In a campaign video entitled “Protecting our students from the radical leftand Marxist maniacs who have infected educational institutions”, recently re-shared by Elon Musk, whom he appointed minister of “governmental efficiency”, Donald Trump, recently re-elected president of the United States, expresses all his dissatisfaction with towards American educational policy He particularly targets universities which “indoctrinate” students, and in particular his wish to abolish the United States Department of Education (the American Ministry of Education).
“I say it all the time, I’m dying to come back just to do it. We will end up eliminating the federal Ministry of Education,” he recently declared at a campaign rally in September .
“Radical left” and “Marxists”: what does Trump accuse of Education?
“For many years, college and university tuition costs have exploded, and I mean absolutely exploded, while academics are obsessed with indoctrinating America’s youth. The time has come to take back the left radicalize our great educational institutions of yesteryear, and we will succeed,” argued Donald Trump last year in a campaign video. “When I return to the White House, I will fire the radical left accreditors who have allowed our universities to be dominated by maniacs, Marxists, and lunatics.”
Among his proposals, removing “useless administrative positions” to reduce the cost of education, “firing” the “Marxist bureaucrats responsible for diversity, equity and inclusion”, or even “defending the American tradition and Western civilization. “Universities have received hundreds of billions of dollars from hard-working taxpayers, and now we will eliminate this anti-American madness from our institutions once and for all,” he adds in this video.
In reality, the federal ministry does not intervene in programs and in most school policies. As pointed out THE Washington Post in an article published Tuesday, November 12, Education has long been the responsibility of states and local authorities, “which provide 90% of the funding and set most of the rules.” And not from the federal Department of Education. Its role is to manage the federal grant programs (approximately 10% of funding for K-12 schools), the program that helps cover education for students with disabilities as well as the federal student loan program, worth 1600 billion dollars. It also ensures the application of civil rights laws and fights against discrimination. Its budget is also only 2% of the total budget of the federal state.
What could happen?
As the financial daily reminds us Wall Street Journalduring his first term, Donald Trump proposed merging the departments of Education and Labor, but Congress opposed it. He now wants to purely eliminate the Ministry of Education, but nothing says that he can actually do so, even if he has the support of many Republican elected officials. “Donald Trump cannot unilaterally get rid of the Ministry of Education,” explained to the American channel CBS 17 William Resh, professor at the University of Southern California and author of Rethinking the Administrative Presidency (“Rethinking the Administrative Presidency”). “Even if the Republican Party was so well aligned that it agreed to eliminate the Department of Education, Democrats would still have the filibuster tool in the Senate to block any proposal to eliminate the Department of Education. ‘Education.”
Furthermore, according to a survey carried out in August 2024 by the Pew Research Center, 44% of Americans are favorable to the Department of Education and 11% do not know, with a very marked division of opinion between Democrats and Republicans (62% for and 64% against respectively .) THE Wall Street Journal recalls that, according to a 2023 Associated Press poll, “nearly two-thirds of Americans believe that the federal government does not spend enough money on Education”. The measure might therefore not be very popular.
The president can, however, choose who to appoint as head of the ministry, and therefore influence his policy. Donald Trump also spoke about the accreditations given to establishments as his “secret weapon”which he could use, as the daily newspaper noted this Tuesday New York Timesas a means “to impose ideological changes”. He has also talked about expanding taxes on college endowments, and could push to eliminate student debt forgiveness put in place by the Biden administration in the wake of the Covid pandemic.
Donald Trump also launched during his campaign the idea of an American University, financed precisely by this tax on endowments, where there would be “neither wokism nor jihadism”. Ronald Reagan, former American Republican president, had already campaigned in 1980 to get rid of the Department of Education, without success.