The Trump administration’s last-minute decision to withhold billions of dollars in education-related funds might end up stranding some Michigan parents and kids.
The administration told states last week it was freezing almost $7 billion in federal education funds. Over $1 billion were earmarked for 21st Century Learning Centers, which provide after-school and summer enrichment programs — including $38 million for more than 200 centers in Michigan.
Erin Skene-Pratt is executive director of the Michigan Afterschool Partnership, a nonprofit that advocates for equity in after-school and extracurricular programming. She said many kids and their families, including up to 16,000 in Michigan, rely on those learning centers “not only because of the academic support that is given to the kids, but also because parents need somewhere safe and supportive for their kids to be after school as well as during the summer.”
Skene-Pratt said the abrupt announcement — made last week, just as the funds were supposed to have been released for the 2025 fiscal year — has left the schools and community groups who provide those programs scrambling to keep them going. “I was just talking to one who was saying that realistically, they have enough funds in the bank to continue running for about a week,” she said.
“They are doing everything that they absolutely can to make sure that kids have access to these critical programs, and that families have access to these programs. But in reality, with these dollars frozen, it makes it really difficult for them to do so.”
Skene-Pratt said decades of research shows these programs help children academically across a broad variety of subjects, and kids who participate in them are more likely to attend school regularly.
The federal government has provided no rationale for freezing the funds, beyond telling states that they were reviewing the grants “and decisions have not yet been made concerning submissions and awards for this upcoming year."
