President Donald Trump signed a spending bill into law last week that includes a boost for the U.S. Department of Education’s budget.
In total, the bill Trump signed into law sets the department’s budget at $71.5 billion for fiscal 2019, an increase over fiscal 2018 of $581 million, although that figure doesn’t include a rescission of $500 million from Pell Grant reserves. In general, the fiscal 2019 budget impacts education funding for the 2019-20 school year. The spending package largely ignores the push from Trump and DeVos to create new school choice programs, as well as their proposals to cut the Education Department’s overall budget.
Not adjusting for inflation, the $71.5 billion budget is the largest-ever appropriation from Congress for the Education Department.
The education spending bill includes funding for the Departments of Defense, Labor, and Health and Human Services. In addition, the bill Trump signed includes a continuing resolution to fund other portions of the federal government through Dec. 7. This means there won’t be a government shutdown for at least nine weeks.
A ban on using Every Student Succeeds Act money to pay for arming educators is not included in the deal, despite pressure from Democrats. The legislation also leaves out a proposal from the Trump administration to merge the Education and Labor Departments.
Compared to last year, the Education Department’s funding increase is smaller—when Trump signed the fiscal 2018 spending bill into law last March, it gave the department a $2.6 billion boost.
For a program-by-program breakdown of the spending bill, see our chart below:
Here are highlights of President Donald Trump’s administration on education: