My bachelor’s degree cost about $10,000 dollars. I graduated in 1986 and earned it while working as many hours as I could and taking overloads—22 credit hours every semester and full loads every summer and interim session. I managed it in 2.5 years. I didn’t expect anyone to pay for my degree, nor did I secure any loans.

I wasn’t all that unusual—back then.

It was Barack Obama who federalized the student loan industry. The consequences were inevitable. Provided a bottomless federal money source, colleges began admitting anyone who could obtain a federal student loan, which was just about anyone. Tuition costs dramatically rose, which allowed institutions to downsize their tenured faculties, replacing them with barely paid adjunct professors, people whose doctorates were essentially worthless. That freed funds for the hiring of more six-figure administrators whose numbers on many campuses quickly exceeded the number of teachers.

Inevitably, all those administrators created DEI/CRT kingdoms which quickly eliminated virtually all conservative professors and conservative thought, and colleges and universities became wholly owned political indoctrination subsidiaries of the Democrat Party. This was no mistake or happenstance.

Students who no competent college would have admitted in the past were greeted not because of their potential for academic success, but for their federal loan dollars. To keep them from immediately flunking out and losing those federal dollars, colleges established remedial high schools on campus, charging full tuition for no credit for people without the basic skills and knowledge necessary for college level work.

Even that wasn’t enough, so colleges began dumbing down their course offerings beyond the proliferation of “studies” majors. When that wasn’t enough, grade inflation became rampant.

It took very little time for the trends to become obvious. A great many people who shouldn’t have been in college were dropping out after a year or two with enormous loan debt they had no skills, education or ability to repay. By September of 2025, total student loan debt stood at $1.81 trillion dollars. 

Graphic: Social Media Post

In an obvious attempt to buy votes, Joe Biden’s handlers, after pausing loan repayment for years, tried to forgive the student loans of up to 43 million former students, a move struck down by the Supreme Court in 2023. Biden subsequently ignored the Court and continued to try to forgive loans, an issue that remains before the court today. 

Now, the Department of Education has shut down the hope of shifting the loan burden to taxpayers: 

Yet, according to a Dec. 9 press release by the Trump administration’s Department of Education, the plan was not only illegal but also misled millions of borrowers and shifted the burden of payments onto the American taxpayer. 

Undersecretary of Education Nicholas Kent said that “For four years, the Biden Administration sought to unlawfully shift student loan debt onto American taxpayers, many of whom either never took out a loan to finance their postsecondary education or never even went to college themselves, simply for a political win to prop up a failing Administration.” 

Kent made clear that “The law is clear: if you take out a loan, you must pay it back.” 

Imagine that: paying back loans. More than vote buying is involved:

Campus Reform Higher Education Fellow and Suffolk Community College Professor Nicholas Giordano said that “The Biden era SAVE Plan was always a gimmick dressed up as compassion, but in reality it was a backdoor attempt to shift student loan debt from borrowers to hardworking taxpayers.”

”If a borrower is still unable to earn enough to meet basic loan obligations after a few years, it serves as an indictment on the entire higher education system,” he explained. “Colleges have spent years inflating tuition, creating ineffective degree programs, and watering down academic standards.”

It was also a means to funnel money to Democrat Party causes and power. The Trump Administration is also forcing colleges to obey federal anti-discrimination laws, which means shutting down DEI programs and forcing colleges to once again be in the business of education rather than political indoctrination. Removing unnecessary and wasteful layers of administration while restoring traditional, useful curriculums has the potential to once again restore value to a college degree, while simultaneously reducing Democrat Party power and influence.

No wonder colleges are fighting it tooth and nail.

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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.