Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ includes a provision that the federal government will not provide federal aid for bachelor degree programs that fail to produce incomes for graduates that do not exceed the income of a high school graduate. When students in an academic majors lose their federal financial aid, a college may only be able to keep these students by using unfunded institutional aid to match the lost federal aid. However, the trade-off of unfunded aid for lost federal financial aid has a negative effect on cash reserves. Federal aid provided cash, but unfunded aid does not provide any cash, which will result in the depletion of cash reserves. Under this circumstance, colleges could be forced to drop majors that lose federal financial aid. The new federal provisions on the loss of financial aid are compounded in those states that are forcing public universities to terminate majors when enrollment falls below a specific level.
Only time will time will tell whether this provision of Trump’s B3 will push colleges to terminate programs. As usual colleges will have to wait for federal bureaucrats to write and distribute the regulations before colleges learn the full impact of this provision on their academic programs.