The Domino Effect Of Gutting Education On Economic Mobility
CLOSE-UP OF DOMINOES ARRANGED AGAINST BLUE BACKGROUND
As another school year looms and millions of American children ready their backpacks for a new classroom, the department tasked with ensuring every child receives an equitable education faces an existential threat. The proposed dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education, made easier this month by a Supreme Court ruling in the Trump Administration's favor, is more than administrative tinkering — it is a seismic shift with profound consequences for society.
The foundation of a healthy democracy and economy is built on accessible, high-quality public education, and destabilizing this core institution brings cascading impacts across all facets of American life. Without federal oversight from the Department of Education, essential programs would fragment or vanish altogether. Students in low-income communities who are disproportionately Black, Hispanic and Indigenous would be stripped of protections and funding that help close wide achievement gaps. These students already face persistent barriers of underfunded schools, less experienced teachers and reduced access to rigorous coursework compared to their white peers. Important federal statutes such as Title 1 (schools with a higher proportion of low-income students) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which currently ensure resources flow to schools serving students experiencing poverty and disabilities; could erode or disappear, jeopardizing the futures of millions. It's worth noting that 90% of U.S. students and 95% of students with disabilities access public schools — a system the Department of Education was designed to protect.
The economic ramifications are stark. In the 2021–2022 fiscal year, government spending across all levels on K-12 education was around $880 billion, representing slightly more than 3.5% of GDP. The return on this investment is indisputable: research has shown that for every dollar spent on early childhood education, yields are upwards of 10x the return on investment when factoring in increased tax revenue and reduced welfare dependence. The poverty rate among individuals who did not graduate from high school in 2023 was more than 25%, more than five times the rate of those with a bachelor's degree or higher. High school graduates experience more stable employment, higher earnings, and dramatically lower rates of welfare usage. Spending cutbacks and the dissolution of federal oversight would slash these gains, increasing costs across public health, welfare and criminal justice systems.
The dismantling of the Department of Education also compounds pre-existing inequities. Seventy years after Brown v. Board of Education, Black and Latinx students still attend schools with higher shares of students in poverty, fewer material resources and poorer graduation and college attainment rates. The odds are stacked against them — children from the lowest income families are far less likely to enroll in or graduate from four-year colleges and more likely to be incarcerated, keeping the ladder to middle-class stability out of reach. By gutting federal programs that relieve some of these burdens, the path to upward mobility becomes steeper and even more exclusive.
We must also recognize that these threats to our existing education system come at a moment of rapid technological change. While artificial intelligence has the potential to personalize learning and streamline tasks for educators, it also risks amplifying existing inequities if students, particularly those from underfunded districts, are left behind due to lack of access to reliable technology — or worse yet, lose the foundational skills and critical thinking that effective educators foster. For those already facing obstacles, the absence of robust public education could transform AI's promise from uplifting to deepening disadvantage.
The impacts of gutting education policy and funding do not stop at the classroom door. Education remains closely linked to health and lifetime earnings. Individuals with more education report better physical and mental health, lower rates of chronic conditions and longer life expectancies. Conversely, those with less education face not only diminished income, but also worsening health outcomes and heavier reliance on strained social safety nets. A collapse of federal support for education will echo through hospitals and social services, burdening society and creating financial fallout across generations.
To witness the Department of Education facing an existential threat when children are sharpening pencils and teachers are redecorating classrooms is a bitter irony. Our present moment is not a single domino tumbling. It is a tableful toppling in sequence — education, the economy, racial justice, health and technological opportunity — falling faster, each impact making it harder for the next generation to rise. Dismantling our country's education agency is not the path to a better future. It is the deliberate unraveling of the social infrastructure that anchors American opportunity. When the last domino falls, rebuilding will be incalculably harder than protecting what we have now.
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