By Judith Roberts
Louisiana Tech students preparing to advise and register for the spring quarter will not need to worry about their grants or loans for the upcoming quarter, despite a presidential memo freezing federal aid on Tuesday.
Students, faculty and staff were concerned Tuesday morning when the Trump Administration sent out a memo stating that “financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal” would be paused while all federal agencies reviewed all federal financial assistance programs. This pause was temporarily blocked by a federal judge and, as of press time, will not take effect until at least Feb. 3.
However, the U.S. Department of Education reported that the pause does not apply to federal student loans or Pell grants.
“The funding pause directed by the Jan. 27, 2025, Office of Management and Budget memorandum only applies to discretionary grants at the Department of Education,” said Madi Biedermann, spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education in a statement. “These will be reviewed by department leadership for alignment with Trump administration priorities.”
Louisiana Tech President Dr. Jim Henderson reiterated that Pell grants and student loans are not affected.
“We have already gotten word from the Department of Education to this does not affect Pell grants and student loans, because those are dealing with individuals,” Henderson said. “So that should give a lot of people some clarity on the most important concern to them. The direct federal support for students is not being affected.”
Henderson said there was also concern among higher education entities about what this memo meant for federal grants for research and similar programs.
“I’ve read the letter, and to me it very clearly establishes a context around these executive orders,” he said. “The research and grants that we pursue and we execute here at Louisiana Tech are mostly around STEM education, around the sciences, around engineering and even the grants we do in education, in the social sciences — most of them would not be caught up in this freeze.”
Henderson added he felt the quick timeline for these federal reviews would also hopefully cause at most minimal disruption, as the deadline, prior to the federal judge’s blocking order Tuesday evening, was originally slated for Feb. 10.
“Any disruption would be short term,” Henderson said. “You couple that with a recent statement from the governor and others in the administration that they are seeking clarity themselves on the impacts of this, because it goes far beyond higher education. They are prepared to use state coffers to mitigate disruption. I think that’s a clear sign that there’s a lot of protection here. And even though these are things that people are concerned with, I think the immediate, and certainly the long-term implications, for us don’t give me a great deal of concern.”
Henderson added that from the state government to the university, administrators are working to ensure a smooth review process.
“The governor’s office has already indicated they want to help mitigate any disruptions, especially the unintended disruptions,” he said. “Louisiana Tech is committed to helping students both understand what the new orders are and if anything should come from these that negatively impacts students, we will work both with those students in the short run and our congressional delegation in the long run to correct any of that.”
NOTE: This is a developing story.
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