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Red States Will Suffer Most from Trump's Education Cuts (Graph + Video) [1]

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Date: 2025-01-30

by Mark C. Eades

The graph above shows dependence on federal education funding of the 50 states + DC, color-coded for those won by Donald Trump (red) and those won by Kamala Harris (blue) in the 2024 presidential election. As you can see (and probably would have expected), the states most dependent on federal education funding are mostly Trump states, and those least dependent on federal education funding are mostly Harris states. Most of the most-dependent states are red states that are red in every presidential or other statewide election, and most of the least-dependent states are blue states that are blue in every presidential or other statewide election. Swing states fall at various points in-between.

At the most-dependent end of the scale, the first 17 are all Trump states; and of these, only Arizona is a swing state in which Democrats have won multiple recent statewide elections. Of the most-dependent half of states, all but two are Trump states (these two include swing state Michigan). Of the least-dependent half of states + DC, all but eight are Harris states. Of the least-dependent 17 states, all but two are Harris states; and one of the two Trump states here is swing state Wisconsin. The five states least dependent on federal education funding are all blue states. In short, red states are a lot more dependent on federal education funding than blue states.

One of Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign promises was eliminating the U.S. Department of Education and “sending all education and education work and needs back to the states.” This could mean “catastrophic” cuts to federal education funding that would affect schools across the United States. Even if the Department of Education isn’t eliminated, the Project 2025 agenda that Trump is following “would dramatically cut Federal funds for schools” and potentially “devastate public education.” As the graph above suggests, these cuts would be especially damaging to the red states most dependent on federal funding. Blue states would also be affected, but most blue states are less dependent on federal funding than most red states; and would be financially better able to make up for any loss of federal funding with in-state sources. California and New York, for example — which respectively have the largest and second-largest number of billionaires among all U.S. states — could make up for any loss of federal funding with even a tiny increase in state taxes for the many billionaires and corporations in those states that benefit from Trump’s federal tax cuts.

CNN doesn’t do much decent reporting these days, but one recent report by CNN’s Kyung Lah (embedded below) highlighted well the effects that any Trump education cuts would have on red states like Kentucky, which Trump won with almost two-thirds of the statewide vote in 2024; and which is the 6th most dependent state on federal education funding according to the graph above. In this report, Kyung Lah focuses on Bell County, KY, which relies on the federal government for a full third of its total school funding, and where nearly 80% of students are described as “underprivileged,” but where 84% of voters voted for Trump. These Trump voters include a school superintendent and principal interviewed in the report. The superintendent and principal both insist that they didn’t vote for education cuts — even though Trump was clear in his intention to eliminate the Department of Education — and the principal says she voted for Trump “to make America first again,” whatever that means:

x YouTube Video

It is sad that schoolkids in places like Bell County, Kentucky, will likely suffer for the poor judgment of their elders and educators in a second Trump administration. A school superintendent and principal, in particular — who know full well how dependent their schools are on federal funding — should have known better than to vote for Trump for something so vague and specious as “to make America first again.”

If you voted for Trump, you voted for everything that comes with Trump. That includes the damage that Trump will do to your children’s education.

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