Besides being anti-immigrant, anti-diversity and inherently anti-
science, the Trump administration has shown time and time again that it is anti-education — because a populace that learns things
leaves fewer of the “poorly educated” voter who President Donald
Trump said he loves so much.
So, the federal government is still in its process of defunding the
Department of Education, and, on Thursday, the administration
announced plans to shift the nearly $1.7 trillion student loan
portfolio to the Treasury Department, claiming its mission is to
improve the efficiency of the loan system, or what it described as
“overdue financial discipline.”
From the New York Times: About half of all undergraduate
students receive federal aid each year, according to the
Institute of Education Sciences. More than 40 million
people currently have federal student loans, including 9.2
million in default and 2.4 million in late-stage delinquency,
according to the Education Department.
“Treasury has the unique experience, the operational
capability and the financial expertise to bring long
overdue financial discipline to the program and be better
stewards of taxpayer dollars,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.
Linda McMahon, the education secretary, said that
student aid would be better managed at Treasury. A fact
sheet from the administration promised students would
receive “the high-quality service they have come to
expect under the Trump administration.”
The second McMahon — the education secretary who thinks
Black history is DEI while being ignorant of even some of the
most well-known Black history — spoke of “the high-quality
service they have come to expect under the Trump
administration,” you have to know we’re being sold a bill of goods.
The Trump administration doesn’t provide “high-quality” anything
— certainly, not education-related.
Instead, Trump has railed about “returning education to the
states,” as if it would improve the quality of education overall,
which ignores the glaring fact that states and local governments
already dictate the academic side of their educational systems,
including the setting of curricula, teacher hiring, teacher licensing,
and standardized testing.
Under Trump’s DOE, far-right groups are overseeing programs to
“educate” America with thoroughly whitewashed U.S. history
propaganda disguised as “patriotic” civics lessons. HBCUs have
lost millions in grant funding, and Black academic institutions and
programs, in general, have been threatened.
Any and every program aimed at bettering the quality of
education for Black people and other marginalized groups has
been derailed with anti-DEI investigations and threats to withhold federal funding. And, as far as student loans go, all the MAGA-fied DOE has done is attack loan forgiveness initiatives and garnish the wages of borrowers who struggle to pay them back,
crippling their credit scores.
“In the midst of a growing affordability crisis where American
families are already struggling to make ends meet, this risks
driving millions of borrowers further into financial hardship,” Aissa
Canchola Bañez, the policy director for Protect Borrowers, a
group that targets predatory lenders, told the Times. “Instead of
providing relief to the millions of defaulted borrowers who have
fallen behind, the department is moving a portfolio of our most
vulnerable borrowers to an agency with little to no expertise in the
rights and benefits afforded to borrowers under the Higher
Education Act.”
Education is being controlled by an administration that thrives on
anti-intellectualism and the demonization of institutions of
learning, and it shows with every new policy change.
