Division B — OTHER MATTERS

Overview

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.