March 2024

After a long and winding appropriations process that included the removal of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his post and multiple continuing resolutions, Congress took action on bipartisan agreements on FY 2024 appropriations this month. Six bills were signed into law on March 9, and six additional bills were enacted on March 23.

The first set of six bills included the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS) FY 2024 bill and joint explanatory statement, with funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF). The second set of bills included the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (LHHS) FY 2024 bill, with funding for the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

While the Biden administration’s FY 2024 budget request sought increased funding for agencies that support education research and education statistics, the enactment of the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA), which included language to suspend the debt ceiling, in June 2023 changed the landscape for funding for the year. The FRA put into place spending caps for FY 2024 and FY 2025, essentially making overall government funding flat for FY 2024. Additional details are included in a June 2023 AERA Highlights story.

National Science Foundation

The final FY 2024 agreement enacted on March 9 includes $9.06 billion for NSF. While this represents an increase of $221 million compared to the amount in the CJS legislation in the FY 2023 omnibus, it also represents a significant decrease from what was considered the FY 2023 baseline amount for NSF that included supplemental funding, $9.88 billion. The FY 2024 CJS bill reflects a cut of $816 million when accounting for the inclusion of FY 2023 supplemental funding for NSF. The NSF top line in the agreement is also below the initial House and Senate proposals and the FY 2024 budget request.

The FY 2024 agreement includes $1.17 billion for the STEM Education (EDU) Directorate. It rejects the House proposal for FY 2024 that would have cut EDU funding to FY 2022 levels, or by 19 percent. The House proposal also included an elimination of funds for the Advancing Informal STEM Learning Program that did not get adopted in the agreement. Additional details are included in the following table.

National Science Foundation (in millions)

Institute of Education Sciences

The final FY 2024 agreement signed on March 23 includes $793.1 million as the overall top line for IES. The top line and the specific line item amounts within IES reflect the proposal that was included in the Senate LHHS bill that the Senate Appropriations Committee passed in July 2023. The agreement includes cuts of $5 million to the Regional Educational Laboratories (REL) and $10 million to the Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) program and a small increase to the National Assessment of Educational Progress; all of the remaining line items were held flat to FY 2023 levels. The agreement avoided the elimination of all FY 2024 funding for RELs and SLDS included in the House proposal.

Institute of Education Sciences (in millions)

In addition, the explanatory statement includes language that directs the National Center for Education Statistics to conduct the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS) with the administrative data collection every two years for NPSAS 2024 and 2026 and the full student interview component every four years for NPSAS 2024 and 2028. The FY 2025 budget request includes a note that the National Center for Education Statistics is considering reducing the NPSAS frequency to every three years for the administrative data collection and every six years for the full collection that includes student interviews.

National Institutes of Health

The final FY 2024 agreement includes $47.1 billion for base funding for foundational research in the NIH, a decrease of $378 million compared to FY 2023, with an additional $1.5 billion for the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) would receive $1.76 billion, an increase of $10 million compared with FY 2023.

National Institutes of Health (in billions)

The work to complete the FY 2024 appropriations process overlapped with the beginning of the FY 2025 process, which kicked off with the release of the president’s budget request on March 11. Details on the FY 2025 proposals for IES, NSF, and NIH are included in this month’s AERA Highlights.