Experts outline the significant consequences of budget cuts on education and the humanities and their impact on the academe, grassroots organisations, and underserved populations—demanding a call for more collaboration and sustainable funding.
In photo (from left to right): Dr Mary Therese Perez Hattori (The University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, United States), Rosie Lowe (Leadership in Disabilities & Achievement of Hawai’i, United States), and Dr Halena Kapuni-Reynolds (National Museum of the American Indian & Hawai’i Council for the Humanities, United States) during their panel presentation at IICE/IICAH2026
In January 2025, the United States’ presidential inauguration brought with it the dismantling or severe restructuring of the US Department of Education, the termination of federal grants, and executive orders eliminating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programmes across federal agencies, grantees, and beyond. The United States government’s message was clear: education, and especially the arts and humanities, are deemed less worthy and of lower priority to other areas such as defence. The impact of these new orders and policies have already had profound effects on people, communities and institutions: many academics have been left without jobs, community programmes attached to higher education institutions have run out of funding and risk their members’ wellbeing, and research is halted. Students find themselves in hostile campus environments, and international students are increasingly choosing an academic career outside of the United States.
A timely panel titled ‘Defunding Education: Challenges and Implications’, moderated by Dr Mary Therese Perez Hattori of The University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, United States, and joined by Rosie Rowe of the Leadership in Disabilities & Achievement of Hawai’i, United States and Dr Halena Kapuni-Reynolds of the National Museum of the American Indian & Hawai’i Council for the Humanities, United States, discussed the current state of institutional defunding of education and humanities-centric programmes in the United States. The US government’s shifting funding from education to defence has had a garroting effect on community-serving organisations like theirs, which rely heavily on federal government backing to serve underserved populations across Hawaii and the Pacific Islands. They now face a serious dilemma: where can community organisations turn to for support when their own support is cut off?
‘I’m sure our American delegates are very familiar with this story’, opened Dr Hattori, ‘but for our international colleagues, the January 2025 inauguration… was just the beginning of some major shifts in federal policy impacting education’. She outlined the titles of a number of executive orders, which display a shift of governmental attitude towards education, including ‘Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing’, ‘Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism’, and ‘Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity’. She also highlighted that foreign policy shifted to a similar, insular focus, pointing out the government’s halting of visas for foreign workers and students. As the panel focused on Hawaii and the Pacific Islands specifically, this attitudinal shift, along with the subsequent dismantling of the United States Department of Education, the withholding of billions of dollars worth of federal funding, and the termination of grant commitments, pose a serious threat to the wellbeing of communities in the Pacific, whose Indigenous and minority populations have benefitted greatly from DEI policies in the past.
For grassroots programmes like the Leadership in Disabilities & Achievement of Hawai‘i, uncertainty around longevity has long persisted. ‘As a parent training and information centre under the US Department of Education, we are always challenged by whether or not we’re going to continue to have funding’, said Ms Rowe, noting that the current level of funding uncertainty is unprecedented. Serving over 80,000 children identified for special education in Hawaii, plus families across American Samoa, the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, and other Pacific jurisdictions, the centre operates with a small number of staff and existing shortages worsened by post-COVID workforce challenges and geographic isolation. Funding secured through 2026 remains uncertain, and beyond that, despite multi-year grants, the potential dismantling of the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) threatens to shift oversight to agencies lacking expertise. The recent loss of 287,000 USD in early-screening funds for children ages 0–8 has already delayed critical early intervention, raising long-term costs and amplifying inequities in rural Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities where the centre often serves as the sole provider of parent training, screening, coordination, and systems navigation.
While the centre works to inform, train, and serve the public in accordance with the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Ms Rowe cautioned that recent executive orders have placed IDEA and the programme’s long-term projects in a precarious position. ‘Even though IDEA is giving us the entitlement to families authorised by Congress, it doesn’t mean the money comes along with it, and that’s the problem we’re having’, she explained. This uncertainty highlights the fragility of education programmes that rely on federal mandates without guaranteed, sustained financial support.
Federal funding cuts in education not only risk dismantling programmes which are pillars within communities, but also disperse responsibility into the community at large, leaving community non-profits to pick up the pieces. Ms Rowe pointed out that the closure of Hawaii’s State Institution for the Mentally Retarded in 1999 left many adults with disabilities, many of whom entered the institution as infants, without support, placing strain on local organisations tasked with their care. ‘The broader implication is that place-based inequities caused by the dismantling of community programmes are amplified when flexible community-anchored supports are constrained’, she concluded.
Dr Kapuni-Reynolds voiced similar concerns from one rung above the funding ladder, while reflecting on his experience chairing the Hawai’i Council for the Humanities, where the federal funding cuts in 2025 significantly reshaped the organisation. As the state affiliate of the US National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), which has awarded over 6 billion USD in grants nationwide, the Council has relied heavily on federal support. Recent NEH initiatives included the 1.3 million USD Pacific Islands Cultural Initiative in 2023 and 1.2 million USD in funding to the Council in 2024, supporting public humanities programmes, preservation projects, and crisis relief, including aid following the 2023 Maui wildfires and Typhoon Mawar.
NEH-funded projects have historically bridged grassroots communities and scholars through collaborative, community-based programming. However, as Dr Hattori noted, such initiatives require humanities experts, often faculty, to participate. With the suspension of grants, ‘our work to engage and to ensure that academics are working with communities… is something we are not doing at the moment’, Dr Kapuni-Reynolds explained. Ms Rowe added that in the short term, this kind of situation often leads organisations away from education initiatives in order to focus on those better-suited towards other funding bodies’ priorities.’The loss of funding to programmes like this means academics are more isolated’, added Dr Hattori.
Sustainability remains a major concern for these organisations. During the panel’s Q&A session, Dr Kapuni-Reynolds questioned if the NEH could cease operations entirely in the future, and reiterated his organisation is now focused on survival, leaving them with little capacity to give in terms of resources to their community.
Both Dr Kapuni-Reynolds and Ms Rowe shared another hidden effect of the current, adverse situation: the personal toll of crisis leadership. Having to let go of staff with whom they have formed close relationships, or telling their communities that they cannot care for them anymore despite witnessing their suffering, has been extremely difficult for the two leaders. They stressed listening-driven, communicative leadership to guide collective decisions, with both expressing appreciation for the professional growth and sharper local insight forged through the challenges. Dr Kapuni-Reynolds reflected that ‘although it was a year of grief, confusion, and chaos, it was also a year of care, empathy, and compassion’, as private funders and community members alike stepped in to help stabilise operations. ‘As an organisation, we need to have conversations that work toward solutions’. Dr Hattori followed this up by asking Dr Kapuni-Reynolds how organisations like IAFOR and its members can help, to which he said, ‘ultimately, wherever you do your research, it’s always important to try to better understand the local ecosystem or local organisations that may support your work’. Ms Rowe further added that there are opportunities to collaborate and share funding and resources through networking. Connections made on the ground through grassroots community work can help combat the disappearance of top-down funding loss.
In an interview with IAFOR, Dr Kapuni-Reynolds highlighted that the ongoing work of the community is key to withstanding times of uncertainty. While the current state of funding in the United States and the programmes arrested by it remain precarious, ‘the solution is ongoing’, he said. ‘In the long term, what does sustainable funding look like? We are trying to think of it less as a reactive situation… and taking a step back to think about how this might be an opportunity to push our organisation towards the grassroots network that we’ve been cultivating over the years, to really become something that is truly serving the public’. He also stressed the importance of conversational spaces in this work, for communities to tackle difficult issues that are pressing to them.
Watch the full panel presentation at IICE/IICAH2026 in the video below.
Banner image: Mathieu Stern, Unsplash
