Federal student loans, financial aid and Pell Grants will not be affected by the White House budget office’s call for a freeze on federal grants and loans, according to an MSU internal email shared with The State News by a spokesperson. Researchers working on federally funded projects are being advised to continue their work unless directed otherwise.
The freeze was set to go into effect at 5 p.m. Tuesday before a federal judge blocked the directive. That administrative stay will last until Monday, Feb. 3.
The memo, released late Monday night from the Office of Management and Budget, calls on federal agencies to identify and review federal financial assistance programs to ensure they are consistent with President Donald Trump’s executive actions and orders.
All federal financial assistance that could be implicated by Trump’s recent executive orders, “including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal” must be temporarily paused, according to the memo.
The memo carves out an exception for programs providing direct benefits to individuals including Social Security, Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicare. Federal financial aid for students also falls under this exception, MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz wrote in the internal email.
Federal funding for research — totaling $435 million at MSU — could also be affected by the budget office’s memo. MSU’s Governmental Relations Office, Office of Research and Innovation, Office of the Provost and Office of General Counsel are evaluating the executive orders and directives and will “determine any legal or regulatory impacts or requirements on the university’s operations.”
In the meantime, Guskiewicz recommended researchers continue to work on their federally funded projects unless they are told otherwise by their program officer, agency contact or MSU’s Office of Research and Innovation. Guskiewicz wrote that “caution should be exercised,” however, by researchers making new commitments or starting new experiments.
The university’s sponsored programs office has also created a web page to track financial and administrative impacts on federally funded programs caused by the new policies.
“We realize information regarding these orders and directives is traveling quickly, and yet the information may not be immediately clear,” Guskiewicz’s email states. “Our teams are working quickly to understand the impacts and necessary actions.”
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