Student Defense Launches the Students Benefits Rollback Tracker to Protect Students’ Basic Needs From Donald Trump’s Project 2025 Agenda
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
December 11, 2024
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Student Defense Launches the Student Benefits Rollback Tracker to Protect Students’ Basic Needs From Donald Trump’s Project 2025 Agenda
Student Defense announced today that it will monitor the Trump Administration's attempts to cut federal programs that benefit students seeking higher education. These efforts will be shared with student and advocacy organizations, State Attorneys General, Members of Congress, and other impact litigation organizations to coordinate resistance against expected attempts at regulatory rollbacks of benefits for millions of hard-working students.
“As Donald Trump prepares to take office with full Republican control of Congress, students' basic needs are under threat,” said Student Defense President Aaron Ament. “During Trump’s first term, we saw a concerted regulatory and legislative attempt to take away health care, food subsidies, and other basic needs from millions of hard-working Americans. Project 2025 — a blueprint written in part by multiple Trump administration nominees — promises more of the same administrative actions. Policymakers, advocates, and litigators and all levels of government should be prepared to fight back.”
This call to action provides a high-level overview of where Student Defense is ready and willing to assist policymakers, advocates, and states looking at their legal authorities and strategies. Initial Trump Administration efforts are anticipated in areas that include:
- Work Requirements: The Project 2025 blueprint proposes work requirement expansions across SNAP, Medicaid, and TANF programs. While Medicaid changes would require Congressional approval, the previous Trump Administration already tried and failed to narrow state waivers of SNAP work requirements. In addition to renewing that effort, it would likely seek to expand TANF work requirements beyond cash benefits to apply to all benefits offered by states.
- SNAP Categorical Eligibility: Previously, the Trump administration proposed narrowing TANF categorical eligibility rules that allowed applicants to automatically access SNAP even if they only qualified for limited non-cash TANF benefits. The rule was not finalized before the end of the first Trump administration, but will likely return during the second Trump term.
- Roll Back the Thrifty Food Plan Recalculation: Project 2025 criticized the Biden administration’s rewrite of the Thrifty Food Plan which requires the USDA to periodically evaluate the cost of a basket of foods needed for a healthy diet. The Trump administration could attempt to reverse the modernization effort resulting in smaller SNAP benefits.
- “Heat and Eat” Standards under SNAP: SNAP recipients who also receive Low-Income Heat and Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) benefits get a larger utility deduction and thus higher benefits. Project 2025 calls for further restricting eligibility rules in this area.
You can stay up to date on the Student Benefits Rollback Tracker and our work protecting students’ basic needs by visiting the Student Defense website.