As a result of Trump’s slew executive orders, the Administration attempted to freeze payouts.
On Tuesday, Jan. 28, President Donald Trump’s attempted pause of all federal loans and grants was temporarily blocked by federal judge Loren L. AliKhan after several nonprofit organizations sued the federal government. Had the pause ordered on Jan. 27 by Matthew Vaeth, the Trump-appointed head of the Office of Management and Budget gone through, it would not have affected scholarships or student loans much, but it would have affected The University of Tulsa significantly.
TU was awarded 8.7 million dollars in federal grants in both 2022 and 2023 and over 2.6 million additional dollars of federal relief funding in 2020. That money would have otherwise come out of students’ tuition or the school’s resources.
While TU’s funding would have been affected, funding that supports students FAFSA and Pell Grants would not have been affected as there was an exception in the pause for funds paid directly to citizens. The order was specifically to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.” Other disqualifiers included “promoting or supporting in any way abortion,” and “promoting Marxist equity,” according to the Associated Press and Newsweek. The funds would be resumed on a case by case basis after organizations submitted a response to a series of yes or no questions due on Feb. 7.
Many feel this mandate is arbitrary in how it chooses which agencies it cuts funding to, which projects it disapproves of and how it will be enforced. Employees at almost every level of government were completely lost as to whether their projects would lose funding between the order on Monday and the judicial freeze the following day. What is clear is that TU, being a private university and thus a nongovernmental organization, would not have received funding had the memo gone into effect.
Largely as a result of the vague wording, since its blocking on Tuesday and a series of lawsuits from 23 state attorneys, the order was withdrawn and no scheduled federal payments have been missed. However, Vaeth claims that this move did not mark the end of their goal to pause and possibly stop funding basically all government supported organizations.
For that reason, Americans and TU students should be concerned. First of all, many homeless shelters and other relief organizations with federal funds reported an inability to withdraw funds after the order went out, and as public services which give free relief to the poor, there is certainly an argument that they “promote marxist equity,” and that argument will probably be made by a significant portion of Trump’s cabinet. That means homeless shelters across the nation losing a massive amount of funds to care for society’s most vulnerable, people who relied on food banks losing options rapidly, and innumerable other charity institutions going away. Furthermore, if the OMB is not giving up, they have at least two years of executive, legislative and judicial republican majorities on the federal level; they will most likely find some way to get it done. This would leave a devastating effect on people dependent on welfare services and almost certainly a massive loss of human life in the homeless population. As citizens and people, it is the responsibility of all of those in the U.S. to stay informed and do what they can to influence policy around issues that threaten the wellbeing of others like this pause of funding.
Let us say you do not particularly care for the homeless issue. Even so, you will be personally affected if a pause does go through. This act would mean that state and local governments would suddenly lose a massive amount of money, public education would suddenly plummet in quality and organization, and again, TU would become more expensive, much less well equipped to educate, or both without the federal grants the university generally receives.
Furthermore, such an overreach of the executive branch should not be tolerated in the US. When it comes to this goal of the Trump administration, Americans have an obligation to not only care, but to do what they can, be it writing our congresspeople, signing petitions, or informing our communities, to prevent it from occurring.
