Education secretary says education is 'horrible idea' unless you go into debt

Outgoing Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos argued on Thursday that free education was a “horrible idea” that would lead to rationing.

Appearing on Fox Business, DeVos was asked about proposals to forgive student loan debt for roughly 45 million Americans. She responded that they should instead pay off what they owe.

“To ask taxpayers — two out of three of whom have not gone to college — to help underwrite the forgiveness of those one in three that have is fundamentally unfair,” she argued, suggesting that students should evaluate colleges based on how much alumni typically earn after graduating. “For students that have debt today, there are many different repayment plans that they can avail themselves of.”

“The notion of free college is a horrible idea, period. Because we know that anything that’s free becomes automatically rationed and it is a form of socialism,” DeVos said. “America’s higher education system is the envy of the world. The last thing we want to do is socialize higher education and basically devalue everything that higher education has to offer.”

President-elect Joe Biden won last month by a wide margin over Donald Trump. Biden made partial forgiveness of student loan debt a key part of his campaign agenda — along with getting rid of DeVos and replacing her with someone who believes in public education.

“It will take years to repair the damage Betsy DeVos is doing to our schools,” he tweeted last December. “Our students and educators deserve a Secretary of Education who values our public schools — and is actually an educator.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.