How Will Federal Cuts Impact Grant Strategies?

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0:00:12.4 Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Office Hours with EAB. Today we examine how federal funding for research grants is changing under the current administration. Our experts discuss what is known and what may lie ahead. They also share tips for university leaders on ways to continue to pursue funding sources despite the chaos. So give these folks a listen and enjoy.

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0:00:39.0 Tara Zirkel: Hello and welcome to Office Hours with EAB. I’m Tara Zirkel, a Director of Strategic Research here at EAB. In my nearly 20 years in higher education, I’ve never seen a moment of uncertainty quite like this when it comes to potential changes at the Department of Education under a new presidential administration. Many colleges are working to cut through the noise and understand what the headlines might mean, especially when it comes to federal grants that support critical programs like TRIO or the status of Title V and Title III grants. Institutions also have pressing questions about the 2025 federal budget and its potential impact on higher education funding.

0:01:19.4 TZ: Today we’re joined by a grants expert to help unpack these uncertainties and provide insights on what colleges to watch out for in the next few months. McAllister & Quinn is a consulting firm that helps colleges, universities, nonprofits and businesses secure funding through federal grants and strategic planning. They provide expert guidance on grant writing, research funding, and institutional capacity building to drive growth and innovation.

0:01:48.6 TZ: Joining us today to talk a little bit more about how changes at the federal level could impact grants and how your college can prepare is Dr. Jessica Gerrity. Dr. Gerrity is Senior Vice President and Leader of the Higher Education Practice at McAllister & Quinn, where her leadership has secured substantial federal and foundation funding for higher education initiatives. With over 20 years of experience, she has held roles at the Congressional Research Service, Washington College, and the office of Senator Jack Reed. And she also holds a PhD in Political Science from Indiana University. So, Jessica, it’s great to have you, and before we get started, can you share a little bit more about how McAllister & Quinn operates and your overall work in higher education?

0:02:34.1 Dr. Jessica Gerrity: Sure. Thank you so much, Tara, for that introduction and for having me on the podcast. McAllister & Quinn has been in DC for about 20 years, and there are five practices at the firm, and one of them, the one that I lead, is the higher education practice, and that is a practice that works with small and mid-sized colleges. So colleges where there’s a teaching focus or a balance between teaching and scholarship. So we work with a lot of institutions that might aspire to be an R2 but are not quite there. We work with institutions that are not doing much research but are working really intensely with students. We work with institutions that have a lot of first-gen students and are serving really diverse communities. And we work with traditional liberal arts colleges. So kind of across the spectrum.

0:03:28.6 DG: We work with our institutions, regardless of the institutional type, in very similar ways. We are hired to help institutions diversify their funding streams and in particular to look at funders through federal funders as well as private foundations to help support students, faculty programs, equipment, initiatives on campus. So we work strategically in the sense that one of the first things that we do when we work with an institution is really think holistically about what they’re doing, where their strengths are, where their challenges are, that might be met with funders, met by funding opportunities.

0:04:10.4 DG: So we work mostly in, I would say, like as far as the big pie, most of it, or 75% of it is federal funding, and then 25% would be private funders. And there we also do help clients pursue state grants. Every state is a little different in terms of what they offer higher ed, so there’s quite a bit of variation there. And then with the private foundations, we help institutions with building relationships there and going after those dollars, but we can’t create those relationships. So every institution is a little different in terms of their portfolio with us.

0:04:48.1 DG: But in essence, what we do is we try to help schools that may have lower capacity to go after sponsored research to help build their team. So we bring together writers, editors, and reviewers, as well as project managers to help them go after grants and really take all the good energy and ideas from faculty and staff on campuses and pair them up with expert grant writers and strategic thinkers who can help them frame their ideas in fundable formats. And at some small colleges, there are faculty who have not done that before. So we’re very ready to work with new faculty who have never done that, or teams that haven’t done it in a while. We also work with people who are with faculty and staff who are submitting regularly.

0:05:37.8 DG: So our model works for lots of different institutions with different skill sets and capacity levels. But the end game is the same. We aim to increase federal funding or private foundation funding. We also have a number of services that help an institution build and sustain capacity, such as training. One hot topic that we’re doing right now is post-award and compliance training. We’re also helping institutions understand how to work with their congressional delegation to request what used to be called earmarks, now it’s called congressionally directed spending or community projects, and a host of other services that really help institutions increase federal funding and kind of sustain that culture and momentum on their campus.

0:06:30.8 TZ: I can imagine, given the work that you do, that you’ve probably had a lot of inquiries recently about what is the federal landscape sort of look like? What does it look like for me? We’re going to talk about that in a second. But before we jump into specific grants and what people can expect to see on campus, I just want to take a minute to level set. So even among some higher education practitioners, it might not be completely clear what role the Department of Education plays in distributing federal grants. So before we dive in, can you tell our audience a little bit more about what types of grants the Department of Education oversees?

0:07:07.9 DG: Of course. Yes. I mean, our purview is really focused on higher ed. But of course, the Department of Education is awarding grants in the K through 12 space also. But as far as higher education grants, they are funding a lot of grants to support students and to support institutions that are working with some of the nation’s students who may be new to higher ed, first-generation students or students with Pell eligibility or high financial need, for example. Every agency with their grants, including Department of Education, is really attempting to define some societal problems and then solve those problems with grants. And so Department of Education is different from the National Science Foundation or the National Institutes of Health or the National Endowment for the Humanities. They all define sort of their kind of corner of the world a little differently.

0:08:07.2 DG: With Department of Education, I think they’re very interested in student success and that can look differently across these different grant programs. But the common theme is really how do we support students and the institutions that are supporting those students to ensure their success as students, and also that the institution can retain them and train them so that they will graduate and fulfill important workforce demands and be successful adults. So that is the thread running across many of the grants. You may be familiar with some of the TRIO programs that is very much at the heart of TRIO, or the Strengthening Institution programs are very much about strengthening the institution where those students are being educated.

0:08:57.3 TZ: Yes. I’m hearing you say a lot of support to making sure that students get both to and through their higher education. And making sure too, that students who have been historically vulnerable receive funding to make sure that they receive the support that they need.

0:09:12.4 DG: Exactly.

0:09:13.9 TZ: And I know there are a lot of unknowns right now, but what are some possibilities for changes to the Department of Education and what could they mean for popular grant programs like Title III and Title V? You mentioned TRIO, and there’s I think sort of some of these name brand grants that people are more familiar with. What could potentially happen?

0:09:37.2 DG: That’s such a great question and timely, given that we’re expecting an executive order any day now to address this very question. What will Department of Education look like moving forward? We probably, there’s a lot that we don’t know. There’s a lot of ideas out there about how to reorganize the Department of Education and most of those ideas in terms of moving authorities to other agencies… I’m sure everyone listening has probably heard of different plans to move the Office of Civil Rights potentially to DOJ to move other pieces of Department of Ed back to agencies where they may have originated prior to the founding of the Department of Education in the mid-1970s. So that is a possibility.

0:10:33.3 DG: That possibility requires congressional support, including a 60-vote threshold in the Senate, to certainly dismantle the Department of Education. That is highly unlikely. And to move statutory authorities from one agency to another also requires congressional approval. So with that as a backdrop, there are of course, numerous other things that could be done that have been, really been rolled out across many age federal agencies over the past few weeks. And that is really more of a disruption to staff and programs via firing probationary workers and taking a look at grants that may not further the new administration’s policy priorities. And a number of institutions have had some grants that have been questioned or in some extreme cases, terminated. So those are some ways that there could be disruption around the edges to what the Department of Education is doing.

0:11:52.9 DG: Although we have been grateful that a lot of their functions and major grant programs have continued to exist and deadlines have been posted and program officers are responding to questions. And so we find that to be very encouraging. We heard today that the Title III and Title V eligibility matrix is forthcoming, as well as the waivers that many institutions will apply to. So every day there seems to be incremental steps towards the full release of those of that matrix, which is something that I know a lot of higher education institutions, community colleges and four-years have their eye on.

0:12:36.1 TZ: And just for the benefit of our listeners, when you say that some of the grants are the statutory funding, can you explain just for folks, what that means?

0:12:45.8 DG: Yeah, so some of the… Many of the grants that McAllister & Quinn works on are in statute, meaning that Congress has passed legislation about these programs. And so one of the things that we did early on in the year is really take a look to see, Okay, of those programs that we work with regularly, Are they, do they have an appropriation and are they in statute? And we were quite pleased to learn that most of the programs that we work with are both in statute and have an appropriation. So it’s just, it’s not a guarantee, but it certainly is a level of protection and also a history in terms of what congressional, what Congress’s intent was with these programs.

0:13:37.4 DG: And one example that a colleague pointed out to me earlier today that I think is great, and I’d love to share it, is that the TRIO programs have actually been around longer than the department, the current Department of Education. So as far as the kind of longitudinal history of these grants in statute, we’re talking about decades. So that is just really good to know and frankly, most people don’t need to know that under normal circumstances. But it is helpful right now to just really think about where are these grants, where did they originate, how long have they been around?

0:14:16.6 DG: The longer these programs have been around and more, the larger the alums, alum network they have, as well as just their constituents, so to speak, as far as their fan club and who on the Hill knows about these programs and has protected them and seen constituents through the decades benefit from these programs. So that’s kind of what we’re looking for, and that’s why I think it’s important and useful to know which of the programs are in statute.

0:14:48.2 TZ: I know you mentioned TRIO grants, and as someone who has spent most of my career in the community college sector, these are grants that I’ve seen over the decades, as you had mentioned, really lend support to first-gen and low-income students, students who really benefit from the direct support that they receive from student supports of professionals on campus. And based on what you just said, it kind of sounds like it would take a lot for these grants to disappear. So assuming that they will still be accessible, is there anything that colleges need to know about how the language or focus areas of the grants could change? So if I’m submitting a grant proposal, what might this mean for me?

0:15:32.0 DG: I think that it’s great to be thinking that way, to really think about if you’re applying for a continuation in one of these programs, since there’s so many continuations in the TRIO program, just to take a look at your program and really make sure that you’re aware of any sensitivities as far as the administration’s priorities and they’re kind of concerned with DEI. I would just know what’s in your grants and read carefully so that you are not surprised. But honestly, we just have to wait for these solicitations to be released to know if there are new priority preferences. And those are really just ways to kind of encourage a certain direction of a plan.

0:16:24.4 DG: As you know, Tara, since you’ve worked on the TRIOs there, it’s hard to make major changes to TRIO grants because they’re stood up, they’re physically in a physical location on campus, they have staff, and a continuation of them is meant to continue supports for the most vulnerable students on campus. So, hopefully the core of that remains the same, and there may be some tweaks along the edges, but I think just getting ready by knowing what you have and being ready to read those new solicitations, if you’re a new applicant very closely, to make sure that if there are changes, that you’re aware of them and you can speak to them and that they still align with what your needs are on campus.

0:17:08.7 TZ: Yeah. I’m hearing you say, if I’m a grants professional on campus, that just that extra eye or networking with my other grants professionals might be something that would benefit me. Just so we’re kind of all thinking about, oh, there was a tweak here or there to make sure that it doesn’t essentially slip by us.

0:17:26.3 DG: Exactly. And, Tara, you may have worked with the COE program, the TRIO Support Advocacy program. They are great at providing updates and keeping people in the loop and helping them anticipate changes. So I think that’s a great suggestion that you made to just stay in close contact with your network of other institutions that have the same, that are receiving funding through the same grant program. But also if you do have, if you are a member of COE, and I encourage everyone who is a TRIO applicant to be a member because they’re just a great resource. And that’s what you need right now to stay in the loop and stay on top of any changes.

0:18:10.8 TZ: So I do want to shift a little bit and just kind of talk a little bit more broadly. And we know as you established that McAllister & Quinn has been in business for over 20 years. With your contacts on the Hill and at federal agencies, can you share what you’re hearing on the ground and what tips you’re giving clients to navigate the current climate around federal grants?

0:18:33.0 DG: There’s a lot of… Every agency has its own culture. And for those of us who are in the grants business, we know that to be true because every agency scores proposals in a different way. The length is different. The budget justification is different. Everything is sort of different in each agency. So it’s not a surprise to us now that every agency is sort of handling the current situation a little differently as far as information, as far as how forthcoming program officers can be, as far as communicating with active grantees.

0:19:10.5 DG: So we’re just, for the most part, grateful that all of the agencies that we work with, that fund colleges and universities have been responsive to our questions, where we’ve been staying in close touch with them about programs that may or may not be released. Most of them seem to be kind of moving along their path to be released. We are aware of those grants that were scaled back or will not be released again. And that’s not a huge surprise for us. Just given what we know about presidential transitions, and especially at agencies like the Department of Education, there tends to be sort of a turning of the changing of the guard with grant programs that were created by the previous president might go away, and then the new administration might create new grants. So we have our eye on that.

0:20:02.6 DG: We’ve heard some priorities at Department of Ed, for example, are workforce development. So, I would hypothesize that we might start to see more of those grants in the future. But as far as the other agencies go, we’re hearing deadlines are happening, program officers are responding to questions. And there were a couple of weeks there where it was pretty quiet, and I think there was a lot of confusion. And just having worked at a federal agency on the ledge branch side, not the executive branch, I think there always is sort of a period of time where there is kind of a tendency not to communicate with the outside world and try to figure out what the message is and what you can respond to and what you should not. So I think we experienced that and that was a little concerning. But then starting a couple of weeks ago, things started to move again. Communication was happening, questions were being answered, and solicitations have not been taken down from the website after that initial flurry.

0:21:23.9 TZ: I’m hearing you say this is not a time to panic. This is a time to kind of stay the course, to continue to interact with the program officers, to continue pursuing the grants that you would normally pursue. I did hear you say that some grants were scaled back and not released. Would you happen to know which ones? Or if I’m someone on campus and I want to know which ones those are, where can I find that information?

0:21:51.4 DG: Yeah, I think, for example, we are working with a program, the NSF ADVANCE grant, and that was to advance different underserved populations in academic environments. So it might be a focus on women in the sciences, for example. And that one seems to be presently paused. It’s taken off of the website, I think. I don’t know of one universal website. Let me know if you know that, Tara, that is listing all of these. We’re tracking it internally at McAllister & Quinn, but for the most part we find out about it because we’re looking for an RFP and we don’t see it. And we reach out to the program officer and most of the time they say we are revising it and it’s going to be back up soon and we’ll let you know when it goes back up. That’s the majority of explanation for missing solicitations.

0:22:55.5 DG: But there were some, I’m sure many of your listeners were aware of some Department of Ed grants like the SEED grant or the TQP, which were teacher training grants that were terminated. However, the SEED grant, for example, now we’re being told that it’s going to be revised and re-released. So that seems to be the story.

0:23:19.7 TZ: I’m hearing you say even if a grant seems to be maybe paused or scaled back to basically still keep an eye on it under maybe the possibility that it could be re-released in a different way or that that funding may become accessible in the future.

0:23:37.3 DG: Oh, for sure. Absolutely. We’re definitely. That is our mantra. We will not be deterred and we don’t want our institutions to be deterred because it is actually, oddly enough, kind of a good opportunity right now. I think many institutions will not be submitting at their usual rate because of confusion. And honestly we’ve seen in a couple of instances the information has been accurate one place but not another. It’s just that confusion of making updates. Maybe it’s not thoroughly updated or maybe it’s updated in one place, not the other. But I think that some institutions may benefit from that lack of clarity. If they’re submitting, it may be less. There may be less competition for some of these programs this year than they usually see.

0:24:28.7 TZ: It’s a really interesting perspective. And I think for some institutions who maybe in the past thought, oh, I want to find capacity to apply for this grant, to hear you say now might be the time to kind of strike is a really interesting way to think about it. I did have a sort of a follow-up question that’s even broader than I think the question that we just asked, which is I know that your team is also watching the president’s overall 2025 budget. So what are key things that higher education professionals need to know about the overall federal budget and what it means for education?

0:25:07.1 DG: Yeah, I think, one of the things that we try to keep in mind, it’s just reminding our clients that the President’s budget is largely a messaging tool. And it’s a very effective messaging tool. He has a national platform. It’s one person’s budget versus in Congress, 535 members sort of trying to communicate their budget priorities. So it is an effective tool, but it is just that it’s not a binding document. It is something that Congress will consider as they’re putting together their budget. But that budget process is very complicated and requires the support of both parties under most circumstances.

0:25:56.7 DG: So we try to just remind everyone that when the President’s budget is released, we found that it’s sometimes… The coverage on it is not always clear. Some people will say the budget was released and this agency, one of the agencies that always gets X’ed out in the Republican President’s budget will be like the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. We’ve seen it. It’s just sort of something that happens and we’ve never seen Congress do that. So we just try to remind people to take a breath, as you mentioned earlier, Tara, just try not to panic.

0:26:41.7 DG: Some presidents use their budget and to really convey a more extreme message than others and just to kind of take a deep breath and know that this has to make its way through Congress, that Congress has the power of the purse per Article 1, and they will decide what which pieces of the President’s budget make the most sense given that they the House is a majoritarian institution and the Senate, you really require 60 votes in order to get anything passed and that both chambers have to reconcile their versions of the budget. So it’s a long ways from the President’s budget to the budget that passes the US Congress.

0:27:25.2 TZ: I think that will provide some comfort to some of our listeners to kind of know that there is this potential for sort of a slow roll, for lack of a better term. And again, re-emphasizing that to take a breath and to stay connected to places like EAB and McAllister & Quinn who can provide guidance on what’s most new and most current related to these discussions. And I think that brings me to sort of my last question, which is, how can McAllister & Quinn help colleges navigate their grant strategy and sort of make sense of any shifts that might happen at the federal level?

0:28:07.4 DG: Yeah, thank you for that question and also thank you for reminding all of us that I think it’s really important to turn to your reliable sources of information and kind of lock in on those like EAB. You know that those sources are going to be able to translate what’s happening out there into a meaningful way for your… In terms of your perspective and the lens through which you’re viewing everything that’s happening.

0:28:38.2 DG: McAllister & Quinn spends a lot of time tracking everything that’s happening at the federal level, as well as appropriations, as well as the budget. So, we are really just out there every single day having conversations with program officers. We are viewing dozens of grant feedback from grants coming from the program officers and compiling those. We are also at conferences and workshops and conversations where we are aggregating that strategic intelligence and passing it on to our clients. So I will say the environment has never been harder as far as just keeping track of it all because it is sort of, this is the case this week, next week, it’s something different.

0:29:33.4 DG: So we really rely on a small team of people who spend their whole day tracking these things. And then we are passing that on to our clients in a very judicious way in the sense that we’re not passing everything on. We’re trying to be very strategic so that we won’t panic people needlessly. And two, that we can really cut through the noise and winnow down the information into the nuts and bolts that people on campuses need for understanding grant funding. So that’s how we’re really trying to support our institutions right now in terms of the information flow and understanding what they should act on versus where, when they should just hang tight and wait for further guidance.

0:30:22.9 TZ: I really like what you said about hang tight and wait for further guidance, because I think the last thing we want to do is put the limited capacity that we have into things that may or may not happen and make sure that our reaction is proportionate to what is actually happening in the field. So I think that is a good reminder for all of us. And with that, I know we could sort of talk all afternoon, but I think that brings us close to the time that we have today, but I do want to thank you so much for being so generous with your time. Thank you again for the work that McAllister & Quinn does, and it’s been a pleasure to have this conversation with you. I learned so much today, and I know our listeners will as well.

0:31:08.0 DG: Thank you so much, Tara, and thank EAB for all of the work that you’re doing to support institutions during this time. I do keep reassuring everyone that this is going to smooth out. Every day, it gets a little bit easier to understand. So just hang in there and really look to your sources like EAB and McAllister & Quinn to help you navigate through.

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