Musk also supports the left-leaning “abolition of the Department of Education” that Trump is aiming for in the new administration | Forbes JAPAN Official Site (Forbes Japan)

President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to abolish the Department of Education and has said he would leave all education responsibility to the states. This initiative could impact education budgets and impede Americans’ right to education.

Trump has called the Department of Education, created by Jimmy Carter in 1979, “an example of government surveillance of the everyday lives of Americans” and said it was a wasted investment for taxpayers. He says, “The United States spends three times as much as any other nation on education, and yet we are near the bottom of the list.” (ranked 12th in the world)

In a video posted last year, Trump baselessly claimed that the Department of Education was “comprised of people who hate our children in many ways,” adding, “The states should be in charge of educating our children. “The states would do a much better job.”

Abolishing the Department of Education was also included in the Trump campaign’s Agenda 47 pledge and in Project 2025, created by the Heritage Foundation and others. But in the run-up to the election, Trump distanced himself from this plan.

Abolishing the Department of Education appears to be a high priority goal for Trump, but Agenda 47’s education proposals include cuts to school budgets that emphasize racial and transgender issues, and “American traditions.” It contains content that refutes the stance of the left-leaning Ministry of Education, such as the training of “teachers who uphold moral values.”

Elon Musk, who is expected to play some role in the next administration, said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on November 11 that abolishing the Department of Education was a “good idea.” Musk also claimed without evidence that since President Carter created the Department of Education in 1979, the nation’s educational standards have “dropped from 1st to 24th.”

Trump did not specifically address what would happen to the student loan program if the Department of Education was abolished. However, the next administration is expected to take a tougher stance on student loan forgiveness compared to the Biden administration. Trump criticized President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan in June, calling it “nothing more than election propaganda.”

Project 2025 proposes reallocating Department of Education programs to other federal agencies, with the student loan program moving to a new department in collaboration with the Treasury Department and other programs moving to the Department of Health and Human Services. It is said that it will be transferred.

The proposal’s education plans also include eliminating funding for students from low-income families and eliminating regulations put in place by the Biden administration that prohibit discrimination in educational settings based on gender or sexual orientation. There is.

（forbes.com Original text）