America should not have to choose which students or institutions deserve opportunity.
Yet that is effectively the choice created by the Trump administration’s latest decision to redirect approximately $235 million in mandatory federal funding that Congress intended for Hispanic-serving institutions and other minority-serving institutions to historically Black colleges and universities and tribal colleges and universities.
HBCUs and TCUs deserve substantial and sustained federal investment. Their contributions to our nation are undeniable, and their historic underfunding is well-documented. But strengthening these institutions should not require weakening others that also expand access to economic opportunity and educate large numbers of students with limited financial resources.
In September, the U.S. Department of Education announced more than $174 million in additional funding for HBCUs and $61 million for TCUs. Unlike a similar redistribution of discretionary funds in 2025 and the diversion of funding for MSIs to the Strengthening Institutions program earlier this year, this action involves mandatory funding Congress established for specific purposes and institutional categories. Some of the redirected funding was intended for the HSI STEM and Articulation Program, which supports STEM degree attainment for Hispanic and low-income students and strengthens transfer pathways between two- and four-year colleges. Other funds were intended for institutions serving Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Asian American, Pacific Islander and Native American students. That distinction matters.
Congress did not create federal programs for HSIs, HBCUs, TCUs and other MSIs because it believed these institutions were interchangeable. It recognized different histories, missions, communities and institutional capacities—and deliberately created multiple avenues for investment.
The administration argues that programs using racial or ethnic enrollment thresholds raise constitutional concerns. And in 2025, ED ended discretionary funding for several MSI programs after concluding that such thresholds were impermissible. At the time, however, ED acknowledged that approximately $132 million in mandatory funding could not be similarly reprogrammed because Congress had specified its use.
There is also an important misconception at the center of this debate: HSI programs do not provide individual benefits based on whether a student is Hispanic. They invest in institutional capacity. Colleges use these resources to strengthen academic programs, laboratories, advising, faculty development, transfer pathways and other infrastructure that serve students across the institution.
In fact, eligibility for major HSI programs has historically included measures of institutional need and low-income enrollment in addition to the requirement that at least 25 percent of undergraduate enrollment be Hispanic. And once an institution receives a grant, federal law does not require its benefits to be reserved for Latino students. This is fundamentally an investment in institutions with concentrated need—not an individual racial preference.
The administration has said Congress should redesign MSI programs to focus more explicitly on underresourced and underprepared students. That is a policy discussion worth having. Federal policy should evolve as the students attending college and the institutions serving them change. But modernization should strengthen the federal commitment to institutional capacity, not dismantle it. Congress should reject a zero-sum approach and act based on a framework with three components:
- Reaffirm that mandatory funds appropriated for specific programs included in Title III and Title V of the Higher Education Act must be spent for the purposes Congress established unless Congress itself changes the law.
- Modernize the MSI framework around three complementary factors: student need, institutional capacity and evidence of intentional service. Enrollment characteristics can identify institutions serving concentrated populations, but federal investment should also examine the economic circumstances of students, the resources institutions have available to serve them and whether institutions demonstrate meaningful strategies and results.
- Establish common expectations for federally supported institutions—while avoiding a one-size-fits-all model—including measurable progress in access, persistence, transfer, completion, momentum and economic mobility.
This approach would preserve what is valuable about the MSI framework while responding to legitimate questions about how federal institutional capacity building programs should operate in the future.
The redirection of mandatory funds also raises a broader question extending beyond HSIs: What happens to congressional authority and institutional planning when funding enacted for one statutory purpose can be shifted to another?
HBCUs should not prosper because HSIs lose. TCUs should not gain because institutions serving Native Hawaiian, Alaska Native or Asian American students lose. And HSIs should not have to diminish the importance of other institutions to defend their own. Our nation needs all of them.
The better question is not which institutions deserve federal investment. It is how federal policy can strengthen institutions that educate students America cannot afford to leave behind. That is a debate Congress should lead—and a commitment worth preserving.
