Abe Russell took a significant pay cut when an injury forced him to switch jobs earlier this year. Russell works in maintenance, and he signed up for continuing education through the nonprofit PAVE East Texas to get his HVAC certification.
But when the Trump administration paused funding for adult education, PAVE had to stop paying for HVAC classes. To take these classes on his own, Russell would have to pay $1,800 out of pocket, which he says isn’t feasible.
“I reached in for the pearl and got bit. Yep, it kind of hurts. It’s very disappointing,” he said. “We’re in a financial pinch, and it’s kind of set back our hopes, our dreams, our getting back on our feet.”
Federal funding for adult education is finally on its way to states after about a six-week delay. For programs in Texas, this meant over a month of wondering whether the Department of Education would release an expected $78 million.
Some programs laid off staff or paused services in that time — and even though the money is back, not all of those changes are being reversed.
Federal dollars make up the majority of funding for adult education services in Texas, including at PAVE. Executive Director Whitney Patterson says the HVAC program will likely remain paused until the spring semester.
“We will resume those programs,” she said. “But at this point we still don’t know enough to know how many we can enroll.”
PAVE East Texas is not the only place where the impacts of the federal funding delay have outlasted the delay itself. At Kilgore College, about 30 minutes east of Tyler, former program director Charmyn Tumey says the entire adult education staff was laid off.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Tumey said. “I think people don’t realize how important and how essential adult education programs are to our communities.”
Donald Seals, Kilgore’s interim vice president of student learning, said in a statement that the college paused the program and is working to restructure it. But Tumey says she’s concerned about how the program will operate without dedicated staff.
“These students come with their own socioeconomic challenges. They come with challenges of being an adult learner that maybe dropped out of school when they were in eighth grade. Or they’re that English language learner,” Tumey said. “It does require a different type of training for instructors and staff.”
Tumey has been referring students to the East Texas Literacy Council for services, but they too have cut staff. Executive Director Natasha Duncan says she laid off English as a second language teachers and the childcare professionals that made classes more accessible to parents.
“We will be running the ESL department with one staff member,” she said.
These layoffs have not been reversed because the Literacy Council received its money through a contract with Kilgore College. Duncan says the contract was canceled when Kilgore decided to reimagine its adult ed offerings.
Duncan says she is concerned about their capacity given that they already have more students coming over from Kilgore.
“Our phone is ringing off the hook,” she said. “I mean, I’m not exaggerating, like my ringer is off in my office because if not, I wouldn’t be able to think.”
Duncan says she is committed to finding creative ways to operate her organization, including recruiting unpaid volunteers.
“I think the important thing for me and for my team is to be honest with our people, to let them know that, hey, we are struggling, but not allow them to feel like this is something that’s being taken away,” she said. “We’re going to figure this out, and we’re going to work together. Just be patient with us.”
» MORE: Life often gets in the way of adults going back to school. This Texarkana nonprofit has a solution.
Patterson with PAVE East Texas says watching people lose services is particularly hard to stomach in her region, which lags behind the state average for the number of adults who don’t have a high school diploma.
“We also have pockets of our counties and entire communities that have a large immigrant population and immigrant workforces,” she said. “English language services are a huge part of what we do as well. And we know that we’re undeserving that population already, before any cuts.”
Experts say the loss of programs and staff will have ripple effects beyond just the students who are losing out on services. Patterson says adult ed has a tangible impact on families and local economies.
Last year, PAVE had 200 adult learners complete a skills training certification. PAVE pays the tuition and offers additional support. Patterson says the program has a 98% completion rate and basically everyone who finishes gets a job.
“These are adults that before these programs would have probably been considered unemployable,” she said. “Now they’re employed. And many of them are on a track to higher employment because of our relationships with employers.”
And although many are breathing a sigh of relief that funding should be set for the next 11 months, Patterson says there is also a feeling among adult education program directors that they are gearing up for an even bigger fight.
“Congress is going to go through the budget process,” Patterson said. “And the Trump administration’s proposal, the skinny budget bill, completely eliminates [adult education] funding.”
The next federal fiscal year starts on Oct. 1.
