“Maybe breaking these programs is not an unfortunate side effect that might happen. It’s actually the intended goal, to cause disruption.” That was Judith Scott-Clayton, a professor of economics and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College, telling the Chronicle of Higher Education that she was worried the Trump administration’s cuts to the Department of Education could be purposefully intended to undermine financial aid for students.
It is noteworthy that Scott-Clayton and her colleagues didn’t have the same reaction when the entire financial aid system broke down under the Biden administration. This caused massive delays and forced many students to choose less expensive options since they didn’t know what their aid packages would look like. All that was apparently a big, unavoidable mistake.
There is no evidence that the Trump administration wants to curb financial aid for low-income students any more than the Biden administration did. However, there’s also no evidence that President Donald Trump has a plan for fixing the problem of college affordability any more than former President Joe Biden did.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Washington Examiner (paywall)
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James Piereson is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Naomi Schaefer Riley is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum.
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