underlying need for awareness programs is itself in question. The core premise is that teachers and students lack awareness of mental health conditions. But in studies of Mental Health First Aid, trainees recognized symptoms at incredibly high rates before any training—depression symptoms, for example, were recognized 89.6% of the time. Social media has played a definitive role in raising awareness, especially among young people.
Meanwhile, around half of students already identified with serious emotional disturbances don’t receive treatment. Those students have needs that are well documented, not speculative. They’re most likely to face behavioral challenges, academic struggles, and crises that put them at risk of harm to themselves and other students. Student need is real. Hard-working professionals in schools are doing all they can to address it. They face many real challenges in doing so—but the lack of awareness addressed by Project AWARE programs is not one of them.
All this matters because every dollar spent by Project AWARE on what doesn’t work is a dollar not spent on truly evidence-based interventions. Programs like intensive treatment for students with serious emotional disturbances—and simply providing students an education—are correlated with better mental health.
Schools face enough difficulties without volatile federal policy. Sudden funding reversals, even when reversed back, create planning chaos and erode trust. But money on the table for ineffective programs is problematically alluring: Schools, constantly being asked to do more than educate, might perceive it to be better than nothing. But Project AWARE leaves both students and schools worse off. Funding programs that don’t work lets policymakers avoid pressure to fund what does. It creates the illusion of action without addressing real needs.
The Trump administration was right to end these grants—despite the undesirable approach. Project AWARE may have been restored only because other grants within the broader $2 billion cut were worth reconsidering. Nonetheless, a grant program like Project AWARE that makes the education system act as pseudo-therapists and untrained diagnosticians is a poor use for public money. Programs for students who are homeless, involved with the criminal-justice system, or have serious emotional disturbances, for example, support schools by addressing the needs of the most vulnerable kids. Contrasted with Project AWARE, those targeted programs are worthwhile investments.
Congress may soon take final action on appropriations for SAMSHA, the federal mental health agency, which awards the Project AWARE grants. It seems likely that the program’s funding will be preserved for the current fiscal year. Still, it is within Congress’ power to pull the funding, and it should do so. If Congress does fund Project AWARE, schools shouldn’t accept the money.
