Trump Cut $1 Billion in Mental Health Services for Students. ADDitude Readers Responded.

June 6, 2025On April 29, the Trump administration announced it was cutting $1 billion in funding for federal grants used to hire and train 14,000 mental health professionals in 260 public school districts across 49 states.The grants originated in 2022’s Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a bill that passed the Senate with unanimous consent following the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where 22 people died, including 19 elementary school children.

The bill was largely seen as important recognition of and support for an escalating mental health crisis among American youth.In April, the Trump administration eliminated all funding for these grants, blaming Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives associated with them.

Specifically, the administration objected to grant money being used to train and recruit diverse mental health counselors who reflect the demographic make-up of the students they serve.Meanwhile, research shows that BIPOC students benefit from access to a diverse cohort of mental health professionals1, and the inverse is true as well.“We see studies that show a bias in the way that Black children, in particular, are treated in the health care system compared to white children,” said Tumaini Rucker Coker, M.D., during the ADDitude webinar “Equity in ADHD Care.” “It is directly related to racial bias.

Black families are less likely than white families to have concordance or a shared lived experience with their healthcare providers, and studies have shown that Black adults are more likely than white adults to report lower levels of trust in their providers as well.”[Read: “As Inclusion Disappears, My Mask Reappears”]Furthermore, “studies show that Black families tend to have worse outcomes with white.