Release of 21st CCLC funding imminent

Update, July 28, 2025: All remaining education funding to be released, per announcement July 25. Read more on our blog.

The Administration announced today that the 21^st CCLC funds will be released to state education agencies, allowing afterschool and summer programs to resume. The announcement comes eighteen days after the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the US Department of Education notified state education agencies that their FY2025 funding for 21^st Century Community Learning Centers afterschool and summer programs would be withheld pending a programmatic review.  See the Afterschool Alliance’s statement on the releasing of funds.

It took a tremendous outpouring of support to make this possible. Ten Republican Senators led by Senator Capito (R- WV) delivered a letter to OMB on July 16, following letters and statements from House and Senate Democrats and one House Republican; and after more than 21,400 individuals sent more than 107,000 emails to Congress and Governors since July 1. In addition, a broad coalition of 600 nonpartisan organizations representing educators, families, and learners in every state and the District of Columbia sent a letter on July 17 to the U.S. Department of Education and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).  We are extremely grateful to everyone who spoke out, including our grasstops allies who made personal calls to policymakers to urge them to release the funds.

While this news is a welcome relief and will help afterschool and summer programs and the parents and young people they serve, the Administration’s delay in disbursing these funds which were signed into law in mid-March caused massive chaos and harm, with summer learning programs abruptly shutting down and a large number of afterschool programs cancelling plans to open in the fall. Those programs have now fallen behind on hiring, outreach, contracting, and other work needed to fulfill their essential mission.

The initial withholding of 21^st CCLC funds was part of a package of 6 programs totaling almost $7 billion in funding for Supporting Effective Instruction State Grants (Title II-A); 21st Century Community Learning; Centers (Title IV-B); Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants (Title IV-A); English Language Acquisition (Title III-A); Migrant Education (Title I-C); and Adult Basic and Literacy Education State Grants (including Integrated English Literacy and Civics Education State Grants). It is still unclear whether all the other Title funds will be released or just afterschool and summer funding through 21^st CCLC. Learn more about the impact of all the funds being withheld at edfundsnow.org.

21^st Century Community Learning Centers (21^st CCLC) – the chief federal funding stream for afterschool and summer learning programs – supports more than 10,000 local programs serving nearly 1.4 million children nationwide. States run their own competitions to distribute 21^st CCLC funds to programs designed by local communities. We remain deeply concerned that the administration is proposing $0 for 21^st CCLC next year, instead collapsing it into a ‘K-12 Simplified Funding Plan’ with dramatically reduced support. If Congress agrees to that, we will see more children and youth unsupervised and at risk, more academic failures, more hungry kids, more chronic absenteeism, higher dropout rates, more parents forced out of their jobs, and a less STEM-ready and successful workforce as our child care crisis worsens dramatically.

We are hopeful that all of the funding that supports our children and youth will be released and that the full intent of 21^st CCLC will be preserved when disbursing these funds, with no restrictions that limit local communities’ ability to meet the needs of children and families.