Ask A Genius 1547: Trump Administration’s Cuts to TRIO Programs Deepen Educational Inequality
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/10/15
Why would the Trump administration target college prep programs that support nearly a million low-income students across the U.S.?
In a discussion between Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner, the Trump administration’s decision to gut federally funded TRIO programs is examined as part of a broader pattern of policies harming low-income Americans. These initiatives, which serve around 900,000 students, provide critical college preparation for disadvantaged youth. Rosner highlights how the wealthy enjoy structural advantages—elite schools, guidance networks, and stable home environments—while cuts to TRIO exacerbate inequality. The conversation also touches on political repression, including visa revocations for critics of conservative figures, illustrating how educational and civil liberties are being undermined simultaneously.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: The Trump administration has been targeting college prep programs—both those backed by Democrats and even some supported by Republicans.
Rosner: What do you mean by “college prep programs”? Like high school curricula?
Jacobsen: Programs like TRIO, federally funded initiatives that help low-income students from middle school through college. The Trump administration reportedly fired almost 60 staff members connected to TRIO programs across the country. These layoffs affect about 900,000 students nationwide.
Rosner: So, mainly low-income students? Another “screw you” from Trump and the Republicans to the poor—because the Republican Party serves the interests of the wealthy.
And this fits into a pattern. The government shutdowns and budget fights over healthcare have the same underlying dynamic: punishing the vulnerable. If the Democrats don’t give in, tens of millions of Americans could see their health insurance premiums triple. People paying $5,000 or $6,000 a year for mediocre coverage—with high deductibles and partial reimbursement—could suddenly face $16,000 a year.
It’s not good coverage, but at least it keeps you from financial ruin if you get cancer or are in a major car accident. Without it, people would end up a million dollars in debt.
So yeah, cutting TRIO and similar programs is just another way to hurt poor people.
Why would they even want to eliminate those programs?
My wife has worked in admissions at two private high schools in Los Angeles, and both of us have helped our kid navigate college prep and applications. We’ve also advised other families. One thing we know for certain: it’s a huge advantage to be affluent when getting your kid into college—or even preparing them for it.
She’s worked at schools where tuition is over $50,000 a year. There’s a massive correlation between parental wealth and student success. And that’s not mysterious—it’s structural.
If you go to an underfunded inner-city high school, you’re lucky if there’s even one admissions counselor for 2,000 students. They’re overworked, underpaid, and probably don’t have connections with college admissions offices. Meanwhile, wealthy schools have entire departments for this.
So the system compounds inequality before a kid even submits an application. It’s a head start for the rich disguised as meritocracy. Maybe not, but at rich schools, people have connections. The counselors often have friends in admissions offices at top universities. When it comes time for applications, they can call up and do some special pleading.
Also, if you come from a wealthy family, your home environment usually supports learning. There’s structure, quiet, and time. If you’re one of three kids raised by a single mother working three jobs to make fifty thousand a year, she’s rarely home. Most of your conversations are with siblings—kids yelling at each other while the TV’s on.
But if you grow up in a household with two parents making two hundred grand a year, you probably have dinner together most nights. You might be an only child, or one of two, and the discussions at the table are more adult. The reading material in the house is higher level. The general tone of the home encourages learning.
College admissions in the U.S. are incredibly skewed. When I applied to college forty-some years ago, about twenty percent of applicants got into elite schools. Now, at some places, it’s three percent. That’s because everyone with even a slight chance applies to all the top schools—it’s easy now with online applications.
Fifty years ago, a kid might apply to three or four schools. Now, competitive students apply to fifteen or sixteen. Harvard gets around fifty thousand applications a year. Just applying costs money—fifty to a hundred dollars per school—so if a low-income family applies to a dozen schools, that’s over a thousand dollars just in fees.
There’s a very strong correlation between SAT scores and parental income. Wealthier, intact, upper-middle-class families have enormous advantages in preparing their kids for college. The schools are better, the test prep is better, the guidance is better, and the home environment reinforces all of it.
So when the Trump administration cuts programs like TRIO—affecting around nine hundred thousand low-income students—it’s devastating. That’s almost a million students.
There are around four to five million kids in each age cohort in the U.S.—four or five million seventeen-year-olds, four or five million eighteen-year-olds. So nine hundred thousand students across several grades is a significant fraction of all kids who could be preparing for college. It’s not trivial—it’s a major impact.
And while that’s happening, Trump’s still somehow having a “triumphant” moment. After the Gaza ceasefire, his approval rating even ticked up. It’s surreal—he keeps doing damaging things: the government shutdown, economic cruelty, stalling the release of the Epstein files—and still manages to get praise.
The Department of Homeland Security recently revoked the visas of six foreign nationals because they criticized Charlie Kirk online. That’s insane. People have reportedly been hassled reentering the U.S. for having anti-Trump posts on their phones. So, yeah, maybe at some point we should talk about how much political complaining I should do publicly. I love the hell out of America—but I don’t love the current leadership.
Talking about Charlie Kirk—look, it’s not nice to wish anyone harm. He was brutally assassinated, which was monstrous and inexcusable. But revoking someone’s visa just because they criticized him, a private citizen, seems deeply wrong.
If I wanted to say I don’t like an author—say, Eric Van Lustbader—I should be allowed to. I’ve read a bit of his work, and it annoys me. That’s my right. Nobody should lose entry to a country because they said something critical about a private citizen. It’s absurd.
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