On March 15, 2025 President Trump signed into law a continuing resolution (CR) for fiscal year (FY) 2025. This means that Congress will fund the federal government at current, FY24 discretionary spending levels through the remainder of the fiscal year. The Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act will keep the government open until September 30, 2025. The stopgap funding measure is not a “clean,” extension of all FY24 funding levels, and instead contains a number of anomalies of impact to public research universities like the University of Maryland.
Notably, the final bill includes no Congressionally Directed Spending (earmarks) or “Congressional adds” in most FY25 accounts. For this reason, the university did not receive funding for campus projects that had been included in earlier versions of the House and Senate appropriations bills. Further, with the exception of the defense section of the spending package, the bill was not accompanied by a report that provides funding levels for subaccounts within federal agencies and detailed guidance to agencies on how to spend appropriated funds, leaving federal agencies with discretion to make those decisions.
Analysis below prepared in part by the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities.
*Additional funding levels can be found on APLU’s FY25 CR funding chart.
Overall, the bill would cut non-defense funding by a net $13 billion and increase defense funding by $6 billion, compared to Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24). The largest cut is a $20 billion rescission from the IRS provided in the Inflation Reduction Act.
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
This bill continues funding for most of USDA at FY24 levels, although some departments receive cuts. Notable reductions are to the Animal and Health Inspection Service (USDA-APHIS) which is cut by $27 million, and the Natural Resources Conservation Services (USDA-NRCS), which is cut by $30 million. The largest reduction is the elimination of $57 million for buildings and facilities for the Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS).
National Science Foundation (NSF), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the Department of Commerce
The bill continues funding at FY24 levels for NSF, NASA, NOAA, and NIST with limited programmatic direction. The NOAA Operations, Research and Facilities funding specifically represents FY24 enacted levels without congressionally directed spending, thus a cut of $537 million.
Department of Defense (DOD)
All DOD Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) accounts are cut by five percent or more below FY24 enacted amounts. The bill also cuts FY25 funding for the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP) by 57 percent from FY24 enacted levels (from $1.509 billion in FY24 to $650 million). Sec. 1111 under Title I (page 12) eliminates funding that was available for FY24 earmarks; instead, Sec. 1422 under Title IV (page 40) permits DOD to use funds to initiate or resume projects that were included in the FY25 House or Senate appropriations marks.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been flat funded for FY25 at $4,123 million.*
Department of Energy (DOE)
The bill continues FY24 DOE Office of Science and ARPA-E at FY24 levels with no programmatic direction.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
The bill continues funding at FY24 levels for the EPA Office of Science with the elimination of congressionally directed spending under the account, thus reducing levels by $2 million.
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) was largely flat funded from FY24. The bill maintains the existing language contained in FY24 Labor HHS appropriations, which includes the Sec. 224 prohibition on HHS from modifying current Facilities & Administrative (F&A) reimbursement rates. SEC. 1905 of the bill reduces funding for the NIH Innovation Account, CURES Act by $280 million. However, this is the planned reduction from the 21st Century CURES Act.
Department of Education
The bill reduces the overall FY25 funding level for the Higher Education heading by $202 million. APLU confirmed with Appropriations Committee staff that this eliminates the amount available for higher education earmarks for FY25. The maximum award for Pell Grants remains $7,395.00, the same as the maximum awards for FY24 and FY23. The Federal Work Study program has also been flat funded from FY24, with $1,230 million* allocated for the program. FY25 funding for the Institute for Education Services (IES) is $793.1 million, TRIO programs received $1,191 million* and Title VI International Education Programs received $85.7 million*. All of these programs were level-funded from FY24.
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
NEH received $207 million for FY25, the same amount as has been allocated for FY24 and FY23.
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)
NEA received $207 million* for FY25, the same amount as has been allocated for FY24 and FY23.
*There are some concerns about how different agencies will use their funding as allocated within the FY25 CR. Typically, funding bills are accompanied by an explanatory statement or a report that will provide funding levels for programs within larger appropriations accounts. Instead, in completing the FY25 package, Congress chose to allocate funding for different agencies and departments as a general bucket and did not provide an explanatory statement with tables to the administration outlining funding details at the program level. Therefore, only funding levels explicitly included in the final CR bill text are binding. Sec. 1113 of the legislation requires the administration to provide a spending plan within 45 days of enactment, at which time additional details at the program level are expected.