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The Intercept
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Intercept
Trump Finds a New Way to Attack Education: Cutting Aid for Students Who Are Parents
President Donald Trump's war on higher education has been a central feature of his second term — with Trump targeting student protesters for deportation, revoking Harvard University's ability to enroll international students, and yanking billions in research funding. But while Trump reserves much of his more public rancor for university presidents, student activists, and faculty, his administration is also preparing to launch an assault on a largely invisible population on college campuses: parents. Earlier this month, the Trump administration proposed eliminating Child Care Access Means Parents in School, also known as CCAMPIS: the only child care program exclusively for lower-income students who are parents. Tucked into Trump's proposed annual budget from earlier this month is a plan to eliminate all $75 million in funding for CCAMPIS. That's separate from the $1.6 billion in cuts to tuition assistance for lower-income students proposed by House Republicans in their 'Big, Beautiful, Bill,' which is predicted to be the largest wealth transfer, in the form of tax cuts, from the poor to the rich in the nation's history. Despite the relatively low profile of parenting students on college campuses, over 22 percent of college students are parents, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Of those roughly 3.8 million students, more than half have at least one child under the age of 5. Experts argue that these cuts align with the Trump administration's efforts to lock lower-income students and parents out of higher education, which will have generational consequences for the thousands of families reliant on the already critically underfunded program. 'It's part of a broader agenda to make education less accessible, particularly for low-income students.' 'It's part of a broader agenda to make education less accessible, particularly for low-income students,' said Jennifer Turner, a senior research associate at the Institute for Women's Policy Research. 'We know that education is a pathway to economic mobility for [student parents] and for their children and then for future generations to come.' Parents face a host of barriers to finishing their degree, but cost and accessibility of child care is high-up on the list. 'All parents of young children, of course, struggle to find child care, but I think it can be even more challenging for student parents,' said Casey Peeks, senior director of early childhood policy at the Center for American Progress. Parenting students are much more likely to work part-time than non-parent students, so in addition to juggling child care and school, they're also balancing a work schedule, she explained. 'All of that makes it harder to find care and also afford care because they're unlikely to work full-time,' said Peeks. Although pop culture might suggest that most college students are young adults studying living on campus at tiny liberal arts colleges or massive state schools, the reality is quite different for parenting students — and for the U.S. student body in general. Over half of parenting students attend community or technical colleges, compared to 40 percent of non-parenting students. Parenting students are also much more likely to attend for-profit institutions, with roughly 20 percent studying at such schools, according to a report from Student Parents Action. Carrie Welton, senior director of policy and advocacy for anti-Poverty and basic needs at the Institute for College Access and Success, knows firsthand the challenges that low-income student parents face. At 17, she gave birth to her son; a month later, she graduated from high school. But the road to higher education was far more fraught. 'Pursuing a college education is … often a lifeline out of poverty.' Although she had originally planned to join the National Guard, that was no longer on the table. Instead, she cobbled together a mix of part-time and full-time work, public benefits, and student loans to put herself through school, eventually completing her bachelor's degree after 12 grueling years. Welton said she fought so hard to get her degree because she wanted a better life for herself and her young son. 'The thing that gets lost in these conversations is, for people who come from low-income backgrounds, and from marginalized and minoritized communities — pursuing a college education is not about just having a fulfilling career,' she said. 'It's often a lifeline out of poverty.' Research has consistently shown that a college degree can help lift entire families out of poverty. In 2019, people with a bachelor's degree earned roughly $30,468 more than those without a high school diploma and $24,388 more than those with a high school diploma or its equivalent. People with a bachelor's degree are also less likely to utilize government assistance programs. The effects of obtaining a degree are also generational. Children of college graduates are much more likely to earn a bachelor's degree themselves and have higher lifetime earnings. For Turner, this isn't just an attack on access to higher education, it's an attack on reproductive rights. 'One of the tenets of reproductive justice is the right of parents to raise their children in a safe and healthy environment,' she said. 'The administration's proposed cuts to college student child care programs hinder parents' ability to do that. If parents don't have access to quality, affordable child care, it limits their access to education and the workforce, which impacts their well-being, the well-being of their families and communities, and the overall economy.' Even without these cuts, Turner said that CCAMPIS is currently critically underfunded. A congressional analysis in 2018 found that only 11,000 students received CCAMPIS grants, despite the fact that roughly 3.1 million students are raising children. 'Under the Biden administration, it was still underfunded. It has been for a very long time, and so it's really important to fully fund the program so that it can actually meet the needs of student parents,' said Turner. Not every student parent automatically qualifies for CCAMPIS. Universities can apply for CCAMPIS grant awards if they have a high percentage of federal Pell Grant recipients. Then lower-income students — defined by having or qualifying for a federal Pell Grant – can apply for CCAMPIS and receive on-campus child care through their schools. In 2022, 399 schools were awarded CCAMPIS funding, according to a congressional report. However, visibility is a major barrier to students entering the program. Katie Conte, who as a parenting student established the pilot program for Bergen Community College's student-parent fellowship, said the program isn't well advertised, even on campuses where it's available. Conte went back to school when her kids were past preschool age but said she wouldn't have waited had she known the program existed. 'I would have been able to go to college and start a career where I was actually making money being able to support myself and my kids,' said Conte, who was widowed when her youngest son was 4, suddenly leaving her the only provider. To justify ending the program, the Trump administration claimed that it was made redundant by other child care grants. Turner noted that the administration was trying to claim that CCAMPIS was made duplicative by the Child Care Development Block Grant program, a federally funded block grant program that provides low-strings funding to states for child care subsidies for low-income families. Because it's a block grant, states are able to add various eligibility requirements, including work requirements, that can make it complicated for parenting students to get access to it. Without CCAMPIS, many students will have to drop out of school, warned Tanya Ang, executive director of Today's Student Coalition. 'They won't be able to finish a post-secondary credential, or they will never be able to start one,' said Ang. 'Many of these students are living day to day, paycheck to paycheck.' Being forced to drop out without a degree could set these students back even further financially. 'Broadly, parenting students have lower completion rates than their non-parenting peers, and the risk of pursuing education and then dropping out without a credential means somebody doesn't have a credential, but they have student debt on top of it,' said Welton. An analysis from the Center for American Progress found that almost half of student parents who borrowed a federal student loan defaulted within 12 years of enrolling. That's twice the rate of default for borrowers without children. Women and people of color will bear the brunt of the impact. An analysis from the Institute for Women's Policy Research found that nearly three-quarters of parenting students are women, and the majority of undergraduate student parents are people of color. Potential cuts to CCAMPIS are not the only current risk to students. Turner said that the proposed Trump budget would have a disastrous impact on lower-income college students, including parenting students. In addition to ending CCAMPIS, the proposed budget would eliminate $1.6 billion in spending on programs supporting low-income students and preparing them for college. Trump has also begun recollecting defaulted student loans. Funding for CCAMPIS occurs during the annual appropriations process, which typically happens at the end of the year — so for now, the program is not imminently on the chopping block. 'Access to education is largely under assault,' said Turner. 'If I hadn't had things like the Pell Grant and student loans and things like that, then I wouldn't have been able to go to college. So it's really not just an access issue, it's an equity issue.'
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Congressional Republicans target tax that provides billions to Missouri Medicaid program
The Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City (Jason Hancock/Missouri Independent). The tax and spending bill the U.S. House approved last week targets a strategy states have used to boost the Medicaid dollars they get from the federal government. The measure would cap or freeze the taxes states levy on medical providers, potentially leaving states with major holes in their Medicaid budgets. As a result, states would face the choice of either replacing the lost federal money with state dollars, scaling back services or providing coverage to fewer people. Medicaid is a joint state-federal program, primarily for people with low incomes. For the traditional Medicaid population — children and their caregivers, people with disabilities and pregnant women — the federal government matches state Medicaid spending on a sliding scale, ranging from 50% for the wealthiest states to 77% for the poorest ones. Consider a state that gets half of its Medicaid funding from the federal government. If that state collects $100 million by taxing providers, it can use $50 million of the revenue to draw down $50 million in federal matching funds, which it can use to expand Medicaid coverage to more people. Then it can take the remaining $50 million in revenue and use that money to draw down $50 million in federal dollars to pay providers more for caring for Medicaid patients. Forty-nine states — all but Alaska — use the strategy. In 2018, the most recent year for which data is available, states relied on provider taxes to fund 17% of their Medicaid spending, up from 7% in 2008, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Missouri imposes provider taxes on hospitals, nursing homes, ambulances and pharmacies. In fiscal 2018, provider taxes provided just over 17% of the $10.3 billion spent on Medicaid services and administration. For the coming budget year, state lawmakers appropriated $1.1 billion from the taxes to support Missouri Medicaid services, drawing approximately $2.2 billion in federal support. Overall, the Medicaid program is expected to cost just under $16 billion in the coming year. As part of their effort to cut federal Medicaid spending by roughly $625 billion over the next decade, House Republicans have proposed capping the state provider taxes and freezing them in place, preventing states from raising them or implementing new ones in response to inflation. Under current law, states can levy taxes of up to 6% on tax providers' net revenue. The GOP measure also would add work requirements for Medicaid recipients, a step that would save money by reducing the rolls. A report from the Congressional Budget Office, the bipartisan research arm of Congress, says eliminating the taxes entirely could save the federal government hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade. Many conservatives say the taxes are an accounting trick that allows states to draw down money from the federal government without having to front their true share of the Medicaid program. Some have even called the provider taxes a 'money laundering' scheme. 'States are gaming the system — creating complex tax schemes that shift their responsibility to invest in Medicaid and rob federal taxpayers,' Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said in a May 12 news release. Brian Blase, president of the Paragon Health Institute, a conservative policy group that is working with Republicans to formulate Medicaid cuts, described provider taxes as 'a way that states and providers can rip off the federal government.' 'States need to have some accountability for the spending in their programs,' Blase said. But advocates of these taxes, including state Medicaid directors and even the hospitals that pay the taxes, describe them as legal and legitimate financial tools that have helped providers cover essential services and states fund their Medicaid programs for years. The result of eliminating these taxes or freezing them, they say, will be hospital closures and service cuts. 'We don't like to pay these taxes, but the alternative is resources or access to care aren't there for that community,' said Jason Pray, vice president of legislative affairs at America's Essential Hospitals, an association representing about 350 hospitals. 'The state would more than likely have to then tax individuals to make up for that, to keep the services at the same level and keep the resources at the same level.' Blase said the provider taxes allow hospitals to make windfall profits from the additional federal matching funds that flow back to them, representing a type of 'corporate welfare.' But Pray said often hospitals in his association are losing money. By allowing states to boost payments to hospitals and other providers that serve Medicaid patients, he said, the tax enables hospitals to stay open in the long run, not garner a windfall. Pray also noted that in the past, support for the taxes has been bipartisan. 'Republicans for years have shown they support provider taxes and have understood the value of them,' he said. Edwin Park, a research professor at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy, pointed out that some hospitals pay the tax and don't get much back, because they serve few Medicaid patients. The hospitals that benefit most are the so-called safety net hospitals that do care for many low-income patients, he said. Park said he is worried that once the strategy is off the table, states will have to cut their Medicaid spending to balance their budgets. Jay Ludlam, deputy secretary for North Carolina Medicaid, is worried about that, too. In North Carolina, Ludlam said, almost all of the tax revenue the state collects from providers helps pay for Medicaid services. 'The money goes to providers when they provide services. It's not special. It's just another way that states tax themselves and put money into the program,' Ludlam told Stateline. 'If it means that there's going to be less money in Medicaid … we'll have to cut eligibility, cut benefits, cut provider rates, in order to maintain the program.' Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Republicans target a tax that keeps state Medicaid programs running
People wait outside of the Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital in Houston. For years, states have taxed hospitals and other health care providers to draw down federal matching funds and help finance their Medicaid programs. Now, states may lose their ability to raise or implement new taxes. (Photo by) The tax and spending bill the U.S. House approved last week targets a strategy states have used to boost the Medicaid dollars they get from the federal government. The measure would cap or freeze the taxes states levy on medical providers, potentially leaving states with major holes in their Medicaid budgets. As a result, states would face the choice of either replacing the lost federal money with state dollars, scaling back services or providing coverage to fewer people. Medicaid is a joint state-federal program, primarily for people with low incomes. For the traditional Medicaid population — children and their caregivers, people with disabilities and pregnant women — the federal government matches state Medicaid spending on a sliding scale, ranging from 50% for the wealthiest states to 77% for the poorest ones. Consider a state that gets half of its Medicaid funding from the federal government. If that state collects $100 million by taxing providers, it can use $50 million of the revenue to draw down $50 million in federal matching funds, which it can use to expand Medicaid coverage to more people. Then it can take the remaining $50 million in revenue and use that money to draw down $50 million in federal dollars to pay providers more for caring for Medicaid patients. Children's health services could see trims even under scaled-back Medicaid cuts Forty-nine states — all but Alaska — use the strategy. In 2018, the most recent year for which data is available, states relied on provider taxes to fund 17% of their Medicaid spending, up from 7% in 2008, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. As part of their effort to cut federal Medicaid spending by roughly $625 billion over the next decade, House Republicans have proposed capping the state provider taxes and freezing them in place, preventing states from raising them or implementing new ones in response to inflation. Under current law, states can levy taxes of up to 6% on tax providers' net revenue. The GOP measure also would add work requirements for Medicaid recipients, a step that would save money by reducing the rolls. A report from the Congressional Budget Office, the bipartisan research arm of Congress, says eliminating the taxes entirely could save the federal government hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade. Many conservatives say the taxes are an accounting trick that allows states to draw down money from the federal government without having to front their true share of the Medicaid program. Some have even called the provider taxes a 'money laundering' scheme. 'States are gaming the system — creating complex tax schemes that shift their responsibility to invest in Medicaid and rob federal taxpayers,' Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said in a May 12 news release. Brian Blase, president of the Paragon Health Institute, a conservative policy group that is working with Republicans to formulate Medicaid cuts, described provider taxes as 'a way that states and providers can rip off the federal government.' 'States need to have some accountability for the spending in their programs,' Blase said. States that enshrined Medicaid expansion in their constitutions could be in a bind But advocates of these taxes, including state Medicaid directors and even the hospitals that pay the taxes, describe them as legal and legitimate financial tools that have helped providers cover essential services and states fund their Medicaid programs for years. The result of eliminating these taxes or freezing them, they say, will be hospital closures and service cuts. 'We don't like to pay these taxes, but the alternative is resources or access to care aren't there for that community,' said Jason Pray, vice president of legislative affairs at America's Essential Hospitals, an association representing about 350 hospitals. 'The state would more than likely have to then tax individuals to make up for that, to keep the services at the same level and keep the resources at the same level.' Blase said the provider taxes allow hospitals to make windfall profits from the additional federal matching funds that flow back to them, representing a type of 'corporate welfare.' But Pray said often hospitals in his association are losing money. By allowing states to boost payments to hospitals and other providers that serve Medicaid patients, he said, the tax enables hospitals to stay open in the long run, not garner a windfall. Pray also noted that in the past, support for the taxes has been bipartisan. 'Republicans for years have shown they support provider taxes and have understood the value of them,' he said. Republicans for years have shown they support provider taxes and have understood the value of them. – Jason Pray, vice president of legislative affairs at America's Essential Hospitals Edwin Park, a research professor at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy, pointed out that some hospitals pay the tax and don't get much back, because they serve few Medicaid patients. The hospitals that benefit most are the so-called safety net hospitals that do care for many low-income patients, he said. Park said he is worried that once the strategy is off the table, states will have to cut their Medicaid spending to balance their budgets. Jay Ludlam, deputy secretary for North Carolina Medicaid, is worried about that, too. In North Carolina, Ludlam said, almost all of the tax revenue the state collects from providers helps pay for Medicaid services. 'The money goes to providers when they provide services. It's not special. It's just another way that states tax themselves and put money into the program,' Ludlam told Stateline. 'If it means that there's going to be less money in Medicaid … we'll have to cut eligibility, cut benefits, cut provider rates, in order to maintain the program.' Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@ SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Sen. Mike Lee proposes new protections for farmers
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, introduced a bipartisan bill this week to protect farmers while cutting government spending. The bipartisan Opportunities for Fairness in Farming (OFF) Act would bring more transparency to checkoff programs, used to aid the marketing and development of agricultural products. Checkoff programs resulted in influential slogans like 'Got Milk?' and 'Beef. It's What's for Dinner' that allowed farmers to advertise large scale without any individual branding. Stakeholders like farmers, producers and importers pool their resources to fund the checkoff program, which are directed by multiple boards. The bipartisan bill has a mix of Democratic and Republican sponsors in addition to Lee, including New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rand Paul, R-Ky. But some programs 'exhibited fraudulent and unethical behavior' in their use of funds, a press release from Lee's office said. In one instance, an investigation found that a U.S. Department of Agriculture subcontractor used the program as a way to pay his employees unauthorized bonuses of approximately $302,000. A recent audit from the U.S. Government Accountability Office said the Agriculture Department fails to properly review its subcontractors and needs more oversight. Lee's bill would address these gaps by implementing accountability and transparency measures. 'America's farmers are being ripped off by federal checkoff programs that take farmers' money and play favorites with who they serve,' he said. 'These programs have a reputation for hurting farmers through financial fraud and deceptive practices.' Under this bill, checkoff programs with more than $20 million in revenue from government contracts would be prohibited from working for parties that influence government policy. An exception would be made for educational institutions. The OFF Act also prohibits checkoff program board members and employees from engaging in decisions that involve a conflict of interest or any anticompetitive, deceptive or disparaging practices. It also requires checkoff boards to release their budget and undergo periodic audits by the inspector general of the Agriculture Department and the comptroller general. 'Checkoff dollars too often get channeled to lobbying groups who advocate against the best interests of many of the farmers who are required to pay into the program,' Booker said in the press release. 'This bipartisan bill will prohibit conflicts of interest and anti-competitive practices in these checkoff programs and will ensure that these programs work better for our farmers and ranchers.' The bill was endorsed by several organizations that represent 200,000 American farmers and ranchers, according to the press release. 'America's farmers and ranchers are fed up with their hard-earned money landing in the hands of corporate lobbyists,' said Farm Action Fund President and Missouri farmer Joe Maxwell. 'We face enough hurdles as it is; the last thing we need is our own dollars extracted against our will and then used to illegally lobby on behalf of the largest corporations that are already squeezing us out of the market. It's the USDA's job to prevent this abuse, and they continue to fail us.' He called the bill's provisions 'common sense reforms.' Kansas Cattleman's Association Founder Mike Schultz echoed Maxwell's sentiments. 'Scandal after scandal has proven the longterm corruption in the beef, dairy, and pork checkoff programs that continue to utilize our own tax dollars against us and the day of reckoning is here,' said Schultz. 'American family farmers are up in arms and are determined to see justice in the 119th Congress with the enactment of the OFF Act. Clean up decades of corruption.'
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Pregnant Women in Prison Aren't Getting Care, and No One Is Keeping Track
Early in her second trimester, Linda Acoff was taken into custody for failing to complete court-ordered mental health treatment. After three weeks in the Cuyahoga County Jail in Columbus, Ohio, she began experiencing intensifying pressure, cramping, and bleeding. But despite her pleas for help, the nurse on duty offered only sanitary napkins and Tylenol. After banging on her cell door for hours, Acoff was eventually taken out of the jail's pregnancy pod on a stretcher—leaving behind the remains of her 17-week-old fetus. A recent exposé from The Marshall Project revealed that Acoff had contracted chorioamnionitis, an infection of the fluid and tissues inside the uterus. Although considered a serious pregnancy complication that can threaten both the fetus and the mother, there was hope that Acoff's 17-week pregnancy could have been saved. "If there's early appropriate diagnosis and intervention, that baby can absolutely survive if the patient is treated promptly," Michael Baldonieri, an OB-GYN and assistant professor of reproductive biology at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, told The Marshall Project. In the end, Acoff lost her baby, and while the nurse on duty was ultimately fired, the tragedy has not inspired change in the way that Ohio handles incarcerated pregnancies or collects data on them. Unfortunately for Acoff, and the estimated 55,000 pregnant women who enter the nation's jails every year, little data exists on the impact incarceration has on pregnancy outcomes. A 2024 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that "comprehensive data on pregnant women incarcerated in state prisons and local jails do not exist" even though the U.S. has "one of the highest maternal mortality rates" and "incarcerates women at the highest rate in the world." This number is trending upward: between 1980 and 2022, the female prison population in the U.S. grew by more than 585 percent, more than twice the growth rate of the male prison population. Much of this increase has been attributed to more expansive policing, post-conviction barriers, and stiffer drug sentencing laws. Women have seen drug-related arrests increase by 317 percent since 1980, while men have seen a 69 percent jump. Today, more than half of the incarcerated women are serving time for drug and property offenses. Sentencing for these offenses, which considers the nature of the crime and criminal histories, can disproportionately put pregnant women inmates in harm's way. The Prison Policy Initiative estimates that in 2024, about 189,600 women and girls were held in state custody, and 93,000 were held in local jails across the country. Of this number, more than half of the women were held in jail while awaiting trial. Even after a conviction, women were more likely to be sentenced to jail, rather than to prison, compared to convicted men. This distribution can be problematic, particularly for pregnant women, because jails are poorly positioned to provide proper health care and often offer fewer services than prisons. This discrepancy, plus negligent care, is ultimately what cost Acoff her pregnancy. Given these grim statistics, tracking pregnancy outcomes in jails is essential, Dr. Carolyn Sufrin, board member of the National Commission on Correctional Health Care and fellow at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told The Marshall Project. Otherwise, Sufrin believes, it's impossible to know whether the nation's 3,000 jails are failing pregnant women. Sufrin is right to demand better data on how incarceration impacts pregnancies, but data alone will not stop the mass incarceration of Americans or reform policies that created the problem. The post Pregnant Women in Prison Aren't Getting Care, and No One Is Keeping Track appeared first on
