The 2025 Biden Budget Makes Historic Investments in Public Education

On March 11, President Joe Biden released his Fiscal Year 2025 Budget to Congress, listing out many of the educational priorities he emphasized in his State of the Union address. The lobbyists and experts at the National Education Association budget have analyzed and summarized the budget to assess its impact on pre-K-12 and higher education.

The NEA’s leaders call on all WEAC members email our Members of Congress to urge them not to cut or cap education funding and to make the needed investments in our nation’s public schools, educators, students and families.

In sum, the Biden budget requests $82 billion in discretionary budget authority for education for 2025, a $3.1 billion or 3.9 percent increase from the FY2023 enacted level. Overall, the President’s budget: continues to make historic investments in schools with high poverty rates through Title I funding, increases supports for children with disabilities through IDEA, invests in mental health services for students and educators, reduces the cost of college, lifts the burden of student debt, invests in community schools, reduces gun violence, expands access to high quality preschool, invests in educator retention and recruitment, supports career pathways, provides additional healthy and free schools meals, and increases funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Biden’s budget pays for the education funding increases by enacting roughly $1 trillion in savings over the next decade through the Fiscal Responsibility Act, and through Inflation Reduction Act provisions that empower Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices, cap insulin at $35 per month for seniors, and make the tax system fairer by making billion-dollar corporations pay a minimum tax and enabling the IRS to crack down on wealthy and corporate tax cheats.

At the Department of Education, the budget topline numbers include:

• $200 million in investments in Full-Service Community Schools, an increase of $50 million above FY23 enacted levels and a 500-percent, or $120 million, increase in program funding since the beginning of the Administration. This increase provides integrated student supports to meet student and family social, emotional, mental, and physical health needs through partnerships with community-based organizations.
• $18.6 billion for Title I, a $200 million increase above FY23 enacted levels. Title I helps schools provide students in low-income communities the learning opportunities and supports they need to succeed. This funding amount is $2.1 billion higher than when the President took office, reflecting the President’s strong commitment to expanding support for every American student. Title I delivers critical funding for 90 percent of school districts nationwide, helping students in low income communities receive the education and academic supports they need.
• $15.7 billion for special education programs, with $14.4 billion for IDEA, Part B, a $200 million increase over FY23 enacted levels. The increased funds would support special education and related services for approximately 7.4 million students in grades Pre-K through 12. The budget also provides $545 million for IDEA Part C grants, an increase of $5 million over FY 23 enacted levels, to support early intervention services for infants and families with disabilities. To address persistent special educator shortages, the Budget also invests $125 million to train and retain special education teachers, related service providers, and early intervention personnel.
• Expands Access to High Quality Preschool. The Budget includes a major new mandatory funding proposal to support a federal-state partnership to provide high-quality, free preschool to all four-year-old children. The Budget also includes $25 million for incentive demonstration grants to create or expand free, high-quality preschool in school or community-based settings for children eligible to attend Title I schools. The incentive demonstration grants, which would require close collaboration among school districts, Head Start, and other community-based providers, would serve as models that could be adopted across the Nation. This program would expand its reach by encouraging districts to leverage Title I funds, along with other Federal, State, and local funds.
• $216 million to increase the number of school-based counselors, psychologists, social workers, and other health professionals in K-12 schools, including $200 million from the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a 900-percent increase in program funding since 2021. This funding also supports colleges and universities develop campus-wide strategies to address student mental health needs including hiring additional providers on their campuses.
• $90 million for Supporting Effective Education Development, an increase of $10 million above the 2023 enacted level.
• $95 million for the Teacher Quality Partnership program, an increase of $25 million above the 2023 enacted level.
• $30 million for the Hawkins Centers of Excellence program, an increase of $15 million above the 2023 enacted level, to expand the number of prospective teachers and improve the diversity of the teacher pipeline.
• $173 million for the Teacher and School Leader Incentive Fund
• $57 million investment in Career-Connected High Schools, an initiative that would support competitive grants to partnerships of local educational agencies, institutions of higher education – including community colleges – and employers, to support early enrollment in postsecondary and career-connected coursework; work-based learning opportunities; and academic and career-connected instruction across the last two years of high school and the first two years of postsecondary education.
• Increases the maximum Pell Grant by $100. This brings the maximum award increases to $8,145, an increase of $750 over the FY 2023 maximum through a combination of discretionary and mandatory funding.
• $90 million to expand free community college across the Nation through a mandatory grant program for states, territories, and tribes to make community colleges free for eligible students.
• A new Reducing the Cost of College Fund, a $12 billion mandatory proposal to provide high school students access to free career based dual enrollment, increase college completion rates, and reducing cost burdens for students.
• $93 million over the 2023 enacted level for HBCUs, TCCUs, and MSIs to Support More Inclusive Higher Education and expand institutional capacity.
• $162 million to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), a 27-percent increase above the 2023 enacted level. This robust funding would ensure that OCR has sufficient capacity to protect equal access to education through the enforcement of civil rights laws, such as Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
• $20 Million increase for TRIO programs to improve the retention, transfer and completion rates of students.
• $1.5 Billion for Perkins Career Technical Education (CTE), an increase of $40 million from FY23 to support access to dual enrollment and work based learning.
• $15 billion for the Community Eligibility Program, to provide healthy and free school meals to an additional 9 million children.

Now that Biden has released the budget, Congress will begin the process of enacting the FY2025 spending bills once if fully completes work on all the FY24 bills in the next two weeks.