Making further continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2024, and for other purposes.
Overview
Headline Summary
This is a short stopgap measure from the 118th Congress titled “Making further continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2024, and for other purposes.” It is not a full-year budget that writes new funding levels for federal departments. It keeps agencies already covered by an earlier 2024 continuing resolution operating a little longer, and it separately changes the federal student-aid formula and adds money for Pell Grants. A signing date is not included in the summaries provided here. The continuing-funding piece covers fiscal year 2024; the Pell Grant add-on also sets amounts for later years.
By The Numbers
- New spending written into this bill: The continuing-resolution division sets no new dollar amounts. The only new appropriations in the summaries are Pell Grant add-ons: $6.51 billion across fiscal years 2024–2026, plus $1.236 billion every year starting in fiscal year 2027, with no end date stated in the text.
- Divisions: 2 (neither funds a cabinet department, and neither is divided into titles).
- Sections: A full section count is not included in the summaries provided.
- New shutdown deadlines: March 8, 2024, and March 22, 2024.
- What the stopgap does: It extends the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2024 (Division A of Public Law 118–15). Agencies keep operating under that earlier law’s funding rules; this text only moves the cutoff dates.
Division Overview
- Division A — Extension of Continuing Appropriations Act, 2024: A brief date change, not a new budget. It keeps existing stopgap funding in place and moves expiration dates to March 8, 2024, and March 22, 2024. No program list and no new dollar total appear in this division. One cited change resets Section 106(4) of the underlying law to March 8, 2024.
- Division B — Other Matters: Changes the federal student-aid formula used on the FAFSA and adds mandatory Pell Grant funding to cover that change. It also keeps the cost of those changes off the usual congressional budget scorecards. The add-on is $1.17 billion in fiscal year 2024, $3.17 billion in fiscal year 2025, $2.17 billion in fiscal year 2026, and $1.236 billion in fiscal year 2027 and every year after. These figures are not the full Pell Grant program—only the extra money written into this division.
Biggest Ticket Items
These are the only specific dollar amounts in the summaries. They are add-on Pell Grant funds, not a ranking of the entire federal budget:
1. Pell Grants, fiscal year 2025 — $3.17 billion (largest single-year add-on in the text).
2. Pell Grants, fiscal year 2026 — $2.17 billion.
3. Pell Grants, fiscal year 2027 and each year after — $1.236 billion a year, with no end date stated.
4. Pell Grants, fiscal year 2024 — $1.17 billion.
5. Combined Pell add-on, fiscal years 2024–2026 — $6.51 billion, before the ongoing annual amount begins.
The continuing-resolution division does not list comparable line items. Whatever agencies were already funded by the earlier stopgap generally continue at those prior levels until the new dates. Those prior levels are not restated here, so a grand total for “all government spending extended by this bill” cannot be calculated from these summaries.
Notable & Controversial
- Another short-term extension, not a finished budget. Division A does not resolve full-year funding. It only postpones the dates when the existing stopgap would expire, and it does so on two different dates—March 8 and March 22, 2024—rather than one single deadline.
- FAFSA formula change. Division B changes the formula used to calculate federal student aid. The summaries describe the Pell money as funding to cover that change. How large an effect any given student sees depends on family finances and the details of the formula, which are not spelled out in these summaries.
- Open-ended Pell add-on. Unlike a one-year appropriation, the text sets $1.236 billion a year starting in fiscal year 2027 with no end date stated. Supporters of this kind of funding generally argue it keeps grant aid from falling short after a formula change; critics of open-ended mandatory spending generally argue it commits future budgets without a fresh annual vote.
- Costs kept off the usual scorecards. The division says the cost of these changes is not counted on the normal congressional budget scorecards. That is a process choice. Backers typically treat it as a way to enact the formula fix without a budget-score obstacle; opponents typically argue it makes the long-run cost less visible in the budget process.
What It Means For You
If you rely on a federal agency, benefit, or service already covered by the 2024 stopgap, this bill’s main practical effect is time: those operations were allowed to continue past the old expiration dates, until March 8 or March 22, 2024, instead of shutting down when the earlier law ran out. It does not cut or raise your taxes, and it does not publish a new department-by-department budget. If you or someone in your household is applying for college aid, the other half of the bill matters more: it changes the FAFSA aid formula and puts additional money into Pell Grants—$1.17 billion in fiscal year 2024, larger amounts in the next two years, and $1.236 billion a year after that—so the grant program can cover the formula change. That extra money is on top of Pell funding already appropriated elsewhere; it is not the entire Pell program.
Divisions
Each division covers a major department or agency. Click to see the full breakdown.
Overview
This division does not fund a single department. It briefly extends an existing stopgap funding law—the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2024 (Division A of Public Law 118–15)—so federal agencies covered by that law can keep operating past the dates that law would otherwise expire. It changes two expiration dates; it does not write a new budget.
Total Spending
No total appropriation appears in this division. It does not set new dollar amounts. It keeps prior continuing-resolution funding in place and only moves the cutoff dates to March 8, 2024, and March 22, 2024.
Key Funding Areas
- No new line items: This text does not list programs, agencies, or dollar amounts.
- Existing stopgap levels continue: Agencies already covered by the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2024, generally keep operating under that earlier law’s funding rules until the new dates.
- Two separate deadlines: Section 106(4) of the underlying law is changed to March 8, 2024. Section 106(3) is changed to March 22, 2024. Which agencies fall under which date is defined in that earlier law, not in this division.
Notable Provisions
- Extends the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2024, by amending Public Law 118–15 rather than enacting full-year appropriations.
- Replaces the date in section 106(3) with March 22, 2024.
- Replaces the date in section 106(4) with March 8, 2024.
- Official short title: “Extension of Continuing Appropriations Act, 2024.”
- No new programs, spending caps, or policy riders appear in this division’s text.
Who Benefits
Federal departments and agencies that were already funded by the 2024 continuing resolution, and the public services those agencies provide, avoid a funding lapse on the old expiration dates. People and communities that rely on those agencies benefit only in the sense that operations can continue until the new deadlines. This text does not name specific beneficiaries.
Plain English Summary
This is a short deadline extension, not a spending plan. Congress had already passed a temporary funding bill to keep the government open. This division pushes two of that bill’s end dates out—one to March 8, 2024, and one to March 22, 2024—so covered agencies can keep running at existing stopgap levels a little longer. It does not say how much money anyone gets, and it does not decide a full-year budget.
Division B — OTHER MATTERS
0 titlesOverview
Division B (“Other Matters”) does not fund a cabinet department. It changes the federal student-aid formula used on the FAFSA and provides extra mandatory money for Pell Grants to cover that change. It also keeps the cost of those changes off the usual congressional budget scorecards.
Total Spending
The division appropriates additional Pell Grant money (on top of whatever else is already appropriated for Pell Grants):
- $1.17 billion for fiscal year 2024
- $3.17 billion for fiscal year 2025
- $2.17 billion for fiscal year 2026
- $1.236 billion for fiscal year 2027 and every year after that
That is $6.51 billion over fiscal years 2024–2026, plus $1.236 billion a year starting in fiscal year 2027, with no end date in the text. These amounts are not the full Pell Grant program—only the add-on written into this division.
Key Funding Areas
- Pell Grants, fiscal year 2024: $1.17 billion — extra mandatory funding for the main federal grant for low- and moderate-income college students.
- Pell Grants, fiscal year 2025: $3.17 billion — the largest single-year add-on in this division.
- Pell Grants, fiscal year 2026: $2.17 billion — continued extra mandatory funding.
- Pell Grants, fiscal year 2027 and after: $1.236 billion each year — a permanent annual add-on, unless a later law changes it.
- Student-income formula (award year 2024–2025): no separate dollar line; the formula floor is set at −$1,500, which can raise a student’s calculated need.
- Student-income formula (award year 2025–2026 and after): the floor returns to $0.
Notable Provisions
- Rewrites how a student’s “available income” is counted: income after the allowed adjustment is multiplied by 50 percent.
- For award year 2024–2025 only, that result cannot be lower than −$1,500. A negative figure can increase eligibility for need-based aid. Starting in 2025–2026, the floor is zero—it cannot go negative.
- The Pell amounts are mandatory appropriations (“out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated”) and are in addition to other Pell funding.
- A technical fix says this new language does not undo appropriations already made for earlier years, including 2024.
- The FAFSA changes are treated as if they had been part of the earlier FAFSA Simplification Act, so they line up with that law’s start dates.
- Budget scorekeeping exemption: the cost of this division is not entered on statutory or Senate PAYGO scorecards, and it is not counted against discretionary spending caps or Appropriations Committee allocations.
Who Benefits
Primary beneficiaries are students who file the FAFSA and may qualify for Pell Grants or other need-based aid, especially in award year 2024–2025, when a student’s own income can be counted as low as −$1,500. Colleges and the Education Department’s student-aid system are affected because award calculations and Pell funding change. Taxpayers fund the permanent add-on; the text does not name a specific demographic group beyond students using this formula.
Plain English Summary
This short piece of the bill is a student-aid fix, not a department budget. It tells the government how to count a student’s own income on the FAFSA: take the adjusted income, count half of it, and—for the 2024–2025 school year only—don’t let that number fall below −$1,500. After that, it can’t go below zero. To pay for the extra aid that creates, Congress adds mandatory Pell Grant money: $1.17 billion in 2024, $3.17 billion in 2025, $2.17 billion in 2026, and $1.236 billion every year from 2027 on, on top of the regular Pell funding. It also says those costs don’t have to be offset under the usual pay-as-you-go budget rules.