Last year, schools across the United States spent $981.57 billion on education. The scale of this investment reflects not only the work of educators and administrators, but also the combined efforts of policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels. By systematically studying programs from implementation to outcome, evaluators provide evidence about what is working, what is not, and how programs can be improved.

In 2025, many minority-serving higher education institutions (MSIs) found themselves navigating canceled federal grants and making rapid, consequential decisions—sometimes within weeks—about whether to scale back, pause, redesign, or absorb activities originally planned as grant-funded. Looking across these experiences, several operational lessons stand out.

In our August blog post, we declared that workforce development was the ultimate focus of federal funding in 2025. This year, we see the implementation of legislative efforts which affirm this focus. In July 2025, Congress passed H.R.1, which requires that Workforce Pell be implemented by July 1st of this year, creating some uncertainty for students, government employees, and educational institutions as regulatory and operational details continue to emerge.