A day before the 4th of July—the 249th year of what some celebrated as America’s birthdate—the current administration’s ‘big beautiful bill’ swiftly passed its way through the U.S. House of Representatives by Trump’s deadline as Vice President J.D. Vance broke the tie for the vote.
The new spending bill is currently deemed as a major win for the Trump administration, as it is the first in history to mark major tax cuts across the board, evoking divided emotions and reactions amongst many Americans across the political spectrum. The almost 900-page document consists of major tax breaks that place Republican priorities to the forefront, such as an extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts (a staggering $3.7 trillion to be exact), a $1.3 trillion cut in Medicaid and SNAP benefits, increased funds for deportation efforts and other cuts that appear to benefit only the wealthy. But specifically, how will the new bill affect access to public and private education? How will it affect those in need of proper food access and healthcare? Education experts and community leaders weigh in.
Reid Setzer, the director of government affairs at EdTrust, offered his analysis and criticized the bill. He told Our Weekly that the bill will cause devastating effects to children and families who heavily rely on federal funding to support K-12 and higher education over the next 10 years, changing the playing field of who can truly obtain their education and start a career.
“These things are just incredibly damaging to the individual students, families, and the country as a whole. It’s a failure to recognize and develop talent if that talent is part of a family that’s on Medicaid or a family that is attending a public school that needs additional investment to retain good teachers, updated textbooks, and so forth.” He continued, “This is just a misallocation of a tremendous amount of money that could have been used in much more effective ways.”
Setzer further broke down the intricacies and threat the “big beautiful bill” poses for children’s futures and how tax cuts essentially prioritize private education while taking away funding from public schools. The tax credit is given through a free $1,700 scholarship specifically for private schools, but the issue for students is that private school typically costs $10,000 – $20,000 annually, according to Setzer. The students who attend private schools will benefit, while students who can’t even afford a private education and rely on public education will fall through the cracks even more.
“It’s a ton of money that could be repurposed in education, for access, for Title 1 schools, for low-income students, for disabled students, for teacher training, and for a whole host of other things that have value. But instead, they’ve made this investment, and that’s going to be the “educational programming” for this administration and this Congress. And that’s just a huge missed opportunity from our perspective.
Reid also spoke about the future effects the tax cuts brought on from the new bill will have on students pursuing higher education and entering into the workforce over the next decade. “The bill limits borrowing for student loans. There are federal loan programs that allow undergraduate and graduate students to borrow money at set interest rates to attend college and graduate school. The bill also discontinues one of the graduate lending programs and creates new loan limits for graduate students.”
He continued, “This is a problem because the caps are low enough that it’s going to force many people, again, many of them people of color; it will force them into the private market to get more money, for example, to complete their master’s or PhD. Some career paths need a graduate education, so this all provides barriers, both from banks who may not want to lend to those individuals and also, just in general, from a societal perspective.”
The ‘big beautiful bill’ is alarming to some, as it came a few days after July 1, a day after the federal funds for public schools were slated on their normal schedule to disperse to all states but instead faced a $6.8 billion pause, implemented by the Trump administration.
An educator for over 20 years, a member of the Education Leaders of Color, and CEO of the Power of Wats Foundation, Dr. Peter Watts weighed in. “Education is the key driver to freedom in this country, to be able to move throughout this country and be upwardly mobile.”
He continued, “For my wife and I, we stress education in our household. That’s why all of our kids are college grads, and all of them are in the workforce, have their own money, and don’t live at home. But this bill undermines a lot of that; it’s going to really halt a lot of that social mobility for first-generation college students and for legacies to be built.”
Keri Rodriguez, the CEO and president of the National Parent’s Union, is also highly concerned about the effects the new bill will have on SNAP benefits, for the fact that children of low-income families are in need of adequate food to sustain themselves. “We know there are hungry kids that are sitting in classrooms. I’m the mother of five boys. I’m a 46-year-old woman. If I’m hungry, you can’t even talk to me, let alone teach me something,” said Rodriguez.
“A little boy sitting in the classroom—it makes sense. Why? Unfortunately, kids like mine ended up prime candidates for the school-to-prison pipeline, because when they’re sitting there hungry and acting up, they end up in the principal’s office, and they get that first exposure to punitive disciplinary action. And then they’re off to the races and in the system.“
She further added, “This isn’t fiscal responsibility. It’s fiscal cruelty, and lawmakers are gambling with the health and future of America’s families just to hand out tax breaks for billionaires. We’re not going to forget this as American families, and we’re not going to back down. We’re going to continue to fight.”
