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COE Warns Education Department’s TRIO Grant Competitions Could Devastate Rural America this Fall, Eliminate College-Access Services in Entire Communities

July 9, 2026 — by Terrance L. Hamm

New analysis suggests pending TRIO Talent Search and Educational Opportunity Center competitions could reduce services to rural communities by as much as 90 percent while concentrating resources in urban areas.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Council for Opportunity in Education (COE) today issued a stark warning that the U.S. Department of Education’s proposed Talent Search and Educational Opportunity Center (EOC) grant competitions could trigger a catastrophic September loss of college-access services across rural America unless the Department immediately rescinds, revises, and reissues the applications before current grants expire.

The warning comes as the House Appropriations Committee advances bipartisan language that explicitly prohibits the Department from altering the fundamental purpose, structure, or implementation of the Federal TRIO Programs and directs the Department to administer TRIO grants consistent with congressional intent and prior practice.

Under the Department’s current proposal, states were encouraged to apply for massive statewide grants worth up to $10 million annually for Talent Search and up to $3 million annually for Educational Opportunity Centers. Those grants would replace hundreds of locally operated projects that have spent decades building trusted relationships in schools and communities.

Internal modeling conducted by researchers at the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education suggests that if a substantial number of states receive these maximum awards and concentrate services where population density allows them to meet federal performance metrics, rural communities could experience reductions in funding and services of up to 90 percent. Meanwhile, gains in urban areas would fail to offset those losses. The result would be a dramatic redistribution of educational opportunity away from the very communities that have historically depended most on TRIO.

Percent reduction in funding for rural areas if this many states receive the maximum award in the upcoming grant competition:
   17 State Awards14 State Awards9 State Awards5 State Awards1 State AwardNo State Awards
Talent Search-96%-77%-51%-30%-8%-3%
Educational Opportunity Centers-96%-78%-52%-31%-11%-6%

“Congress created TRIO to expand educational opportunity,” said Kimberly Jones, president of the Council for Opportunity in Education. “If these competitions move forward unchanged, entire rural communities could lose access to the only college-access services available to their students.”

Jones noted that Congress has already signaled deep concern about the Department’s direction by including language in the House FY 2027 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations bill that prohibits efforts to alter TRIO’s purpose, structure, or implementation and requires the Department to administer the programs in a manner consistent with congressional intent.

“Congress is speaking clearly,” Jones continued. “The Department should listen. The current applications should be rescinded immediately, revised to align with federal law and congressional intent, and reissued in a manner that prevents any disruption in services to students.”

The consequences for rural students could be severe.

Fewer than one in four rural adults holds a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to roughly 37% of adults in urban areas.  Rural students also enroll in college at lower rates than non-rural students, and this gap is attributable to the higher proportion of low-income students in those areas. Additionally, rural students are more likely to come from households living in poverty and lacking internet access. In many rural areas, TRIO Talent Search and EOC projects represent the only organized source of college counseling, financial aid assistance, college visits, admissions guidance, and educational planning available to students and families.

Ray Serrano, Ph.D., National Director of Research and Policy for the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), said the proposed changes threaten pathways that have transformed generations of students’ lives.

“Growing up in rural southwest Idaho as the son of migrant farmworkers, I learned to read and write alongside my parents,” Serrano said. “My sister went through Upward Bound and is now an OB-GYN. I went through Talent Search and later earned a Ph.D. In communities like ours, TRIO programs are often the one thing telling students they belong somewhere beyond the fields, that they belong in colleges, professions, and leadership alongside everyone else. These programs do not simply provide services. They change the trajectory of families and entire communities.”

In Montana, where Native American students already face significant barriers to college completion and reservation schools often struggle with lower FAFSA completion rates and higher dropout rates, local educators fear the Department’s approach could undermine decades of progress.

Theresa Rader, executive director of the Institute for Educational Opportunities at Montana Tech and an aspiring applicant for a Talent Search grant, described the competition as a profound departure from TRIO’s historic mission.

“What frustrates me most is the message this sends: that the decades of specialized expertise, community trust, and proven results that TRIO professionals have built do not matter,” Rader said. “Talent Search participants enroll in higher education at rates more than 20 percentage points higher than their district peers. That outcome doesn’t happen by accident. It is the product of years of relationship-building, individualized support, and deep knowledge of both the students and the communities they come from.”

COE Executive Vice President Aaron Brown, Ph.D., warned that the Department’s approach creates systemic risks far beyond a single grant cycle.

“The Department is proposing to place unprecedented amounts of responsibility into a small number of massive statewide projects that have never existed before in TRIO,” Brown said. “If one of these projects struggles to implement services, fails to meet performance requirements, or loses funding in the future, entire regions of a state could lose access overnight. Under the current model, problems with one grant affect one grant. Under the Department’s model, failures could impact tens of thousands of students at once. That is a dangerous concentration of risk.”

COE is urging the Senate Appropriations Committee to adopt the House language protecting TRIO and go further by requiring one-year extensions for existing Upward Bound, Upward Bound Math-Science, Veterans Upward Bound, and Ronald E. McNair grants while the Department develops applications that comply with federal law and congressional intent.

The organization is also encouraging lawmakers to enact additional protections ensuring that future administrations cannot redirect TRIO funds away from their intended purpose, transfer control of the programs to state entities, or manipulate competitions through special priorities that undermine the statutory mission established by Congress.

“The Department still has time to prevent this disaster,” Jones said. “If these competitions proceed unchanged and current grants end before replacement services are in place, students will lose support, communities will lose trusted programs, and educational opportunity will disappear from places that can least afford to lose it. Congress must act, and the Department must reverse course before the damage becomes irreversible.”

To learn more about the Federal TRIO Programs, visit coenet.org.

Media Inquiries

For media inquiries or to arrange an interview, please contact Terrance L. Hamm, vice president for communications and marketing at COE via email at [email protected] or call (202) 347-7430.

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