大学警告称,“大美丽法案”可能会对他们的底线和许多学生造成不利影响

【中美创新时报2025年6月28日编译讯】(记者温友平编译)在特朗普总统与哈佛大学之间备受瞩目的斗争持续进行的同时,远离常春藤盟校的大学正准备迎接联邦政府对其自身底线的威胁。佩尔助学金、学生贷款和学生支持服务资金的拟议修改让许多机构感到紧张。对此,《波士顿环球报》记者迪蒂·科利作了下述报道。
自就职典礼以来,围绕高等教育的讨论主要集中在研究经费、捐赠税以及特朗普政府对精英院校的强硬立场上。然而,在“大美法案”和即将出台的联邦预算中,却隐藏着对学生贷款、佩尔助学金和其他学生支持项目规则的修改,这些修改可能会对中低收入学生和高校的预算造成影响。
路易斯安那州共和党参议员、该法案的发起人比尔·卡西迪表示,拟议改革的目的是“修复持续让学生失望的破碎高等教育体系”,并解决“学生债务危机的根本原因”。
解决债务危机是各政治派别的热门议题。但突然削减学生贷款可能会对大多数学校和学生 赖以支付学费的收入造成重大打击。教育咨询公司Encoura的首席研究官理查德·加勒特表示,这些举措加在一起可能会给规模较小的私立大学以及承担绝大多数美国大学生教育的两年制和四年制公立学校带来“前所未有的压力”。
专家表示,如果取消足够多的联邦援助,甚至可能抹去马萨诸塞州高等教育领域的一个亮点:在联邦援助和佩尔助学金(一大笔针对低收入学生的援助)的帮助下,社区学院的入学人数激增,这些学院实际上已经免除了学费。
大学已经岌岌可危:由于全国高中毕业生人数下降,马萨诸塞州的入学人数持续下降。经济不确定性和对高等教育学位价值的担忧导致许多人放弃传统大学教育,从劳动力到水电费等各种成本都在上涨。
结果,自2014年以来,仅在马萨诸塞州就有20多所大学关闭或合并,许多其他学校也被迫裁员、出售房产并取消学术项目。最近,伍斯特郡的克拉克大学本月宣布,由于招生人数屡屡低于预期,将裁减30%的教职员工。
加勒特说:“如果你想问,‘这对高等教育意味着什么?’这关乎的是一些对大学来说并不新鲜的深层趋势和问题。现在,它们只是因为政治原因而间接地被当作武器。”
特朗普签署的法案于 5 月份在众议院勉强通过,目前正等待参议院批准,因此具体哪些法案将成为法律仍是一个不确定因素。
两院立法者已同意对父母和研究生院的学生贷款设定年度和终身上限,并 修改将贷款偿还与债务人收入挂钩的计划。
国会还在讨论一项提案,该提案将首次 要求大学对学生的学习成果负责。此前,有人批评学校吸收了联邦政府补贴的学生贷款,却没有提供高质量的教育。这可能意味着,大学将向毕业生收取未偿还的贷款费用,或者如果毕业生收入不足,将切断他们未来的贷款渠道。
众议院提议对 佩尔助学金(Pell Grants)进行重大修改,这是面向低收入学生的最大经济援助项目。他们提出的法案版本要求学生每学期修读15个学分才能获得最高额度的佩尔助学金,高于目前的12个学分。这将彻底切断修读学分少于7.5个学分的学生的资助渠道,这实际上损害了社区学院和其他面向在职成年人的学校中占佩尔助学金受助者相当一部分的兼职学生。(目前提交参议院审议的版本中并未包含这些修改。)
州政府官员发现,仅此一项举措就将威胁到马萨诸塞州4.2万名公立大学学生获得的5700万美元援助。自2023年以来,马萨诸塞州已将州财政援助项目扩大了2亿美元,但这些承诺依赖于可靠的 联邦资金流。
州长莫拉·希利在关于拟议削减的声明中表示:“这对我们的学生和我们的经济都不利,因为这将阻碍我们的下一代工人负担得起上学的费用。”
相关:希利敦促美国参议院否决削减佩尔助学金,并称赞马萨诸塞州项目的成功
马萨诸塞州的15所社区学院可能感受最为强烈。在MassEducate和MassReconnect项目启动后,这些学院的入学人数在2022年秋季至2024年期间增长了24%。这两个项目在扣除联邦援助后,将为大多数社区学院学生支付剩余的学费和杂费。学生人数的增长引发了人们对过度拥挤以及教授课程过多、薪酬过低的担忧。
但社区大学的领导们现在担心,财政援助的缩减会扭转入学趋势,并使平衡预算变得困难。
例如,在查尔斯顿的邦克山社区学院,大约80%的学生由于 其他工作或义务而选择非全日制就读,44%的学生获得每年740美元至7,395美元不等的佩尔助学金。众议院的提案将取消许多非全日制学生的助学金。
“这是一次翻天覆地的变化。我们已经好几十年没经历过这样的事情了,”邦克山主席帕姆·埃丁格说。“我们向政府缴纳联邦税,以为他们会公平地把税款返还给州政府。实际上,这实际上是联邦政府责任的瓦解。”
马萨诸塞州社区学院协会执行董事内特·麦金农表示,未来几年,这种情况将在我们的劳动力队伍中得到体现,因为越来越少的居民能够胜任护士、牙科保健员和其他必要的工作。
“看到一项可能会减少劳动力数量的政策提案,真是令人惊讶,”他说。“这在各方面都显得不符合美国精神。”
许多私立大学的财务困境也可能加剧,尤其是那些难以维持招生规模并保持盈利的院校。马萨诸塞州15所大学的入学人数从2011年到2021年至少下降了10%,其中包括剑桥的莱斯利大学,该校在2023年秋季裁掉了 数十个教职员工。
在阿默斯特,汉普郡学院在2019年遭遇了严重的财务压力,需要筹集数百万美元才能避免合并。五年后,就在汉普郡学院努力摆脱赤字之际,它再次遭受打击,并开始削减高层领导的薪酬。
根据《纽约时报》 2023 年的分析,在整个过程中,近 40% 的汉普郡学生都是低收入佩尔助学金的获得者,这一比例在所有四年制大学中最高。
汉普郡大学校长爱德华·温根巴赫 (Edward Wingenbach) 表示,国会的提议可能会进一步压缩大学预算,从而威胁到这一目标。
“那些为中低收入学生提供最多机会的学校,往往经济上最无力,”温根巴赫说。“如果削减佩尔助学金,那些为支持这些学生付出巨大努力和牺牲的学校就会更加困难。”
从某些方面来看,对学生的支持 已经受到影响。特朗普总统的2026年预算提案建议取消一项名为TRiO的项目的资金,该项目为低收入大学生提供辅导、指导和职业咨询。根据波士顿高等教育研究公司希尔德雷斯研究所的分析,在马萨诸塞州,26所院校每年获得超过2200万美元的TRiO资金,每年为超过2万名学生提供服务。
甚至现有的资金似乎也悬而未决。米德尔塞克斯社区学院的TRiO协调员尚未收到学校五年期TRiO拨款的续签消息 。该拨款将为约300名学生提供数学辅导和四年制大学参观,以及为考虑继续深造的高中生提供课程安排。
“我觉得我们无法弥补(这笔钱),”米德尔塞克斯郡TRiO主管乔安妮·贾贝尔·高文(Joanne Jaber Gauvin)说。“如果它消失了,那真是太可惜了。”
马萨诸塞州立大学校长委员会执行官文森特·佩多内 (Vincent Pedone) 表示,如果联邦政府的资金停止,那么用州政府的资金来填补的希望就很小。
相关:豪华公寓、宝马和宝格丽。为什么外国学生对波士顿的经济如此重要。
马萨诸塞州仅将2%的州预算用于高等教育,甚至所谓的百万富翁税(必须用于教育和交通)的收入也没有大量流向大学。如果联邦立法者进一步削减医疗补助、食品券和其他项目的经费,州政府可能需要提供更多资金来 满足 这些需求,这意味着州政府用于支持高等教育的资金将进一步减少。立法者通常倾向于先削减州政府用于大学的经费,然后再削减其他方面的经费,因为大学本身的收入来源就是学费。
“每当州预算受到限制时,高等教育拨款就会减少,这会导致学费和杂费上涨,”他补充道。“如果我们的公立高等教育体系因为联邦政府的行动而变得不稳定,学生们就会落后。这不仅仅是‘也许’。在我看来,这简直是不合情理的。”
马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校校长哈维尔·雷耶斯上周在一封电子邮件中表示,目前正在讨论的提案将“对全国大学产生深远影响”,包括马萨诸塞州西部的校园。雷耶斯表示,他们目前还不确定具体影响是什么,但无论如何,他们已经做好了准备。
“麻省大学也未能幸免,校园的每个角落都将受到此类削减的影响,”他写道。“无论削减幅度是否如总统预算案中所述那么大,还是程度略轻,预计未来一年的预算都会更加紧张。”
《波士顿环球报》的希拉里·伯恩斯对本报道做出了贡献。
题图:五月马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校校园景观。图片来源:Matthew Cavanaugh/《波士顿环球报》
附原英文报道:
Colleges warn the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ could be ugly for their bottom lines, and for many students
Proposed changes to Pell Grants, student loans, and money for student support services have many institutions on edge.
By Diti Kohli Globe Staff,Updated June 27, 2025
A view of the UMass Amherst campus in May.Matthew Cavanaugh/For The Boston Globe
While the high-profile battle between President Trump and Harvard University grinds on, colleges far from the Ivy League are bracing for a wave of federal threats to their own bottom lines.
Much of the conversation around higher education since Inauguration Day has centered on research funding, endowment taxes, and the Trump administration’s aggressive stance toward elite institutions. But tucked into the “Big Beautiful Bill” and upcoming federal budget are changes to rules covering student loans, Pell Grants, and other student support programs that could hit the budgets of lower- and middle-income students and colleges alike.
The aim of the proposed changes, said Louisiana Republican and bill sponsor Senator Bill Cassidy, is to “fix the broken higher education system that continues to fail students” and tackle “the root causes of the student debt crisis.”
Fixing the debt crisis is a popular issue across the political spectrum. But abruptly scaling back student loans could deal a major blow to the revenue most schools and students rely on to pay the bills. Altogether, these moves could impose “unprecedented levels of stress” on smaller private colleges and two- and four-year public schools that educate the vast majority of Americans who attend college, said Richard Garrett, chief research officer at the education consulting firm Encoura.
If enough federal aid is revoked, experts said, it could even erase one of the bright spots of Massachusetts’ higher education landscape: a surge in enrollment at community colleges that have been made effectively tuition-free with help from federal assistance and Pell Grants, a large bucket of aid for low-income students.
Universities are already in a fragile spot: Enrollment in Massachusetts has fallen steadily due to a decline in high school graduates nationwide. Economic uncertainty and concerns about the value of a postsecondary degree are leading others to forgo traditional college, and the cost of everything from labor to utilities has climbed.
As a result, more than 20 colleges have closed or merged in Massachusetts alone since 2014, while many other schools have been forced to cut staff, sell real estate, and eliminate academic programs. Most recently, Clark University in Worcester announced this month that it will reduce faculty by 30 percent after repeatedly missing enrollment projections.
“If you’re trying to say, ‘Well, what does this mean for higher ed?,’ it’s about [the] deep trends and issues that are not new” to colleges, Garrett said. “They’re just indirectly being weaponized now for political reasons.”
What exactly will become law is a moving target, as Trump’s signature bill moves through the Senate, after it narrowly passed the House in May.
Legislators for both chambers have agreed to set annual and lifetime caps on student loans taken out by parents and for graduate school, and to make changes to plans that tie loan repayment to a debtor’s earnings.
Congress is also debating proposals that would, for the first time, hold colleges responsible for student outcomes, amid criticism that schools have soaked up federally subsidized student loans without delivering a successful education. That could mean charging colleges for graduates’ unpaid loans, or cutting off access to future loans if their alumni do not earn enough.
The House proposed major changes to Pell Grants, the largest financial aid program for low-income students. Their version of the bill required students to take 15 credit hours per semester to receive a maximum Pell grant, up from the current 12. It would cut off access entirely to students enrolled in fewer than 7.5 hours, effectively penalizing part-timers who make up a considerable chunk of Pell recipients at community colleges and other schools that cater to working adults. (Most of these changes are not in the version now before the Senate.)
That move alone would threaten $57 million in aid to 42,000 public-college students in Massachusetts, state officials found. In all, Massachusetts has expanded state financial aid programs by $200 million since 2023, but those promises rely on a reliable flow of federal money.
“This is bad for our students and bad for our economy, as it would hold back our next generation of workers from being able to afford to go to school,” Governor Maura Healey said in a statement about the proposed cuts.
The effects could be felt most keenly at Massachusetts’ 15 community colleges. Their enrollment grew by 24 percent between fall 2022 and 2024, after the launch of MassEducate and MassReconnect, which cover the remaining tuition and fees for most community college students after factoring in federal assistance. The uptick in students raised concerns about overcrowding and underpaid professors teaching too many classes.
But community college leaders now worry that a constriction in financial aid would reverse the enrollment trend and make it tough to balance their budgets.
At Bunker Hill Community College in Charlestown, for example, roughly 80 percent of students attend part time, due to other jobs and commitments, and 44 percent receive Pell Grants that range from $740 to $7,395 per year. The House proposal would take assistance away from many of those students who do not attend college full time.
“This is a tectonic change. We haven’t had something like that for multiple decades,” said Bunker Hill president Pam Eddinger. “We pay federal taxes to the government thinking that they will have an even-handedness in returning that to the state. It’s an unwinding of that kind of federal responsibility, really.”
And it will bear out in our workforce for years to come, when fewer residents are equipped to be nurses, dental hygienists, and other essential jobs, said Nate MacKinnon, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of Community Colleges.
“It’s remarkable to see a policy proposal that could potentially decrease the number of people in the workforce,” he said. “That seems un-American in every way.”
Many private colleges could also see their financial woes deepen, especially ones that have struggled to keep up enrollment and remain in the black. Fifteen Massachusetts colleges have seen enrollment decline by at least 10 percent from 2011 and 2021, including Lesley University in Cambridge, which eliminated dozens of staff positions in fall 2023.
In Amherst, Hampshire College experienced severe financial strain in 2019 and needed a multimillion-dollar fund-raising effort to avoid a merger. Five years later, just as Hampshire worked its way out of the red, it took a hit again and instituted pay cuts for senior leadership.
Through it all, nearly 40 percent of Hampshire students have been low-income Pell Grant recipients, among the highest proportion of any four-year college, according to a 2023 analysis from The New York Times.
The proposals from Congress could threaten that, said Hampshire president Edward Wingenbach, by squeezing university budgets even further.
“The places that are making the most opportunities available for low- and moderate- income students are the places that are least able to do it financially,” Wingenbach said. “If you reduce Pell support, you make it much harder for schools that are making huge efforts and sacrifices to support those students.”
In some ways, support for students is already suffering. President Trump’s 2026 budget proposal recommends eliminating funding for a program called TRiO, which offers tutoring, guidance, and career counseling to low-income college students. In Massachusetts, 26 institutions collect more than $22 million a year in TRiO funds, and serve over 20,000 students annually, according to an analysis by the Hildreth Institute, a Boston-based higher ed research firm.
Even existing funding seems to be in limbo. TRiO coordinators at Middlesex Community College have yet to hear about the renewal of the school’s five-year TRiO grant, which funds math tutoring and tours of four-year colleges for about 300 students, plus programming for high schoolers considering further study.
“I don’t think we can replace [that money],” said Joanne Jaber Gauvin, the TRiO director at Middlesex. “If it goes away, it would be really unfortunate.”
If federal funding goes away, there’s little hope of backfilling it with state money, said Vincent Pedone, executive officer of the Massachusetts State University Council of Presidents.
Related: Fancy condos, BMWs and Bulgari. Why foreign students are so valuable to Boston’s economy.
Massachusetts devotes just 2 percent of the state budget to higher ed, and even revenue from the so-called millionaire’s tax — which must be spent on education and transportation — has not flowed in great quantities to universities. If federal legislators enact deeper cuts to Medicaid, food stamps, and other programs, it could require the state to deliver more money to meet those needs and translate to even less state funding to help higher education. Legislators are often inclined to cut from the state dollars for universities before other buckets, because colleges have their own revenue source in tuition.
“Whenever state budgets are restrained, higher education sees a cut in appropriations, which leads to an increase in tuition and fees,” he added. “If our public higher education system is destabilized because of federal action, students will be left behind. It’s not a maybe. That, to me, is just unconscionable.”
University of Massachusetts Amherst Chancellor Javier Reyes said in an email last week the proposals currently under discussion would have “far-reaching consequences for universities nationwide,” including the Western Massachusetts campus. They’re not quite yet sure what they’d be, Reyes said, but they’re bracing nonetheless.
“UMass would not be exempt, and no area of our campus would remain untouched by the effects of such cuts,” he wrote. “Whether the cuts are as deep as described in the President’s proposed budget, or are somewhat less severe, a more constrained budget is anticipated in the year ahead.”
Hilary Burns of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
