What the "One Big Beautiful Bill" Means for Education and Families
Big Bullshit Bill***
The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” 🤮 is going to be voted on tomorrow morning at 9 AM Eastern time (if Republicans can get the votes, that is.) And if you care about public education, kids, healthcare, or raising a family in this country, you need to pay attention. This Big Bullshit Bill slices into supports like Medicaid, food access, and child care that help families survive.
Department of Education Gag Order
Starting off with a big one: it strips the Department of Education of its regulatory teeth by choking off the money it would need to actually enforce or expand protections. Even if a new executive order were signed, the agency couldn’t spend a single dollar to implement it. And this is regardless of changes in leadership or urgent need.
In practice, that means no new rules to protect borrowers from predatory loan servicers, no ability to enforce civil rights protections more aggressively, and no updates to accommodate new technologies, threats, or needs in schools.
Student Loans
The BBB caps what grad and professional students can borrow and eliminates PLUS loans for both them and their parents. That means if you're in law, med, or any high-cost program, your options are: borrow less than you need, or get private loans with higher interest rates and fewer protections.
Then, the bill overhauls repayment options so deferment and forbearance will likely be harder to access, rehabilitation will be more limited, Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) will become even more difficult to qualify for, and loan servicing rules would shift more power to the servicers. You know - the ones already doing such a bang up job.
Pell Grants
The sections that restructure Pell Grants seem kind of helpful until you read the fine print. This bill changes eligibility criteria (likely narrowing who qualifies) and creates "Workforce Pell Grants," shifting funding toward short-term job training programs, often run by for-profit institutions with little accountability. Additionally, it limits how Pell can be stacked with other aid - reducing total awards for low-income students.
College Accountability
If this bill passes, if a school's graduates don’t earn enough money after finishing their program, that school could lose federal aid.
Essentially, it punishes schools not for failing students, but for serving students who start at a disadvantage. This targets community colleges, HBCUs and MSIs, and public institutions that prioritize access over “prestige.”
Increased Vetting for Immigrant Children
This bill also expands requirements for vetting sponsors of unaccompanied immigrant children (those who arrive in the U.S. without a parent or legal guardian.)
On paper, this might sound like a safety precaution. In reality, it’s part of a broader strategy that uses bureaucracy and surveillance to deter immigration and disrupt family reunification.
It requires stricter background checks and more documentation from potential sponsors and authorizes deeper data sharing between the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and immigration enforcement, which can intimidate mixed-status families from stepping forward. For obvious reasons, that would add layers of delay in an already backlogged system, keeping children in government custody (often in large shelters or temporary facilitie) for longer periods.
Child Care and Head Start Cuts
The bill rescinds funds for Head Start and stabilization grants, and it eliminates CCAMPIS, which helps low-income student-parents access child care.
Medicaid Rollbacks
If you thought the original bill’s $930 billion cut to Medicaid was already cruel enough, Florida’s own Rick Scott and his Senate besties (Mike Lee and Ron Johnson) just dropped an amendment to slash another $313 billion from Medicaid starting in 2031. If adopted, this brings the total proposed Medicaid cuts to $1.24 trillion over ten years.
Basically, under the Affordable Care Act, states that expanded Medicaid get a higher federal match for low-income adults. Scott’s amendment would strip that enhanced match from future enrollees unless they’re elderly, disabled, or have kids. So, if you're poor and childless in 2031, you'll be SOL.
SNAP Changes
This bill targets the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) with stricter work requirements and bureaucracy. The Parliamentarian nixed a provision aimed at blocking nursing home staffing rules (which would’ve saved $23 billion over 10 years), but the GOP is still coming for food access in every other way possible. Millions of families may face new hurdles to putting food on the table because Republicans think hunger is a moral failing. (So pro-life and Christian of them!!!!)
Health Care for Immigrant Families
The bill doubles down on excluding immigrant families from care: denying ACA and Medicare subsidies to non-citizens, even those legally present with refugee status or TPS.
Final Thoughts
Hardline Republicans are now pressuring their colleagues to overrule the Senate Parliamentarian (a nonpartisan rule-keeper who ruled many of these cuts violate reconciliation rules.) Trump himself is demanding they ignore her entirely so the "One Big Beautiful Bill" can pass intact.
We’re watching in real-time as a 940-page bill full of attacks on working families, students, and immigrants becomes a political litmus test.
BUT: the Senate just delayed the final vote on this Big Bullshit Bill until tomorrow morning at 9 AM Eastern. That’s a good indication that the Republicans don’t have the votes. (Which means all this pressure is working!)
But now is the time to crank it up. We only need four Republicans to flip. That’s it. Four!
So your job tonight is to call your senators. Especially Republican ones.
Go to 5calls.org or dial the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected.
If your senators aren’t Republican, text your friends in red states and tell them to call!
This delayed vote proves our voices matter. Let’s make sure they keep hearing them. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, after all. 😎
I’ll keep you posted!
- Frazz