Hodgepodge for Week of August 24, 2026: Deportation, Head Start, LGB v. T, Occupational Licensing

It's been a busy week for me, but there is still plenty going on in the world. I don't have the time to give it the full treatment, but I still want to get at some stuff that is going on. 

The cost of mass deportation: Earlier this month, the Left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI) released a deportation calculator and estimated that the government is going to spend $268.9 billion. I don't see eye to eye with EPI on a lot, but I agree that money could be spent on a lot of better things than deportation. As I pointed out in 2024, mass deportation is enormously expensive, disrupts the labor force and economy, raises prices, and ultimately imposes substantial costs on everyday Americans. 

The costs of Head Start's regulatory micromanagement: The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) covered a recently proposed rule about cutting the red tape in Head Start. Head Start is the federal program that provides early education services and related services to lower-income children. HHS proposes to save as much as $2.2 billion with its deregulation. CEI covers the examples of staff-to-child ratios, family service caseloads, and mandatory bus monitors to illustrate how Washington micromanages local programs with costly rules that lack evidence that they work. 

LGB divorcing from the T: The Log Cabin Republicans, which represents the lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) of the Republican Party, has announced that it will no longer advocate for transgender rights. Part of this divergence is due to such issues as radical gender ideology, biological men in women's sports, and gender reassignment surgery on minors. I find this to be a welcomed change given the extremeness of the trans activists. 

In 2024, I wrote a two-parter on this topic. The first part was about how the alliance between LGB and T did not make sense, in no small part because each group has different characteristics and goals. The second part was about how bringing the transgender activism and gender ideology are harming LGB individuals. I hope this trend extends beyond the Log Cabin Republicans. 

Occupational licensing: Back in 2014, I wrote about the perils of occupational licensing and how it is a harmful barrier to entry in multiple jobs, whether it is a florist, dentist, hair stylist, or a nanny. I also came across corresponding research in 2018 showing how costly it is and how it adversely affects the labor market. The Archbridge Institute has released its latest State Occupational Licensing Index. The bad news is that 20 percent of Americans are subject to occupational licensing. But there is some good news. One, there are fewer occupations that have occupational licensing. Two, more states are passing universal licensing recognition laws. Three, the licensing variation reminds us that this burden is not inevitable. 

San Francisco's "Equity Grading" Is an Example of Why Schools Need to Purge Equity from Teaching

Late last month, San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) Superintendent Maria Su publicized that the SFUSD was going to start using "equitable grading." You can read the SFUSD proposal for yourself, but SFUSD was looking to remove such traditional metrics as homework completion, class participation, and attendance in favor of summative assessments focused on "learning mastery," whatever that means. In addition, SFUSD proposed lowering the grading where an 80% was an A and a 41% a C. Popularized by author Joe Feldman, the purpose of "equitable grading" is to not have students be compliant automatons, but able to show critical thinking and deep understanding. Although San Francisco is an exceptionally Left-leaning city, the framework was yanked before it even began due to the political pressure.

For those of us who are not woke and attribute every disparity to racism and discrimination, it becomes clear as to why "equitable grading" is not a good idea. As the above implies, "equitable grading" incentivizes students to do the minimum required. To quote analysts over at the Fordham Institute, "Ability and behavior go hand in hand in determining success, which is probably why course grade point average has historically been such a powerful predictor of later success." 

The analysts also pointed out how there is ample evidence to show that not grading homework or allowing for unlimited test retakes does not work (e.g., Tyner and Petrilli, 2018; Lichtman-Sadot, 2016; Barua and Vidal-Fernandez, 2014; Vidal-Fernandez, 2011). Another working paper shows that more lenient grading resulted in higher GPAs, but did not translate into better student achievement or attendance (Bowden et al., 2023). To quote the Fordham Institute again, "Moreover, there is not an iota of evidence that reforms making grading more lenient benefit students in the long run." 

This idea hardly floors me. The fact that rewards and punishment are consequences of human behavior that shapes human action is an essential part of behavioral sciences. In 2018, I analyzed the high college dropout rate and illustrated how academic preparedness in high school was a strong predictor of whether a college student would drop out. After all, if you do not show the ability or motivation to show up and put in the effort as a child, there is a good chance that it will be difficult for you to do so as you get older. Deadlines are shown to accelerate a child's developmental process in their executive skills (Dawson, 2021) and "grades are shown as an effective means of motivating students (e.g., Gershenson et al., 2022; Gershenson, 2020; Docan, 2006; Figlio and Lucas, 2004; Betts and Grogger, 2003)." Watering down expectations to the point of reducing motivation and accountability harms the students that the "equity grading" was meant to help in the first place. 

I bring this topic up because SFUSD is not the first major school district to try this inanity. Due to the COVID-era school closures and their deleterious effects on achievement levels and student attendance that still persist, other such school districts as San Diego and Montgomery County, Maryland. While I understand teachers and principals trying to find ways to rectify the situation, equitable grading is not the way to go about it, as previously illustrated. What is more is that grading is not the only facet of K-12 education that this equity nonsense has reared its ugly head. 

I have criticized removing honors classes, the time when the state of Oregon suspended its basic skills requirement, and the insidious critical race theory that perpetuates racism. Knowledge and skills gained through education are a major predictor of one's wellbeing and quality of life as an adult. To allow for equity to come in and erode the quality of education in the United States is not only a threat to the individual students, but also the vitality of the United States to the point one could argue that equity is a national security threat. Moments like San Francisco's equity grading show us that woke influences are still with us. If we truly want to make education great again, we need to replace the mediocrity, laxness, and catering of feelings so prominent with the equity crowd by embracing academic rigor and valuing effort and good conduct once more. Otherwise, equity will continue to steamroll the U.S. education system. 

Should The U.S. Department of Education Be Abolished? And Can It Be?

Now that Donald Trump is President-Elect once more, there is a lot of analysis, speculation, and predicting of what Trump will do during his second term. If Trump is serious about implementing his proposed tariff plan, for example, it will be the biggest coup to U.S. trade since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act that compounded the effects the Great Depression. Another place of particular interest is that of education. 

Trump wants to end wokeness in education, which is a sentiment I appreciate given how much critical race theory and social justice have permeated the education system. From the looks of it, he wants to forbid Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) offices in public schools; forbid classroom lessons on gender identity and "structural racism;" keep male-to-female transgender individuals out of girl's sports; and go after colleges that have allowed anti-semitism to fester on its campuses. 

While Trump wants to reform education, his plan entails more than pulling certain levers around federal funding for public education. One thing this election cycle did, particularly with the Project 2025 controversy, was revive the debate about the U.S. Department of Education (ED). Project 2025 is technically separate from Trump's Agenda 47, but one thing they both have in common is a call to abolish ED, as did the Republican Party's 2024 Platform. I can see there being appeal to the idea:

• Abolishing ED would lower education costs. When thinking about college education, it is ED and its federal student aid that hands-down is the single largest factor as to why college tuition has skyrocketed in the past four decades. 
• Education should be localized, not coming top-down from politicians in DC. Forget for a moment that the federal government has no constitutional authority to govern education. A federal agency is ill-equipped to determine what education priorities are best. To quote the Cato Institute, "A decentralized education system is much better able to reflect and respond to the diverse needs and preferences of a pluralistic society than one controlled from the top."  
• Academic achievement has remained largely unchanged since ED's founding. Math and reading performance on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has remained stagnant. This was the case before the pandemic and the subsequent declines in standardized testing that ensued because of school closures. Furthermore, the achievement gap on the National Assessment of Progress (NAEP) and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) have failed to budge (Hanushek et al., 2019). Average scores for NAEP have only been declining since the pandemic. Since academic achievement has not improved the education of children since the creation of ED, what purpose does ED serve?
•  ED is riddled with operational problems. Look at this report from the government's oversight agency, the Government Accountability Office (GAO). ED was missing key monitoring documents in grant applications (GAO, p. 4), which means ED is not paying attention to where its money is going. ED does not independently assess the accuracy of program data (p. 4), which is poor data quality assurance. Because of data management and poor human capital management, ED has had ongoing issues with performing proper evaluations (p. 7).  

As compelling as this case is, I have to ask how viable of an endeavor abolishing ED would be. The Republican pledges to eliminate ED date back to Ronald Reagan's first time in the early 1980s. When Trump began his first term and had both chambers of the legislative branch, he did nothing, even in spite of there being legislative proposals to abolish it. 

On top of the historical intransigence, there is the issue of political feasibility. On the one hand, Pew Research survey data indicate how Americans feel about ED has a partisan divide, i.e., most Democrats like ED (62 percent) and Republicans dislike ED (at 65 percent). On the other hand, about two-thirds of Americans believe that too little is being spent on education (AP-NORC). Yes, Republicans in Congress and White House could make it more likely, although they lack a large enough majority to get past the filibuster. Conversely, it would be difficult for the U.S. government to spend more on education without ED or at least other U.S. federal agencies fulfilling that role in education. 

Even if ED itself is abolished, there is the question of whether its functions and duties would disappear or simply be transferred to other government agencies or cabinet departments. For example, federal student aid would most likely go to the Department of Treasury's Federal Financing Bank. Plus, few politicians would be inclined to slash or end funding for low-income students (Title I) or IDEA funding for students with special needs. 

So why should the U.S. taxpayers continue to fund an agency that received $228 billion in funding last fiscal year? It was not as if the American people received zero education prior to 1979 and that education magically appeared in 1979 with the creation of ED. The United States was successful without one and I am sure we could be successful if it were eliminated, especially given the cost and inefficacy of ED. 

At the same time, "Eliminate ED" needs to be more than a fancy slogan. In addition to getting past the political hurdles, proponents would need a solid plan of how to revert the role of education to state and local governments because it would take a lot of effort to modify the statutes, regulations, and bureaucracy surrounding ED. Otherwise, "Eliminate ED" is as hollow of a pledge as when the Republicans called to eliminate Obamacare last decade.

Grade School Students in the U.S. Still Have Not Recovered from COVID School Closures

As the United States goes through another brutal election cycle, I have noticed one topic about which candidates are staying quiet: the government response to the COVID pandemic. It is not only the fact that policy decisions from both parties that made the pandemic all the more unbearable. What makes it all the more jaw-dropping is that in spite of President Biden declaring the pandemic over in September 2022, we are still reeling from the poor policy choices that were made. 

There is the Fed printing a lot of money and the federal government spending a ton of money that gave us the inflation that has eaten into Americans' purchasing power. Everyday citizens trust public health experts and all vaccines (not only COVID vaccines) less. We should also think of the children because children have especially paid a terrible price for lockdowns and other non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI). It is not only the decline in socio-emotional skills or the chronic absenteeism that worry me about the children that will eventually be the future adults in this country. 

Student achievement among grade school students has taken quite the hit, according to research from the testing nonprofit Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA). This new report from NWEA, entitled Recovery Still Elusive: 2023-24 student achievement highlights persistent achievement gaps and a long road ahead, shows that growth during the 2023-24 school year fell short of pre-pandemic trends. The average student will need 4.8 additional months of schooling to catch up in reading and 4.3 additional months to catch up in mathematics. What makes this more perturbing is that the gap is the same for mathematics as it was last year and even larger for reading than it was last year. What was expected to have ended, as expressed by the authors of the NWEA report, is taking much longer to recuperate. 

As eye-opening as these findings are, we still do not know the full extent of the damage that school closures, lockdowns, and other NPIs caused to millions of students. Lower academic achievement is as tragic as it was predictable. I expressed my concerns as early as July 2020 that school closures would have a considerable and negative impact on student achievement. 

I highlighted preliminary findings in June 2022, one of which included that a loss of three months of schooling is equivalent to 2.5 to 4 percent of one's life income. Given that the NWEA findings show an average of over 4 months of lost schooling, the school closures have damaged life earnings even more than 2.5 to 4 percent. This will translate into a smaller economy, a diminished purchasing power that will adversely impact these future adults, and even shorter lifespans. 

As the NWEA report points out, lower achievement and widened inequities are the new norm. What makes this more lamentable is that no one is going to be held responsible. It certainly will not be Dr. Anthony Fauci. Not only did Fauci's recommendation influence many school districts to remain closed. It was Fauci's six-foot social distancing recommendation (which has since been shown to be anti-science nonsense) that made school re-opening impractical for many classrooms, thereby delaying children from returning to a sense of normalcy. 

Aside from knowing that those responsible for such mayhem will not be held responsible, I do know one other thing. If there is to be a recovery in which lower achievement is not a permanent norm, there is quite the uphill battle. A high teacher turnover rate, chronic absenteeism, higher rates of anxiety and depression among students and teachers alike, and now diminished student achievement to the list. Assuming that the damage can be reversed, it is going to take years to do so. Outside of that, there is the faintest of hopes that we do not put our trust in the government next time there is a pandemic. That way, we can avoid of harming all of our citizens, including our children. 

Biden Is At It Again With Some Costly Student Loan "Forgiveness"

"If you at first don't succeed, try, try again." That is the approach of President Biden and his attempts with student loan "relief." It does not matter that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down his student loan forgiveness program last year in Biden v. Nebraska, which the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) estimated would cost $400 billion. That does not stop Biden from giving up on the idea. Last week, the White House announced a new plan to "provide relief to borrowers disproportionately burdened by student debt." This plan entails multiple provisions, including:

• Waiving up to $20,000 of accrued and capitalized student loan interest
• Eliminating student loan debt for those who have had debt for more than 20 years
• Assisting borrowers who experience hardship in paying back loans
• Applying the most favorable repayment options, whether under this latest version or from the previous version (known as SAVE)
• Helping borrowers enrolled who enrolled in low-financial-value programs or institutions

The Penn State Wharton School of Business, which is the premier business school in the country, modeled the cost of Biden's student loan plan. When combining the overlap between the new plan and previous SAVE plan, Biden's student loan plan is going to cost $559 billion!

When Biden first tried student loan "cancellation" with the SAVE Plan, I was critical enough to provide a list of 13 reasons why such a policy does such a disservice. These reasons ranged from the unfairness, cost, and lack of economic stimulus to its regressive nature, the moral hazard, and doing nothing to prevent that the problem from resurfacing. As the CRFB brought up in its response to Biden's latest plan:

You can't solve a very real debt problem by issuing more debt. The President's previous student loan cancellation plan was expensive, inflationary, poorly targeted, and would have boosted rather than reduced tuitions. This plan similarly misses the mark.

Knowing that it is an election, I know this is more than wanting to help out the little guy. It is about fulfilling a 2020 campaign promise, as well placating a certain demographic amongst the Left that is more likely to be critical of Biden's stance on the conflict in the Middle East. Biden's student loan plan is not going to do anything to lower tuition costs. If anything, Biden's plan will create inflationary pressures, both in the higher education market specifically and the macroeconomy generally. If the Biden Administration were to do the responsible thing, it would abandon this plan and work on reforms that would actually reduce college tuition costs. Sadly, it looks likely that good politics will defeat good policy once again.

4-16-2024 Addendum: Apparently, the Wharton School is not the only one to come up with an estimate. The CFRB released its analysis today (4-16-24) and found that it could cost anywhere between $250 billion and $750 billion. 

Removing Honors Classes Is Yet Another Woke Assault on K-12 Education

Public K-12 schools have taken a wallop since the pandemic began. In an attempt to prevent the spread of COVID, multiple school districts decided to implement school closures. How did this remote learning fare for students? Not only were there learning losses, but these learning losses will result in future depreciated wages. Preliminary data suggest that chronic absenteeism got worse since COVID. In the meantime, the dangerous critical race theory made its way into the curriculum of most schools. As if there has not been enough harm to K-12 students this decade, educators are increasingly looking at eliminating honors classes. 

The purpose of honors classes is to provide an enhanced academic experience for high-achieving students that want to learn more than the regular classes. Honors classes often come with the ability to take exams that could provide college credit. On a personal level, I took a lot of honors courses in high school. I excelled on enough of those tests where I came in with nearly a year's worth of college credit before I even started college. By taking honors courses in high school, I was able to take more of the coursework I wanted to in college. Having those honors courses both challenged me intellectually and helped me advance in my postsecondary education. 

It is because of my experience I have to ask myself why there is this call to get rid of honors classes. I recently came across a Wall Street Journal article (has a paywall) that highlights school districts that are experimenting with de-tracking. The idea behind tracking is using previous test scores or coursework to match them to courses best suited for their academic level. It seems sensible to put students in classes that best fit their level of academic achievement and comprehension of subject material. 

However, tracking critics assert that tracking promotes inequity. These critics argue that tracking is not only a reflection of inequity, but exacerbates it by allocating high-status to some while denying it to others. For tracking critics, the solution is to de-track the students by "offering the same courses to all students in classes composed of students who are heterogeneous in ability." De-tracking proponents posit that exposing students to the more rigorous coursework could help close the achievement gap. 

A couple of years ago, the Left-leaning Brookings Institution summarized the research on de-tracking. First, the literature on tracking is "usually described as 'mixed,' but with a clear warning that tracking can exacerbate gaps between high and low achievers." Second, "the schools that have experimented with de-tracking have not yet produced results strong enough to convince the mass of educators to abolish tracking." I do not believe that tracking exacerbates gaps. If it were true, desisting with tracking, i.e., de-tracking would improve the situation, yet, it has not.  

The lack of evidence for de-tracking does not surprise me. A National Bureau of Economic Research study following a random sample of thousands of students found that when school choice (e.g., charter schools) was taken into account, tracking programs can help low-ability students (Figlio and Page, 2000). There is also a paper from economists at UC-Berkley and the University of Miami that tracking has significant positive effects on reading and math aptitude for Black and Hispanic students (Card and Giuliano, 2015).

The intuition lines up with the empirical evidence. What happens if you put brighter students in with everyone else? At the very least, they get bored. At the most, they rebel. What happens if you mix students with low academic achievement in with everyone else? They are going to struggle. After all, if a student is already academically behind, what good does it do to inundate that student with even more complicated coursework? A recent study from Learning and Instruction points out that de-tracking negatively affects the academic self-concept of students with low academic achievement (Fleischmann et al., 2023).

In 2021, the state of California tried to reform mathematics education by passing the California Mathematics Framework (CMF), which included reducing the availability of advanced mathematics courses. Hundreds of college professors signed a letter in protest, including professors from Stanford, Columbia, and Harvard. These professors criticized this move by saying that "Initiatives like the CMF propose drastic changes based on scant and inconclusive evidence. Subjecting the children of our largest state to such an experiment is the height of irresponsibility." Rather than having a "one size fits all" approach, the professors recommend multiple pathways to explore mathematics. 

How does eliminating options for students to excel such as honors courses help motivate low-performing students to achieve better academic outcomes? Answer: it does nothing to motivate. All it does is implicitly send the message that teachers have given up on helping out those who could use the help. 

The question should not be about whether we remove honors classes, but making them more accessible to students. Students need additional supports, especially in primary education before tracking begins in middle school or the early years of high school. As Senior Research Scientist at the Northwestern Evaluation Association (NWEA) Scott Peters points out:

Critics say attempting to teach everyone at an elevated level isn't realistic and that teachers, even with the best intentions, may end up simplifying instruction. Instead, some educators and parents argue schools should find more ways to diversify honors courses and encourage students to enroll who aren't self-selecting, including proactively reaching out to students, using an opt-out system, or looking to teacher recommendations.

De-tracking is another reminder that the pursuit of equity is not about providing equal opportunity; it's about providing equal outcomes. Last month, I covered that same phenomenon when Oregon decided to suspend its basic skills requirement for high school graduation. Yes, it would be great to provide all students with the opportunity to succeed. Those obsessed with equity do not want to admit that not everyone can be equally intelligent, motivated, resourceful or successful, no matter how much they try. The sooner the education system can prioritize learning over equity, the sooner we can help more and more students succeed in the classroom. 

Oregon Suspends Basic Skills Requirement for Graduation: Another Example of How Pursuing Equity Dumbs Down Education

Last week, the Oregon Board of Education unanimously voted to remove its basic skills requirement to graduate high school. Prior to 2020, Oregonian high school students had to prove proficiency in mathematics, reading, and writing either through standardize testing or assignments recognized as the equivalent (e.g., work samples), in order to graduate. If students could not pass the standardized test or work sample, they would need to take extra writing and math classes during their senior year. 

In 2020, the state of Oregon suspending the standardized testing due to the pandemic. Although the pandemic has been over for a while, the Oregon Department of Education has decided to extend this suspension until the 2028-29 school year. Why? Because the Department claims that the requirement is unfair to historically marginalized students. 

I decided to take a look at the student assessment results data from Oregon's Department of Education. I looked at the 2018-19 school year, the last year before the state got rid of the graduation requirement. Let's use the mathematics results. What percent of students were considered proficient [at Level 3 or 4] in mathematics? 32.1 percent of students. Yes, it inconvenienced 89.1 percent of Black students and 80.7 percent of Latino students. However, it also inconvenienced 44.2 percent of Asians and 63.7 percent of white students. 

The fact that most students generally are not deemed proficient shows that it does not exclusively create a hurdle for historically marginalized students, thereby undermining the argument. Also, another aspect that undermines the argument. If the requirements were racist now, how would they be less racist in 2028? If they were truly racist, why not simply eliminate them? 

Let's ask another question. By removing the requirement on these grounds, what sort of message are you sending? That minority students are incapable of learning? It is a soft bigotry of low expectations. Of course, these same people would plausibly argue that Asian-Americans are merely "white-adjacent," even though Asians have a history of being marginalized in the United States. It is convenient for these educators to ignore Asian-Americans because they have, on average, become successful in spite of adversity. The Asian-American success story goes against the narrative of the "oppressed minority."

How does removing this basic skills requirement help historically marginalized students? It does not help incentivize students learn better. If the Oregon Department of Education were serious about helping minority students, they would direct resources and supports to help disadvantaged students, not discount a neutral yardstick that measures proficiency. 

If a high school student cannot demonstrate even a partial understanding of the basics in math, English, and writing, what is the likelihood that would succeed in college? As I pointed out a few years back when discussing dropout rates, academic preparation is a major indicator of academic success. Allowing 11th grade students to continue on to 12th grade without additional intervention is irresponsible. Eliminating such a requirement is a tacit admission that public schools are failing their students. Plus, school districts in California, Michigan, and New York cut academic standards. Surprise, surprise, it did not result in better academic outcomes for their students. 

Snopes pointed out that Oregon statute de jure requires that students earn three credits in math; four in English; three in the natural sciences; and three in the social sciences. Even acknowledging this statute, there are still two issues. One issue is that of grade inflation. While grade inflation started as a phenomenon in the 1970s, it really took off in 2016 (Hechinger Report). More pervasive grade inflation means that using school credits is inadequate as a substitute for a basic skills requirement. 

The second issue has to do with what the Oregon Department of Education is contemplating. In lieu of the traditional "A to F" grading scale, the Department is considering the implementation of "equitable grading." What "equitable grading" means varies by district. Some commonalities entail avoiding zeros on the 0-100 scale; giving a minimum score of 50; letting students retake grades to replace former grades; no late points take off; feedback remarks as grades as opposed as to numbers on a scale; and making consequences related to cheating not connected to grades. 

The goal is to try to make education more accessible to those who struggle. Looking at the implications of such a system, however, it means that a student cannot flunk for cheating or get a zero for not showing up. Rather than ensuring that students have the proper resources, it means either giving the same or trying to give as similar of a grade as possible, which is implied in the phrase "close the achievement gap." As we see with the Los Angeles case study, the widening gap between grades and actual academic performance show the perils of "equitable grading."

What should be rewarded? Effort and ability, not failure or laziness. Oregon had put these standards into place in 2008 so Oregonian secondary education did not turn into a participation trophy. Yet that is what an Oregon high school diploma is becoming. It is not only Oregon that is in the process of watering down its education standards. As I pointed out in 2021 when I criticized critical race theory, school districts are findings ways to lower standards in education: removing homework, eliminating the use of quizzes, arguing that mathematics is a form of white supremacy. Earlier this year, a high school in California eliminated honors classes using "equity" as an argument. 

We have to restore our education system to one where educational achievement is more important than hurt feelings. Having standards should be more important than assuming people are "fine just the way they are." Education should be about learning and growth, not propping up a false sense of self-esteem that does nothing to serve high school students down the road. Until our educators realize those salient points, the U.S. education system will continue to slip towards mediocrity.

Did COVID School Closures Exacerbate Chronic Absenteeism? It Is Looking More and More Likely.

Another Labor Day weekend means that schools across the country are back in session. You would think that with a school year starting, it would mean a whole lot of students would be attending school. However, that may not be happening as much as you would think. Last month, the Associated Press reported that students have been absent at record rates since schools reopened during the pandemic. In the United States, schools went from 15 percent of students missing at least 10 percent of school pre-pandemic to 25 percent. What could have caused such an increase in absenteeism in such a short time? A preprint paper released last month from Stanford education studies professor Thomas Dee shows how bad that chronic absenteeism became. An increase of 13.5 percentage points (which is a 91 percent increase), or to put that in another way, 6.5 million more chronically absent students between 2018-19 and 2021-22. 

What is interesting about Dee's analysis is what we could not blame since there was a lack of correlation in the data. One was mask mandates in schools. This is important because an argument from the maskaholics during the pandemic was that mask mandates kept students in school. This Stanford preprint study indicates they did no such thing. Another one is that "private and charter schools are stealing students from public schools." This study did not show that demographic shifts in people moving or a crowding out effect from private and charter schools are not responsible either. The Brownstone Institute took some of Professor Dee's raw data on the research and showed a different possibility that the Professor did not discuss in his paper. 

Above is the correlation data between the length of school closures with chronic absenteeism. What we see is a modest relation between the two. Since the decisions to close schools were made on a district level, it is hard to extrapolate too much from these state-level data. This also keeps in mind that historical data on chronic absenteeism are limited and it would be nice to see district-level data. I hope more research is done on the topic. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that states with longer school closures have greater issues with chronic absenteeism. 

For those of us who had the foresight to see the larger issue with COVID school closures, this correlation is not a surprise. In mid-2020, I pointed out that it did not make any sense to close schools because children were not superspreaders and the costs would be great. It turns out that I sadly was correct. In my 2022 analysis of how COVID policy affected children, I covered school closures once more. I came across multiple costs covered in the academic literature that ranged from lowered academic achievement to lower GDP and lower lifetime earnings. 

COVID school closures exacerbating chronic absenteeism makes sense when you think about it. Trying to get students to learn at home and sit in front of a screen all day severed the capacity to focus on or care about school. Students struggled with mental health during the pandemic. We can thank lockdowns and school closures for increased depression, anxiety, isolation, suicidal ideation, and sleep deprivation. Or to quote the CEO of Attendance Works (which focuses on addressing chronic absenteeism), "the pandemic really, really broke down connections between kids and schools."

We have to remember that it was not COVID that shut down the schools. Viruses can make people sick and kill them from infection. Viruses are physically incapable of shutting down schools. School closures were an active policy choice, one that was rejected by European schools, American private schools, and a few red states. Teachers unions peddled fear to keep schools and multiple school districts prominently under Democratically governed jurisdictions capitulated. 

And yes, this was a major faux pas among much of the political Left in the United States. The New York Magazine and The Atlantic, both of which are prominent Left-leaning media outlets, pointed out the abysmal failure coming from the Left on school closures. The effects of school closures disproportionately affected minority students, which is even more embarrassing given how much those on the Far Left clamor for greater equity. The fear of COVID in many enclaves of the political Left superseded the damage COVID restrictions caused to students. If this article from libertarian Reason Magazine is indicative of anything, it is that various COVID school closure components, including American Federation for Teachers President Rand Weingarten, would rather whitewash history and wash their hands of the damage they caused children. 

A theme I will keep repeating until I get blue in the face is that policymakers, politicians, and other decision-makers need to learn from the past mistakes on such policy debacles as school closures. Tough questions need to be asked about what policy decisions transpired during the pandemic because without that understanding, we are opening ourselves to letting fear get the better of us once again and making the same policy mistakes for when the next pandemic comes.

Should Legacy Admissions Be Eliminated Along With Affirmative Action or Is It a Red Herring?

Last month, the Supreme Court made a great call of making affirmative action illegal. It is not only the ethical or logical issues with using overly broad racial categories that perpetuate racial tension. Affirmative action is an example of "too little, too late" in terms of education reform. I was glad to see this form of actual institutional racism disappear. This has led to pundits on the Left to bring up another practice in college admissions: legacy admissions. 

Legacy admissions, or alternatively legacy preferences, is the practice of giving preference to an applicant based on their familial relation to the alumni of that postsecondary institution. The practice started in the 1920s as a way to keep White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASP) in universities because admissions departments were worried that Jews, Catholics, and Asians would dominate. What started off as a policy based in actual bigotry (as opposed to woke people calling everything they dislike "bigotry"), its rationale for being nearly ubiquitous in U.S. college admissions is financial. The rationale is that legacy admissions are way to position students to become better donors in the future. Political commentators on the Left have depicted this practice as "affirmative action for white people."

I would like to look at it from an economic lens, but let's start with the assertion that legacy admissions disproportionately benefit white applicants. One proxy that can help answer that question is figuring out what percentage of children's parents graduated from a university. This can at least provide a high-bound estimate of legacy admissions. According to U.S. Department of Education data (see below), Asian-Americans have the highest percentage (71 percent), followed by Caucasians (52 percent). 

While Asian and white applicants are more likely to have a parent who graduated from college, that does not mean that the applicant will automatically choose to go to school where their parents attended. The argument about demographics gets tricky because, as a report from U.S. News points out, "legacy demographics can vary between schools" and "alumni connections may not be as closely associated with wealth or race at certain institutions." Unless you can prove that Harvard or other universities maintain legacy admissions to keep white students in or minority students out, the Supreme Court is going to be hard-pressed to remove legacy admissions.  

Irrespective of racial demographics of legacy admissions, it begs the question of whether or not someone should get into a college primarily or solely because their parent attended that postsecondary institution. As mentioned earlier, the primary rationale for legacy admissions is financial. To quote one study, "legacies make better alumni after graduation and have wealthier parents who are materially positioned to be more generous donors than non-legacy parents (Castilla and Poskanzer, 2022)." Plus, legacy students are more likely to accept an offer, which means a more reliable revenue stream for college coffers. 

That is the logic used. However, it is unclear as to whether or not removing legacy admissions would have an economic impact, as a poll of economists commissioned by the University of Chicago illustrates. As Yale economist Judith Chevalier indicates, "the elasticity of donations with respect to child admission is unknown." Plus, such elite universities as Johns Hopkins and MIT have recently eliminated legacy admissions without impact to their endowment funds. 

Whether legacy admissions ultimately help with university finances does not get at if legacy admissions should be allowed. On the one hand, there is at least some level of discrimination. There are only so many applicants that get accepted because there are more applicants than there are seats. There is going to be discrimination in some form. 

We as a society figured out that racial discrimination is morally wrong, which is why I do not view legacy admissions on the same level as affirmative action. We have the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of Civil Rights Act of 1964 to guide us towards a post-racial America, all of which makes affirmative action an anachronism at best and a form of institutional racism at worst. However legacy admissions got started, their main rationale in 2023 is financial in nature, not racial. 

The existence of legacy admissions is not a reason to oppose the Supreme Court's ruling on affirmative action. After all, eliminating explicit racial discrimination is a step towards a post-racial America. However, if we are to live in a society that judges people by the content of their character, then it would stand to reason that legacy admissions need to go. 

I could argue that private institutions should be exempt because of freedom of association. Conversely, private universities are major recipients of federal funding, particularly for research and development purposes (see federal database here). As long as that sort of funding exists, their funding should be contingent upon not using preferential treatment, whether affirmative action or legacy admissions. The same strings should be attached for the charitable-giving deduction tax break if it is given in response to a legacy admission. If the Supreme Court cannot rule against legacy preferences, then Congress should cut off funding for institutions that use legacy preferences. 

After all, this country was founded on the ideal of meritocracy. We should fight for others to have the opportunity to succeed. We should not guarantee equal outcomes, but strive for an ideal in which one's outcome is primarily, if not completely, based on individual merit. That has been the American Dream: that someone from any background, whether native-born or foreign-born, can be awarded based on their hard work and achievement.   

Those who have taken issue with meritocracy are having their version of "education" play out: increased indoctrination (as opposed to critical thinking skills), the erasure of logic and rational thinking, a lowering of the education standards, and a general dumbing down of the United States' students. I know that this ideal of meritocracy has not played out perfectly in practice and might never happen in full. Nevertheless, it is a noble ideal that has historically distinguished the United States from its European counterparts. Aiming towards an identity-blind meritocracy is the best we can hope for. 

Admissions officers do not need to use legacy status as a proxy for academic performance when they can directly go to measures of academic performance and other merit-based metrics. Using broad and crude definitions of race do not measure the quality of an applicant, and neither does whether mommy or daddy attended that university. Much like with affirmative action, legacy admissions are antithetical to the values upon which this society was founded. Removing legacy preferences would bring this country a step closer to those ideals.

Criticizing Affirmative Action Through an Education Policy Lens

Late last month, the Supreme Court announced the death knell for affirmative action in college admissions. In my post last week, I outlined how using race as a major determinant for college admissions is morally problematic and how broad and crude categorizations of race should not be used, especially if we want to live in a society with less racism. I do not understand how affirmative action proponents talk about eliminating racism in society yet support the institutionalized practice of judging black people by a different standard, academic or otherwise. I have studied enough of the history of African-Americans to see the resilience and persistence of African-Americans. Their ability to overcome such obstacles was especially notable during the Civil Rights era in the 1960s. Apparently, I have more confidence that black people can move forward without special treatment than many prominent affirmative action proponents do. 

Today, I want to put more emphasis on looking at affirmative action through a policy-based lens. One thing I think about is the tradeoff with affirmative action in play. The first thing I learned in my graduate school program for public policy is that there are always tradeoffs with any policy. In this case,  the game of college admissions is a zero-sum game because there are only so many spots offered to a given college. If there are more spots going to black students, it has to crowd out someone else. 

While there is some crowding out of white students, it also crowds out another demographic: Asian-Americans.  It is no accident that the plaintiffs in the recent Supreme Court case, i.e., the Students for Fair Admission, were of East and South Asian descent. I came across a writer at the Left-leaning New York Magazine who was for affirmative action but at least intellectually honest enough to acknowledge the tradeoff. If you want to read more about how this penalty against Asian-Americans plays out and how an Asian-American with better metrics is less likely to get an acceptance letter than an African-American with lower scores, you can read this analysis from Duke economics professor Peter Arcidiacono. So why should Asian-Americans, many of whom did not have ancestors living in the United States for much of U.S. history, be punished for how certain white people in the past treated black people? 

Before reaching my main point, I have to ask two questions. One is that if affirmative action is so vital for success, why is it there are still such racial issues with admissions nearly six decades after affirmative action existing? I find it rich that university admissions officers pretend to be the saviors that will bring about "diversity" when they are the gatekeepers that are part of the problem. The second question is how long such a policy needs to be in play. Much like I brought up last week, the affirmative action proponents do not have an objective way to determine when there is "adequate diversity, whatever that means. Plus, they admit that present and future discrimination are the only recourse to past discrimination, which means that in their minds, affirmative action should be a permanent institution. 

Now to my main outcomes-based issue that I have with affirmative action, which is that affirmative action hides the real issues facing minority candidates for college. Affirmative action only focuses on admissions and does nothing about the trajectory of students after they are admitted. Look no further than the dropout rates in this country. 

The truth is that African-American students have higher college dropout rates. One study found that 42% of Black students graduate within six years, which is below the 63% national average (Sarette, 2022). When I covered the topic of what is causing the college dropout rate, academic preparedness was one of the biggest factors. If students are not academically prepared in grades K-12, odds are they will not have the skills to succeed in college. Does it matter if a certain student gets accepted to a college only to drop out in the end? This is something that the dissenters on the SCOTUS case tacitly concede because none of them argue their minority opinion from the lens of purported educational benefits.

Affirmative action does not lead to the economic or social development of African-Americans because larger dropout rates in spite of affirmative action signal will make it more difficult for African-Americans to find good-paying jobs. This brings us to the idea of mismatch. The mismatch hypothesis posits that affirmative action results in minority students being placed in colleges for which they are otherwise unqualified, a hypothesis which could explain the higher dropout rates among Black students. I am not going to get into detail about the mismatch effect today. If you want to read more, you can either read what I wrote in 2015 or read what the Right-leaning Manhattan Institute wrote last year on the subject. 

The Right-leaning Manhattan Institute also points out racial preferences in college admissions are so appealing because they represent the path of least resistance instead of making actual change. This segues into another unpleasant truth, which is that the academic achievement gap between races already exists well before college admissions. The racial disparities exist at a young age, whether it is recognizing letters and numbers or mastering reading and mathematics. These figures illustrate how at best, affirmative action is another example of "too little, too late." There are many factors that come into play well before college admissions that make success more or less likely, some having to do with educational attainment specifically and others having more generally to do with poverty.

Instead of obsessing over race, we should focus on obstacles towards educational attainment. One of the bigger relevant focuses should be on improving K-12 education so that students, but minority students in particular, can improve their academic participation. Another should be focused on alternative post-secondary options outside the traditional four-year college. I have brought up before that a four-year college is not for everyone. For some students, getting an associate's degree or going to a trade school could be a lucrative path. We need to drop the societal expectation that everyone needs to attend a four-year college to be successful. 

In summation, affirmative action is not only an issue from a moral standpoint. At best, affirmative action is a fine example of "too little, too late." At worst, it holds back racial progress and helping all Americans, particularly African-Americans, achieve the American Dream. I may or may not get to this topic in the near future, but I will end with it as a thought. This Supreme Court ruling was overall a step in the right direction, but there is still work that needs to be done if we are going to have the American Dream be accessible for all.

Using Race-Based College Admissions Is Morally Egregious and Nonsensical

Earlier this week, we celebrated the Fourth of July, which commemorates the day that the Declaration of Independence was ratified. A major part of the Declaration of Independence is the idea that "all men are created equal" and that all people are endowed with such "unalienable rights" as life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court brought us one step closer to that ideal by striking down race-conscious college admissions in the case of Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College. This case not only reaffirms that two wrongs do not make a right, but also that the Fourteenth Amendment means "prohibiting racial discrimination in all but the narrowest circumstances, even when such discrimination is done in service of an otherwise 'noble' goal."

My opposition to affirmative action is nothing new and it still stands even after this latest Supreme Court ruling. When it began in the 1960s, affirmative action was meant to grant special consideration to historically excluded groups, particularly African-Americans and women. The purpose of affirmative action has been to increase employment and education opportunities for these historically underrepresented demographic groups. 

The problem for proponents is that they think they are ending discrimination when affirmative action itself is a form of discrimination. To quote Ibram X. Kendi, "the only remedy to racist discrimination is anti-racist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination." The problem with Kendi and this thought process of other affirmative action proponents is that it would be an endless cycle of discrimination. Affirmative action does not eliminate or lessen racial discrimination, but serves to perpetuate it.

As Chief Justice John Roberts brought up in his majority opinion, "the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual, not on the basis of race." Thankfully, most Americans can see why affirmative action is morally problematic, even if university admissions officers cannot. The ideal of equal treatment is still held by Americans of all races. According to the most recent Pew Research polling data (see below), most Americans do not believe race or ethnicity should be a factor in college admissions decisions, and that includes 59 percent of African-Americans. It is a little more divided with selective colleges specifically (see here), but the general finding remains the same: most Americans do not care for race being used as a factor in college admissions. 

One of the other reasons I do not care for affirmative action is because the idea of using race as a basis for college admissions is that upon examination, it is as absurd as it is arbitrary. Justice Neil Gorsuch does a fine job illustrating the inchoate nature of these so-called racial categories in his concurring opinion in the ruling:

These classifications rest on incoherent stereotypes. Take the 'Asian' category. It sweeps into one pile East Asians (e.g., Chinese, Korean, Japanese) and South Asians (e.g., Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi), even though together they constitute about 60 % of the world's population...This agglomeration of so many people paves over countless differences in 'language,' 'culture,' and historical experience.

Gorsuch goes through this analysis for Hispanic, White, and Black. I covered the "White" category when refuting the ridiculous notion of "white culture", so need to do that here. I will provide Gorsuch's analysis on the ridiculousness of the category of "Black":

'The category of' 'Black or African American' covers everyone from a descendant of enslaved persons who grew up poor in the rural South, to a first-generation child of wealthy Nigerian immigrants, to a Black-identifying applicant with multiracial ancestry whose family lives in a typical American suburb.'

This illogic manifests in another way. To quote Gorsuch again, "If anything attempts to divide us all up into a handful of groups have become only more incoherent with time. American families have become increasingly multicultural, a fact that has led to unseemly disputes doubt whether someone is really a member of a certain racial or ethnic group." These crazily broad categorizations used for race similarly shows the illogic of the argument for reparations. 

It also brings up another question of what constitutes an adequate level of diversity: "Should universities be racially representative of their states, their nations, perhaps even the globe? In practical terms, it is a codeword for treating people according to the color of their skin rather than the content of their character."  As the libertarian Cato Institute rightly points out, "the diversity rationale is inherently stereotypical because it assumes that students brings something to the table by virtue of their race alone." And how do we measure diversity? The majority opinion illustrates this point: 

"At the outset, it is unclear how courts are supposed to measure any of these [diversity] goals. How is a court to know whether leaders have been adequately trained; whether the exchange of ideas is robust; or whether new knowledge is being developed? Even if these goals could somehow be measured, moreover, how is a court to know when they have been reached, and when the perilous remedy of racial preferences may cease?"

As Justice Thomas put it, "As she [Justice Jackson] sees it, we are all inexorably trapped in a fundamentally racist society, with the original sin of slavery and the historical subjugation of black Americans still determining our lives today." The use of statistical disparities is the weak argument that Justice Jackson uses in her dissent. The problem is, much like I brought up last May, that the existence of disparity does not automatically mean racism or discrimination. Plus, as Justice Thomas rightly illustrates, what schools cannot do is "use the applicant's skin color as a heuristic, assuming that because the applicant checks the box for 'black' he therefore conforms to the university's monolithic and reductionist view of an abstract, average black person."

In other words, assuming that individuals are primarily or solely their skin color is not only untrue, it is racist to generalize individuals at that level. The Supreme Court was correct in ruling that affirmative action could not be justified on logical or ethical terms. As we will see in my upcoming piece, affirmative action does not a have public policy justification either.

Critical Race Theory and Social Justice Are Commonplace In School: Can Anything Be Done to Fight It?

School is not only supposed to be a place to acquire knowledge, but to learn how to think vis-à-vis critical thinking skills. Education is supposed to seek facts and determine what is truth. When one is presented beliefs or values as truth, that is when you know that indoctrination is at play. That is exactly what is happening at schools all across the United States of America. In late February, the Right-leaning Manhattan Institute released a groundbreaking study entitled School Choice Is Not Enough: The Impact of Critical Social Justice Ideology in American Education. 

The study surveyed 1,500 Americans aged 18 to 20 to find that 93 percent of American students have been exposed to at least one idea of Critical Social Justice. What are these eight ideas? As we see below, these ideas range from a patriarchal society, the existence of multiple genders, gender identity being a choice, white privilege, America being a "systemically racist society," white people having "unconscious bias," America was built on stolen land, and that discrimination is the main difference for wealth and other outcomes in life. 

If these ideas of Critical Social Justice were being taught alongside other perspectives and counterarguments, that would be one thing because it would mean students are learning from multiple viewpoints. Yet that is not what is happening in today's schools. The Manhattan Study report shows that the greater exposure to CSJ, the more likely that CSJ is being taught as fact rather than one school of thought. The report also shows that CSJ is shifting children to the political Left. 

The Manhattan Institute report also shows what happens if students try to speak out against what the teachers are presenting to students. As we see below, the number of students surveyed that feared being shamed, punished, or expelled was over 50 percent. That sort of fear not only creates mental health for children, but it discourages open communication or critical thinking, neither of which are conducive for a sound education.

These findings confirm that children are not receiving an education, but are being indoctrinated. The fact that Critical Social Justice has permeated this country's schools, both public and private alike, is disturbing to say the least. I have commented on how CRT does nothing to improve race relations or helps with the quality of education. I have pointed out how CRT is divisive and destructive for society. As the Foundation for Economic Education points out:

It should be clear that this approach is an improper use of the state--which should be educating, not indoctrinating, students. It not only gives children an incomplete picture of the world around them, but also creates a civil society that is more prone to intolerance of dissenting views. After all, if one was led to believe only one perspective was legitimate, then it is natural to then believe that it is important to shut out all 'illegitimate' views, both socially and maybe even legislatively. This is concerning because pluralism and tolerance are indispensable to a healthy and vibrant political culture. 

So what can be done? In private or parochial schools, it will have to be a cultural shift. As for public schools, there needs to be other measures since the government decides the curriculum. As the Manhattan Institute outlines in its report, this is where impartiality laws, curriculum reform laws (including the establishment of education standards), and audits come into play. 

As already illustrated, this has negative impact on education and civil society. The increase in woke censorship acts as a reminder that we are in the midst of a culture war that is being fought on multiple battlegrounds, and the school is one such battleground. Whether we can maintain a pluralistic society that is tolerant of others who think, speak, or act differently will depend on how well indoctrination can be kept out of our schools. I never thought I would have to say the following because I never thought that I would see our political and cultural institutions make such authoritarian shifts in my lifetime to silence dissenting voices. But I strongly believe that the future of American democracy is at a tipping point. How we come out of the other side of this culture war, especially with regards to our education system, will determine whether or not we can maintain a pluralistic, democratic society.

Biden's Student Loan Repayment Pause Is a Short-Sighted and Costly Manipulation of Power

In August 2022, the Biden administration attempted to enact a multi-billion-dollar student loan "forgiveness" program to help families with the financial strain caused by the pandemic. In response to this terrible idea, I came up with a list of 13 reasons as to why we should not have student loan "forgiveness." Thankfully, a federal court in Texas ruled in a 26-page opinion that the student loan "forgiveness" program was a "complete usurpation of congressional power" and "not correctible." Whether or not Biden was using student loan "forgiveness" to garner votes seems to be immaterial because he continues to support shoddy policy when it comes to student loans. 

While the Biden continues to fight the student loan "forgiveness" ruling with the appeals process, Biden decided to extend the student loan repayment pause through June 2023. This pause has been in effect since March 2020 in response to the pandemic vis-à-vis the CARES Act. Essentially, what the policy does is three-fold: 1) set interest rates on government-held federal student loans to 0 percent, 2) suspend all due payments, and 3) suspend collection efforts against borrowers in default. While this sounds fine and dandy on paper, do not mistaken Biden's supposed benevolence for shoddy and problematic policy. 

The initial rationale for the pause is long past. Remember that Biden instituted the pause in response to the pandemic. In September 2022, Biden said on 60 Minutes that the pandemic is over. That does not stop Biden from using the pandemic as a so-called "rationale" to pass whatever he feels like. It is not only the pause that he has done this. Biden pulled the same stunt when trying to justify the student loan "forgiveness." There is still a ban on unvaccinated international travelers entering the United States, a policy that almost every other major country has already lifted. Biden also extended the COVID emergency declaration another 90 days earlier this month, even though he declared the pandemic over two months earlier. If that is not enough to make your blood boil, the federal government recommended this past Monday to bring mask mandates back to purportedly protect people from "long COVID," even though there is or never was a basis for mask mandates (see here and here). Apparently, the pandemic is over except when it is politically convenient to say it is not. As I brought up in April with the mask mandates, the policies are not about public health or about helping the plight of the common man; it's about power and control. 

Then there is the price tag of the student loan repayment pause. The bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) estimates that this new extension will cost $40 billion. This $40 billion will be on top of the $155 billion that the pause has cost between March 2020 and August 2022. If Biden keeps extending the pause through his presidency, it will end up costing a pretty penny (see below). 

Much like with the student loan "forgiveness," the student loan repayment pause is regressive in nature. Who benefits the most from interest forgiveness within the student loan repayment pause? According to the CRFB, it is not the lower-income households, but doctors and lawyers that disproportionately benefit.   

The regressivity argument gets more irksome when you see that it is those with the higher amounts of student loan debt (almost always those with graduate degrees) that account for most of the student debt (see below).

As I illustrated earlier this month, fiscal policy has played its role in contributing to the high levels of inflation that the United States is experiencing. The student loan repayment pause also contributes to inflation. The CRFB found that Biden's student loan repayment pause will add 15 to 20 basis points to inflation. It is ironic that Biden wants to help with alleviating financial pressures of households when all he is doing is adding fuel to the economic issues that he is claiming to fight. 

In summation, the student loan repayment pause cannot be justified for a few reasons. Using the pandemic rationale is nothing more than a politically convenient excuse for the Biden administration to spend more money and pander. Regardless of whether you think the pandemic should have ever been a justification for such a pause in the first place, the pause is costly, regressive, and inflationary.  Similar to many overreaching pandemic policies, the student loan repayment pause should not be extended. 

On top of that, this reminds us that the student loan repayment pause is part of the greater federal student lending scheme that has had many negative consequences to higher education, including "skyrocketing college prices, to enabling credential inflation, to confusing the heck out of [lenders], borrowers, and the American public." A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report shows that federal students have not made $114 billion in profit that was initially projected, but have actually cost $197 billion since 2010. This is a difference of over $300 billion, and the student loan repayment pause was contributed $102 billion to this $300 billion differential. What does all of this show us? Not only should the student loan repayment pause be lifted posthaste, but the government should do the right thing and get out of the student loan business all together.