Washington Monthly reports the presidential candidate who sold vocational training to an underemployed nation has cut one-third of work programs while declaring war on universities.
The need for new training is essential today with AI and automation chipping away at jobs, but President Donald Trump, who called universities a boondoggle (while settling suits claiming is own Trump University was a fraud) has done very little to prepare Americans for new, better employment.
Washington Monthly reports Trump has not followed through on campaign promises according to his Fiscal Year 2026 budget, which guides Congress while it writes spending bills like Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. Instead, a major vocational education component of Trump’s budget is consolidating 11 workforce training programs into a singular Make America Skilled Again [MASA] grant program, which amounts to a $1.64 billion cut and a reduction in workforce training of about one third.
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“The strong consensus we heard from workforce experts was that the administration’s proposed budget gashing would overshadow efficiencies or other gains that could be realized even with a very well-executed creation of a MASA system,” said Paul Fain of The Job newsletter. “Most say the big plans sound disingenuous alongside an attempt to cut available federal dollars in half.”
the National Skills Coalition (NSC), a network of corporations and philanthropic organizations that support high-quality skills training, is similarly unimpressed with MASA.
“In practice, this could mean fewer services for mid-career workers looking to reskill, or for local businesses that rely on industry partnerships,” NSC writes. “When federal funding disappears, so do locally developed solutions that help communities build pathways to prosperity.”
Additionally, NSC reports what MASA funds remain are not distributed equitably.
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“Areas that serve workers who are low income, rural communities, and those with barriers to employment, do not see as many dollars,” NSC reports. And it does not help that Trump is also proposing to eliminate the entire$729 million allocation for the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act at a time when 23 percent of working-age U.S. adults need to build reading, math and foundational skills. NSC reports the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act was a pivotal source of digital skill building.
“Given the administration’s priorities around AI and cybersecurity, it makes no sense to defund the very programs that serve as an on-ramp to these in-demand careers,” NSC reports.
Washington Monthly adds the version of Trump’s Big, Beautiful budget that left the House “puts a pittance of funds towards Workforce Pell while taking a sledgehammer to traditional Pell.” The Congressional Budget Office projects it will leave more than half of Pell recipients with smaller grants, removing $7 billion from of the program.
While the Senate version of the One Big Beautiful Bill does not include the House’s cuts to traditional Pell Grants it does gut the clean energy tax credit program that offered bonus credits for apprenticeships in clean energy projects.
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“Calling the Republican education agenda ‘zero-sum’ is far too complementary,” reports Washington Monthly writer Bill Scher, “because in [Republicans’] legislation, budget, and executive actions, there is very little addition and an excess of subtraction.”
Read the full Washington Monthly report at this link.
