Zoe Lang/The Mossy Log
Athletics have long been regarded as an integral part of the college experience, but with the President’s 2026 Fiscal Year Budget Proposal, it may be wise to prepare for some changes. The proposal, dubbed “skinny” because of its lack of detail, contains budget cuts to the Department of Education, as well as many other non-defense departments and, while not directly targeting college athletics, would indirectly impact the funding of many educational and related institutions. Two executive orders aimed at protecting non-revenue and women’s sports may clash with the proposed budget, impacting the overall finances of academic institutions.
Lewis & Clark is a private institution, and thus receives only “modest” support from the federal and state government. Income primarily comes from “endowments and gifts from trustees, alumni, and other friends of the institution,” according to LC’s website.
On May 2, the discretionary funding levels for fiscal year (FY) 2026 Budget Request, based on President Donald Trump’s recommendations was released. As of Oct. 1, Congress’ inability to make a decision led to a government shutdown. This could cause temporary cessation of payment of federal government workers, excluding Congress, and could lead to other federal services being disrupted.
The budget request totals $1.69 trillion, down from the enacted $1.83 trillion in 2025. These changes are derived from the funding changes from many departments. The Department of Education is down from $78.7 billion to $60 billion, a loss of $10.75 billion. Almost half of that loss is due to a $4.54 billion cut from a program that aims to Preserve Title I and Streamline K-12 — preserving Title I funding for low-income families and consolidating different specialized K-12 grants into one large grant to negate “the distractions of DEI and weaponization from the previous administration.” Another $1.58 billion is proposed to be lost from TRIO and GEAR UP programs, cutting grant programs from low-income families, first-generation college students and individuals with disabilities. Federal Work Study would lose just short of a billion dollars, with the purpose of returning this ability and responsibility to the states. A multitude of other departments have been proposed with undergoing changes, as well. The combined losses of 17 other agencies would be $154.78 billion and the combined gains of those departments would be $10.18 billion, resulting in a net decrease of $144.60 billion. The only one of these departments that would result in a net gain is the Department of Transportation.
A question of where this money is going may arise, and it can be seen that the majority would go to the Department of Defense, which would gain $113.3 billion, up from $843 billion allocated in 2025. The Department of Homeland Security would have a net increase of $41.77 billion and the Department of Veterans Affairs would gain $5.49 billion and lose $530M.
These budget changes are significant, reflecting the shifting priorities of the new administration. These funding reductions may cause a research vacuum and a slowing of scientific and medical progress. It is reasonable to question how this has anything to do with college sports, especially for a private school of around 2,000 students, but the aforementioned executive orders directly relate to college sports and impacts are traceable.
The purpose of Executive Order 14322 from July 24, “Saving College Sports,” therein stated within, is to:
“Provide the stability, fairness, and balance necessary to protect student-athletes, collegiate athletic scholarships and opportunities, and the special American institution of college sports.” This is deemed necessary due to “waves of recent litigation against collegiate athletics governing rules have eliminated limits on athlete compensation, pay-for-play recruiting inducements, and transfers between universities, unleashing a sea (of) change that threatens the viability of college sports.”
The order also references the Supreme Court ruling in 2021 that the NCAA must permit players to receive compensation for name, image and likeness (NIL) from third parties such as businesses and brands, meaning that players would be allowed to use unique identifiers such as their face and voice for commercial purposes. The order argues that this change will harm “non-revenue sports” and calls to “ensure a reasonable, balanced use of resources across collegiate athletic programs.”
The order divides schools into three tiers: collegiate athletic departments with greater than $125 million in revenue in 2024-2025, those with $50 million to 125 million and those with less than $50 million. The first and second tiers are instructed to provide scholarships in non-revenue sports and provide as many rostered spots as are allowed according to applicable rules, and the third is instructed to not disproportionately reduce scholarships or roster spots. Given that our total annual revenue is $200 million, LC likely falls into tier three.
Athletics scholarships at LC and many other institutions are available, and while college sports are important and an enjoyable part of the college experience, athletic opportunities are not necessarily under attack at this moment and the usefulness of this order is debatable.
In contrast, Executive Order 14201 from Feb. 5, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” explicitly opposed the participation of transgender women in women’s sports. It is framed to protect female athletes:
“Rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy.”
This order references Order 14168, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” which provides many definitions. First, “sex” is defined as “an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female,” and not “a synonym for and does not include the concept of ‘gender identity.’” Second, “gender ideology” is defined as “an ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity, permitting the false claim that males can identify as and thus become women and vice versa” and states that “there is a vast spectrum of genders that are disconnected from one’s sex.” Third, it defines “gender identity” as a “fully internal and subjective sense of self, disconnected from biological reality and sex and existing on an infinite continuum, that does not provide a meaningful basis for identification and cannot be recognized as a replacement for sex.”
The order states that the Secretary of Education must “take all appropriate action to affirmatively protect all-female athletic opportunities and all-female locker rooms,” and penalize schools that “deny female students an equal opportunity to participate in sports and athletic events by requiring them, in the women’s category, to compete with or against or to appear unclothed before males.”
Section 4 of the order states that many institutions do not have an official position regarding transgender athletes, and some allow transgender women to participate after reducing testosterone or providing documentation. It claims that this is “unfair to female athletes and (does) not protect female safety.” Its objective is to prevent “males seeking to participate in women’s sports” and “(to ensure) that eligibility for participation in women’s sporting events is determined according to sex and not gender identity or testosterone reduction.”
Many academic institutions, including LC, do what is condemned by the latter of the two orders, which is “promoting gender ideology,” by allowing transgender athletes to participate. It is stated that this must lead to a rescinding of federal funds, which can negatively impact the athletic departments of schools that rely more on federal funding.
Even private schools such as LC will feel the effects — budget cuts in Federal Work Study and grant programs will take away funding from low-income families, potentially barring them from admission to the school and thus from college sports. The schools who receive the least amount of funding from the federal government will be the least affected, partially because financial aid would be received from the institution.
Admissions are likely to decrease for reasons interconnected with the budget, which will affect not only athletics, but campus life in general. Decreased admissions could cause institutions to spiral, as much of LC’s revenue is from tuition. Furthermore, targeting certain groups, including transgender women, can negatively impact college campuses, including LC and impact the integrity of the student body due to students feeling that their friends and acquaintances are being discriminated against.
Recent decisions of policymakers are likely to have unprecedented consequences that are difficult to predict the scope of, but will likely impact almost every area of American life. Among other things, college sports will likely be impacted, whether that is through reallocation of private and federal funds or through political and legal actions taken by the federal or state governments. Transgender athletes will be the most strongly impacted, which may have a ripple effect on other players and teams.
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