Trump's WAR on Higher Education — Why It’s a National Crisis, from Public Schools to Harvard
The Josh Lafazan Show on YouTube - Episode 120
Welcome to The Josh Lafazan Show. In today’s important episode, we unpack President Donald Trump’s escalating war on education in the United States — a sweeping, ideologically driven campaign that now includes the total elimination of the Department of Education, targeted attacks on America’s most prestigious universities, and drastic funding cuts that threaten the country’s global leadership in science, innovation, and opportunity.
This is not a drill. Trump has gone from rhetoric to action.
On the campaign trail, Trump often floated the idea of eliminating the Department of Education. That idea has floated in conservative circles for years — from Rick Perry’s infamous debate flub to policy papers tied to Project 2025. But in March, Trump took the unprecedented step of signing an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education. If you missed his announcement, take a look:
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This reckless decision is not just symbolic. The Department of Education plays a vital role in our nation’s development and equality. It sets national policy, manages federal aid, and enforces key laws to protect students. It ensures students with disabilities receive resources, upholds civil rights, collects vital school data, and manages Pell Grants and student loans. It provides Title I funding to high-poverty districts and supports early childhood education through Head Start.
According to TIME, eliminating Title I alone — a proposal outlined in Project 2025 — would strip nearly $18 billion in funding from schools that serve the most vulnerable communities. That means 180,000 educators could lose their jobs. Classrooms would become overcrowded. Literacy programs would vanish. Low-income children would be left further behind.
The student loan program would be handed over to private lenders — a return to a system riddled with high interest rates and profit motives. States, not independent accreditation boards, would get to decide which colleges are valid. That could open the door to politicized, inconsistent standards across the country.
It doesn’t stop there. Trump has turned his fury toward higher education, especially elite universities. Harvard is now the poster child for his crusade. The president has targeted it with funding freezes, threats to revoke its tax-exempt status, and even a ban on accepting foreign students.
It’s not just Harvard. Columbia, Princeton, Cornell, Northwestern, Brown, and the University of Pennsylvania are all under fire. More than $2.2 billion in grants from the National Institutes of Health are being pulled. The National Science Foundation has ended nearly $150 million in research funding. Grants from the Departments of Defense, Agriculture, and HUD are vanishing too.
Harvard, for instance, receives about 11% of its annual $6.4 billion budget from the federal government. That money supports breakthroughs in medicine, engineering, social sciences, and beyond. Without it, critical research will be halted. Labs will close. Faculty and students will leave. America will fall behind.
And while many have rightly criticized elite schools for failing to address antisemitism and other serious issues on campus, this is not a scalpel. It is a sledgehammer. The result? America’s best and brightest will go elsewhere. Our ability to lead the world in innovation and intellectual capital will shrink.
Remember: the U.S. is home to just 5% of the world’s population, but it drives the largest economy because it attracts the best minds. Immigrants and their children founded nearly half of all Fortune 500 companies. More than a third of U.S. Nobel laureates are immigrants. Over 44% of billion-dollar startups in the U.S. were founded by immigrants.
Trump’s immigration crackdown and his war on higher education are guaranteeing a brain drain. While China invests in research and higher education, we are defunding ours. While other nations incentivize innovation, we punish it.
And while this may please Trump’s political base, it will cost the country dearly. Our children, our economy, our global standing — all hang in the balance.
It’s time for Congress to act. The Constitution clearly gives Congress the power to regulate spending and taxation. If lawmakers do not intervene, they will have surrendered one of their most fundamental responsibilities as a co-equal branch of government.
This is a pivotal moment. If we care about education, about opportunity, and about America's future, we cannot stay silent.
Tune in, subscribe, and share this episode if you believe in defending America’s students, teachers, and innovators from this unprecedented assault.
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