As Afterschool Programs Are Threatened, States and Nonprofits Step Up

This is not a new crisis for afterschool programs. 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 for afterschool programs, some states have been innovating in response, but those efforts, however promising, are patching a hole that federal policy created and keeps making bigger.

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 and afterschool programs. 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 of defunding afterschool programs and human services in general. It is, in short, a plan to rebrand federal disinvestment as local control, end equity requirements, and leave underresourced communities to fend for themselves.