First, DOGE terminated nearly $1 billion in contracts mainly aimed at DEI programs. Nearly half of the department’s staff was kicked out as part of the dismantling. College and university administrations are cowering in fear as they watch powerful institutions like Harvard be legally terrorized for their DEI policies and programs for international students.

The Big Ugly Bill snatched  $300 billion from the higher education system which will make going to college more costly for working class students, especially Black and Brown students. Loans and grants will have new, burdensome restrictions.

Students attending the University of Wisconsin system should expect to pay higher tuition rates this fall semester. It’s a disturbing trend across the country. Whether Red or Blue, states are responding by implementing cost-saving actions like consolidating departments, laying off professional staff, reducing travel and discontinuing research programs.

The financial growth of the country is being compromised by trump’s arbitrary and irrational tariffs and his overall ignorance about global markets. The economic turbulence does trickle down to urban cities and small towns whose struggling school districts have already been negatively impacted by dwindling tax bases. Now this.

When established by Congress in 1979, the main responsibilities of the Department of Education were to distribute the billions in federal money to colleges and schools, enforce laws, and manage the financial aid monies. It also helped to inform the pedagogy based upon research and technology. The elimination of the department is wrong on so many levels.

The development of a nation is based upon the educational success of its people. We also know that there is a direct correlation between education and life-time earnings. The hopes and dreams of young people to earn new skills and use them to improve their communities are being crushed.

Eliminating and criminalizing education is not a pathway to being an enlightened and empowered nation. Maybe that’s the point. Only the children of billionaires will be able to afford the expensive quality education. They will then ascend to their position of power in an elite ruling class to exploit and oppress the working class.

This is not what democracy looks like. The vision of the world that must be created includes the best of all us, regardless of our class and station in life. That is the challenge ahead of us. Otherwise, the United States is destined to resemble these nations where a small, rich elite dictatorship rules over a large, poverty-stricken class who serves at the behest of their rulers. We who believe in freedom and democracy have our work cut out for us.