So, we’ll “defund” the department, but the money will “keep flowing.” We’ll “dismantle” it, but really redistribute its programs across the government. We’ll “eliminate” it, but actually reassign its various responsibilities to other agencies. When you add that actually eliminating ED will require an act of Congress and 60 Senate votes (as Ramesh Ponnuru wrote under “What the right is saying”), what actually ends up happening is not at all clear to me.

Defund ED? Who would teach? Who would create curriculums? How would our public schools stay funded?  I was subsequently surprised to learn then that ED has very little to do with curriculum or employing teachers, and that its role in funding public schools is fractional.

The Department of Education is responsible for about 14% of all funding that goes to our K–12 schools, and at the same time the department’s reach into state and local education has gone incredibly far. Through the power of the purse, the Education Department now wields a great deal of influence over how parents, teachers, and schools behave. At the same time, a lot of what ED does could be easily moved to other departments (for instance, I think it’s pretty easy to argue that ED’s Office for Civil Rights could move to the Department of Justice).

Some writers, like Cato’s Neal McCluskey, have made straightforward arguments that we don’t need a federal education agency when the federal government isn’t allowed to regulate education, and that the department itself is neither competent nor effective. At the very least, I think one of ED’s biggest responsibilities — its federal student loan programs — has gotten completely out of control. When higher-education costs have exploded and the president responds to those costs by forgiving hundreds of billions in student debt, moving that responsibility somewhere else makes sense. Writers on the left and right have made the case that the Treasury would be better suited to manage and oversee student loans, and I’m inclined to agree with them.

my general view is that ED is not really emblematic of a thriving, successful expansion of federal government — and while trying to “delete” it with Musk-level tact or care would be a disaster, I also think Congress (if it wanted) could significantly reduce ED’s role in American life, turn over its responsibilities to other federal agencies, and streamline a lot of the work it does as a department.  The problem with the current debate is that doing so wouldn’t really reduce the size of the federal government — and it wouldn’t save us all that much money, either. Instead, the administration would just create a whole lot of disruption, risk interrupting popular services, and probably lose the political debate in the public square — all to simply pass on one department’s responsibilities to others.

The Parental Rights in Education Act specifically bans instruction of sexual orientation and gender identity "in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students." Critics contended that language was overly broad and, thus, subject to interpretation.

This article proposes to explain why education is so difficult and contentious by arguing that educational thinking draws on only three fundamental ideas&emdash;that of socializing the young, shaping the mind by a disciplined academic curriculum, and facilitating the development of students' potential. All educational positions are made up of various mixes of these ideas. The problems we face in education are due to the fact that each of these ideas is significantly flawed and also that each is incompatible in basic ways with the other two. Until we recognize these basic incompatibilities we will be unable adequately to respond to the problems we face.

Why costs are so high: The simplest answer is that schools have had little incentive to control costs, particularly when abundant student loans — both public and private — can make tuition rates appear more affordable than they really are.Moreover, some schools are motivated to spend on high-ticket items like new construction, because that can attract wealthier students (including from overseas) who don't request financial aid. In the end, however, those costs often get passed down to everyone.This is a systemic issue, which explains why most politicians have preferred to play along the easier margins.

There are possible solutions that have been circulating among education experts, not all of which rely on taxpayer largesse like making public college free for lower-income students.One would be to limit loans tied to education at schools that have a demonstrated history of onerous student debt burdens. In other words, if most of a school's students aren't receiving the sort of education that allows them to pay off their loans, cut it off at the source.This could include a gainful employment rule focused on career programs, which is favored by the Biden administration but languishing in Congress.Another would be to deny federal research grants to schools whose tuition rates increase at an unacceptably high level. This would be particularly impactful at large public and private universities.The federal government also could consider revoking the tax-exempt status of schools that exceed tuition inflation limits, although that likely would face court challenges.

The whole public-facing system of college admissions—in which admissions decisions are based on rigorous academic standards and financial aid is supposedly provided to those who are most academically and financially deserving—is an elaborate stage play meant to flatter privileged families and the reputations of colleges themselves. The real system, hidden behind the scenery, is much closer to the mechanics of pure capitalism, driven by an industry of for-profit consultants and relentlessly focused on the institutional bottom line.

A spokesman from Clark University, which tried to entice Ethan with a “$68,000 Robert Goddard Achievement Scholarship,” told me that the school “does not rely on an enrollment management consultant.” Instead, they said, it “occasionally” hires “outside analytical support” that does “not tell us how much aid to offer any student or group of students” but does “crunch large volumes of data in a timely manner that we then use to assess our progress toward our enrollment goals and estimate/project our total aid expenditure through that enrollment cycle.”

So, not an enrollment management consultant. Just, you know, a consultant that helps them manage enrollment.

As DiFeliciantonio wrote: “Wealthy families are more able and less willing to pay for college while the poorer families are more willing and less able.” In other words, parents of means who themselves have finished college are often sophisticated consumers of higher education and are able to drive a hard bargain, whereas lower-income, less-educated parents feel an enormous obligation to help their children move farther up the socioeconomic ladder and blindly trust that colleges have their best financial interests at heart. So colleges obey the algorithm and offer more financial aid to the Ethans than to the Ashleys, one of many problems identified in a recent Brookings Institution report.

Ashley submitted financial aid forms with information about her family’s modest income because everyone and everything about the process told her college aid is based on how much money you need, or deserve. She had no idea that information could be used against her. In May, New York University offered her admission if she would agree to delay enrollment until spring 2023—when, maybe not coincidentally, her good-but-not-stellar academic record would not count in the rankings data NYU submits to U.S. News & World Report. Their price? $79,070. Their aid offer? $0, take it or leave it, with 96 hours to respond.

as the countless individual stories that compose the nation’s $1.7 trillion student loan crisis show, many families make different choices. They are drawn in by a combination of optimism, blind faith, and familial obligation, and end up with debts they cannot repay. Colleges know this will happen.

Nobody is really judging your worthiness for financial aid. College is just another service with a price.