What the MEGA Grant Proposal Would Do to 17 K-12 Programs

The Education Department’s budget request for fiscal 2027 would take 17 elementary and secondary grant programs, end them as stand-alone programs, and replace them with one $2 billion formula grant to states called Make Education Great Again, or MEGA. Congress has not acted on it. The stopgap law funding the government expires December 11, and the full-year bill that would decide the question is still sitting in committee.

A budget request is not law, and this one has already met a House committee that wrote a different bill. It still matters to anyone holding or chasing an elementary and secondary education grant: it says which programs the Department would prefer not to run, and the December package is where the two versions meet.

Here is what the request says, what the House appropriators wrote, and what is paying for these programs today.

What the request proposes

The Department’s own budget summary puts $2 billion into MEGA, against $0 in fiscal 2025, and describes it as a program that “would consolidate most currently funded formula and competitive grant programs for elementary and secondary education into a single State formula grant program.”

States would have to set aside part of the money. The summary says states would be required to reserve “at least 25 percent” for evidence-based literacy instruction and “at least 25 percent” for evidence-based mathematics instruction.

Read the two places the summary describes that reserve and they do not match. The overview section says states must reserve at least 25 percent “of the MEGA funds” for literacy and at least 25 percent “of MEGA funds” for mathematics. The MEGA program section a few pages later says at least 25 percent “of the reserved funds” for each. Those are different instructions — one sets aside half of $2 billion, the other sets aside half of some smaller, undefined reserve. If you are planning around this, note that the authorizing text does not exist yet and the summary is not internally consistent about the arithmetic.

What happens to the remaining money is the part that matters for program eligibility. The summary says remaining funds “could be used by the States to support any activities currently allowable under 17 formula and competitive K–12 grant programs, which would be eliminated as stand-alone programs currently administered by the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education.”

So the activities survive as permitted uses. The programs, the separate appropriations, and the separate competitions do not.

Across the Department, the request asks for $75.7 billion in new discretionary budget authority, which it describes as a $3.0 billion (3.8 percent) reduction below fiscal 2025 and a $3.2 billion (4.1 percent) reduction below the fiscal 2026 appropriation.

The 17 programs, and what they were funded at

The summary does not print the 17 as a list. It identifies them one at a time: each program’s section says the Administration does not request funding for it, and then says the proposal “would consolidate this program into the newly proposed Make Education Great Again (MEGA) program.”

Seventeen program sections carry that sentence, which matches the summary’s own count. With the fiscal 2025 amount each one shows in its budget table:

Those 17 figures add to $6,599.8 million. MEGA asks for $2,000.0 million — roughly 30 percent of what the programs it absorbs were funded at in fiscal 2025, a difference of about $4.6 billion.

That is the number to hold onto. “Consolidation” and “flexibility” describe the structure. The structure also arrives with about a third of the money.

Twelve more programs get nothing, and that is different

Consolidation is not the only thing happening in the request, and the distinction is easy to miss. Separately, the summary says “the Administration does not request funding for twelve elementary and secondary education programs for fiscal year 2027,” and calls those eliminations.

For a program in that second group, the activities are not preserved as allowable uses of anything. The largest by fiscal 2025 amount:

• English Language Acquisition — $890.0M
• Migrant Education — $375.6M
• Education Innovation and Research — $259.0M
• Full-Service Community Schools — $150.0M
• Special Programs for Migrant Students — $52.1M
• Comprehensive Centers — $50.0M
• Native Hawaiian Education — $45.9M

The sorting repays a close look: two programs doing nearly the same work at nearly the same size landed on opposite sides. Native Hawaiian Education, at $45.9 million, is an elimination. Alaska Native Education, at $45.0 million, is a consolidation, and the summary says MEGA would permit “those currently supported by the Alaska Native Education program.” Same kind of program, same order of magnitude, different treatment. Read your program’s own section rather than assuming the category.

The House appropriations bill does not create MEGA

This is where the proposal meets Congress, and the answer is already on paper.

The House Appropriations Committee voted 34–28 on June 9 to report its fiscal 2027 Labor-HHS-Education bill, and reported it on June 11 as H.R. 9260 (H.Rept. 119-696), according to the Congressional Research Service. The Senate Appropriations Committee has not marked up its version, and as of the CRS report’s September 8 cover date no further action on annual Labor-HHS-Education appropriations had occurred. We could not verify any committee action after that date.

Read the bill itself and there is no Make Education Great Again account anywhere in it. The Office of Elementary and Secondary Education appears with the same account structure it has had for years: education for the disadvantaged, impact aid, school improvement programs, indian education, innovation and improvement, and safe schools and citizenship education.

More to the point, the bill funds the programs the request would fold in, program by program, under the school improvement programs account. Within that account’s $4,845,964,000 the bill specifies, among others:

• $1,385,000,000 for subpart 1 of part A of title IV of the ESEA — Student Support and Academic Enrichment
• $1,329,673,000 for part B of title IV — 21st Century Community Learning Centers
• $230,000,000 for part B of title V — the Rural Education Achievement Program
• $129,000,000 for subpart B of title VII of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act — Education for Homeless Children and Youths
• $45,897,000 for part B of title VI — Native Hawaiian Education
• $44,953,000 for part C of title VI — Alaska Native Education

The bill cites statute rather than program names, so those pairings are worth checking rather than taking on faith. Two things confirm them. The amounts line up with the Department’s own fiscal 2025 column almost to the dollar — $1,329,673,000 against $1,329.7 million for 21st Century Community Learning Centers, $129,000,000 against $129.0 million for homeless children and youths, $45,897,000 against $45.9 million for Native Hawaiian Education. And the Department’s own program listing for the Nita M. Lowey 21st Century Community Learning Centers program names it “Title IV, Part B,” a formula grant run by the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education under assistance listing number 84.287, with state educational agencies as the eligible applicants.

The House committee did not match the request on Title I either, and it moved in the opposite direction. The request preserves Title I Grants to Local Educational Agencies at $18,426.8 million, the fiscal 2026 level. The House bill’s four Title I part A formulas — $5,036,746,000 basic, $1,362,301,000 concentration, $5,066,300,000 targeted, $5,066,300,000 education finance incentive — add to $16,531,647,000, about $1.9 billion below the level the request would keep. The committee’s own summary puts the Department’s total at $70.7 billion, “$8 billion (10%) below the FY26 enacted level,” a deeper cut than the request’s 4.1 percent.

And the House bill contains no account for ESEA title III at all. English Language Acquisition is zeroed out in the request and absent from the House committee bill. On that program the two versions agree.

The bill also rescinds $1,681,441,000 of school improvement money that fiscal 2026 law had made available on October 1, 2026.

What is paying for these programs right now

Nothing in either version is in effect. The continuing resolution is.

The fiscal 2027 CR (H.R. 6500; P.L. 119-103) was signed on September 2, 2026 and provides continuing appropriations through December 11, 2026. Per CRS, it “funds discretionary LHHS programs at the same rate and under the same conditions as in FY2026.”

So every one of the 17 programs, and the twelve the request would end, is funded today at its fiscal 2026 rate. The consolidation has changed nothing about what a district or nonprofit can apply for this month.

Where the money actually lands

Almost none of this reaches an applicant from Washington. These are formula grants to state educational agencies, which run their own competitions. Four open records in the OpenGrants database show both sides of the line the request would draw.

Nita M. Lowey 21st Century Community Learning Centers (ESEA Title IV, Part B) — U.S. Department of Education, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. A formula grant to state agencies, which run subgrant competitions for before-school, after-school and summer programming. The eligible applicants at the federal level are state educational agencies, and the Department’s listing shows no federal application deadline; districts, community organizations, tribes and other entities apply to their state. One of the 17. See listing for current terms.

Title IV-A Student Support and Academic Enrichment — Oregon Department of Education. The state’s own page carries an eligibility rule that catches people out: “In order to receive a Title IV-A allocation a district must have received and accepted a Title I-A allocation in the previous year.” Also one of the 17 — and funded at $1,385,000,000 in the House committee bill. No deadline is posted; see listing.

Title III English Learner Program — Nebraska Department of Education. Subgrants to districts to develop and expand language instruction programs for English learners and immigrant children. This is the program that the request eliminates outright and that the House committee bill does not fund at all. If you are a Nebraska district planning around Title III money, this is the one to watch in December. No deadline is posted; see listing.

Title I-C Migrant Education Program — Nebraska Department of Education. Also an elimination in the request, not a consolidation. The state’s page describes the mechanics: federal funds are allocated by formula to state agencies “based on each state’s per pupil expenditure for education and counts of eligible migratory children, age 3 through 21, residing within the state.” No deadline is posted; see listing.

Two things that did change this month

While the consolidation waits on Congress, how the Department pays out grants has been moving.

A government-wide requirement took effect November 1 that grantees submit a written justification with every payment request. The 74 reported on November 9 that a September 28 memo from Murray Bessette, the Department’s acting assistant secretary for the Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, told grantees “in certain circumstances, it may be necessary to reject a recipient’s justification for payment request outright,” and that an accompanying guide caps the justification at 255 characters for withdrawals as small as $75. The 74 reports it applies to major formula programs including Title I and special education, not only to competitive awards.

Separately, on October 14 the vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and the ranking member of its Labor-HHS-Education subcommittee wrote to the Education Secretary objecting to “frontloading” — paying a multi-year grant in one lump sum rather than year by year. Their letter says the practice is “withholding approximately $630 million in appropriated resources across approximately 35 grant programs.” Those are the senators’ figures, which the Department has not conceded, but the drawdown mechanics they describe are the ones the November 1 rule touches.

What to do before December 11

1. Find out whether your program is a consolidation or an elimination. The two look identical in a headline and are not the same. Read your program’s own section of the budget summary: if it says the proposal would consolidate the program into MEGA, the activity stays allowable under a state formula grant. If it only says the Administration does not request funding, nothing preserves it.
2. Check the House bill, not just the request. On several of the 17, the House committee funded the program at or above its prior level. On Title I it cut deeper than the request. On English Language Acquisition both would end it. Your program’s exposure depends on which document you read.
3. Work the state door. For every program named here, the applicant-facing competition is run by a state agency. The federal line item decides how much; the state notice decides when and how you apply. Track the state page, not only the federal one.
4. Date your costs and keep drawdowns documented. With a payment-justification requirement live since November 1, the reimbursement you can defend is the one tied to a date, an activity and a short written reason.
5. Do not plan a program around the 25 percent reserves yet. There is no authorizing text, and the budget summary describes the reserve two different ways.
6. Diversify the deadline, not just the funder. A program funded by a CR through December 11 is a program whose next twelve months are a live question. State, local and private funders in the same subject area are not on that clock.

A request is a proposal and a committee bill is a proposal. Neither is appropriated money, and we are not going to guess what Congress does in December. What is knowable today is that the programs still exist, they are funded at last year’s rate until December 11, and the applications they take are open at the state level now.

OpenGrants indexes federal programs, state pass-through competitions and private funders in one place. Search open grants by funder, state and deadline, or start from the federal grants hub, the rural community funding hub or the youth programs hub. The state pages for Oregon and Nebraska list what each agency has open, and our news and policy coverage follows the December package.