Department of Education proposes rule to cancel grants ‘for convenience’

The U.S. Department of Education proposed a rule on Aug. 24 that would allow it to cancel grants “for convenience” when the grants no longer further agency priorities.

The proposed language explicitly outlines the department’s ability to cancel grants for reasons beyond noncompliance or administrative issues. All federal agencies have had discretion over whether to remove grants “if an award no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities” since 2024, but the Department of Education has not formalized that discretion.

The same week, the National Science Foundation halted a public comment period on a similar proposed rule change that would allow it to “immediately suspend or terminate an award without notice when it believes such action is reasonable to protect the interests of the government.”

Both changes coincide with a proposed White House rule from May that would give senior appointees, like Education Secretary Linda McMahon, discretion over whether to approve grants.

Cory Liu, an adjunct professor from the School of Law, said Congress passes broad laws that are specifically wired to hand agencies like the Education Department the flexibility to write and edit their own regulations without spelling out the specifics.

“The agency can actually rewrite (the regulation),” Liu said. “They can as long as what they’re doing stays consistent with the federal law passed by Congress.”

A UT professor, who requested anonymity to avoid potential scrutiny on future research applications, wrote that federal grants are necessary for research in an email.

“University support, such as seed grants from the (Office of the Vice President for Research), and regional or foundation funding, such as grants from the Welch Foundation, are valuable but insufficient to sustain a research group of five Ph.D. students,” they wrote. “Without federal grant support, it would be extremely difficult for me to sustain my research group and meet the research goals established by the University.”

In 2024, nearly $700 million of the University’s research was funded by the federal government, and about one-fourth, or $176.4 million, of that is from the NSF. UT ranked No. 1 for the amount of research funded by the NSF by the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics in the Higher Education Research and Development Survey published December 2025.

The professor said their own grants have survived, but they have watched the opposite happen to colleagues in different fields that fall under the diversity category or involve mRNA vaccine research.

“The current climate is overwhelmingly negative because of the uncertainty surrounding research funding and policy,” they wrote. “Nevertheless, there is not much that individual faculty members can do directly. We learn about each new policy, determine how to comply with it, and then return to our laboratories and continue our research.”

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