A federal grant to support the state’s students with mental health challenges was canceled last week by the Trump administration, which said the grant conflicts with priorities of the new government.
The $1.5 million five-year grant was aimed at confronting Colorado’s critical shortage of school-based mental health professionals.
“We are deeply disappointed by this decision,” the Colorado Department of Education said in a statement. “Addressing the mental health needs of students remains one of the most urgent priorities identified by school and district leaders throughout Colorado.”
The cuts, which total $1 billion nationwide, appear to reflect the Trump administration's broad attack on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. The loss of the grant likely means many youth experiencing mental health challenges will not get the support they need at school. Rates of anxiety and depression in youth began spiking during the pandemic, and social media use has worsened trends.
In October, the federal Department of Education awarded the School Based Mental Health Grant to expand mental health services for students across Colorado. The grant, which would have provided $1.5 million each year from 2025-29, was aimed at helping school districts recruit and retain mental health professionals. It would have also helped re-specialize existing mental health professionals to serve students in school settings.
Push for funds after Uvalde
After a teenage gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at a school in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022, Congress sent $1 billion to the grant programs to help schools hire more counselors and school psychologists.
The Biden administration gave more points to applicants who planned to train counselors to work with students from diverse backgrounds. Research shows reports of mental health struggles among students of color were higher than white students during the pandemic.
In a statement, the federal department of education said the awards “were not advancing Administration priorities.” It found several things about the grant problematic including goals to ensure some of the counselors were counselors of color, training staff to address racial trauma and stress and challenging “the pervasiveness of white supremacy.”
“These grants are intended to improve American students’ mental health by funding additional mental health professionals in schools and on campuses,” said Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the department. “Instead, under the deeply flawed priorities of the Biden Administration, grant recipients used the funding to implement race-based actions like recruiting quotas in ways that have nothing to do with mental health and could hurt the very students the grants are supposed to help.”
Officials from Colorado and several other states were notified last week that the grant would not be continued after Dec. 31, 2025. It was in its early implementation phase and no funds had yet been distributed. However, schools in some states appeared to keep their grants.
