Education in the Crosshairs

This administration is trying to cripple our universities

(source)

“So much of what we want to do in this movement and in this country, I think, are fundamentally dependent on going through a set of very hostile institutions, specifically the universities, which control the knowledge in our society, which control what we call truth and what we call falsity, that provides research that gives credibility to some of the most ridiculous ideas that exist in our country… If any of us want to do the things that we want to do for our country, and for the people who live in it, we have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country.”

— Vice President J.D. Vance, in a 2021 speech entitled “The Universities are the Enemy”

Dear Readers,

Higher education has been a huge part of my life. I spent over a decade in school earning my bachelor’s degree, DVM, and PhD. I diagnosed and treated thousands of sick animals as a medical intern at Virginia Tech and a pathology resident at Auburn University. As a faculty member, I ran translational cancer research studies and taught hundreds of students and house officers how to be veterinarians. Those alumni went on to become pillars of their community and valuable contributors to their local economy. Some, like

Samantha Morici, DVM

, traveled all over the world, working in public policy roles and raising the standard for vet-med globally.

That’s why it’s so painful for me to watch the new administration set their sights on dismantling the Department of Education. Today we’re going to talk about why they want to undermine public education (particularly colleges and universities) and what they are doing to defund schools, change student loan programs, and alter regulations.

—Eric

What do they want?

As I previously wrote last fall, Project 2025—which has already achieved 41% of their policy goals—advocates for a significant reduction in federal involvement in our schools, with the ultimate goal of eliminating the Department of Education altogether. They aim to reduce overall funding for K-12 schools and colleges, shift education policy and regulations to the states and local communities, and redirect federal student aid toward workforce training rather than traditional four-year degrees. Their tactics include converting federal education funding to block-grants sent to states without restrictions, moving special education programs to HHS, and shifting higher education oversight to private lenders and state governments. Additionally, it seeks to roll back Biden-era policies on student loans, Title IX expansions, and federal mandates concerning diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in schools.

“The professors are the enemy”

— J.D. Vance, 2021 (source)

Why do they want to do this? What they say is that they simply want to decentralize education policy, expand school choice, eliminate federal oversight, and restore power to parents and local communities. They talk a lot about the importance of ending so-called “wokeness” and they’re virulently opposed to DEI.

However, as the two Vance quotes indicate, this administration is openly hostile to universities themselves. At the most basic level, the critical thinking and knowledge of world history taught by a broad liberal arts curriculum is anathema to would-be authoritarians. George Orwell put it best in his classic dystopian novel 1984:

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

They know that many facts stand in the way of the reality they want to create. Virtually all scientists agree that global warming is real, and climate change is driven primarily by accumulation of carbon dioxide produced by human industries. This inconvenient truth is the fly in the ointment for a group of people who want to open the floodgates of oil and gas drilling. Evangelical Christians make up a large portion of the MAGA base, and many oppose teaching evolution in favor of creationism (or the rebranded “intelligent design”), so that’s out, too. People who study the history of colonialism, slavery, 20th century fascism? Can’t have those troublemakers filling our kids’ heads with any uncomfortable ideas!

The pro-wrestling exec in charge

The person now in charge of our nation’s schools is a pro-wrestling promoter with no background in education. Seriously.

On March 3rd, Linda McMahon was confirmed as the new Secretary of Education. Who is she? If the name sounds familiar, it’s because she is married to Vince McMahon, co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and star of this ubiquitous reaction meme template:

The original source material for this meme was a skit where McMahon received a lapdance from female wrestler and cheerleader Stacy Keibler. Classy.

So besides being the CEO and president of WWE for decades, what else on her resume qualifies her for this position?

Not much!

McMahon earned a bachelor’s degree in French from East Carolina University in the 1960s. She did not have any role in education until 2009, when she spent a little less than a year on the Connecticut State Board of Education. Why did she resign after so short a time? She claimed the reason was conflicts between her business and campaign finance rules. Another possible reason is that a local newspaper, the Hartford Courant, was about to publish a story that she had lied about having a degree in education on her questionnaire for the position: “At the time, she claimed she thought her degree was in education because she had completed a semester of student teaching.” She has also been implicated in a number of other scandals in her WWE career, including cover-ups of sexual harassment and steroid use.

Next, she unsuccessfully ran for Senate in Connecticut in both 2010 and 2012. McMahon had no further role in the public sector until becoming the administrator of the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term in office. Recently, Andy Fleischmann, chair of the Connecticut General Assembly Education Committee during the time McMahon served, summed it up bluntly:

“I cannot think of another instance in my lifetime where someone was nominated to be U.S. secretary of education with so little background in any part of the field”

Then again, this inexperience may be a feature, not a bug, to the current administration, as President Trump recently said, “Linda, I hope you do a great job and put yourself out of a job. I want her to put herself out of a job,” referring to his goal of disbanding the Department of Education.

OK, so to summarize: the person now leading the Department of Education is someone with no actual credentials or experience as an educator, who disagrees with the mission and existence of the Department, and who has a checkered past of scandals. Got it! What could go wrong???

Slashing the Department to the bone

The same day McMahon was confirmed, she sent a memo to all her employees titled: “Our Department’s Final Mission.” Rumors began to swirl about an upcoming executive order closing the entire department by fiat. While that has not happened yet (and legal experts say it would require Congressional approval), McMahon began moving quickly to downsize and weaken her agency.

Last week, the Department of Education announced a nearly 50% reduction in headcount. Out of ~4,000 employees, roughly 600 workers had accepted buyout offers (after being sent a threatening email that their jobs were in jeopardy) and another 1,300 were terminated. The employees facing reductions in force came primarily from the offices for federal student aid, civil rights, and education science:

As the infographic above shows, the majority of fired workers are union members, so they are covered by protections against arbitrary dismissal and some will likely fight this in court. However, it is clear that this move represents a major blow to their day-to-day activities, and will likely disrupt functions like processing financial aid.

Going after student loans

One of the major education goals of Project 2025 described in Chapter 11 of their playbook is to:

“…completely reverse the student loan federalization of 2010 and work with Congress to spin off FSA and its student loan obligations to a new government corporation with professional governance and management”

In the short term, they describe moving student loan administration to the Treasury Department, but the end goal is privatizing financial aid. Furthermore, they want to go after Income-Driven Repayment (IDR), which millions of Americans, including me, rely on to make their payments affordable:

“The Secretary should phase out all existing IDR plans by making new loans (including consolidation loans) ineligible and should implement a new IDR plan... If new legislation is possible, there should be no loan forgiveness [EJF: which is currently required by law at 20-25 years of payments].”

This is already starting to happen. President Trump issued an executive order significantly rolling back eligibility for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which is used by many teachers, nurses, doctors, veterinarians, lawyers, and scientists who take lower paying jobs in academia, government, and non-profits. It’s worth pointing out that during the first Trump administration, >99% of applications for PSLF were denied, so this represents a continued attack on the program beyond the status quo.

Your tax dollars NOT at work (source)

Recently, the online and paper forms for both PSLF applications and IDR re-certification were taken down from the Department of Ed website. IDR recertification is required annually or payments reset to the default 10-year fixed plan, which is substantially higher. In my case, it is roughly triple my current amount, and much more than my mortgage payment. If these forms are not restored soon, many borrowers may soon find themselves in financial distress, or even default.

Funding cuts to punish ideology

Finally, this administration is looking to starve universities financially. They are using a multi-pronged approach, ranging from freezing research grants, to slashing indirect cost reimbursement for overhead, to shuttering agencies like USAID that fund many programs. Johns Hopkins was hit particularly hard by those last cuts, standing to lose $800 million and laying off thousands of employees.

More ominously, they are using the threat of further funding cuts as a cudgel to punish universities for speech or policies they disagree with. The first major victim was Columbia University, when the federal government cancelled over $400 million in grants and contracts, ostensibly over the school’s “failure to combat antisemitism” in the wake of Pro-Palestinian student protests. This almost certainly violates First Amendment protections, but this administration does not seem to care very much about the Constitution. Even though Columbia caved and began to crack down on protesters, the administration hit them with even more demands like banning masks, changes to admission policies, and placing its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department under an administrative receivership.

Next, they are threatening the University of Pennsylvania with a $175 million loss in funding over their transgender policies. At least 60 other schools find themselves in jeopardy with similar investigations and funding cuts, including my alma mater, Cornell University, and the University of South Florida here in Tampa¹.

What now?

Honestly, I don’t know. So much is up in the air that it is hard to come up with a coherent action plan. At minimum, we need to stay informed and spread the word on how this administration is looking to dismantle public education. For student loan borrowers, I would strongly recommend downloading any and all documents from your loan servicer since there is a good chance your data and forms may be deleted in the near future. It may be worth contacting a lawyer now to start figuring out your options if your loan recertification or forgiveness applications are denied.

Lastly, I think it is incumbent on those in higher education, particularly university presidents, provosts, and deans, to push back forcefully against this assault. Too many have stayed silent or tried to placate this administration. I get it—many schools rely heavily on federal dollars, so the stakes are high. But as anyone who has ever dealt with a bully can attest, appeasement doesn’t work, it just emboldens them.

One of the few leaders in academia speaking out is Michael S. Roth, the President of Wesleyan University². He recently wrote an impassioned defense of protest from the academy in a Slate op-ed:

“Leaders in civil society shouldn’t be “demure” in the face of authoritarian attempts to align all power with a president’s agenda, civil society be damned. Business and civic officials, religious authorities and college presidents should weigh in when they see the missions of their institutions—not to speak of the health of their country—compromised. This wouldn’t be a novelty. Clergy have often done this, as have other local officials. Although university leaders do have a long history of capitulating to the powerful, there have been times when they have stood up for the values on which the missions of their institutions were built. Frances Wayland at Brown University spoke powerfully against slavery, as did Jonathan Blanchard, the president of Knox and then Wheaton College. Charles Finney at Oberlin College and Horace Mann at Antioch also were prominent in their support of abolitionist activities. A century later, Kingman Brewster at Yale, Theodore Hesburgh at Notre Dame and Harold Taylor at Sarah Lawrence made sure that critics of the Vietnam War got a hearing. And they were not demure about speaking out themselves.

[…]

Now we face a Trumpian administration intent on demonizing any opposition—either labeling differing views as “crazy,” or attaching labels to them, like “Marxist,” “ideologically corrupt,” or “transgenderist.” This is a classic authoritarian move: create scapegoats and undermine the health of civil society in order to increase the power of the leader and his loyalists.

Corporate and educational leaders must not put on a demure face and stay silent while civil society is undermined by the diktat of executive orders. We must not sacrifice academic freedom and a healthy civil society for the short-term gains of anticipatory compliance. We must instead cultivate in our institutions the ability to bring different kinds of people together in common purpose, the will to protect the vulnerable, and the resilience needed for our institutions to successfully pursue their missions. Their missions, not the agenda of whoever controls the powers of the central government. Let’s hope that the 2025 word of the year isn’t “submissive.”

Universities are by no means perfect, but historically they have been an engine of upward mobility in America, allowing students from humble backgrounds to learn new skills and find high-paying jobs. Basic academic research is the source of medical breakthroughs and new technology that benefits everyone. And an informed citizenry is critical to a healthy democracy. Education is well-worth defending, and we should not be shy about doing so.

1. The universities now under investigation for allegedly engaging in disfavored admissions and DEI policies include:

• Arizona State University – Main Campus

• Boise State University

• Cal Poly Humboldt

• California State University – San Bernadino

• Carnegie Mellon University

• Clemson University

• Cornell University

• Duke University

• Emory University

• George Mason University

• Georgetown University

• Grand Valley State University

• Ithaca College

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

• Montana State University-Bozeman

• New England College of Optometry

• New York University (NYU)

• Rice University

• Rutgers University

• The Ohio State University – Main Campus

• Towson University

• Tulane University

• University of Alabama at Birmingham

• University of Arkansas – Fayetteville

• University of California-Berkeley

• University of Chicago

• University of Cincinnati – Main Campus

• University of Colorado – Colorado Springs

• University of Delaware

• University of Kansas

• University of Kentucky

• University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

• University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

• University of Nebraska at Omaha

• University of New Mexico – Main Campus

• University of North Dakota – Main Campus

• University of North Texas – Denton

• University of Notre Dame

• University of NV – Las Vegas

• University of Oklahoma, Tulsa School of Community Medicine

• University of Oregon

• University of Rhode Island

• University of South Florida

• University of Utah

• University of Washington-Seattle

• University of Wisconsin-Madison

• University of Wyoming

• Vanderbilt University

• Washington State University

• Washington University in St. Louis

• Yale University

Source: https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/office-civil-rights-initiates-title-vi-investigations-institutions-of-higher-education-0

2. It is true that as a private liberal arts school, Wesleyan University receives far less federal grant funding than many larger R1 research institutions. Still, as the continued ransom demands placed on Columbia after complying demonstrates, obedience does not guarantee reward, so we might as well follow Roth’s brave example and go down swinging.