Congress has returned from summer recess! With the clock ticking toward the end of the fiscal year on September 30, appropriations discussions have been front and center. While leaders negotiate a plan for a continuing resolution and/or finalizing initial bills, the House Appropriations Committee approved the Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS-ED) Appropriations Act. Read below for more updates.  

• House Appropriations Committee Approves FY 2026 Labor-HHS-ED Appropriations Bill: The committee passed the FY 2026 Labor-HHS-Ed Appropriations Act, allocating $184 billion in discretionary funding, a seven percent decrease from FY 2025. Under the bill, funding for Perkins State Grants would increase by $25 million compared to FY 2025, however there were steep cuts proposed for other education and workforce development programs. Read our statement with Advance CTE on the bill here.  

• White House Holds AI Education Event: On Sept. 4, the White House held an event to discuss the role of AI in education with the Task Force on AI Education. The Administration highlighted new public-private commitments to expand AI learning in K-12 schools, postsecondary education and CTE. Companies like Google, Microsoft, and Anthropic pledged billions in resources to help support educational systems with free AI tools. 

• ED Announced the Next Steps in Moving Perkins and Adult Education Funding to DOL: On Sept. 8, ED announced that the funding and administration of Perkins and Adult Education will move to DOL as called for in the Interagency Agreement (IAA) signed in the spring. DOL will now be responsible for portions of CTE and adult education funding, oversight and operations. The timeline for states to access funding under DOL is uncertain, and congressional appropriators have weighed in opposing the move.  

• ED Eliminates Grants for Specific Higher Education Institutions: On Sept. 10, ED announced it was ending discretionary funding for several postsecondary Minority-Serving Institutions grant programs, including Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Native American-Serving Nontribal Institutions, Predominantly Black Institutions, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions and more. A number of these institutions offer CTE programs.  

• Courts Issue New Injunction Delaying PRWORA Interpretation Change: Recently, the U.S. District Court of Rhode Island issued a preliminary injunction that further pauses implementation of ED’s new legal interpretation of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) provisions on serving undocumented learners in postsecondary CTE and adult education.  

• ED Delays Funding for Federal TRIO Grants – ED has paused approximately $660 million worth of aid to 2,000 TRIO programs, which are designed to help low-income students access higher education. Many of these funds are allocated to community colleges.