Trump’s Threat to Afterschool Funding—and What’s Emerging to Meet It

The Trump administration is again attempting to eliminate federal funding for before-school, afterschool, and summer programs for underserved and low-income students. This time the push is part of a broader budget proposal that would gut the educational safety net for millions of the nation’s most vulnerable children.

This is not a new crisis. For years, federal investment in programs that support children outside of the traditional school day—broadly called out-of-school time programs—has stagnated while demand has soared, leaving states, local governments, community-based organizations, and families to absorb the costs. Now, the Trump administration wants to slash federal investment even further. Given the risks to federal funds, some states have been innovating in response, but those efforts, however promising, are patching a hole that federal policy created and keeps making bigger.

It is, in short, a plan to rebrand federal disinvestment as local control, end equity requirements, and leave underresourced communities to fend for themselves.

One of Trump’s targets is the Nita M. Lowey 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) grant. Currently funded at $1.329 billion, it is the only dedicated federal funding stream for out-of-school time support. The administration’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2027 would zero it out entirely, along with 16 other Education Department grant programs collectively funded at $6.5 billion last fiscal year. Also on the chopping block are funds for teacher training, English language learners, civil rights oversight, affordable housing, preschool development, childcare, food security, AmeriCorps, and more. In place of the deep cuts, Trump proposes to create a single “Make Education Great Again” (MEGA) block grant of just $2 billion, offering a fraction of the funds with few regulated uses.

The math is not subtle, and neither are the politics. The block grant strategy comes straight out of Project 2025, the conservative policy blueprint driving much of the Trump administration’s agenda. It is, in short, a plan to rebrand federal disinvestment as local control, end equity requirements, and leave underresourced communities to fend for themselves.

Stagnate, Consolidate, Deregulate, Eliminate

The need for out-of-school time programs has long outpaced what’s available, and federal investment has not kept up. Research by Afterschool Alliance shows that a staggering 77 percent of the 29.6 million children whose parents want afterschool programs and 51 percent of the 24.6 million children looking for summer experiences are locked out by barriers such as cost, availability, or transportation. These programs are a lifeline that provides places for children to learn and grow when school is out and parents are at work.

While 21st CCLC grants are designed to prioritize high-poverty, low-performing schools to reach the children who need help most, stagnation and inflation have stretched resources thin. In written testimony to a House Appropriations Subcommittee in April, Afterschool Alliance Executive Director Jodi Grant noted that only one in three qualified requests for 21st CCLC funding are approved, not because the other programs don’t merit support, but because the federal pool of money is simply too small.

The administration’s answer is to make the pool smaller still.

Trump’s MEGA block grant is framed as giving control to the states and parents, but it would function primarily as a tool for deregulation and defunding. Unlike the 21st CCLC formula grant, which has clear rules about who it must serve, the MEGA block grant would strip guardrails away and let states spend the money however they choose. Afterschool and summer programs would have to compete with regular school-day needs for a much smaller pool of money—a fight they are unlikely to win.

At an April 28 Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing about the proposed budget, Senator Susan Collins of Maine warned that the cuts and consolidation under the MEGA grant “will undermine the goals of helping our K-12 schools.” Subcommittee Chair Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia pushed back too, noting that 21st CCLC grants “play a great role and really fill the gaps” in her state, where “there’s not enough childcare…and afterschool care is really hard to get.” She asked Education Secretary Linda McMahon directly if the MEGA grant would let each state “make the determination as to how important” afterschool programs are. McMahon confirmed they would decide if that’s “where they have their need,” meaning whether a child can access afterschool programs will depend on the political priorities of their state government.

Dismantling a Civic Network

21st CCLC is not just a funding stream. It is a civic network of schools, nonprofits, libraries, faith groups, businesses, and individuals working together to support children when the school day ends. Even while vastly underfunded, it supports about 1.4 million children, 65 percent of whom are economically disadvantaged, 16 percent are English language learners, and 12 percent have disabilities.

In her testimony, Jodi Grant described how local partnerships make the program work. “Many local afterschool and summer programs are successful because they draw on the support of local organizations,” she said. “These partnerships leverage additional resources, increase volunteer involvement, and enrich the programs.”

While most 21st CCLC funding goes to public school districts, more than 1,100 nonprofit, faith-based, and community organizations are direct grant recipients. Under a block grant model, Grant warned, those organizations “that have earned the trust of local families…would lose their funding, not because they failed, but because a block grant structure would be used to support only school day activities.”

The threat to 21st CCLC funding fits a broader pattern. Across diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, public service infrastructure, and community-based organizations, the administration has repeatedly targeted the civic institutions that support people when other resources fall short.

The Stakes Are High

Youth-serving programs are already struggling with rising costs and stagnant federal investment, and the proposed cuts would make that worse.

The bipartisan policy nonprofit First Focus on Children described Trump’s budget as “slashing critical programs for children and families to pay for defense and tax cuts for the wealthy.” Its analysis found that across the 20 largest discretionary programs that benefit children, the administration would cut $5.826 billion—a 5.73 percent drop from fiscal year 2025 levels.

The Trump administration also tried to eliminate 21st CCLC funding in its previous budget proposal, only to be blocked by bipartisan opposition in Congress and pushback from advocates. Ultimately, a president’s budget proposal is a political wish list, not a final decision. Congress controls federal spending.

The real battleground is now the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, which must pass spending bills before September 30 to avoid a government shutdown. The Afterschool Alliance has been rallying lawmakers to defend the program and increase funding to $2.09 billion, and encourages people to contact their representatives to voice their support.

In May, a coalition of 11 Congressional lawmakers from eight states and Washington, DC, introduced the Afterschool for All Act (HR 8654) to reauthorize the 21st CCLC framework and grow its funding to $10 billion a year for a decade, paid for by a 1 percent increase in the corporate income tax rate. The goal is to put afterschool and summer programs on stable ground and beyond the reach of any single administration’s political agenda.

When States Stop Waiting

The recurring threat of defunding has catalyzed some states to build their own, more durable funding for out-of-school time programs. The Children’s Funding Project reported in 2025 that states are “increasingly using specific sources of revenue, separate from their general budgets, to provide stable, long-term funding for programs and services for children and youth outside of the K-12 school day.” Some are tapping lotteries, casinos, tobacco, and sports betting taxes, while others are trying more creative ways to provide out-of-school time.

New York City is taking steps toward universal childcare that folds in early learning, afterschool enrichment, and summer coverage. The city’s new “2-K” expansion, a partnership between Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Governor Kathy Hochul, pilots free year-round, full-day care for two-year-olds, open to all families regardless of income, occupation, or immigration status. The pilot launched with 2,000 seats in high-need neighborhoods, backed by $73 million in state funding the first year and $425 million the second, with plans for 12,000 citywide seats by 2027. Hochul has also pledged statewide universal 4-K and proposed a $1.7 billion boost for early childhood education and childcare across New York State.

Alaska and Vermont have both capitalized on cannabis as a funding source. In 2018, Alaska carved out part of its marijuana excise tax for afterschool programs focused on healthy youth development, generating about $2 million a year and currently supporting 10 multi-year grants. Vermont aimed higher in 2023, when it dedicated revenue from its 6 percent cannabis sales tax to expanding the availability of “robust, reliable, and affordable” out-of-school time programming, especially in underserved communities. In its first two fiscal years, Vermont’s cannabis tax generated over $15.6 million and funded 41 multi-year projects, with $9.7 million projected for fiscal year 2026. The state’s oversight report is clear that this money does not replace 21st CCLC or other funding, but complements it, allowing the state to support programs “of any level of size or readiness.”

Every time federal investment stagnates or shrinks, more programs close, more families lose access, and more children spend the hours outside of school without the educational support their parents want for them and their futures require.

North Carolina is pursuing a novel strategy to have tech companies pay for academic enrichment outside of school hours. The state is one of 22 with no dedicated funding for afterschool and summer programs, and the gap that has created is stark: four out of five children whose parents want them in an afterschool program can’t get a spot, leaving 664,000 kids without access. Two proposed bills would establish the Learning and Enrichment in Afterschool Program (LEAP) and fund it partly with money won in lawsuits against social media companies for harming young people. That effort runs alongside a separate legislative push to require parental consent for younger teens to use social media, with penalties of up to $50,000 per violation.

The Patchwork Is Not Enough

The children who need out-of-school time programs most—low-income, underserved, and who have the fewest alternatives when programs disappear—are not only in states willing to innovate. They live everywhere, including in places that have shown little interest in filling the gap. A patchwork of state-level workarounds, however creative, cannot replace a national commitment.

Every time federal investment stagnates or shrinks, more programs close, more families lose access, and more children spend the hours outside of school without the educational support their parents want for them and their futures require. Congress has stopped the Trump administration from gutting 21st CCLC funding before and can do so again—and advocates say this is the moment to go even further. The Afterschool for All Act offers a long-overdue vision of a decade of guaranteed increased funding. Whether Congress has the will to act on that vision remains to be seen.