Confusion and frustration still linger around the funding freeze ordered by the White House on January 27th as non-profits, Medicaid recipients, and students dependent on federal loans and grants worry that the programs they depend on might be cut. On Tuesday, the Office of Management and Budget rescinded the memo, however White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt contradicted on X “This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze,” which a federal judge used as reasoning to block the freeze. Only days later, President Donald Trump’s administration was hit with another restraining order to block the freeze while his administration attempts to defend their decision and reassure the American public that their programs won’t get cut. Although the order was a freeze on Federal funds, most of that money is divested in State and local governments, student aid such as the Pell Grant and federal student loans, and social programs such as Medicaid and Medicare.

Many college students around the country depend on programs such as the FASFA which give them access to funding opportunities such as the Pell Grant and other federal loans to help pay the immense cost of going to college. Many of these students are scared that they may not be able to access these programs if the freeze were to go into effect, such as HCC accounting student Francesco Iabichino, who commented “If [President Trump] was willing to go that far and cut these programs, it worries me what else he is willing to do.” Another student, Carlos Sequeria, echoed these worries by only saying “Where’s my FASFA money?” Both students expressed concern about how this pause could impact them transferring to a four-year institution in the future.

Many in government, particularly democrats, have raised concerns about Trump’s order as they called it unconstitutional, leading to several states filing a lawsuit against the Trump Administration to keep these government programs alive. In a letter to the Office of Budget Management Acting Director Matthew Vaeth, Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro and Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray expressed “extreme alarm about the Administration’s efforts to undermine Congress’s power of the purse, threaten our national security, and deny resources for states, localities, American families, and businesses.” DeLauro later praised the ruling to block the order, “I am proud to stand both, with my home State of Connecticut who is party to this lawsuit, and with all American taxpayers, whose funds have been stolen by the President’s unlawful actions.”