Due to President Donald Trump massive funding cuts, Tennessee State University is set to lose at least $14.4 million in federal grant funding. President Trumps budget and funding cuts have impacted universities across the country especially HBCUs.
The announcement is made as the university experiences a financial deficit this spring. To keep Tennessee State afloat, interim president Dwayne Tucker suggested last month reusing public monies and making additional staff and budget cuts. After a year of significant turmoil, layoffs, and budget cuts, President Tucker assumed leadership of the struggling institution in December. He recently informed lawmakers that if nothing changes, the university will run out of funding by May.
The remaining $14.4 million of a $18 million grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture to Tennessee State is in limbo. According to the university’s acting CFO Jim Grady, the school is getting ready for the grant’s official termination letter, even though it hasn’t arrived yet.
It’s unclear how many staff or professor positions will be impacted by the downsizing, or whether student assistantships and scholarships will be impacted as well. Nothing will change until at least ninety days after getting the official letter, at the very least, Grady stated. It was unclear when grant-funded employees would be informed if their jobs were being impacted.
According to Grady, 70 federal grants totaling $45 million were suspended abruptly back in February. Those grants included grants from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture under the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The university paused using those grants while university leaders worked with federal officials to determine when it the university could resume spending. Earlier this month, $23 million of the funds had been restored.
Tennessee State has $115 million in other federal awards outside of the USDA funds, which might be suspended or frozen in the future, according to Grady. Tennessee State has 62 employees who are fully funded by federal funds and the other 112 are partially funded.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee received a letter from the USDA and U.S. Department of Education in 2023, during the Biden administration, estimating that the state had underfunded TSU by $2.1 billion over a number of decades. Advocates have advocated for the restoration of that underfunding.
