YourVoice.Now Summary
Your MoneyMoves TRIO, GEAR UP, and HBCU funding from Education to Labor — and ends four programs, including Byrd Scholarships
Your Money
The bill repeals the Robert C. Byrd Honors Scholarship Program from federal higher education law. Once that takes effect, six months after the bill becomes law, the program could no longer give out scholarships.
LEAP gives states federal money to help pay for student grants and campus work-study jobs, and the bill repeals it. The law's set funding level for LEAP ran only through 2014.
More about this bill
If you or your child gets help from a federal program that helps students get to and through college, a different agency would run it. About 20 college programs would move from the Department of Education to the Department of Labor. They include the TRIO programs and GEAR UP, which helps kids get ready for college. Funds for historically Black colleges and Hispanic-serving colleges would move too. So would aid for students with disabilities, student veterans, and children of migrant farm workers. Labor would also take over the Education Department's ties to Howard University. Four programs would end for good. They are LEAP (a state student-grant program), the Byrd Honors Scholarships, College Access Challenge Grants, and Project GRAD. Grants, loans, and pending applications would go on under Labor. Each program's money moves with it and must be spent the same way. The White House budget office must make sure the move adds no federal staff in all. The changes start six months after the bill becomes law, but moves may start sooner.
Congressional Summary
Less Bureaucracy, Better Higher Education Act This bill transfers specified functions relating to postsecondary education programs from the Department of Education (ED) to the Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration (ETA). Specifically, the bill transfers to the ETA all the functions and authorities exercised by ED before the bill's effective date related to postsecondary education programs. These programs include, among others, TRIO programs and the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education. (On November 18, 2025, ED announced an interagency agreement with Labor for Labor to manage grant funds, provide technical assistance, and integrate ED's programs with Labor's existing programs, while ED must maintain its statutory responsibilities and program oversight.) The bill also repeals the Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership Program, the Robert C. Byrd Honors Scholarship Program, the College Access Challenge Grant Program, and the Project GRAD program. Additionally, the bill transfers to the ETA all personnel and appropriations related to the functions that are transferred under this bill. The bill outlines the authority of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) related to the functions that are transferred under this bill, including that OMB must ensure that this bill does not create a net increase in full-time equivalent employees at the ETA or ED. Further, OMB must certify compliance with the bill to specified congressional committees. The transfer of these functions does not affect any suits, proceedings, or applications for benefits, services, licenses, permits, certificates, or financial assistance that are pending on the date of this bill's enactment.
Legislative Subjects
Details
- Congress
- 119th
- Chamber
- House
- Status
- summarized
- Action
- Introduced in House
- Action Date
- 2026-07-09
- Date Added
- 2026-10-03
- Source
- Congress.gov →
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