Trump administration halted millions in education funding for Arizona
Oct. 16
The Trump administration is behind the loss of millions of dollars in education funding affecting vital programs and students across Arizona.
The States United Democracy Center and Grant Witness came together to launch Lost Funds, an interactive website that tracks federal funding that has been canceled, withheld, or disrupted since Trump’s 2025 presidency.
Kelly Rader is the Research Director at States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan group that promotes and supports fair elections. Rader said it was important to track lost federal funding in order to educate and help make the data visible to the public.
“We like to say these cuts aren’t business as usual. This is completely unprecedented action from a federal administration to disrupt funding that was already promised to states and recipients,” Rader said.
Nearly $72 million in Arizona education grants have been delayed, hurting minority-serving institutions, teacher development programs and scholarship opportunities for migrant students after allocated funding was withheld.
The data shows Arizona was one of the hardest hit states, losing a total of nearly $3 billion in federal funding for a variety of programs that assisted with affordable housing, energy efficiency, education and research studies, and other sectors.
But group leaders said the full ramifications of withholding federal funding for vital programs may reverberate in the years to come.
How has the loss of federal education funds hurt Arizona?
Ursula Kaczmarek is a data scientist with Grant Witness, a group made up of researchers, data scientists and lawyers that tracks how science and research funding has been dismantled by the government. Kaczmarek’s concern when looking at the data was how vulnerable populations were impacted across different sectors.
“I’m thinking of low-income students. Not only are they deprived of low-emission school buses, but they live in households where there are now additional SNAP requirements and so in addition to the school lunch and local food for schools programs that were cut. I mean it’s harder for these kids to even eat,” Kaczmarek said
Five billion in funding for the national Clean School Bus Program was canceled by the Trump administration. The funding was earmarked to help replace older high-polluting buses with energy efficient buses. The funding for this program landed under the energy sector, but directly impacts students.
Students in Arizona were also hit by losing more than $15 million in federal funding that helped keep school lunches affordable. The funds covered the cost of providing fresh school lunches for students by purchasing produce from local farmers.
Additionally, Arizona universities lost nearly $16 million in science education research funding. Another nearly $30 million in state funding that would have supported teacher training and recruiting programs was also halted.
Kelly Rader added that Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, along with other states, filed lawsuit after lawsuit against the administration for the disruptions in federal funding.
“Some states are fighting back and most often winning these funds back when they’re challenged in court because these actions are illegal,” Rader said.
But Rader emphasized that the end-goal in creating the website is to help communities and the public understand the wide-scale impact in delaying and withholding federal funding.
“A lot of the disruptions were caused by the Trump administration attempting to achieve its policy priorities by forcing these grantees to comply with certain terms and conditions. So, basically they changed the terms and conditions for the grants that were all already promised to states.”
Reporting by “Arizona Horizon” Education Solutions Reporter Roxanne De La Rosa. Her role is made possible through grant funding from the Arizona Local News Foundation’s Arizona Community Collaborative Fund and Report for America.
