Bay Area native's $15,000 Howard University grant money rescinded due to federal education cuts

DALY CITY, Calif. (KGO) -- As summer winds down and students prepare to return to the classroom, some are grappling with unexpected financial challenges tied directly to federal budget cuts.

For Alexis Rodriguez from Daly City, the impact is personal.

The 20-year-old spent most of her life in the foster care system before meeting her adoptive mother, Lauren Croom, her history teacher at Summit Shasta High School. Inspired by Croom's guidance and example, Rodriguez set her sights on attending Howard University, a historically Black college in Washington, D.C.

"I've been with her since I was about 14 years old and just grown a lot under her mentorship," Rodriguez said.

Her ambitions extended beyond the classroom. This summer, she participated in a policy fellowship with the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, focused on creating legislation to support youth in foster and adoptive care.

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But just as she was preparing for her junior year, Rodriguez received troubling news: a key federal grant, one she depended on to afford tuition and housing, had been eliminated.

"Those cuts, immediately after I finished my time on Capitol Hill, were swept right under my feet and started impacting me directly," Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez shared the email notification she received as a Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) recipient, which read, in part: You are likely aware that our funding comes from the Department of Education. While we were awarded funding for AY25-26, that funding has been rescinded by the Trump Administration and those funds permanently cancelled with the Act that Congress last week.

In May, the White House released a federal budget proposal, outlining major changes in discretionary funding. The proposal included $64 million in cuts to Howard University, the country's only federally chartered HBCU. These changes are part of a broader push to reduce funding for certain higher education institutions and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.

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Rodriguez lost a $15,000 Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) grant, awarded for her work in African studies and her proficiency in Zulu, a language spoken in South Africa.

"This grant was supposed to cover a huge portion of my tuition and housing costs," she said.

She returned to D.C. early and is now working to raise the money herself via GoFundMe.

"This news has shaken me to my core," Rodriguez wrote. "Now, my own future feels uncertain-because of the same broken systems I'm fighting to change."

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Rodriguez knows she's not the only student impacted.

"I'm still figuring it out," Rodriguez said. "This is happening to so many low-income, first-generation and foster youth students."

Despite the setback, Rodriguez remains committed to her long-term goal: shaping public policy so others don't fall through the cracks.

"It is so important to center lived experiences into policy," Rodriguez said. "There are too many decisions being made on behalf of people who aren't in the room. And it's not enough to write about change; we must ensure that students aren't falling through the cracks when systems fail."