The Culver Public Policy Center brought Pizza and Policy to Black Box on Monday. The topic of discussion this time was the recent changes and policies happening inside the education system in the United States. Questions from concerned students and faculty were answered by the panel of experts, including Assistant Vice President for Enrollment and Financial Aid Tracie Pavon, Chaplain Mara Bailey, Associate Professor of Education Chad Timm and Tom Cunningham of Nyemaster Goode, P.C.
The evening began with opening statements from each panelist discussing students’ futures and the recent executive order signed by President Trump, which applied cuts to the Department of Education. This includes some financial aid workers, which, according to Pavon, caused the FAFSA website to go down multiple times, so the workers who were let go were called back to resolve the issues.
The biggest questions were related to the financial aid aspect of the cutbacks and whether it would affect programs such as TRIO or Upward Bound for high school students, as well as if it would affect the Iowa Tuition Grant. The amount of money granted per student through the Iowa Tuition Grant is expected to decrease, but the grant itself has not been the target of any major bills. TRIO and Upward Bound are believed to be safe from these bills as they only pertain to a student’s disability accommodations or low-income needs.
“I am definitely still worried about the progress of the FAFSA and how that will affect so many families, including mine,” Sophomore Allison Sigaran-Serpas said.
The concern for bills against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is another prevalent area of concern as it targets the employees of the Department of Education, which slows down these processes as a side effect.
“The President is making sweeping decisions of letting go of multiple employees and banning DEI from the Department of Education,” Sigaran-Serpas said.
The concerns brought forward were echoed by the panelists as something they cannot afford to lose. Chaplain Mara Bailey talked about how these changes will affect Simpson College as a private institution, stating that Simpson doesn’t necessarily fall under these categories as long as it maintains the positions of DEI and has faculty members to fulfill their duties.
Professor Chad Timm worked through what these bills mean for current students and how they affect the curriculum. There is no change based on these bills to how he is teaching his students as this doesn’t affect the public school system nearly as much as the private schools, which is where these bills will hit the hardest. Tom Cunningham talked through a bill targeting the hiring process and retention of employees who are considered DEI employees, stating that he had “No idea what this means” multiple times through the process of reading off the description of the bill.
“I think the main thing that stuck out to me was how loose, open-ended and up to interpretation the new proposed bill is,” Sophomore Austin Minch said. The panel as a whole gave as much information as possible about the situation to ease students’ nerves while continuing to be truthful about what else is yet to come, including the future of the FAFSA and programs like TRIO and Upward Bound.