CONGRESSMAN BISHOP COMMENDS REINSTATEMENT OF THE 1890 LAND GRANT SCHOLARS PROGRAM

WASHINGTON – Congressman Sanford D. Bishop, Jr., (GA-02), the top Democrat serving on the House Appropriations Subcommittee for Agriculture, Rural Development, the Food & Drug Administration, and Related Agencies, commended the decision to reinstate the 1890s Land Grant University Scholars Program which is administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The program was suspended because of executive orders issued by the President on Inauguration Day. However, on February 21, a federal judge issued a temporary injunction blocking the portions of the executive orders that resulted in the program being suspended. On February 24, the administration lifted its suspension of and reopened applications to the program.

“The 1890 National Scholars Program makes higher education accessible for everybody. Scholars get real-world work experience at USDA while completing their studies, helping improve our agriculture industry so that it can continue to deliver the highest quality, safest, most abundant, most affordable food and fiber that every American relies on every day,” said Congressman Bishop. “The move to suspend the 1890s Scholarship Program was out of step with public support for the program and bipartisan support in Congress. The program’s reinstatement restores our ability to get the next generation’s best and brightest from every community to help our country thrive.”

During a 2021 hearing in the House Agriculture Committee, Congressman G.T. Thompson, current committee chair and Republican from Pennsylvania, said, “I would like to highlight the grant program to award scholarships to students at 1890 universities who are pursuing a career in agriculture. This provision was a priority for several Members of the Committee, and we worked hard to include it in both the House-passed version and the final conference report [of the 2018 Farm Bill].”

You can read more about the bipartisan support for the program during that hearing by visiting Congress.gov for the hearing transcript: https://www.congress.gov/event/117th-congress/house-event/112779/text.

1890 Institutions were established by law in the year 1890 to provide research, extension, and teaching in states that refused to admit non-White students to the 1862 land-grant institutions. In Georgia, Fort Valley State University is an 1890 Land Grant University. 

In the United States, there are nineteen 1890 Land-Grant institutions, serving nearly 90,000 undergraduate students and 15,000 graduate students of all races, creeds, colors, religions, abilities, and backgrounds.

The House Agriculture Committee included the scholarships in the 2018 Farm Bill and Congress supports them with both mandatory and discretionary appropriations.

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