How the ‘big, beautiful bill’ harms higher education

The "big, beautiful bill"-also known as the "big, ugly betrayal"-that Republicans in Congress passed and President Donald Trump recently signed into law, devastates so many programs that benefit working people it's hard to keep count. What do we stand to lose? How does this legislation affect different sectors of working Americans? The AFT is keeping track, and on Aug. 26 we held a virtual meeting to unpack how it all affects higher education.

Making college harder to attend

The headlining losers in this new law are Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, two pieces of the safety net that are essential for the survival and well-being of millions of Americans-including many college students. But it also guts $300 billion from higher education, seriously damaging access to education, one of the most reliable pathways out of poverty and into the middle class. By driving up loan repayment costs, slashing financial aid and cutting support for public institutions, this law puts college out of reach for far too many Americans and deepens an already inequitable opportunity gap.

The law threatens death by a thousand cuts. Among them:

• It eliminates the most affordable repayment options on student loans. These income-driven repayment options set monthly loan payments according to a person's income. But this law shifts the rules so that the typical college graduate will pay nearly $3,000 more per year in student loan payments.
• It jeopardizes access to education programs for would-be educators, early childhood workers and social workers by withholding federal funding from any program that cannot prove its graduates meet certain earning requirements after graduation. This throws low-earning professions like public service work into jeopardy.
• It eliminates grad PLUS loans, which help cover expenses for graduate-level programs. This move would push more than 425,000 students into risky private loans with no consumer protections. Private loans are also ineligible for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, a federal program that cancels student debt for people who work in public service jobs, after they have paid 10 years' worth of loan payments.
• It strips away student loan relief for students who attended predatory colleges that misled them, took their student loan money, and failed to provide an acceptable or useful education in return.
• It establishes a Workforce Pell Grant that, on the surface, seems good: It would make Pell grants available to a broader range of career training programs, including short-term programs. But because there are few program requirements, that money could go to predatory institutions that could take advantage of students without giving them any meaningful training toward legitimate careers. The AFT is concerned that there are not sufficient guardrails to keep out low-quality, high-cost programs.

Fighting at the state level

Even before the big, ugly betrayal of a federal tax law was passed, and long before the Trump White House began to take a cudgel to public education, colleges and universities had been struggling for funding at the state level. With federal cuts, that situation is worse.

• With the loss of state revenue, tuition and fees rise and the cost burden of attendance shifts to students and families.
• State cuts mean decreased academic opportunity and job loss. In some cases, entire programs of study are shuttered, leaving their students nowhere to go and putting faculty out of work.
• Cuts to college faculty, staff, administration, buildings, grounds services and more impact local communities and small businesses around those colleges, turning what could be a thriving community of learning and support into a cycle of despair.

There are many ways to fight for state funding, though, and the AFT offers a number of resources to guide affiliates in that work. A higher ed state advocacy toolkit is available, for example. And state-specific fact sheets show the potential impact of federal cuts on students, colleges, small businesses and local communities in that state.

Educators can also tell their stories, a crucial step to helping legislators understand what's at stake. While budget details can be overwhelming, ultimately public higher education is a public good that benefits us all. The stories that show this-the inspiring professors, the supportive staff and most of all the students whose lives have been profoundly changed by their college experiences-are the ones most likely to move legislators to fight alongside us for the funding and the policies we need to save public higher education.

[Virginia Myers]