Updated: This story has been updated to reflect the latest funding apportionments from the Office of Management and Budget.
The Trump administration is using an obscure and typically routine federal budget procedure to delay or withhold more than $2 billion for education that Congress approved in February.
Lawmakers belatedly approved a fiscal 2026 budget for the U.S. Department of Education on Feb. 3. Before the agency can actually spend those dollars, the federal Office of Management and Budget by law must “apportion” the correct amounts, or dispense them, into the agency’s accounts.
During past presidencies, the vast majority of apportionments occurred no later than a month and a half after lawmakers approved the federal budget, according to publicly available documents and former OMB staffers.
The second Trump administration has taken a markedly different approach. Thirty-one separate Education Department programs got their full fiscal 2026 amounts apportioned more than four months after Congress approved the budget law. OMB finalized the full apportionment for 13 of those programs in mid to late August, more than six months after the budget law passed.
As of Sept. 1, OMB still has yet to apportion the full amount Congress appropriated for four separate education programs.
Among those four programs is the Institute of Education Sciences, for which OMB has apportioned less than half the sum Congress approved: $323 million of the budgeted $790 million.
OMB has also approved only $618,000 of the expected $122 million combined for the International and Foreign Language Education program and two career-technical education programs (Perkins National Activities and Adult Education National Activities).
For six grant programs for minority-serving higher education institutions, OMB reprogrammed $337 million to the Strengthening Institutions grant program, arguing for the second straight fiscal year that the six MSI programs violate the Constitution. A judge has yet to rule on that question.
Meanwhile, funding for seven education programs whose full apportionments came late now sits at the Department of Labor, which struck agreements with the Education Department to manage the day-to-day operations of those programs. Funding for several additional programs slated to move to other agencies remains at the Education Department, according to the OMB disclosures published as of early September.
Spokespeople for the Education Department have repeatedly said the agency is reviewing every dollar it spends rather than giving out funds “on autopilot.” OMB hasn’t responded to multiple requests for comment.
Education Week is closely tracking OMB apportionment disclosures using the OpenOMB transparency portal operated by the nonprofit Protect Democracy. Below is our list of the 35 programs with delayed, missing, or incomplete apportionments, and the date when unapportioned funding returns to the U.S. Treasury.
This post will be updated as new information emerges.
Delayed funding could foreshadow further disruption
Most of these funds aren’t expected to go out to grant recipients until this fall. And none of the department’s larger formula grants—including for Title programs and special education—is among the programs with missing or incomplete apportionments.
Still, education advocates and federal budget experts have expressed concern that the lack of routine apportionments could foreshadow more funding disruption in the coming months.
The agency likely can’t give out new grant awards or replenish ongoing grants using these congressionally appropriated funds until OMB apportions the money for each program.
The White House has twice proposed slashing IES funding and eliminating all 34 grant programs on this list. Congress rejected all of those proposed cuts for fiscal 2026; lawmakers began workshopping the fiscal 2027 budget in early June.
Legal fight over White House role in federal spending continues
These maneuvers have also drawn legal scrutiny.
Roughly $80 million of the currently unapportioned Education Department funds could expire and return to the Treasury if OMB doesn’t release the money by Sept. 30. That would likely constitute a violation of the federal law that prohibits the executive branch from “impounding,” or declining to spend, congressional appropriations.
On June 30, Protect Democracy and a slew of education plaintiffs including the Massachusetts Teachers Association and the National Center for Learning Disabilities sued the Trump administration, alleging that it has already put education programs in jeopardy by illegally failing to apportion and spend congressionally appropriated funds.
The lawsuit covers the missing apportionments for the Institute of Education Sciences as well as two grant programs: Comprehensive Centers and Education Innovation and Research. OMB made the full apportionment for the EIR program on July 21 and for the Comprehensive Centers on Aug. 17, both after the lawsuit was filed.
In an Aug. 4 court filing in that case, a Department of Education staffer wrote of the then-delayed Comprehensive Centers funds that the agency planned to “request the remaining funds when it is ready either to make new awards or continue existing ones.” This description of the process marks a reversal of the typical process, in which OMB routinely unlocks the funds and the agency spends them on its own timeline.
During a House hearing on June 30, Russell Vought, the Trump-appointed OMB director who co-wrote the conservative policy document Project 2025, said his office is “working through the apportionment process expeditiously.”
“There’s no concerted effort not to apportion funding for the agencies,” he said, answering questions from Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.
Later, responding again to DeLauro, Vought declined to rule out using the apportionment process to divert congressional appropriations.
“We agree with the need to get money out the door consistent with our review of whether it’s being well spent, and not taking any tools that we may use of the president’s fiscal management tools off the table,” he said.
Vought contends that the administration has “not impounded a single thing,” referring to the process banned by federal law through which the executive branch delays or withholds funds appropriated by Congress. Vought also believes the impoundment ban is unconstitutional.
This approach marks a sharp break with past practice, said Kathy Stack, who oversaw the office’s education branch from 2000 to 2005 and the broader division that includes education from 2005 to 2013, during the Bush and Obama administrations.
“For the 27 years I worked at OMB, it never occurred to any OMB staff that a president or OMB director would do what Trump and Vought are doing,” Stack said.
Similar OMB maneuvers since last year have affected grantees for other agencies, including for community development financial institutions, domestic violence prevention, drought mitigation, health and science research, and public transit.
OMB last year also removed all of its apportionment documents from its website. Protect Democracy and other transparency advocates sued to reverse the move and secured a court order last fall that requires OMB to continue publishing apportionment documents and the spending plans it’s requiring from agencies before releasing certain funds.
