U.S. politicians have perhaps never been more divided, including when it comes to their views on higher education.
Republicans are pushing for more control over the day-to-day work at colleges and universities. Some Republican politicians say that universities are elitist, woke organizations that are out of touch with the general public and lack value for most people. In step with this rhetoric, they have cut funding to higher education, including slashing grants to universities with ethnically and racially diverse student bodies.
Democrats, meanwhile, broadly support higher education, praising it for its role in improving people’s lives. They are challenging these cuts and the Trump administration’s mounting interference into how colleges are run.
Despite these differences, both Democrats and Republicans invest billions in higher education and issue billions annually in federal earmarks. Federal earmarks are taxpayer-funded spending provisions that Congress members allocate, with minimal oversight, to projects or organizations that typically align with their priorities.
For fiscal year 2026, spanning October 2025 through September 2026, Congress allocated US$16 billion in earmarks to a range of causes – approximately $2 billion of which went to colleges and universities across the country.
We are scholars of higher education who have analyzed federal earmarking patterns in recent years. Our May 2026 study considers how party affiliation shapes universities’ earmark outcomes.
Where do Republicans and Democrats funnel academic earmarks? Does either party put this money where their mouth is? The data tells a story of partisan preferences that are predictable in some ways and surprising in others.
Understanding federal earmarks
Some critics call federal earmarks “congressional pork” and describe them as wasteful pet projects used to curry political favor.
However, Congress has long leveraged earmarks to fund expensive and important infrastructural projects, like airport updates. Earmarks can also help colleges pay for expensive construction projects they might not be able to otherwise afford, especially as college enrollment declines and state and local funding to higher education decreases.
Current federal guidelines cap federal earmarks to 1% of total federal discretionary spending. Currently, each member of Congress may issue 15 earmark requests to the House Committee on Appropriations each fiscal year.
The House and Senate appropriations committees ultimately negotiate and decide which projects receive funding, and how much.
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Not all schools receive the same
Our 2024 study showed that Congress, as a whole, earmarked far less funding to minority-serving institutions and community colleges compared with what it gave to well-endowed research universities.
Minority-serving institutions,like historically Black colleges and universities and tribal colleges and universities, serve large shares of students of color and low-income students. They are generally underfunded.
Recent reports indicate that Congress members may also favor their alma maters when doling out earmarks.
Twenty-four senators – 13 Democrats and 11 Republicans – collectively requested approximately $636 million for projects at their alma maters in fiscal year 2026. But Republicans were responsible for nearly three-fourths of those requests, or $470 million.
For example, Senator Jim Justice, a Republican from West Virginia, requested nearly $60 million across seven earmark projects for his alma mater, Marshall University.
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Republicans’ earmark tendencies
Contrary to their largely fiscal conservative rhetoric and critiques of universities as overly woke and elitist, Republicans generally sponsor earmarks with gusto across the board, including for colleges and universities.
Eight Republicans were among the 10 most generous earmark sponsors in fiscal year 2026. Republicans also made up 27 of the 31 representatives who requested $50 million or more from that year’s budget.
Based on our analysis, from October 2021 through September 2023, Republicans sponsored $230 million more in earmarks to colleges and universities than their Democratic colleagues did.
Republicans also tended to send less in earmarked funding to colleges and universities serving large numbers of students who receive need-based federal financial aid, per our findings. Rather, Republicans were more likely to earmark money for whiter, wealthier universities, like the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill or the University of Michigan.
For example, Senator Mitch McConnell directed just shy of $60 million in earmarks to two large research universities, University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky, for fiscal year 2026. McConnell attended both of those schools.
Nearly 70% and just over 75% of the undergraduates at the University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky, respectively, identify as white.
That same year, McConnell sponsored a $2 million earmark project for a single community college in the state – Madisonville Community College.
He did not sponsor any earmarks for the state’s two historically Black colleges and universities: Simmons University and Kentucky State University.
Democrats’ earmark tendencies
Democrats, meanwhile, generally walk the talk in terms of which colleges and universities they fund, generally supporting minority-serving institutions and campuses with large numbers of students who receive Pell Grants. Pell Grants are a form of federal financial aid for low-income students that they do not have to repay, unlike loans.
Our analysis specifically shows Democrats gave these schools an outsized share of the pot of earmarked dollars, relative to what they gave overall to colleges and universities.
Some Democrats also sponsored earmarks to minority-serving institutions beyond their own districts.
For example, while Florida International University is in Republican Representative Mario Diaz-Balart’s district, he did not request earmark funding be sent their way in 2022. Rather, that year, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from another district in Florida, secured a $2 million earmark for the university to support its public health and social work programming.
However, Democrats’ earmarks are much smaller than their Republican counterparts and generally far too small to level the playing field for minority-serving institutions, which are chronically underfunded.
So, while Democrats direct more earmarks to minority-serving institutions than Republicans, the comparatively small size of those awards cannot close the funding gap these schools face.
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In 2026, for example, the Democratic senators from California, Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, secured a $3.5 million earmark to support the University of California, Merced’s medical school. This is a Hispanic-serving institution, meaning a college or university where at least 25% of undergraduates are Hispanic.
At the same time, Republican Senator John Boozman from Arkansas secured $45 million in earmarks to upgrade the University of Arkansas Medical Center, which is a predominantly white school.
Based on our research, it seems that both parties have real, if different, work to do to fully leverage earmarks to support higher education.
