The Georgia-based Scholarship Academy helps scores of low-income students access scholarships to pay for college. It equips them with knowledge about the financial-aid process, so they feel more confident and in control. And it trains their high-school advisers on how to help them access state financial aid. 

Much of that work screeched to a halt after the volunteerism agency AmeriCorps ended $400 million in grant funding late last month. It’s part of President Donald Trump’s continued slashing of government spending, and led more than 20 states to sue. 

The Scholarship Academy, and many college-access groups like it around the country, rely on the 32,000 AmeriCorps fellows. The National College Attainment Network and more than a dozen other nonprofits have sued as well, arguing the grants were improperly terminated.

The cuts were announced in April, hitting when college-access organizations are most needed. Most students had a May 1 deadline to accept admission and financial aid offers. Yet because of the cuts, “many students were unable to reach their counselors at a time when they had to make one of the most consequential decisions of their lives,” the complaint says. 

The cuts are creating “uncertain outcomes” for students who would have benefited from the support Scholarship Academy provides, said Jessica Johnson, its executive director. 

“It makes me question, you know, is it intentional, the way that college-access organizations are being targeted that are doing this laser focused work for low-income families?” Johnson said. 

Before the cuts, Scholarship Academy had 15 AmeriCorps members working across more than a dozen schools in five counties, Johnson said. She has cobbled together funds to keep six members through the summer. She’s now figuring out how to run upcoming summer camps with a smaller team. 

Summer camp sessions cover topics like scholarship research and essay writing, and end with a “financial aid simulation day.” Participants break up into teams and are given a financial aid award letter that doesn’t cover a theoretical student’s full need. The teams then get 90 minutes to figure out how to close that gap. 

The work has an impact: Scholarship Academy’s website boasts $65 million in scholarships secured and more than 12,000 students served. Nearly three-quarters of the students Scholarship Academy is currently working with have completed the federal financial aid application known as the FAFSA, Johnson said. (Nationally, just about 50% of seniors have completed it so far this spring, according to the National College Attainment Network.) 

And then there’s next year. Scholarship Academy is set to work with 17 Title I schools next year, and Johnson is committed to doing that work. But she was expecting $289,000 in grant funding to pay next year’s AmeriCorps cohort. She’ll now have to cover that gap with additional fundraising, at an already busy time. 

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Elsewhere on Open Campus

From Texas: The Trump administration’s sudden revocation of the legal status of hundreds of Texas college students has left them afraid of future reprisal, several told Jessica Priest at our partner The Texas Tribune. Federal authorities restored the legal status of many students late last month, but the whiplash remains.

“When you create that kind of hostile environment, it makes it difficult for us to carry on with our normal life and complete our education because so much time is spent talking about it, like talking to a lawyer, hearing about the complications,” a University of Houston doctoral student from South Asia told Jessica. “It creates an environment of anxiety and fear.”

++ Earlier this week the Texas Senate gave initial approval to a bill that would restrict protesting on college campuses. It’s a similar policy to what Indiana University enacted last summer.

From Ohio: Amy Morona at our partner Signal Ohio took a momentary break from Trump coverage to capture a fun tradition at Oberlin College. Each year, students can rent priceless works of art — for just $5. The program began decades ago, and was started by a college employee who felt the best way to appreciate art was to live with it.

“It’s sort of amazing that Oberlin lets us just take these things and trusts us with such expensive pieces of art,” said second-year Paige McCallion. “But it’s like, ‘Why shouldn’t you hang expensive things in your home? Why shouldn’t you enjoy beautiful things?’”

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