By Keishionna Rucker
Amidst Trump’s “DEI Crackdown,” TRIO programs throughout the nation are facing funding cuts and all-out grant termination. TRIO programs are federally funded grant programs that are designed to provide and assist students with limited-income, first-generation students, and students with disabilities. Through programs such as Upward Bound, which assists high school students with college preparation, and Student Support Services (SSS), which focuses on academic development and college requirements, TRIO is committed to the success of students from underserved backgrounds. A lawsuit has been filed by COE (The Council for Opportunity and Education), a non-profit organization that wishes to challenge the U.S. Department of Education’s denial and deprivation of TRIO grants and awards.
Although Evergreen is not a part of the lawsuit the COE has filed, our TRIO DS grant was not renewed this round, despite meeting our objectives. I was able to contact Richelle V. Enriquez, Evergreen’s TRIO Program Coordinator, for some preliminary information on our TRIO programs and funding. I’ll be speaking more in depth with Adriana Veloza, Evergreen’s Director of TRIO, at a later date for further information students will need to know regarding our TRIO programs. Here is what Richelle had to say about our current TRIO funding:
“TRIO is a federally funded grant program that serves students with limited-income, students with disabilities, and first generation college students. There are eight TRIO programs nationwide that serve over 800,000 students. TRIO grants are competitive and institutions must reapply for their programs to receive federal funding. Evergreen currently hosts five TRIO Upward Bound grants and one TRIO Student Support Services (SSS) grant. From 2020-2025, Evergreen had a second TRIO SSS grant, called TRIO Disability Support, that was funded to serve 100 students with disabilities. This grant also funded two full-time Academic Specialist positions. This allowed TRIO to provide support services to 280 Evergreen undergraduate students. Unfortunately, TRIO Disability Support was not selected for continued federal funding by the Department of Education and officially ended on August 31, 2025.
Evergreen’s other TRIO SSS grant, called TRIO “Classic,” has been at Evergreen since 1979. At the time we received the news of TRIO Disability Support, we also learned that TRIO Classic was renewed for the next five year grant cycle. We are still called TRIO Student Success and Disability Support, and we now serve 180 students. The loss of the second grant meant that TRIO had very limited capacity to accept new participants at the start of this academic year. Our focus these past couple months have been to transition as many students served under Disability Support to the existing TRIO grant. This has been done in stages to encourage a careful transition. We currently have a waitlist and eligible students are encouraged to utilize Evergreen’s other student support offices. For students who received a waitlist notification message to their student email, they can contact trio@evergreen.edu for any questions.”
Look out for the next issue of the CPJ, where I’ll be speaking to Adriana Veloza in depth and providing updates about this ongoing situation.
