By Christian Collins

Authoritarian war machines are fueled through the sacrifice of young adults in service of empire. Presently, that fuel is refined through policymakers purposefully destroying the national education system and economy. Last year’s widespread cuts to Medicaid and SNAP leave states responsible for covering $450 billion in lost federal benefits over the next ten years, which will slow down and potentially reverse recent expansion of state-level education funding across the country. Restricted state-level education funding directly reduces the ability of students with lower incomes to enroll in and complete postsecondary educational opportunities, which in turn limits their access to good jobs.  

The U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) actions only exacerbates these funding issues with a rash of policies and decisions, including their ongoing rulemaking to reduce available financial aid for career fields with higher rates of enrollment from women and students of color; leaving large portions of the country’s 43 million student loan borrowers in limbo by laying off roughly half of the Federal Student Aid Office workforce; illegally moving student loan collection responsibilities to the Treasury Department to account for Secretary McMahon’s failures in managing the national student debt portfolio; and disruptions of existing federal education and workforce training programs via their illegal relocation from ED to the Department of Labor. These are all coordinated actions to cut vital economic lifelines and funnel people into military service. 

This deliberate destruction of federal public services is concerning for both its impact on the national economy and its specific impact on men, the primary target for increased military enlistment. Though women are eligible to enlist, and their educational access is being threatened, the administration has specifically focused on increasing enlistment for men and actively discouraging enlistment from marginalized groups like transgender people. Over the last five months, adult men across all measured racial demographics have lost employment at a higher rate than the overall workforce. As unemployment rates are improving, this means more men are dropping out of the labor force altogether. 

Note: data for Hispanic or Latino men is taken from this link. 

A national economy careening toward recession, potential global food insecurity, the intentional removal of affordable educational and training opportunities, and the loss of public benefits at the federal level forces young men to choose between the morality of participating in an illegal war or socioeconomic survival for themselves and their families.  

However, male veterans’ increased access to higher education through the GI Bill and additional benefits like widespread tax exemptions have not protected their employment levels relative to nonveteran men. Along with not being immune from the administration’s cuts to public benefits, these are important factors to communicate to young men as they weigh participating in international war crimes as a socioeconomic lifeline. 

Policymakers shoulder the blame for this current system, but institutions have also made affordability pathways harder to navigate for students and families with lower incomes. For example, New America recently published research on how institutions have been working with enrollment management consultants to free up financial aid resources for wealthier students by pushing other families into taking Parent PLUS loans. These loans can go well beyond the $7,500 federal loan limit for dependent students, can’t be discharged in bankruptcy, and are subject to wage garnishment amongst other governmental debt collection methods. Colleges and universities are also using online education as a fundraising tool rather than a quality opportunity for an adaptable and less expensive on-ramp for students; treating housing as a profit-driven asset instead of a basic need; using consulting firms to identify programs to cut to hide other areas of financial mismanagement; and outsourcing the work of professors to artificial intelligence companies while closing departments and halting supportive services programs for students. These are factors for why public pushback from institutions against policymaker attacks is so rare, because some institutions have been willful participants. 

The overall employment levels for young men regardless of race have remained relatively stable since December 2025 but with high variance between age groups, which means that policymakers should be especially concerned about young men entering adulthood. This data is also irrespective of the fact that less than 30 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds hold quality jobs that offer fair pay, growth opportunities, and are at safe and respectful workplaces, so job gains for other age groups do not excuse a lack of urgency in offsetting the deliberate cratering of the economy and postsecondary education. 

State governments and institutions have a variety of policy tools at their disposal to meet the public’s demand for increased financial investments in postsecondary education and reduced financial barriers to educational opportunities. States that act would also disrupt the Trump Administration’s efforts to sacrifice young men in an unnecessary conflict. One top priority should be to remove the tuition barrier, which nearly 1,000 institutions across the country have already done. Additional policy tools include:  

1. Implementing fiscal strategies like Massachusetts’ DRIVE Initiative to offset federal divestment from public postsecondary education. 

1. Updating existing state-level financial aid programs to better meet current and future needs of students, including transitioning from “last-dollar” to “first-dollar” programs.  

1. Diverting public resources from exploitative for-profit institutions and substandard online schools to institutions that have proven results in providing upward socioeconomic mobility to students with lower-income or middle-income backgrounds.  

1. Continued expansion of dual enrollment opportunities to help students accumulate credits earlier and at a lower cost.  

Postsecondary education is a pillar of American democracy, not a blunt tool to foster authoritarianism. Trump’s policy agenda has already been an abhorrent moral failure committed by policymakers and higher education leaders, a fatal domestic failure with the adaptation of these tactics for ICE recruitment, and now a tool fueling a global conflict and the destruction in Iran.  

The Trump Administration is consciously creating a K-shaped war economy wealthy benefactors profit off the suffering of the lower and middle classes. This is all to support the president’s impulsive bombing of other nations, and the Trump Administration has even resorted to mocking  those who have concerns about these actions. State policymakers cannot make the same mistakes as their federal counterparts. They cannot abandon the responsibilities of democratic leadership.