Federal Cuts Put Hispanic-Serving Institutions’ Student Support Programs at Risk

SpaceTech scholars work on a model rocket.

Students spoke highly of the SpaceTech Scholars program at Metropolitan State University in Denver.

“I really wouldn’t be able to fly or even attend this school if it weren’t because of all these programs,” Diana Cano-Villela once told a visitor to her aerospace class at the university.

She counted SpaceTech, which provides extensive coaching and peer-to-peer tutoring, as one of several programs at MSU that gave her the confidence to pursue a career in aerospace. The university credits the program with boosting persistence and graduation rates for students from groups that are underrepresented in aerospace science and engineering.

Despite its success, funding for SpaceTech expired Sept. 30.

The program is one of the many casualties of a September 2025 decision by the Trump administration to end discretionary funding for several Minority-Serving Institution grant programs, including for Hispanic Serving Institutions, or HSIs, that the administration says “discriminate by conferring government benefits exclusively to institutions that meet racial or ethnic quotas.”

Losing the Bridge

Analysis of two decades of federal data reveals about a third of HSIs that got the discretionary grants, under Title V Part A of the Higher Education Act, were using them for student support services, says Deborah Santiago, chief executive officer at Excelencia in Education, an organization that works to boost college completion among America’s Latino students.

“That shows the importance of student support services – including advising,” Santiago says.

The decision sent some HSIs scrambling to replace funds by reaching out to external funders or redirecting funds from one programmatic area to another.

“Most institutions have been unable to replace the funds lost,” says Marybeth Gasman, an education professor at Rutgers University – New Brunswick and executive director of the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions, or MSIs.

Gasman predicts that academic success could worsen as a result.

“Research shows that intensive, proactive advising and coaching improve retention and graduation,” Gasman says. “When the federal government removes the personnel and infrastructure surrounding practices that research associates with persistence and completion, we can anticipate that student outcomes will suffer.”

Budget in Perspective

Santiago says it’s important to keep in mind that the cancelled discretionary grants never represented more than one percent of an institution’s budget. For that reason, their effects may be hard to discern.

“To assume that because you got a $600,000 grant that you could fundamentally change your outcome numbers, we didn’t think was realistic,” Santiago says, adding that because advising was just one of several things that the grants supported, evidence of its effects would be difficult to isolate.

But the discretionary grants still played an important role in enabling institutions to try new ways to serve students most in need.

Gasman’s Center for MSIs has identified five groups of students that are typically targeted for advising: those who are on academic probation or suspension; first-year students; student-athletes; new transfer students and graduating seniors.

“These targeted populations often require more concentrated support due to various factors, such as the transition to college, academic challenges, or the need for specialized assistance while dealing with limited institutional resources,” states a Center for MSI report titled, “Construir el Camino: How Hispanic-Serving Institutions Design and Deliver Academic Advising.”

The EDU Ledger contacted five HSIs for insight on how they’re adapting to the loss of the Title V grants and how they are approaching advising. Four of those five either failed or declined to respond — a common occurrence amid worries of winding up in the crosshairs of an administration that has been cracking down on institutions that it says are illegally admitting and creating special programs for students on the basis of race.

Layering Support

Richard Finger, vice president for enrollment management at City University of New York’s Lehman College, one of those five HSIs, says he didn’t expect the cancellation of Title V grants to affect student support at Lehman.

“We are fortunate that most of our federal student support funding, including our TRIO program, has remained intact and allows us to continue to support students,” Finger says.

Finger says Lehman has “re-imagined” academic advising through a streamlined, three-phase model “designed to eliminate institutional bottlenecks from admission to commencement.”

Incoming students begin their journey with the Onboard Advising Office, which Finger says provides “high-touch engagement and transitional support through the start of their first semester.”

Students eventually transition into a caseload model within the Academic Advising Office, where students are assigned to advisors by their major. They get dedicated guidance through 85% of their degree completion, and in their final stretch, students are handed off to the Graduation Specialist Unit of the Registrar’s office to “power through” their last 18 credits, he says.

“This specialized division uniquely blends academic advocacy with financial relief,” Finger says. Specifically, he adds, it offers senior “success scholarships” along with fast-track course substitutions and waivers.

Asked for evidence of effectiveness, Finger points to the Pre-Health Unit within the Office of Academic Advising Office, noting that it has won recognition for being a top producer of Latinx medical students.

“The Graduation Specialist Unit has been a standout engine within that success, leveraging targeted credit-for-prior-learning opportunities specifically for seniors down to their final six credits to push them smoothly across the finish line,” Finger tells The EDU Ledger.

Finger also notes that Lehman was recently ranked 36th on Time Magazine’s list of America’s Best Colleges and 6th in The Wall Street Journal’s Top U.S. Colleges for Social Mobility.

The institution has also received two large gifts from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott – $50 million in 2025 and $80 million in 2020.

 Other HSIs have not been as fortunate, and Gasman says she has “serious concern” about the effects of lost funding for HSIs.

“We don’t have the data yet but given the important work that was being done, which is now gone in some places and barely holding on in others, we will probably see lower retention and graduation rates,” she speculates.

Gasman notes that most HSI students are the first in their families to attend college.

“Many are low-income, have limited resources, work substantial hours, and care for family members,” Gasman says. “They need the support that the Title V funds provide.”

Jamaal Abdul-Alim is a longtime education writer who resides in Washington, D.C. He occasionally teaches journalism and has completed fellowships at the University of Michigan, Columbia University and New America.

This story originally ran in The EDU Ledger's October 2026 edition. Subscribe here for full access.