WASHINGTON — Vice President JD Vance said elite American universities are burdening young graduates with high debt and limited career prospects — and that the frustration is reshaping the Democratic Party from the inside.
Speaking on "The Ingraham Angle," Vance described the contemporary Democratic base as "downwardly mobile, hyper progressive, well-educated people" — graduates he said were "sold a bill of goods by universities, have a lot of debt, but not a good job to show for it."
Tuition at a small number of elite universities has climbed past $100,000 for a single undergraduate year, driving the nation's student loan burden higher.
President Trump's "big beautiful bill" takes direct aim at those costs. New borrowing limits set to take effect in 2026 are expected to force significant changes in how universities price and finance degrees, according to experts.
Elite research universities, including Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Columbia and Brown, have long depended heavily on federal funding. The National Institutes of Health and other government agencies provide billions annually for science and medical research.
The Trump administration has moved to withhold that money as leverage for institutional reform. Trump has said his goal is to rebuild the ladders to economic success in America — a pressure campaign that threatens to upend the financial models of institutions that take in a billion dollars or more each year from the federal government.
Universities that lose federal research grants face hard choices about how to sustain operations, and compliance with administration directives may be the price of keeping that revenue.
