Labette Community College faces a potential loss of funds for federal programs that help hundreds of students and potential students.
Kelly Kirkpatrick, vice president of student affairs at LCC, updated college trustees last Thursday about the potential losses included in the budget reconciliation bill working through Congress.
TRIO programs receive federal funding that the Trump administration wants to eliminate to reduce federal Department of Education spending.
LCC offers two TRIO programs: Talent Search and Student Support Services.
Talent Search serves 545 area students in grades six through 12. It targets students who would be the first generation in their families to attend college who also meet income eligibility.
Talent Search identifies and assists individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds who have the potential to succeed in higher education. The program provides academic, career and financial counseling to its participants and encourages them to graduate from high school and continue on to and complete postsecondary education.
Talent Search is in the fourth year of a five-year grant cycle that’s funded at $281,888 a year ($1.4 million in total over five years). The grant cycle ends Aug. 31, 2026.
Student Support Services serves 165 to 185 qualified LCC students who are first-generation college attendees, income-eligible or disabled students.
All SSS projects provide academic tutoring, which may include instruction in reading, writing, study skills, mathematics, science and other subjects; advice and assistance in postsecondary course selection, assist student with information on both the full range of student financial aid programs, benefits and resources for locating public and private scholarships; and assistance in completing financial aid applications.
Student Support Services is in its fifth year of a fiveyear grant cycle that’s funded at $320,606 a year ($1.6 million in total over five years). In the renewal grant application, LCC is seeking $285,945 a year for the new five-year grant cycle.
Kirkpatrick said the U.S. House of Representatives removed TRIO funding. The Senate is now reviewing the reconciliation bill and some are working to maintain the funding. The early Senate version also addressed Pell
See LCC, Page 4.
grant eligibility and student loan default responsibility.
“While that seems like a great thing on the surface, that’s likely to keep that funding in there. TRIO funds are actually discretionary funds for the Department of Education. So, while Congress establishes what TRIO programs are, how the programs are run, how they’re set, they don’t actually control specific funding. It’s a victory for us for sure, but we are not out of the woods yet,” Kirkpatrick told trustees.
She said Upward Bound, another TRIO program, had funding cut for three programs (one in Pennsylvania and two in Arizona). They were notified in late May, three days before the new fiscal year began for them, that they would not be funded. Generally, if a program loses funding, there would be a warning related to fiscal issues or not progressing toward goals. These programs were canceled because they did not reflect the Trump administration’s priorities and instead reflected the Biden administration’s priorities, she said.
Kirkpatrick said that DOE Secretary Linda McMahon has testified in previous education committee hearings that eliminating TRIO programs was part of her mission to wind down DOE operations.
“She specifically cited, without any real evidence, that she believes that these programs lack sufficient administrative oversight. She said the department lacks audit authority over programs. And those things simply are not true,” Kirkpatrick said.
Kirkpatrick said she’s worked with TRIO programs for two decades, and the programs provide accountability reports to the DOE, which also has risk-based audits and routine site visits for the programs. The colleges also have internal audit controls for the TRIO programs.
Funding for LCC’s Student Support Services expires Aug. 31. The college’s application for continued funding has been read and scored and an announcement could come this month or in July. Kirkpatrick said it’s more likely that a funding announcement will come days before the grant cycle expires in late August.
Kirkpatrick said the salaries of the two remaining staff members in Student Support Services receive funding from the federal grant, the bulk of it going to the director, Elizabeth Robinson. Kirkpatrick said she would like to retain those two positions at least through fiscal year 2026. She has no plans to reopen the search for two open adviser positions for SSS at this time.
Student Support Services has operated on campus for about 35 years. Any funding disruption would impact 160 or more students. Some SSS students also receive Pell grants and could lose access to about $70,000 in direct financial assistance, Kirkpatrick said.
“So, it’s going to have an economic impact as well. We’re concerned about the cascading effects that the loss of those services would have on our health science programs, because all of our programs have seen growths in application numbers, acceptance rates, their persistence and success, their overall graduation rates, and we share those concerns with how that’s going to affect numbers in all of those areas for LCC in general,” Kirkpatrick told trustees.
Student Support Services has made a difference in students’ lives, Kirkpatrick told trustees, sharing a graphic that describes its successes. Students served by SSS performed better in academics, persistence and fouryear graduation rates than the general student population.
“So we know this program works,” Kirkpatrick said.
Robinson told trustees the Council for Opportunity in Education, which is advocating for continuing the TRIO programs, is urging bipartisan pressure on U.S. senators to continue the TRIO funding and make them aware of the program’s benefits.
“The messaging coming out of the federal level is disconcerting because they’re old attacks, as Kelly mentioned, related to oversight …,” she said.
Robinson said if LCC does get funding for Student Support Services but doesn’t find out until the last minute, the fall semester will have already started and the college would not have time to fill the open positions until well into the semester. This would mean students who could be served in the first semester may wait for those services.
She said knowing about the funding stream sooner than later is better for the students, campus and the population the program serves.
LCC President Mark Watkins told trustees that LCC may not be able to help as many students be successful if these programs end. So there are internal discussions on what to do and what services can be provided.
To show the impact of the reconciliation bill, Watkins said if the current bill were law last year, a third of LCC part-time students who received Pell grants would have lost them. Part time students means taking 6 credit hours and the bill would increase that to 7 credit hours. The bill would have impacted onethird of the full-time students receiving Pell grants as well, leading to a loss of $207,000. Students enrolled in 15 credit hours would be considered full-time under the bill instead of 12 credit hours under current rules.
Statewide, if this law were in place last year, 6,000 students would have been impacted and would have lost $13.3 million.
The student loan default language in the House version of the bill could put colleges on the hook to repay defaulted student loans.
“We’ll have to see how things develop,” Watkins told trustees.
In other matters, the trustees: — Discussed moving commencement from Forest Park to the college gym to avoid the impact of weather.
— Heard that 100% of the radiography graduates passed their national board tests. This is the 10th year that the program graduates passed the required test.
— Heard that one condensing unit serving the first floor in the health sciences building was bad and a consultant is recommending to replace all three condensing units on the floor. The cost could be $60,000 but more information will be shared at a future meeting.
— Heard that devices that control dampers are wearing out in some buildings and may need replaced. This could cost $100,000 or less.
