How a potential federal funding freeze could affect ICC

Updated: An sentence was added to the bottom of the article which describes ICC’s 2024 revenues.

While the Trump’s administration’s federal funding freeze Executive Order has been blocked by the courts for now, the answer for how ICC and its students might be affected by it is not readily available.

Jonathan Parker, a political science professor at ICC, has researched the effects a federal funding freeze would have on ICC and its students.

“I don’t think it would affect ICC all that much,” Parker says. “I think we are in pretty good shape should federal funds not come through for a little while. Some colleges, universities, two-years, four-years, would certainly be hurting. Some might have to close. But I think for specifically ICC, we would be okay for a time.”

As for students, the over seven hundred scholarships offered by the ICC Education Foundation would mostly not be affected.

However, students who apply for federal loans and federal grants would be affected.

“I think that students individually would probably be hurt a little more than the institution. There would certainly be a cut to the number of scholarships offered,” Parker says. “I could also see maybe a tuition rise.”

How a federal funding freeze would affect staff is a different story.

“Certainly, adjunct professors would probably be cut,” Parker says. “I would think that faculty who had not achieved tenure would probably be looked at to potentially fire as well.”

With fewer professors, this would restrict the amount of courses available.

About 16% of ICC’s 2024 revenue came from the federal government, the majority of which came from the Department of Education.