The Big Beautiful Bill vs. Higher Education
By: Tess Gallagher
Planning on going to graduate school? Think again. The infamous “Big Beautiful Bill” continues to surprise the public with its seemingly never-ending policy attacks on higher education, with each implication becoming increasingly detrimental to our futures. While it is old news that federal funding is being cut, the latest update takes that a step further. Daniel Miller of the Los Angeles Times explains how a part of the Trump administration's “Big Beautiful Bill” includes demoting several important degrees, such as nursing, education, and social work, from professional status to limit federal grants for students in these fields. As with most policy changes, this is another area the government sees as disposable, a “budget cut” worth making. Yet, it is graduate students who fuel future findings. From developing new medical technology to linking together pieces of the past, graduate students are the minds behind our technologically advanced society. More importantly, they are first responders, caretakers, teachers–society's support system. The plethora of negative policy changes made by the Trump administration regarding higher education shows how little the government values the pursuit of academia. And while the Trump administration believes it is paving the way for a “greater” America, limiting federal funding for higher education can have significant repercussions for the success and well-being of our society far beyond the realm of education.
There was a time when the government believed that education was a critical component of the nation's unification and strength. The first federal funding for students entering higher education began in the late 50s with the National Defense Education Act, which aimed to financially support students, particularly in engineering and science, to bolster national defense. Over time, this concept evolved to support and encourage the pursuit of knowledge across all majors, strengthening America's social mobility. In 2006, the Grad PLUS program was established, allowing students to borrow up to the full cost of tuition for graduate and professional degrees. Currently, a large portion of graduate students’ tuition is being funded by these grants, scholarships, and federal loans. As of 2020, about 80% of UCLA graduate students receive some form of tuition assistance. And while Georgetown University reports only 16% of graduate students use the Grad PLUS program specifically, this financial support still goes towards revolutionary research, creating a network of healthcare heroes, and building our future educators. Put simply, these grants are vital to the advancement and intelligence of the nation. But while the cost of tuition continues to rise, and the number of undergraduate students applying to graduate school slowly declines (NPR), the Trump administration clearly has no interest in supporting the great minds of our future.
While it is unclear yet what this means for students applying to graduate school right now, or even ten years down the line, the prevalence of an anti-education agenda is frightening. The Big Beautiful Bill also includes cuts to government-sanctioned research funding, sieging the Department of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and enforcing binary gender restrictions for college sports. This war on higher education seems to be an attempt to tackle the left-wing indoctrinating curriculum that colleges are accused of perpetuating. This is particularly pressing after the Pro-Palestine protests that broke out on college campuses all over the country last Spring. The Trump administration has been using the chaos of these protests as a scapegoat for implementing discriminatory and censoring policies on college campuses disguised as “safety” regulations. In the Proposed Resolution Agreement between the United States of America and UCLA, a 27-page list of demands in light of the government suing UCLA for civil rights violations, the government seeks to ban gender-affirming care at the Ronald Reagan Medical Center, end campus protests, and limit foreign student admissions.
This attack on higher education is not just about putting an end to woke liberalism on college campuses; it is one of many signs that the Trump administration is shifting towards a more authoritarian regime. In almost every dictatorship throughout history, education has always been affected. In 1933, when Hitler was appointed German Chancellor, he completely reconfigured German university education by terminating faculty and students who opposed the Third Reich, centered the curriculum around Nazi propaganda, and used student organizations like fraternities to indoctrinate the youth population (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC). After the 1973 coup in Chile, Augusto Pinochet, the militant dictator of Chile at the time, cut public subsidies to higher education and restricted enrollment access for incoming students. And currently, the Trump administration is demanding the elimination of D.E.I., revoking international students’ visas, and even banning literature for its “extreme wokeness” (ACLU). Impeding on the US education system is an obvious attempt to implement censorship and maintain control over the masses of youth populations who are displaying a significant amount of disdain for the current government. College students are the next generation of policy makers, educators, doctors, etc. We are the future. Revoking our access to graduate school, censoring our curriculum, and impeding on our constitutional right to protest is not only an attempt to keep our wokeness away from the workforce, but it is also a symbol of the so-called “big and beautiful” transition to a more totalitarian future.
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