It's the Brian Laira show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. We're going to talk next about a little reported

Trump administration funding cut that's affecting community colleges

in our area and around the country and certain populations within community colleges in particular.

Let me explain and set the scene a little bit.

Harvard, Yale, Columbia, so much of the national discussion around higher ed centers on elite

schools with like single digit acceptance rates, right? But most of our nation students rely on

public colleges and universities and particularly community colleges. According to the American

Association of Community Colleges, 39% of all undergraduates and 49% of all Hispanic students who are undergraduates

attend community college.

These are the schools that help students so much ascend into the middle class.

But now those schools are under a particular set of new financial

threats from the Trump administration. Last fall, they canceled a few kinds of grants, including

Title V grants, that's Title V of an Education Act that dates back to 2008. Title V grants that funded Hispanic serving

institutions in particular, especially if they have a certain percentage of low-income students.

The Trump administration calls these Title V grants racially discriminatory. The Education Department said the grants violate

equal protection by, in their words, quote, conferring government benefits exclusively to institutions

that meet racial or ethnic quotas, unquote, and that the grants violate the equal protection

component of the Fifth Amendment.

So community colleges are bearing the brunt of these cuts, some four-year colleges, but very much community colleges.

So we're going to talk to somebody in the thick of it.

With me now is Dr. Belinda Miles, president of SUNY's Westchester Community College.

Dr. Miles, thanks so much for coming on WNYC.

...