When James Allen, 57, entered the College of Southern Nevada (CSN) two years ago, he found a campus resource that became his savior as a nontraditional, low-income, disabled student who was the first in his family to go to college. 

Since 2000, CSN’s TRIO program has provided advice, college workshops, financial aid and scholarship support and more to over 3,000 low-income, first-generation college students and students with disabilities. 

It’s part of a federal initiative designed to identify and provide services and support to K-12 students, college students and adult learners from disadvantaged backgrounds so they can access and succeed in college. Its name refers to the original three grant programs that date back to the 1960s under the TRIO umbrella. It has since expanded to eight programs. 

Allen, who volunteers at the Clark County Detention Center as an advocate, decided to go to college for the first time to study criminal justice. He was no longer able to work after years of struggling with a heart condition and losing vision in his left eye. 

He said after he found the TRIO program, his college journey became smoother and credits the program for his nearly perfect GPA. 

“They took over my advising, they helped me with school supplies, they helped me with books, they helped me with confidence, motivation, even snacks — I mean, all kinds of things,” he said in a Friday interview. “They just accepted me with open arms.”

But last month, CSN ended its TRIO program after the Trump administration canceled its Student Support Service (SSS) grant, which had provided $300,000 in funding for 200 students and three staff members. The administration said the program did not meet nondiscrimination requirements, according to a July denial letter from the U.S. Department of Education, which CSN shared with The Nevada Independent. 

The administration also canceled the final year of the three-year grant that provided $400,000 annually to UNLV to provide training for TRIO staff. UNLV did not share details about the department’s reasoning for the denial by the story’s publication date. 

They are two of the 36 TRIO grants, totaling about $11.8 million and helping about 8,000 students, that were awarded to UNLV, UNR, CSN, Nevada State University and Truckee Meadows Community College last year, which helped about 8,000 students. 

The institutions are part of a growing number of higher education institutions or organizations that have received similar denial letters or had their funding frozen.

Education officials speculate that the cancellations are related to the Trump administration’s fight against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which has included investigating and threatening to cut funding from colleges and universities engaged in DEI work, including UNLV.

The Department of Education, which oversees the TRIO program, did not immediately respond to a request for more details on the grant cancellations. 

Officials also worry that more cuts could be on the way, including another 20 pending TRIO grants in Nevada with grant cycles ending Sept. 30, though others have already been approved. 

UNLV and CSN are appealing the cancellation of their TRIO grants. 

In the meantime, CSN is referring its TRIO students to other campus resources and departments, but CSN’s TRIO Director Nicholas Goodsell said none of those departments provide the same levels of care and dedication that the TRIO program did. Allen agrees. 

“It offered me everything I needed to learn in the beginning of how to be a successful college student all the way from how to study, how to retain information, how to read better, how to write better, everything,” he said. “When you cut off a program like TRIO from community colleges, a lot of people won't have access to the tools they need to succeed.”

‘Inconsistent and confusing’

It’s not clear how many TRIO grants have been canceled so far, but Kimberly Jones, president of the Council for Opportunity in Education, a nonprofit that represents TRIO programs nationwide, estimates that 2 percent of grants the nonprofit has tracked were denied. 

About $660 million worth of grants for more than 2,000 TRIO programs have also been frozen, leading some programs to shift online or shut down and furlough staff such as those at CSN. 

The programs that have been canceled so far are in red and blue states. 

“It all seems to boil down to there’s some language that’s been flagged by the agency as being contradictory to the administration’s anti-DEI agenda,” Jones said. 

She added that in one grant application that was denied, the only mention of the word race was to state that the institution did not discriminate on race.  

Another institution suspects it was denied over the mention of its policy to encourage students who are underrepresented in certain majors to consider those majors.

“So there’s definitely a lot of confusion over cancellations,” she said. “There’s not a whole lot of transparency.”

Jones added that in each of the cancellation letters, the department indicated applicants could appeal the decision. 

“To my knowledge, none of those requests have been even acknowledged, let alone turned over,” she said. 

In CSN’s denial letter, the education department said the college’s application included proposed activities that “take account of race in ways that conflict with the Department’s policy of prioritizing merit, fairness, and excellence in education and the Department’s commitment to upholding the letter and purpose of Federal civil rights law.”

Goodsell said CSN has asked the education department for justification for canceling its SSS grant, including evidence that it violated federal nondiscrimination policy, but hasn’t received a response.

Goodsell said what’s more confusing is that the department did give preliminary approval for CSN’s second SSS grant proposal that they were hoping to use to increase the number of students with disabilities they served. The second application included the same language as its primary SSS grant proposal for low-income, first-generation students and students with disabilities. 

“It’s inconsistent and confusing,” he said. “How are they determining who gets canceled and who gets funded?” 

Jones worries that more TRIO grants could be cut, particularly the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement program, which is primarily open to low-income, first generation students. The McNair program also is open to students from groups that are underrepresented in graduate education, which can include students of color after the administration announced last week it was ending grant programs for institutions with a high population of minority students. UNR, UNLV and NSU have McNair programs. 

A lawsuit by two white students and Young America’s Foundation, a conservative activist group, against the program’s partial use of race to determine eligibility was dismissed in January for lack of standing, and plaintiffs’ request to reconsider the decision was denied. 

Earlier this year, the Trump administration proposed eliminating spending for all TRIO programs, which serve more than 1 million students nationwide as part of a broad plan to slash billions in government spending, including other education programs. 

Though the TRIO initiative is supported by Republican lawmakers, Trump officials said TRIO and another similar college access and support program, GEAR UP, are no longer needed because “access to college is not the obstacle it was for students of limited means” and argued that colleges should be using their resources to recruit and support students. Jones argues that couldn’t be further from the truth. 

“If anything, TRIO is more critical now because higher education has become so much more complicated,” she said. “TRIO is that road map that helps students stay the course.” 

The Senate and House appropriations committees have voted in favor of sustaining TRIO funding at $1.2 billion for next fiscal year. 

Even if Congress approves TRIO funding for next year, Jones is concerned that the cancellations and freezes are a sign that the Trump administration will undermine the program by making it harder for institutions to secure TRIO grants and continue serving students such as Allen, who’s already begun taking classes at UNLV, where he’s been accepted into the TRIO program. 

His goal is to eventually go to UNLV’s law school and become a lawyer. 

“I’m just gonna keep going to school right now because now that I know I can do it,” he said. “The more I learn, the more I want to learn.”