In the 2024-25 academic year, nearly 10 million students were eligible for the Pell Grant. That's 6 percent more than the year before. Nearly eight million of them were eligible for the max award of $7,395, which is up 31 percent from 2023-24.
The newest edition of the Government Accountability Office's annual bid protest report shows that a decade-long trend of declining protests continues. GAO saw 1,688 protests filed in fiscal year 2025, down 6% from the 1,803 filed in FY 2024. Except for fiscal 2023, when protests rose because of the CIO-SP4 contract, bid protests have dropped steadily by 40% since fiscal 2016.
It's been well established in the first year of Trump's second presidency that AI is a priority for the administration. Even prior to Trump taking office, government generative AI use cases had surged, growing ninefold between 2023 and 2024. In recent months, agencies have cut numerous deals with most leading AI companies under the General Services Administration's Trump-driven OneGov contracting strategy.
