Social media melts down over minor Trump policy change on student loans

A minor change to student loan policies has been in the works ever since the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was signed into law in July 2025. This week, a left-wing media outlet prompted an online meltdown after it recycled its wildly misleading reporting about the change — and immediately went viral.It all started when the New Republic, a left-wing magazine, posted an article on Sunday recycling the months-old news that the Department of Education is finalizing a rule to restrict student loan eligibility for a small percentage of degree programs with nonexistent returns on investment. In the New Republic’s telling, however, this minor tweak actually meant that “Trump is banning students majoring in degrees that don’t make enough money from taking out college loans.”“Degrees for social work, art, religious studies, teaching aides, and music will be hit the hardest,” says their post that went viral, receiving more than 20 million views. Trump is banning students majoring in degrees that don’t make enough money from taking out college loans. Degrees for social work, art, religious studies, teaching aides, and music will be hit the hardest. https://t.co/6tV30STfyc— The New Republic (@newrepublic) September 28, 2026 Cue the meltdown.“This is actually f***ing evil holy s***,” one post with more than 3 million views says. “In the land of the free, students must only study what the president approves apparently.”“This is about discouraging women from going to college,” transgender journalist Katelyn Burns added, not bothering to explain this statement any further.“Doesn’t this violate the First Amendment?” asked one deeply confused person.You get the idea. But it wasn’t just random internet personalities or deranged journalists who joined in on this meltdown. Democratic members of Congress and governors also put out panicked statements condemning this policy change.There’s just one problem: None of them seem to understand what this policy change actually is — and, when you look at the details, it’s not actually a change any sensible person would object to.As American Enterprise Institute scholar Preston Cooper explains, the only undergraduate degree programs that will lose eligibility for student loans are ones that leave graduates earning no more than someone with just a high school diploma.“The bar is median earnings of high school graduates,” Cooper says. “This rule is very sensibly saying college grads should be at least better off than people who never went to college at all. It’s a crazy low bar.”He points out that fewer than 5% of undergraduate degree programs could lose eligibility under the new rule. Even still, these programs aren’t getting “banned” or shut down — we’re just going to stop giving out billions of taxpayer dollars in loans for degrees that leave you no better off than a person with only a high school diploma. People are still free to attend them and pay out of pocket, or attempt to secure a private student loan.How is any of this remotely controversial? If anything, the policy change doesn’t go nearly far enough. People are treating this like a death sentence for art and philosophy and education when the programs that are actually going to be most affected are like… for-profit beauty schools. pic.twitter.com/ETDcC5epCo— Preston Cooper (@PrestonCooper93) September 28, 2026 Meanwhile, much of the backlash seems rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of the change. It does not make any majors or degree programs ineligible for student loans across the board. It applies to each individual degree program at each college or university and applies the “do no harm” test that graduates can’t be left earning wages equivalent to those with a high school diploma.TWO JUDGES BLOCK TRUMP’S STUDENT LOAN OVERHAUL FOR PUBLIC SECTOR EMPLOYEESThat’s right. The vast, vast majority of degree programs in English, social work, philosophy, gender studies, etc., at different universities and colleges will remain eligible for student loans as their average graduates still earn enough to qualify. Only specific degree programs at specific institutions may find themselves disqualified — with cosmetology certificate programs the most likely course of study to lose eligibility.So, the whole hysterical discourse over this topic is nothing short of absurd. This minor tweak to student loan eligibility isn’t “evil” or “authoritarian” — it’s a commonsense change that frankly, after everyone stops hyperventilating and moves on to the next thing, almost no one will ever actually notice.Brad Polumbo is an independent journalist and host of the Brad vs Everyone podcast.