[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
PUBLIC FUNDS, PRIVATE POLITICS: EXAMINING
BIAS IN THE TRUMAN SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION
AND WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND WORKFORCE
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, DECEMBER 3, 2025
__________
Serial No. 119-34
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Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Workforce
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: edworkforce.house.gov or www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
64-245 PDF WASHINGTON : 2026
=======================================================================
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND WORKFORCE
TIM WALBERG, Michigan, Chairman
JOE WILSON, South Carolina ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT,
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina Virginia,
GLENN THOMPSON, Pennsylvania Ranking Member
GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut
ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida
RICK W. ALLEN, Georgia SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
JAMES COMER, Kentucky MARK TAKANO, California
BURGESS OWENS, Utah ALMA S. ADAMS, North Carolina
LISA C. McCLAIN, Michigan MARK DeSAULNIER, California
MARY E. MILLER, Illinois DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey
JULIA LETLOW, Louisiana LUCY McBATH, Georgia
KEVIN KILEY, California JAHANA HAYES, Connecticut
MICHAEL A. RULLI, Ohio ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota
JAMES C. MOYLAN, Guam HALEY M. STEVENS, Michigan
ROBERT F. ONDER, Jr., Missouri GREG CASAR, Texas
RYAN MACKENZIE, Pennsylvania SUMMER L. LEE, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL BAUMGARTNER, Washington JOHN W. MANNION, New York
MARK HARRIS, North Carolina ADELITA S. GRIJALVA, Arizona
MARK B. MESSMER, Indiana
RANDY FINE, Florida
R.J. Laukitis, Staff Director
Veronique Pluviose, Minority Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION AND WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
BURGESS, OWENS, Utah, Chairman
MICHAEL BAUMGARTNER, Washington ALMA ADAMS, North Carolina,
JOE WILSON, South Carolina Ranking Member
GLENN THOMPSON, Pennsylvania FREDERICA WILSON, Florida
GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin MARK TAKANO, California
ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York LUCY McBATH, Georgia
LISA C. McCLAIN, Michigan DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey
KEVIN KILEY, California JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut
JAMES C. MOYLAN, Guam SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
ROBERT F. ONDER, Jr., Missouri MARK DeSAULNIER, California
MARK HARRIS, North Carolina ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota
RANDY FINE, Florida ADELITA S. GRIJALVA, Arizona
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on December 3, 2025................................. 1
OPENING STATEMENTS
Owens, Hon. Burgess, Chairman, Subcommittee on Higher
Education and Workforce Development........................ 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 4
Adams, Hon. Alma, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Higher
Education and Workforce Development........................ 6
Prepared statement of.................................... 9
WITNESSES
Hess, Dr. Frederick M., Senior Fellow and Director, Education
Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute (AEI)........ 11
Prepared statement of.................................... 13
Kabbany, Ms. Jennifer, Editor-in-Chief, The College Fix...... 16
Prepared statement of.................................... 19
Harrington, Ms. Ashley, Senior Policy Counsel, NAACP Legal
Defense Fund............................................... 22
Prepared statement of.................................... 25
Kissel, Mr. Adam, Visiting Fellow, Center for Education
Policy, Heritage Foundation................................ 39
Prepared statement of.................................... 41
PUBLIC FUNDS, PRIVATE POLITICS:
EXAMINING BIAS IN THE TRUMAN SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM
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Wednesday, December 3, 2025
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce
Development,
Committee on Education and The Workforce,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:15 a.m., in
Room 2175 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Burgess Owens
(Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Owens, Grothman, Stefanik, Kiley,
Moylan, Onder, Harris, Fine, Walberg, Adams, McBath, Bonamici,
DeSaulnier, Grijalva, and Scott.
Staff present: Lexi Boccuzzi, Investigator; Vlad Cerga,
Director of Information Technology; Maren Emmerson, Legislative
Assistant; Halle Greenbaum, Staff Assistant; Lauren Hassett,
Professional Staff Member; Amy Raaf Jones, Director of
Education and Human Services Policy; Libby Kearns, Press
Assistant; Kyle Kuhlers, AEI Fellow; Campbell Ladd, Clerk; R.J.
Laukitis, Staff Director; Danny Marca, Director of Information
Technology; John Martin, Deputy Director of Workforce Policy/
Counsel; R.J. Martin, Professional Staff Member; Audra
McGeorge, Communications Director; Ethan Pann, Deputy Press
Secretary and Digital Director; Sara Robertson, Press
Secretary; Katherine Anne Russo, Director of Member Services
and Coalitions; Isabel Soto, Professional Staff Member; Brad
Thomas, Deputy Director of Education and Human Services Policy;
Ann Vogel, Director of Operations; Thomas White, Deputy Clerk;
James Whittaker, General Counsel; Amaris Benavidez, Minority
Professional Staff; Ellie Berenson, Minority Press Assistant;
Ilana Brunner, Minority General Counsel; Nikhita Chinmay,
Minority Intern; Zenaida De La Cruz, Minority CHCI Fellow;
Christian Haines, Minority General Counsel; Samantha Wilkerson,
Minority Professional Staff; Stephanie Lalle, Minority
Communications Director; Raiyana Malone, Minority Press
Secretary; Eleazar Padilla, Minority Staff Assistant; Veronique
Pluviose, Minority Staff Director; Banyon Vassar, Minority
Director of IT.
Chairman Owens. The Subcommittee on Higher Education and
Workforce Development will come to order. I note that there is
a quorum present. Without objections, the Chair is authorized
to call a recess at any time.
The Truman Scholarship was established by Congress in 17--I
mean 1975, to honor President Truman's legacy of public
service. The program awards scholarships worth $30,000 to 60
college juniors annually who demonstrate outstanding potential,
and plan to pursue to a career in public service. These funds
are to be used for graduate study in American universities in
fields such as government, military, and non-profit service.
Along with the monetary awards being a Truman scholar,
comes extensive access to mentoring special programming, and
network opportunities. A recent American Institute--Enterprise
Institute report found that most of the Truman Foundation's
work, paid for by taxpayers, are from a fund Congress set up
years ago, with an annual budget allocation of 3 million
dollars.
Recent studies have found significant evidence that the
Truman Foundation selects liberal students far more often than
conservatives. While past recipients of the Truman Scholarship
include prominent conservatives, such as Justice Neil Gorsuch,
and Congressman Dusty Johnson, today we will hear testimony
from College Fix, that in the last 10 years liberal winners
outnumbered conservatives 14 to 1.
We will also hear testimony from American Enterprise
Institute that not a single winner in the last 4 years
professed interest in causes such as protecting rights of the
unborn, or defending the Second Amendment. Only 3 winners
mentioned an interest in religious liberty.
By contrast, the Foundation selected at least 40--at least
74 winners professing interest in progressive causes such as
immigration rights, racial justice, DEI, and LGBT issues. This
bias is a direct result of who is selecting the winners. The
regional review committees, which interview select students,
liberal leaning interviewers outnumber conservative leaning
interviewers by a 4 to 1 ratio.
The officers and Board of Trustees also lean overwhelmingly
left, while a few conservatives, such as our own Committee's
Elise Stefanik served on the Board. They are outnumbered by
Democrats. The officials and the staff of the Truman Foundation
include former researcher for Vice President Al Gore, the
consultant for the Clinton Global Initiative, a staffer from
President Obama, and a former CEO of the Roosevelt Institute, a
liberty think tank honoring Franklin Roosevelt.
In short, the officers and Board, the panel interviewers,
and the students they select lean overwhelmingly left. And they
do this by the way, with taxpayer funds. Imagine there was a
taxpayer funded award in which the super majorities of March
for Life staffers, NRA staffers, and Heritage Foundation
officials awarded taxpayers funds for 14 MAGA students for
every 1 Democrat student.
If this bias was funded by the American taxpayer
progressive left would be absolutely irate, and yet the exact
reverse is happening. Liberal students are awarded Truman
awards by 14 to 1 ratios, and Democrats want to pretend there's
no evidence of bias, and this is simply unacceptable.
I again, Chairman Foxx, Chairman Aderholt and I wrote in a
letter to the Truman Foundation in 2024, as a publicly funded
award charged with preparing our student leaders for tomorrow,
the Truman Scholarship should be at a minimum, a reflection of
the country's breadth of values, viewpoints, and interests.
However, if the Truman Scholarship functions as a career
booster solely for students of a particular political
persuasion, it should no longer be worthy of congressional
support, taxpayer funding, or exalted in their public image.
With that, I would like to yield back to--I would like to
yield to my Ranking Member, Ms. Adams for her opening
statement.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Owens follows:]
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Ms. Adams. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our
witnesses today for being here today. Let me start with a
number that says a lot about the crisis that we are facing. The
cost of attending college today is 40 times higher than it was
in 1963. I think I was probably a sophomore in high school.
That kind of increase doesn't just affect students during
college, it follows them long after they graduate. Student debt
now keeps millions of Americans from buying a home, starting a
family, saving for retirement, or simply living the life that
they hope for. We know the burden of student debt does not fall
equally.
Women and people of color take on more student debt, and
they are less likely to be able to pay it off. That is not
because of poor decisions, it is because of the persistent wage
gaps, racial wealth disparities and systemic inequality that
continue to shape who gets ahead and who does not.
Now, with all that mind, you would expect this Committee to
be laser focused on addressing that crisis, on bringing down
the cost of college and making student loans more manageable.
Instead, Republicans have chosen to spend our time attacking
the Truman Scholarship Program, a respected, bipartisan program
that has helped thousands of students pursue careers in public
service.
Let us be clear about what us really happening here. This
hearing is not about oversight, it is not about waste, fraud or
abuse. This is just a latest attempt by Republicans to stir up
a culture war. They are once again fixated on abstract
manufactured issues, and so-called wokeness. In doing so, they
are completely out of touch with what American families
actually care about.
Democrats on the other hand are focused on what matters. We
are working to make higher education more accessible, more
affordable, and fair, so that every student has the opportunity
to pursue a college education if they choose without being
saddled with debt for the rest of their lives.
If we want to discuss real threats to students, let us
start with this Big, Ugly Law, which Republicans and President
Trump pushed through earlier this year. That law did not just
fail to solve the student debt crisis; it doubled down on it.
This law forces student loan borrowers into an unaffordable
repayment plan that raises monthly payments by nearly $200 for
the average borrower and that does not offer loan forgiveness
after 20 or 25 years. It also eliminates forbearance options
for low-income borrowers, even if they are facing serious life
challenges, like medical bills and childcare costs, or job
loss. That makes it harder, not easier, for struggling
Americans to get back on their feet.
By eliminating Graduate PLUS loans, capping Parent PLUS
loans, and limiting access to Pell Grants, the law pushes
students into predatory private loan markets where they will
face higher interest rates and fewer protections. It even
blocks students with full scholarships from receiving Pell
Grants if their school believes their basic needs are already
covered, regardless of the student's actual financial
situation.
To make matters worse, the Trump administration is also
illegally dismantling the Department of Education, putting
equal access to higher education further at risk. Specifically,
by moving the Office of Postsecondary Education, which oversees
the majority of programs Congress has authorized under the
Higher Education Act, to the Department of Labor, the
administration is undermining the law, and making it harder for
institutions like our HBCUs and students to access the tools
that they need to succeed.
While Republicans are holding hearings to attack a
scholarship program, they are also backing policies that make
college more expensive, make loans harder to repay, and leave
students and families with fewer options. That is why Democrats
have introduced the LOAN Act, the Lowering Obstacles to
Achievement Now Act, to confront the student debt crisis head
on.
This bill would double the Pell Grant, lower interest
rates, streamline repayment options, and lower monthly payment
amounts, and make the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program
more accessible to public service workers. By improving how we
finance higher education, the LOAN Act would make loans easier
to take out, and easier to pay off, for students now and in the
future.
Instead of staging partisan attacks on programs like the
Truman Scholarship, we should be working together to pass
serious reforms. The American people are not asking us to fight
over culture war buzzwords, they are asking us to make college
affordable, and to ensure that the next generation has a fair
shot. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Ranking Member Adams follows:]
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Chairman Owens. Thank you. Pursuant to Committee Rule 8(c),
all members who wish to insert written statements into the
record may do so by submitting them to the Committee Clerk
electronically, in Microsoft Word format by 5 o'clock p.m., 14
days after this hearing.
Without objection, the hearing record will remain open for
14 days to allow for such statements and other materials noted
during the hearing to be submitted for the official hearing
record.
I now turn to introduce our four distinguished witnesses.
Our first witness is Dr. Frederick Hess, a Senior Fellow and
Director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise
Institute here in Washington, DC.
The second witness is Jennifer Kabbany, Editor-in-Chief for
the College Fix from Visalia, California. Our third witness is
Ashley Harrington, a Senior Policy Counsel for the NAACP Legal
Defense Fund in Washington, DC. Our fourth witness is Adam
Kissel, thank you Adam, a Visiting Fellow at the Center of
Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC.
We thank the witnesses for being here today, and we look
forward to your testimony. Pursuant to Committee Rules, I will
ask that each of you limit your oral presentation to a 3-minute
summary of your written statement, as Committee members here
have many questions for you.
The clock will count down from 3 minutes. However, pursuant
to Committee Rule 8(d) and Committee practice, we will not
cutoff your testimony until you reach the 5-minute mark. I
would also like to remind our witnesses to be aware of their
responsibility to provide accurate information to the
Subcommittee.
I will first recognize Dr. Hess for your testimony.
STATEMENT OF DR. FREDERICK HESS, SENIOR FELLOW AND DIRECTOR,
EDUCATION POLICY STUDIES, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE,
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Hess. Chairman Owens, Ranking Member Adams and
distinguished members of the Committee. My name is Rick Hess. I
am a former high school teacher and college professor who today
serves as Director of Education Policy Studies at the American
Enterprise Institute.
50 years ago, Congress established the Truman Scholarship
Program to identify aspiring leaders and cultivate their
commitments to careers in public service. Truman scholars
receive funding, access to special programs, and preferential
hiring for Federal jobs.
The congressionally established program relies on taxpayer
funds and proclaims when it comes to cultivating leaders our
diversity is our strength. Well, in 2024, AEI's Joe Pitts and I
examined the research interests of the 2021, 2022, and 2023
Truman Scholarship recipients.
Of the 182 scholars, those interested in four prominent
left leaning issues outnumbered those interested four prominent
right leaning issues by better than 12 to 1. Four or five times
as many Truman scholars were focused on DEI, or immigrant
rights, as in all of the conservative issues combined.
The College Fix examined Truman winners from 2015 to 2020
and found that 226 of 357 when on to work in jobs promoting
left wing priorities, just 4 worked to advance right wing
priorities, that is a 56 to 1 radio. The near absence of right
leaning scholars is a problem, if the goal is to cultivate
civic leaders who can bridge divides in a time of division and
distrust.
Why the imbalance? Conservative students and faculty
describe a broken process. One recent Truman finalist told me
his interview included ``politically pointed questions,''
including whether he has a conservative would, ``condemn Donald
Trump.'' When he shared this with the Director of his
university's Honor's College, he was told do not worry,
``students like you do not usually win the Truman.''
A former member of the Truman Scholars Association Board
explained how this distorts Truman's vaunted alumni network. He
told me, ``Because the scholars are overwhelmingly
progressive.'' Scholars who do not fit that mold tend to
disengage, and their programming suffers because, ``There are
almost no engaged Republicans who can be tapped.'' How has the
Truman Foundation responded?
When the leadership of this Committee asked about the AEI
study last year, Executive Secretary Terry Babcock-Lumish
insisted that, ``most applicants are neither obviously
progressive, nor obviously conservative, and that it is
needlessly divisive to raise the issue.''
Babcock-Lumish has also said, ``Truman scholars selected
are reflective of the pool of applicants before us. If students
are not nominated, or do not apply, we cannot select them.''
Huh. How about seeking to attract promising candidates who
reflect the breadth of this Nation and of its young thinkers?
Instead, the Truman leadership has sought to hide the
evidence. They have scrubbed the bios of past winners from the
Truman website, so that no one can replicate the AEI study.
Past press releases of winners are now password protected,
viewable only via a Truman account.
An information lockdown is a poor solution for a publicly
funded scholarship. What should be done? First, the Truman
program needs new leadership that will address problems, rather
than hide them. Second, the program should rethink recruiting
materials, outreach and alumni programming.
Third, the selection process deserves careful scrutiny and
rethinking. If the foundation cannot or will not get its house
in order, better for Congress to pull the plug, than ask
Americans to continue to subsidize an exercise in ideological
agendas. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Hess follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Owens. Thank you. I now recognize Ms. Kabbany for
your testimony.
STATEMENT OF MS. JENNIFER KABBANY, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THE COLLEGE
FIX, VISALIA, CALIFORNIA
Ms. Kabbany. Thank you, Chairman Owens, Ranking Member
Adams, and members of this distinguished Subcommittee for the
invitation to testify. It is an honor and a pleasure to be here
today. I am Jennifer Kabbany, Editor-In-Chief of The College
Fix. We are a nonprofit daily news website focused on higher
education, and we also train and mentor undergraduates how to
pursue careers in the media.
We are here today to talk about the federally funded Truman
Scholarship Program launched by Congress in the mid-1970's to
be nonpartisan, and simply to give ``persons who demonstrate
outstanding potential for and to plan to pursue a career in
public service.''
While the program is meant to help aspiring young public
servants get through grad school, extensive research by The
College Fix spanning a decade has shown it is essentially a
scholarship program for the Democratic party and the liberal
activist network.
The College Fix reviewed the public biographies, LinkedIn
profiles, and social media accounts of the 653 recipients over
the last decade. Some did not have a clear online footprint,
but most did, and among them are 397 people we could clearly
identify and classify as having a political ideology that
favored Democratic and progressive causes versus only 29
winners supporting conservative, or Republican causes.
These Truman fellows have interned for Democratic
lawmakers, or the Obama and Biden White House, or for liberal
leaning think tanks and advocacy groups. They also listed as
their primary interest progressive causes such as
intersectionality, climate change, government provided health
insurance, and LGBTQ issues.
In the 2018 cohort not a single Republican or conservative
winner could be found among the biographies. Most recently for
the class of 2025, we found 43 of the 54 winners have worked
for Democratic politicians, advocated progressive causes, or
identify as left leaning.
Only 3 scholars openly supported conservative causes. The
College Fix also reviewed the jobs and careers of the 2015 to
2022 cohorts to determine what the Truman beneficiaries are
doing now. Our research revealed that the scholarship spawns 35
Democratic career for every 1 Republican career. At least 226
of these scholarship recipients have obtained jobs and careers
directly tied to or advancing left wing beliefs or the
Democratic platform.
In contrast, only 4 Truman alumni could be found to have
worked in GOP politics or conservative causes. The Truman
Scholarship also seeks regional diversity in its selections and
tries to award its scholarships to students from winners in
every State. We looked at the 125 Truman scholars from 2015 to
2024 from states like Georgia, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky,
Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Ohio and Utah.
Of those, 60 of the scholars or 48 percent went to have at
least one job working for left wing progressive or Democratic
causes after winning the scholarship. In contrast, only 3
winners could be found who have gone on to work for a
conservative or Republican cause. The imbalance shows that
those nominating and selecting the winners of this taxpayer
funded scholarship favor left wing, Democratic and progressive
causes.
This structural bias persists across many years, and it
contradicts the program's public purpose. The decade long data
reveals a taxpayer funded program that in practice functions as
a talent pipeline for the Democratic party, and liberal
activist organizations. Thank you. I look forward to our
discussion today.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Kabbany follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Owens. Thank you. I now recognize Ms. Harrington
for your testimony.
STATEMENT OF MS. ASHLEY HARRINGTON, SENIOR POLICY COUNSEL,
NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE FUND, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Ms. Harrington. Good morning, Chairman Owens, Ranking
Member Adams, and members of the Subcommittee. My name is
Ashley Harrington. I serve as a Senior Policy Counsel at the
Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Thank you for the
opportunity to testify today.
Founded by our Nation's first black U.S. Supreme Court
Justice Thurgood Marshall, LDF is America's premier legal
organization fighting for racial justice. For 85 years, LDF has
advocated for equal opportunity for all. We work to dismantle
barriers that hold people back because of their race, their zip
code, or the wealth they were born into.
Since the historic U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v.
Board of Education, which LDF litigated and won, we have
continued to fight for the rights of black students to receive
high quality, equitable educational opportunities as guaranteed
by the 14th Amendment.
Our Constitutional principle of equal protection under the
law mandates that school districts, post-secondary
institutions, states, and the Federal Government provide equal
educational opportunities for all students, including black
students and other students of color, LGBTQIA students,
students with disabilities, immigrant students, and other
historically marginalized populations.
Today's hearing is about the Truman Scholarship, which was
created by Congress 50 years ago to invest in future public
servants. The bipartisan Board of Trustees that oversees the
Truman Scholarship, and the individuals involved in selecting
scholars have recognized potential for impactful public service
in roughly 3,500 talented individuals over the past half
century.
These scholars are selected without regard to partisan
identity and pursue varied fields of study, ranging from law
and policy to public health and education. Attempts to label
broad categories of public service as inherently partisan are
harmful, but we know what this is.
This is just the latest action in the continuous effort of
the Trump administration and its congressional allies to
infringe upon the First Amendment rights of individuals by
attempting to punish those who disagree with the
administration's ideologies. Public service has no ideology,
and public service certainly cannot be cabined only to those
views and issues that the administration favors.
Regardless, the Truman Scholarship represents an
appropriation of 3 million dollars a year, and directly impacts
just 50 to 60 students annually. The cuts to the higher
education safety net made in the One Big Beautiful Bill, are of
far greater consequence to the millions of Americans who have
never even heard of the Truman Scholarship.
They are the students who are already struggling with
student debt. The parents unsure how they will pay for their
children's education, and the working adults trying to return
to schools to improve their lives. Every year, millions of
students enroll in college, and millions more pursue graduate
and professional degrees.
They do so because they understand the earnings premium,
and opportunities that come with education. They also do so
with growing anxiety about affordability, debt, and whether our
systems are truly designed to support them.
They include students of color, first generation students,
veterans, adult learners, and low-income Americans, current and
future students who are counting on this Committee to care
about their economic mobility and their access to opportunity,
not just talking points.
The Truman Scholarship's 3 million dollars is a drop in the
bucket compared to what our Nation spends on higher education
each year. Across programs and departments, we spend hundreds
of billions of dollars every year on higher education, with
about 120 billion allocated to students in Federal grants and
loans alone.
There are 43 million Americans shouldering 1.6 trillion
dollars in student debt. That is why I hope today's
conversation can shift toward making our entire higher
education system more affordable and accessible for all
students, instead of having a narrow, partisan dialog about the
very few who receive this elite scholarship.
Instead of removing barriers, the OBBA constructs new ones,
pitting everyday Americans against the wealthy few, and making
it even harder for people to pursue education as a pathway to a
better life, but there is another way. Congress can increase
the Pell Grant, invest in historically black colleges and
universities, and minority serving institutions, such as
predominantly black institutions.
They can assure that grad students and dependent students
have access to the aid needed to pursue higher education,
ensure that there are truly affordable repayment options for
student borrowers that include pathways to debt relief. They
can strengthen protections against predatory institutions, and
they can protect the Department of Education because none of
this is possible unless it is fully resourced to enforce civil
rights, administer aid, and oversee institutions.
The pursuit of racial justice and equal opportunity for all
should be a shared value, and not exclusive to a single party.
Students and families deserve more from their policymakers.
They deserve a higher education system that opens doors, rather
than closes them, and a Congress committed to ensuring that
opportunity is not reserved for the privileged, but available
to all. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Harrington follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Owens. Thank you so much. I would last like to
recognize Mr. Kissel for your testimony.
STATEMENT OF MR. ADAM KISSEL, VISITING FELLOW, CENTER FOR
EDUCATION POLICY, HERITAGE FOUNDATION, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Kissel. Thank you, Chairman Owens, Ranking Member
Adams, and members of the Committee. My name is Adam Kissel. I
am a Visiting Fellow for Higher Education Reform at the
Heritage Foundation. The views I express today are my own, and
should not be construed as representing Heritage.
I also was Deputy Assistant Secretary for higher education
programs at the Education Department in the first Trump
administration. Thank you for this opportunity to outline some
ideological biases in the structure and rhetoric of the Truman
Program.
I will offer two ideas for addressing them. First, the
programs steers applications to the left and discourages
applications from the right. Just look at the website. The
sample application responses have several examples. No example
of a successful response is right coded, while many are clearly
left coded.
Topics for the successful essays included environmental
racism and community organizing, while unsuccessful ones
included students who wanted to study military history,
students who are Christians, students who express patriotism.
Second, the website directs advisors of applicants to focus on
``change agents.'' This term is commonly used on the
progressive left due to its ideology of radically changing
American institutions.
Likewise, the program privileges, ``advocacy,'' over other
kinds of public service. You can see this for yourself on the
website. This rhetoric discourages conservatives from applying
because we often, more often speak of preserving American
traditions and values. For us, public service often means
supporting what is good in the current order against efforts to
change it.
Third, the program's regulatory definition of public
service, I am getting into some details here, it is not in the
statute. This definition is also somewhat left coded. The
definition emphasizes environmentalism, but not for example,
protection of unborn children. Imagine who would apply if the
program instead gave examples of Constitutionalists, or
promoters of strong families, or federalism.
Fourth, the program excludes MBAs almost entirely from the
competition. The positive role of American business in society
might be something we will have to debate another day, but even
the left today recognizes how profit-making businesses engage
in public service in many ways.
This MBA prohibition again, is not in the statute of
regulations, it is just in the operation of the program.
Finally, higher education is skewed deeply to the left, so the
applicant pool itself is skewed deeply to the left. No one
should be surprised that right leaning colleges seldom see the
point of sending applicants, Pepperdine, Liberty, Grand Canyon
Universities, they have had zero Truman scholars across the
program's entire history.
Hillsdale has had just one. I have two policy ideas or
recommendations to consider. An easy on, as Mr. Hess said, is
revise the program's regulations and website to remove their
biases, including the definition of public service, so that it
is as neutral as it can be, discouraging conservatives, or any
ideology.
Second, an idea to consider is to harmonize the Truman
Program with a program called the Graduate Assistance in Areas
of National Need Program, GAANN.
In that program the Secretary of Education consults with
other agencies and nonprofits, say the National Science
Foundation, Department of War, to determine the national need
in graduate education, and this process results in priorities
that genuinely serve the Nation, such as cybersecurity,
artificial intelligence, and this is under both Republican and
Democratic administrations for the GAANN Program.
These changes would better honor President Truman's legacy,
so thank you again for the opportunity to provide this
testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kissel follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Owens. Thank you. Thank you so much. Under
Committee Rule 9, I will now question the witnesses under the
Five-Minute Rule. I will recognize myself for 5 minutes. Dr.
Hess, you mentioned students' interest in four prominent left
leaning issues outnumber those interests in the four prominent
right leaning issues by better than 12 to 1.
That is truly unbelievable by the way, but if the table
were turned and liberal students were being discriminated
against, the left would be irate. Are you aware of any Federal
education programs where conservatives win 12 times as much as
liberals?
Mr. Hess. No. I am not. I think it is important to
understand here that this is not just about partisan balance.
The point of the Truman is to recruit young Americans who are
interested in public service, so that they might advance--so
that they might serve the needs of the Nation.
This is about Americans who bring different values and
different ideas to the table.
Chairman Owens. Thank you. I think we all can agree, and I
am going to ask Ms. Harrington a quick question that any
taxpayer funding opportunities should not be discriminatory,
correct, right? Anything that taxpayers are paying for should
not be discriminatory. That is easy, yes or no?
Ms. Harrington. Yes.
Chairman Owens. OK, thank you. There are millions and
millions of black conservatives like myself, how many black
conservatives have ever been selected as Truman scholar?
Ms. Harrington. Sorry, is that to me, sir?
Chairman Owens. Yes?
Ms. Harrington. I do not think any of us know, right? Even
the research that we are talking about today has only looked at
a limited number of bios, and they are doing it based on their
own research of social media, and not having the----
Chairman Owens. There is no way to find out if this--in
other words, we are trying to make sure that it is very open,
very inclusive, and there is no way to see if any black
conservatives ever have been selected as a Truman? That should
be a big deal. I would think that would be a real highlight of
the Truman Scholarship program to say we service everyone,
including black conservatives.
Ms. Harrington. I think the bigger deal is does our higher
education system as a whole service everyone. What we are
worried about are the millions of Americans, not the 50 or 60 a
year. There are millions of Americans struggling in our higher
education system right now.
Chairman Owens. We are losing that battle by the way
because of liberal policies, so just all right, thank you so
much. Ms. Kabbany, you mentioned that College Fix has been
investigating Truman Foundation for nearly 10 years. One thing
that struck out is how consistent your findings are each year,
liberal winners, and massively outnumber conservatives every
single year, regardless of which party is in power, whose
running the office.
What do you think this says about the program itself?
Ms. Kabbany. Well, what it says is that this program is
essentially a talent pipeline, and taxpayer funded scholarship
program for the Democratic party and the liberal activist
network. It also shows that the system is inherently broken.
There is a systemic bias that starts at the campus level, all
the way up to the final decisions that needs to be reformed.
Chairman Owens. Thank you. Mr. Kissel, you mentioned a
program structure assumes that for profit corporations in the
private sector can never serve the public, and conversely,
nonprofits, the government sector always act in the public
interest. Personally, I do not think either of this is true.
Can you say more about why some types of for-profit work
perhaps could count toward Truman public service requirements?
Mr. Kissel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Whenever there is a
voluntary transaction, both sides are better off, that is econ
101. When any public company or for-profit company is
contributing to the public by selling goods and services that
people want, they are engaging in a kind of public service, but
maybe more to the point lots of companies have a public service
component to what they do.
They will have a philanthropy arm. They will have a
community outreach arm. If you are in a field where you are
helping the public, it should not matter whether the structure
of your organization is for profit or nonprofit.
Chairman Owens. Thank you. OK. I am going to yield back my
time now to the Ranking Member, I recognize for the purpose of
questioning the witnesses.
Ms. Adams. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When students dream
about college, they should not be left wondering whether the
Federal Government will still be there when they arrive,
wondering if the Department of Education will be open or
wondering if the programs they rely on, Pell Grants, campus
support programs, HBCU funding will still exist by the time
they graduate.
I spent more than 40 years in the classroom as a professor,
and I know that uncertainty by itself can derail a student.
When programs disappear overnight students lose their footing,
and when an entire Federal program is put on the chopping
block, the consequences are felt in every classroom, every
campus and every community.
Let us put the numbers in perspective. The Truman
Foundation is receiving a lot of attention today. The students
are not struggling because of the Truman Scholarship. They are
struggling because Congress passed a law that gutted Pell,
slashed student aid, and weakened the support systems that help
low-income and first-generation students stay enrolled.
While we debate a scholarship program that has supported
public service for nearly 50 years, we are watching in real
time the Federal Government dismantle the U.S. Department of
Education. The Trump administration has laid off nearly half of
the Department's workforce. It has canceled and withheld
billions in grants, and it has signed interagency agreements to
move critical functions, including the entire Office of
Postsecondary Education out of the Department altogether.
Well, that is not reform. That is a retreat from our
responsibility to students. Let me turn to our witnesses. Ms.
Harrington, the Truman Foundation could receive roughly 30
million dollars in Federal support over 10 years, but H.R. 1,
which my colleagues supported, cut 284 billion from education
over that same period.
Can you speak to the relative importance of that 30-
million-dollars compared to the scale of the 284 billion in
cuts, and what does that difference mean to students, for
institutions, for the future of Federal support for higher
education?
Ms. Harrington. Absolutely. It is a drop in the bucket. The
billions of dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars that we
spend every year, the hundreds of billions of dollars that are
going to be cut because of this bill are going to--those cuts
are going to fall directly on students, families and
institutions.
Students are going to have to make hard decisions about
whether they can go to college, stay in college. Folks are
going to have to make hard decisions about how they are going
to manage their student loans with the debt that they currently
have. Parents are going to have to make hard decisions about
whether they can afford to send their kids to school.
Schools are going to have to make hard decisions about what
programs they are able to keep. Some of them, whether they are
even able to stay open with these changes. We should be very
concerned. We know that there is an affordability crisis in
higher education.
We know that there is a student debt crisis, and that it is
disproportionately burdening families of color, low-income
students, veterans, woman, all the folks who are
disproportionately harmed when we make these huge cuts. This
bill does not make life easier or make higher education more
accessible for any of these communities. It puts it further out
of reach.
Ms. Adams. Thank you. My colleagues have talked a lot about
eliminating the Department of Education, but I am not sure the
American people understand what the Department actually does
for students. Let me ask, can you tell us what the Department
of Education does for college students, for institutions of
higher education?
Can you talk about the negative impact that these lay-offs,
grant cancellations, interagency transfers have already had,
especially on campuses trying to serve students, and how will
the continuing dismantling of the Department affect our most
vulnerable students, low-income students, first generation
students, and students of color?
Ms. Harrington. The Department of Education was created by
statute by Congress, and one of its most important functions is
that it protects the civil rights of students. Students are
able, if they are being discriminated against on their campus
in their school district, anywhere, to file complaints, and to
have that investigated by OCR, the Office of Civil Rights.
Right now, because that Department has been gutted, and
that office specifically, thousands of complaints are going
unanswered. Folks do not have a response. Last year alone there
were 23,000 complaints made to the Office of Civil Rights. Many
of them are still open. Folks have submitted complaints this
year.
There is no continuity. They have no idea who their case
officer is. There is no idea for next steps. That impacts the
schools and institutions as well. Many of them are waiting for
guidance on what to do next, they are waiting on guidance on
how to handle this. They are trying to do the right thing, but
they do not even have anyone they can contact at the
Department.
Ms. Adams. Let me ask you about the dismantling of this
Department and the transfer or elimination of core programs,
and how it affects HBCU's ability to serve their students and
strengthen their campuses and continue their mission?
Ms. Harrington. Any time we try to move broad swaths of a
program, we saw this already with the transfer of the Office of
Career Technical Education. There were disruptions in funding,
disruptions in the system, all of this takes time to implement.
It is not something that can be done overnight. We see this
moving to departments where they do not have the expertise, the
resources, the years of experience with these programs.
There are going to be funding disruptions, and that would
be most felt by the schools that are most under resourced.
Ms. Adams. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Owens. Thank you. I would like to now recognize my
friend from New York, Ms. Stefanik, who was actually a former
member, a Board member of Truman.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you so much, Chairman Owens. Thank you
for the witnesses for being here today. I have been tracking
these issues quite closely, and your work for some time, and
most recently as a sitting Board member of the Foundation, and
the first Board meeting will be right after this hearing in
about 5 minutes.
I sent a letter to my follow Board members on May 28th of
this year raising serious concerns regarding the ideological
bias and impartiality of the scholarship selection process, so
I have a few questions for some of the witnesses. Mr. Kissel,
based on your work examining ideological issues in higher
education, what are the inherent risks to a congressionally
established scholarship program like the Truman Foundation when
public reporting suggests its selection process may be
prioritizing ideological alignment over the merits of
leadership and public service?
Mr. Kissel. Thank you for the question. Every government
body can easily be captured by politics and ideology. Non-
governmental bodies can as well, but the problem is especially
acute for organizations like the Truman Program where the
members of the Foundation are political members.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you. Ms. Kabbany, do you believe that
the Foundation's current lack of transparency in its selection
criteria, and the makeup of its selection committees make it
vulnerable to political and social activism, rather than those
committed to broad, non-partisan public service?
Ms. Kabbany. Absolutely. That can have an impact on who
they decide to send forward as the candidates and the fellows.
Also, on the campus level those that are deciding who gets put
to the regional committees, I mean they are professors, and we
all know 30 to 1 professors are liberals, so they are obviously
going to advance candidates who have beliefs and pet causes
that they love and they support, and they want to see funded.
The bias actually starts at the campus level and then goes
to the regional and the final two, so it is really systemic.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you. Dr. Hess, I have questioned the
will and commitment of the Foundation's board to maintaining
ideological neutrality. What specific actions or policy changes
should the Board and the Foundation immediately implement to
restore public trust and demonstrate a genuine commitment to
political and ideological neutrality in their selections.
Mr. Hess. That is a great question. Look, and it is
important for folks to understand why this matters so much. The
Truman Fellowship exists as a model of how we want to encourage
young Americans to engage in public service. We want young
leaders who can model the breadth of good faith disagreement in
this country, who can bridge divides, who can lead us forward.
We cannot do this if half of the Nation is not at the
table. What kinds of changes are necessary? One, look the
Truman Program ought to understand its primary mission as
making sure it is inviting all Americans to the table. It needs
to recruit aggressively on campuses where it is not currently
getting submissions.
It needs to make sure it is reaching out to networks it may
not have already tapped. There needs to be public transparency
and scrutiny about the processes. Right now, the Regional
Review Boards, if you survey, as the Chairman mentioned, if you
survey the makeup of the Judges, it is pretty clear that there
is a heavy ideological tilt. That needs to be addressed.
There needs to be clear guidelines on the kinds of
questions that should and should not be asked in the interview
process. Really what we need is somebody to approach this with
the primary goal of reassuring all Americans, all students, all
professors, that we are trying to create a Heterodox inclusive
community of scholars who can lead us forward, rather than one
that happens to be responsive to Orthodoxy on campus.
Ms. Stefanik. Well, thank you. That is one of my missions,
and one of the reasons that I requested for this position on
the Board, and I've been deeply concerned. One of the most
egregious examples is there was a 2025 Truman scholar who
publicly espoused for support for Hamas, a U.S. designated
foreign terrorist organization.
As you know, I have been a leader in combating antisemitism
in the higher education space, and we need to address this rise
of antisemitism with some of the recipients of the Truman
Scholarship Program. Thank you very much. I look forward to
working with you to try to implement many of these policy
reforms, and I yield back.
Chairman Owens. Thank you. I would like now to recognize my
friend from Georgia, Mrs. McBath.
Mrs. McBath. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our
witnesses for being with us today. I have already read your
testimoneys. Ms. Harrington, my father was President of the
Illinois Branch NAACP for over 20 years in Chicago, in
Illinois, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement.
I am so glad to see you here today to continue the
important work to help this country actually live up to its
promise of liberty and justice for all people. That promise,
despite being the culminating line of our Pledge of Allegiance,
despite being recited by Members of Congress and classrooms
around the country every single day, is one that is
increasingly under attack by my Republican colleagues in
Congress and the White House.
Time and time again, Republicans attempt to demonize
programs that make people's lives better, as ``politically
biased'' because they simply do not believe them to be an
important role of our government. It is not about evaluating
these programs on their merits, or the benefit that they
provide, it is about trying to fulfill their narrow view of
what the role of our Federal Government should be.
It is about propping up the idea that their way of thinking
is the only acceptable one, regardless of the outcomes of the
policies that they support. They are so focused on those goals
that they fail to see the benefits that the work of these
scholars and other public servants provides to our country, and
actually for the world.
It is why this administration would rather pay money to set
food on fire and destroy it, than to see it end up in the hands
of hungry women and children. Wanting to represent your country
on the largest stage in order to share how your work makes this
country a better place is not a progressive ideal, it is a
uniquely American one.
Wanting to lead in spaces like human rights, wanting to
eradicate poverty at home and abroad, so that all those that
are made in God's image can live a decent and fulfilling life.
These are not progressive or partisan ideals. These are the
things that make millions of Americans take real pride in their
lives every single day.
It is what is supposed to make this country so special and
better than others like it. It is not just about where you were
born, or where you live. It is about what your country stands
for. Whether it is really fighting for the ideals or just
talking about them out of convenience. Ms. Harrington, as you
know, the Truman Foundation requires scholars to take a job in
public service for at least three of the 7-years after their
studies.
This suggests the idea that the scholarships focus on
public service itself is the source of the misguided opinion
that a disproportionate share of Truman scholars are
progressive. Can you please talk about how conservative attacks
on the importance and the benefits of public service play a
role in the makeup of Truman Scholarship recipients?
If you can do so quickly, I have such short time.
Ms. Harrington. I think this is just an attack on dissent,
and public service should have no ideology as you mentioned.
With bipartisan Board of Trustees, bipartisan selection
Committee, bipartisan Selection Committee, this is--they have
created a program that values people who are interested in
public service period.
It is not about partisan identity, but they are also trying
to do an attack on public service and dissent so that they can
also impact the services that are provided by these entities,
right, and the communities that are impacted by these services.
It is an idea of not just attacking the beliefs and ideologies,
but what organizations, governments can do for the communities
they serve.
Mrs. McBath. Thank you. This is clearly just another
episode of selective outrage over the use of public dollars.
Let us put this in perspective. We are having a hearing today
over an annual appropriation that us made by Congress of just 3
million dollars, just 3 million.
An appropriation supported by Congress and signed into law
by the President. President Trump just sent 20 billion dollars,
and that is billion with a B, to help his political allies in
Argentina win a foreign election, and the Republican majority
will not condemn that as a misuse of public funds.
I do not believe any Committee or Subcommittee has had a
hearing on that. Instead, we are using the people's time to
examine 3 million dollars specifically dedicated to
scholarships meant for people trying to make this country a
better and safer place to live. I do not believe this is a good
use of this Subcommittee, or any Subcommittee's time, and I
hope that we recommit ourselves to real issues that have a
positive impact on American's everyday lives and I yield.
Chairman Owens. Thank you. I would now like to recognize my
friend from Wisconsin, Mr. Grothman.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you very much. Ms. Kabbany, I find your
testimony very interesting, particularly interesting given this
is a public program. You mentioned that the people who run the
program kind of scrubbed some information that you wanted and
you could not really get all the information you wanted to
adequately do this study.
Could you comment on that a little bit, and perhaps why the
people who run the Truman Foundation want to hide things from
Congress and the public?
Mrs. Kabbany. Yes. I am aware that the biographies of the
Truman winners have been removed. They used to publish--we
started our research in 2015, and they used to publish
everyone's biography, what nonprofits they were interested in,
and who they volunteered with, who they have interned with.
When they publish the winners, they just give their name and
their school.
Do they even--yes, just the name and the school. We have
used the LinkedIn bios and their social media accounts, and
other you know, school biographies, or other public statements
they have made, but unfortunately the Truman Foundation has
made it a bit more difficult for us to do our research every
year.
Mr. Grothman. OK. Kind of contempt for the public, OK.
Another couple comments as far as the Argentina thing. I do not
mean to get into that, but that was a currency swap, it was not
a guess, and at least as of a couple months ago the U.S. was
ahead of the game in that.
Do you guys know, one of you mentioned the already
ideological bias that conservatives have to put up with from
the faculty of the universities around the country. I think one
of you threw out, and I would like to repeat, about the
percentage of faculty in this country, particularly liberal
arts faculty that are kind of the progressive bent?
Ms. Kabbany. Yes, so look, study after study shows that 30
to 1, 40 to 1 professors are liberal to conservative. Whoever
is tasked on these campuses with selecting the Truman fellows
to nominate forward to the regional committees is probably a
liberal, and they probably like liberal causes, progressive
causes, Democratic causes, so it is really no surprise that the
applicants that are moving forward lean left.
The problem starts on the campuses, and whoever is selected
on each campus to advance their school's nominee.
Mr. Grothman. OK. Ms. Harrington, when she taught she
mentioned that DEI was mentioned as a favorable thing. Is
anybody familiar with where the DEI philosophy came from, or
familiar with Christopher Rufo's writings? Again, I want to
elaborate a little more who came up with DEI and what their
ultimate goal is?
Mr. Hess. I mean, the critical theory started as a school
of literary thought more than half a century ago. It was
brought into particularly law as a way of pushing back on some
of the assumptions of the U.S. Constitution, and of established
Federal law and State law.
Mr. Grothman. What is the goal of labeling people by where
their ancestors come from? Why is this so obsessed over today?
Mr. Hess. You know, I mean I think there are obviously two
schools of thought when it comes to equality. One is that
Americans need to be equal under the law. A second is a
philosophy of equity.
Mr. Grothman. OK. We will give Jennifer one more question.
What pushback has there been against the left turn from the
Truman Foundation? Has there been pushback?
Ms. Kabbany. No. They essentially just say well, we can
only field the players we are given, and so OK, how do we
reform the players they are given then because if we want to
fix this and create some balance, we need to advertise better
on campuses to college Republicans, Turning Point U.S.A., and
Young Americans for Freedom, and make sure that maybe the
College of Business, or the College of Economics, so that a
wider net is cast, and we get more applicants.
Then make sure that the faculty who are selecting these
candidates know that they need to put the best person forward,
not just the one that mirrors what they believe.
Mr. Grothman. OK. Ms. Harrington, you want diversity. The
country right now is about one-half Republican, one-half
Democrat, about. Do you think it would be a good goal for the
Truman Foundation to have approximately one-half of their
recipients more of a conservative bent, and one-half more of
the progressive bent?
Ms. Harrington. I think the best goal for all programs, and
particularly for this Committee to focus on is ensuring that we
are taking down barriers, and improving access for all, and
that is the point of diversity, equity, inclusion and access
programs, which helps universities, and will help this, and
will help institutions actually comply with their civil rights
obligations, and ensure that they are providing equal
opportunity.
This is about taking down barriers, and not continuing to
put barriers up.
Mr. Grothman. We know who the barriers are against, but in
any event, thank you.
Chairman Owens. Thank you. I would like to now introduce
my--have my, acknowledge my friend from Oregon, Ms. Bonamici.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member. I
have to say it is pretty disappointing, and also pretty tone
deaf for the majority to use this Committee's valuable time to
talk about this politicized issue. I have been on this
Committee for more than a dozen years, and you know, Dr. Hess
just talked about bridging divides.
I cannot remember a hearing that has felt more divisive
than this, with these labels, left, right, conservative,
liberal. My constituents back home are not looking at labels.
They want us to fix problems. They do not want us to label each
other, and label ideologies.
I have to say that you know Republicans want to talk about
this scholarship program, but what we should be talking about
is how we make higher education more affordable and accessible.
We have got the Big, Ugly Bill that wiped out Federal support
for student aid, the final rule on the Public Service Loan
Forgiveness Program.
Now, it is subjecting public service workers to unfair
political litmus tests, and unnecessary limits on loan
forgiveness. Let us talk about that. The administration is
doing everything it can to undermine and shut down the
Department of Education and the programs it administers that
helps students like TRIO and GEAR UP.
Let us talk about the harmful and nonsensical declaration
by the Trump administration that certain fields of study,
including nursing, are no longer professional, and now it is
going to make it harder for people to enter into this necessary
and honorable work. Last week, the Department of Education
announced another six interagency agreements.
They are going to move several core functions to other
agencies that are unequipped, and underfunded, and do not have
the staff to operate these programs. This includes everything
in the Office of Postsecondary Education, which administers
critical higher education grant programs and technical
assistance.
I want to ask you, Ms. Harrington, what is the role of the
Office of Postsecondary Education in implementing higher
education policy, and overseeing student centered grant
programs, and what is at stake if students and colleges are not
able to access those services provided by the Office of
Postsecondary Education in a timely manner?
Ms. Harrington. It will be incredibly--it could be
catastrophic. Their role is to not just determine who--how
grants are awarded to determine the qualifications. They work
directly with institutions to implement the program. They work
directly with institutions to answer questions, to make sure
that the programs are operating effectively, that they are
getting to the students that they are supposed to get to and
evaluating those programs.
If you move them to another department that has no
experience, and does not have the staff to do this, then you
are going to directly impact those institutions and their
ability to carry out the programs, and the students that relied
on those programs.
Ms. Bonamici. This is just closing the doors of opportunity
to many. Ms. Harrington, I trust we can agree that public
service workers like teachers, nurses, first responders,
service members, those are critical jobs despite the low wages
and understaffing.
The new Public Service Loan Forgiveness Rule will continue
the Trump administration's legacy of abandoning public service
workers by allowing the Secretary to determine who is eligible
for public service loan forgiveness based on political
ideology, which is not what the country expects or needs.
Public service workers deserve transparency and a system
that works for them, so with that in mind, how will the new
final rule on public service loan forgiveness affect the
ability of public service workers to remain in their roles, and
achieve meaningful debt relief, and will it reduce the number
of nurses for example that will help maintain our healthcare
system?
If you could be brief because I have another question for
Dr. Hess.
Ms. Harrington. Absolutely, it is going to determine if
folks can--if the Trump administration can take away status as
being a PSLF employer, that means fewer folks are going to go
into those industries, go into those organizations, and it has
a direct impact on communities.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much. Dr. Hess, I just have a
couple of yes or no questions. You wrote an article called,
``Do the Rhodes and Truman Scholarship have any Room for the
Right?'' You wrote that with a Mr. Joe Pitts, is that correct?
Mr. Hess. Correct.
Ms. Bonamici. Does Mr. Joe Pitts identify as a
conservative?
Mr. Hess. I believe so.
Ms. Bonamici. Is it correct that Joe Pitts was a Truman
scholar nominee who did not get a scholarship?
Mr. Hess. I believe so.
Ms. Bonamici. Was that fact disclosed in the article that
you wrote?
Mr. Hess. I do not believe so.
Ms. Bonamici. You do not think it would be helpful for
people reading that article to know that there was a
disgruntled Truman scholar who was participating in the report?
You do not think that would be helpful for them to know?
Mr. Hess. It did not seem material to me.
Ms. Bonamici. OK. In your May 2025 op-ed called, ``The
Truman Foundation Must Embrace Civic Seriousness,'' you were
the sole author of that I understand, but at one point you
quote an unnamed recent Truman finalist. Was that finalist you
quote but did not name Mr. Pitts?
Mr. Hess. No.
Ms. Bonamici. OK. I just wanted to clarify that. I submit
that many people would be interested in knowing that it was a
disgruntled Truman nominee who did not get the scholarship, who
participated in the report. I think that is important
information, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman Owens. Thank you. I would like to recognize my
friend from Guam, Mr. Moylan.
Mr. Moylan. Thank you, Chairman Owens and Ranking Member
Adams. Thanks for hosting today's important hearing on Truman
Scholarship Program. Since its inception, the program has
provided critical financial support for students in the
territories, including 27 scholars from Guam, 22 of which were
from the University of Guam, which coincidentally established
when Harry Truman was President.
The program has also supported an additional 75 students
from the other territories and Commonwealths. In comparison,
other public service scholarship like Broads, Marshalls and
Fulbright, select far fewer, if any, awardees from the
territories.
Now, while college affordability is a problem everywhere,
higher education costs and geographic barriers mean that it is
especially challenging for students from Guam to access higher
education. Receiving the Truman Scholarship can and has been
transformational for students who receive it.
That is why I am concerned to hear instances of political
bias in federally funded program. This is the type of behavior
that can threaten the program's long-term sustainability, and
we must ensure that it is being administered fairly, without
regard for political affiliation, ensuring students across the
political spectrum have a chance to succeed.
Ms. Kabbany. Conservative students may be less likely to
pursue degrees in social science, and more likely to pursue
degrees in things like business, criminal justice, engineering
fields that are not typically associated with the traditional
public service. From what I heard, this scholarship program can
sometimes have limited outreach to programs that tend to have
conservative students in them.
What reforms can be made to ensure broader outreach, and
therefore, greater intellectual and political diversity?
Ms. Kabbany. Thank you for the question. I think that we
need to do better advertising and marketing to students who
tend to go into those fields that you cited off because $30,000
for grad school is $30,000 for grad school. I mean, I am sure
they would not mind giving 3 years of a job of public service.
Conservatives and Republicans love public service just as
much as left leaning students do, and it is a wonderful
opportunity. I mean a lot of times people have been saying
well, it is only 3 million dollars, but the Truman Scholarship
fellows have an outsized role in advancing the national
conversation. They go into jobs that are influencing, you know,
lawmakers that are influencing think tank policy papers, that
are influencing all sorts of advocacy work.
They are the cream of the crop of our students, and they
are driven, they are ambitious, they are talented, and our
right-leaning students deserve a fair shot at such a wonderful
opportunity as much as the left-leaning students do.
Mr. Moylan. Thank you. Mr. Hess, in your testimony you
touched on political bias problem, with a specific focus on the
awardee's political learnings. This seems to also indicate that
there could be bias in some of the panelists selecting
finalists and winners.
You mentioned this briefly in your written testimony, but
did you also do research into political learning of these
panelists, if so, what did you find?
Mr. Hess. I have not delved deeply into the makeup of the
regional review boards. If one looks at the publicly available
names and tries to identify their ideological leanings, it is
roughly 4 to 1 left to right. I mean, I think it is useful to
understand. I have had a number of former Truman fellows and
Truman Board members reach out over the last year or so, since
I wrote this.
One former Truman Board member explained that when this
question comes up of why there are not more right leaning folks
involved in the program, there generally are two responses he
indicated. One was that look, Republicans and conservatives
just are not interested in public service, that is why they are
not here. They just do not want to be here.
The second is, you know, conservatives and Republicans,
they are just not as academically accomplished, they are just
not as credentialled, so they are losing out in a merit-based
competition. Personally, having been a teacher, a professor and
a scholar at AEI for decades, I have not found either of those
defenses to ring true.
Mr. Moylan. One last thing guys, a followup also. What
steps might Congress be able to take to ensure balance and fair
representation on these reviews and/or panelists?
Mr. Hess. Honestly, I am less concerned about
representation that I am about fairness and merit. For
instance, of the 182 awardees between 2021 and 2023, just four
looked at cybersecurity and technology. This says to me that
the priorities of what judges are looking for and asking about
are askew, and so I think what we need is careful scrutiny to
ensure that it is public service in the national interest with
an eye to forging inclusive, healthy conversation.
Mr. Moylan. Thank you very much to the panel. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Owens. Thank you. I want to now turn to my friend
from Arizona, Ms. Grijalva.
Mrs. Grijalva. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am deeply
frustrated that we are sitting in this Committee room listening
to Republicans recite the same culture war talking points,
instead of discussing how we can address college affordability
and that crisis.
This year, Congressional Republicans slashed over 300
billion in Federal student aid on top of cuts to Medicaid and
SNAP, all to give billionaires a permanent tax break. As a
member on the Education and Workforce Committee, I am
disappointed that my Republican colleagues choose to spend
taxpayer dollars this way, rather than reinvesting in our
higher education system to lower student costs.
Ms. Harrington, what message are congressional Republicans
and the Trump administration sending to students and families
and colleges by diverting over 300 billion from students toward
tax cuts for the ultra-rich?
Ms. Harrington. The concern is that they are not concerned
about equal opportunity for all, that they are putting the
folks who need it most against the wealthiest of Americans. If
folks can never go to college, they will never be able to apply
for a Truman Scholarship anyway, so the real focus should be on
how we expand affordability across the board.
Mrs. Grijalva. Yes. I mean I think this hearing is really
part of an ideological agenda, taking a quote from Dr. Hess's
introduction speech. I have a concern in Arizona's CD-7; we
have a lot of rural communities. Rural students and local
colleges are already facing shrinking resources and limited
access to higher education.
The Big, Ugly Law worsens these challenges by making
college less affordable and undermining the institutions that
serve as economic anchors in rural areas. Many of the policy
changes in this law deepen educational and workforce
disparities pushing rural communities further behind. I think
those communities in my district in Southern Arizona, like
Douglas, Nogales, Ajo, Somerton and San Luis that are affected
as a direct result of these policies.
With communities like this in mind, Ms. Harrington, how do
the changes to the student loan program and Pell eligibility in
the Big, Ugly Law harm rural communities, and what unique
challenges do rural students and colleges face?
Ms. Harrington. It puts college even further out of reach.
If they have fewer resources to go to school, the institutions
themselves have fewer resources to provide services. In rural
communities oftentimes these institutions, just like many
others, are the drivers of that economy as well.
If these institutions are struggling, the entire community
struggles, and that will have ripple effects across that
community.
Mrs. Grijalva. Thank you. Ms. Kabbany, you mentioned left
leaning careers when you were talking about the kinds of your
assessment. I am wondering if an immigration attorney would be
considered a left or right leaning career?
Ms. Kabbany. That would probably fall under a--could not
classify or potentially left leaning if that person also had
other Democratic or progressive items on their bio, so that we
can make a better determination.
Mrs. Grijalva. OK. What about a public-school teacher
teaching in an urban public-school setting? Would that be a
left-leaning or right-leaning career?
Ms. Kabbany. That would be an N/A. We would not put them in
either.
Mrs. Grijalva. OK. I am just really curious about how you
know we are having a lot of big numbers and discussing what
this looks like for all of the Truman scholars, who is being
selected, and knowing personally a Truman scholar,
understanding the transformative nature of this scholarship.
I think it is really important for us to get through what
this process looks like, and that on every college campus it's
competitive. It is competitive. To suggest that because someone
is interested in a career when you look at them, after having
all the education that they have collected, I think that it is
important for us to see that these opportunities that we have
in these spaces really influence people.
Maybe they started out with one career in mind and ended up
with another one. I am very concerned about how we are
categorizing a left leaning and a right leaning career. If you
are a Member of Congress it should not be either one, right,
that should just be, it is what it is.
I want to thank you all for your time here, and with that
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Owens. Thank you. I would like to recognize my
friend from North Carolina, Mr. Harris.
Mr. Harris. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to all of
you serving on the panel today. I apologize for being in and
out, but other hearings are taking place in other Committees. I
did have the pleasure of reading your testimoneys, and knowing
what you have shared and I have a couple of questions that I
want to just address.
Ms. Kabbany, you mentioned that the Truman Program spawns
35 Democratic jobs for every 1 Republican job. That number was
simply stunning to me. Could you say more about why we should
all, regardless of our political party, find that number so
concerning?
Ms. Kabbany. Well, this has become a taxpayer funded
scholarship program and talent pipeline for the Democratic
party and the progressive activist network. That is not fair. I
mean not all taxpayers are Democrats, right, so it is not
representing all of the Republican voters, your Republican
constituents.
For example, in North Carolina from 2015 to 2020 there were
11 Truman scholars from your State, and 2 were identified as
progressive and Democrat, zero Republican, and 9 we could not
identify because we erred on the side of caution. We never
wanted to classify wrongly.
It just goes to show that in most of the states that we
looked at the voting block is not represented. Red State Truman
scholars are Democrats.
Mr. Harris. Got you. Mr. Kissel, you mentioned that one
source of bias is the sample responses the Truman Foundation
posts on its website. You mentioned that two of the examples of
``substandard responses,'' involved an applicant interested in
military history, and a Christian who is interested in serving
in the military.
Now, you mentioned this in your testimony, but does the
website list any positive examples you found of Christian or
military focused applicants?
Mr. Kissel. Thank you for the question. Unfortunately,
there are zero examples of such people who are considered to
have had a successful application.
Mr. Harris. OK. Well, listen, today we are talking about a
federally funded scholarship program for graduate degrees that
honors the legacy of President Harry Truman. In fact, I do not
know if any of the witnesses, or if it's even been mentioned
earlier today, know what school President Truman graduated
from. The answer is he did not.
This program was created to honor President Harry Truman, a
man who left college after one semester, and never earned a
degree, yet went on to become President. It is deeply ironic to
me that taxpayers are also--who also never attended college,
just like Truman himself, are now forced to fund elite post-
graduate degrees for a handpicked few.
In my opinion, the Federal Government has no business
running a scholarship program at all. With our national debt
over 38 trillion dollars, which I just left a hearing where
that conversation was being discussed, we literally cannot
afford these luxury academic subsidies.
In 2024, taxpayers spent 3 million dollars to send about 60
people to graduate school through the Truman Scholarship. The
Federal Government should not be making decisions about which
students are the best or the most promising, nor should it be
using taxpayer dollars to shape the future leadership class
through targeted scholarship programs.
This is not the role envisioned by our founders, nor is
it--we find it well outside our Constitution's limits. I do not
fault any of the students. I certainly do not fault the alumni,
who have taken advantage of this program because if the
government offers free money, people will understandably accept
it, but that does not make the program wise, nor does it make
it justified.
It simply means it is time for Congress to stop the gravy
train. At a time when our Nation is drowning in debt, every
dollar must be scrutinized. The American people are calling for
every dollar to be scrutinized, and for this reason I believe
we should no longer fund this program.
Today's hearing, I think if anything else has exposed the
liberal bias within the program, adding just one more reason we
should not spend any more money on it. With that Mr. Chairman,
I yield back my time.
Chairman Owens. Thank you so much. I would like to now
recognize my friend from California, Mr. DeSaulnier.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank
the witnesses. I represent a district in the East Bay of the
San Francisco Bay Area, right next to the University of
California at Berkeley, and we have had a long history of these
type of issues. I remember Prop 209, almost 30 years ago.
The university system has always embraced the public
university systems, CSU and UC, diversity, but it is also based
on merit. Just in terms of return on investment there is--we
have lots of members in California with a return on investment
for everybody, so the idea of merit-based, but ignoring the
fact that not everyone starts in the same place.
Ms. Harrington, in that regard, you know, we have had lots
of challenges at UC in the system, and at CSU, but particularly
Berkeley. Having just gone there for a football game Mr.
Chairman, where Berkeley upset SMU, trying to protect this, but
also doing it.
We have history in California is my point, and of course,
the stereotype is particularly for Berkeley, and we just went
through this with UCLA from the administration is that it is
left leaning. The reality is we have had a long-time dealing
with Civil Rights issues, not just for Truman, but for
everything.
Ms. Harrington, in this particular program first, how does
this continued erosion just deal with the reality that the
taxpayers get a lot of value out of getting people from these
communities protected and getting them a bachelor's degree, or
a graduate degree?
Ms. Harrington. I think the Truman Scholarship selected by
bipartisan groups of individuals they really seek to pick
people based on their commitment to public service. This is not
a question of ideological bias, and so the ideas that folks who
are going to contribute, who want to give back to the entire
community, to the public, to the society is very, very
important, and the goal is to take down barriers, not to put up
more.
Mr. DeSaulnier. A lot of the folks that would be targeted
from my perspective in what the administration is doing, the
value to the taxpayers is enormous of getting people higher
degrees in every group, but particularly protected classes.
Ms. Harrington. Absolutely. We all benefit when fewer
barriers are erected, when more folks have access. We do not
leave talent on the table. The entire society benefits. There
have been numerous studies that by not doing something about
these barriers, by keeping people out of postsecondary
education, by keeping them out of employment opportunities for
instance, we lose trillions of dollars to our economy actually.
We all benefit, both in terms of real dollars, but also in
terms of the society that we are trying to create.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Just in general, you know, young people go
in to get a bachelor's degree to be special ed teachers we
need. Now, they are not part of this right now, but moving that
out of the Department of Education, which has been proposed, as
well, is that there is a level of expertise in getting diverse
groups irrespective of their ideology, and different
perspectives in society, poverty--also specific needs in our
education system, so could you briefly talk about that? When we
lose these revenue sources, so people can compete for them
irrespective of their political ideologies, that is just
another barrier for getting a return on investment, and I
constantly think--a separate subject, but having spent a lot of
this as Ranking Member of the Health, Employment, Labor and
Pensions Committee, the President's budget wants to cut NIH,
even though the return on investment for the National
Institutes for Health are almost $3 for every dollar taxpayers
put into this.
That is sort of where I am getting in this question line
with you is we get value out of the Truman Scholarship, just
like Harry Truman would want I would think?
Ms. Harrington. I think so, and I think the bigger issues
that we also get value out of creating more opportunities for
more folks, and so while we sit here focusing on this one
scholarship, we should be thinking bigger picture. We should be
thinking about how we create opportunities across the board so
that we can increase that value.
Mr. DeSaulnier. It certainly seems targeted at a particular
group or groups of Americans, this overall initiative that
Truman is just a part of. I would think that the NAACP would
feel that way, but I do not want to put words in your mouth.
Ms. Harrington. I think we believe in the value of public
service, and so we support making sure that there are pathways
for folks to go into public service, whether it be through the
Truman Scholarship, through other programs, folks who are just
trying to go through grad school with regular Federal student
loans, regular Federal grants, who have to navigate this
complex system, this more expensive system that is being
created by this Big, Beautiful Bill.
What we are concerned about is how we make sure that more
pathways are being created and not focusing on trying to close
one small pathway.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Owens. Thank you. Now I would like to recognize
the Chairman of the Full Committee, Chairman Walberg.
Mr. Walberg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
this hearing. I think the answer why we are looking at one
specific issue today, one specific entity. Is it is just
illustrative of so much that goes on that we definitely ought
to have concern about, that monolithic entity called U.S.
Department of Education has failed, failed, failed, and all
that is surrounding that we are starting to find there is a lot
of cancer in the system.
Today, as we talk about liberal bias versus conservative
bias, I think most importantly we are seeing bias in opposition
to the American idea. That is not liberal or conservative, it
is American. That certainly speaks to merit and all the rest
that goes with it. Dr. Hess, and the rest of the panel, thank
you for being here, but let me ask you.
I want to talk about the Truman Foundation's response to
your research, thank you for that research, after you found
liberal winners outnumbered conservatives 12 to 1, the Truman
Foundation responded by hiding the evidence. That never works
too well. Can you talk more about what they hid, and why that
makes it more difficult to replicate your study?
Mr. Hess. Yes, thank you. Thank you very much for the
question, sir. What is so frustrating about their response is
they said nothing to see here, and then they made sure that
nobody could see anything. What they did is for as long as I
have been aware, you know, certainly for a number of years, at
least to 2015, they have routinely had bios of Truman fellows
on the website intended primarily to show off these folks.
What Joe Pitts and I did was we said all right, let us just
look at what these people are studying. Let us not talk about
their politics, let us talk about what they are studying, and
whether it seems reflective of the kinds of issues that are
important to this country, and that reflect the broad swath of
views and values of American college students, and of the
American taxpaying and voting public.
They removed those. They also then went ahead and hid past
press releases, bragging about the winners, so that only those
with a Truman account can actually go back and look at this.
Then when they complain about the nature of the study, they
complain about the study, at the same time they've made it
impossible for anybody to actually assess the virtue.
Mr. Walberg. Yes, except those they want to see the system.
OK, thank you. Ms. Kabbany, you mentioned that the Truman
Foundation selects students from almost every State. Why has
that practice failed to ensure that conservative students get a
fair chance?
Ms. Kabbany. Well, our research has found that the Truman
scholars that are selected from red states are often going on
to Democratic careers and progressive causes. You are from
Michigan, and we found 12 of the scholars over the last several
years, 7 of them were Democratic and progressive, and zero were
Republican, and 5 we could not determine.
Essentially the problem is these Truman fellows are very
influential. Again, they are the cream of the crop, and so it
is not spreading the opportunity to everybody to get this kind
of support and networking because they are lobbying, they are
working for lawmakers, they are consulting, they are working
for very influential liberal leaning law firms.
They are having a big influence on our Nation's
conversation, and on what legislation is brought forth. This is
not just a 3-million-dollar scholarship. This is the direction
of our country, and those that are leading it. The problem
needs to be reformed because it is absolutely not fair to 50
percent of American taxpayers.
Mr. Walberg. Yes, yes. Certainly, it does not even come
close to in many states the percentage of the makeup of the
congressional delegation as well. We are not asking for that,
but we are asking for a fair approach to it. Thank you. Mr.
Kissel, one downstream effect of Truman bias is that students
at universities considered right leaning are effectively
disqualified, at least it appears, from competing for the
award.
You touched on this in your testimony, but in history how
many Truman winners have come from colleges such as in my
district, Hillsdale College or Liberty University, or Patrick
Henry College?
Mr. Kissel. Thank you for the question. Out of the entire
history of the Truman Scholarship Program, only 1 out of any of
those universities you mentioned. One from Hillsdale has won a
Truman scholarship, zero from the others. If you look at right
leaning, or faith-based institutions, it is an extremely,
extremely small number.
Mr. Walberg. OK. Thank you. My time is expired. I yield
back.
Chairman Owens. Thank you. I now recognize my friend from
Virginia, Ranking Member of the Full Committee, Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we heard
one of the reasons we have the budget out of whack. One of our
colleagues just complained about this 3-million-dollar
expenditure while saying nothing about his vote that increased
the debt by 3.5 trillion dollars, 3.5 trillion.
I mean you round off the 3.5 trillion, you round off to the
nearest 100 billion, and he is complaining that this 3 billion
dollar expenditure is affecting the future of the budget. Mr.
Kessel, you mentioned the colleges that did not get any Truman
scholars. How many colleges are there, and how many of them--
how many others had no Truman scholars?
Mr. Kessel. I appreciate the question. I think there is
something like if you include community colleges and every
accredited institution, somewhere around 6,000. 4,000 that
might have names that anyone would recognize, and then 2,000
others that are also accredited, so there is only 50 per 55-57
in the country per year, so most institutions will not have
any.
Mr. Scott. 99 percent will not have any?
Mr. Kessel. Right. It is more the elite institutions that
get them, and those are the ones that skew most to the left.
Mr. Scott. 99 percent will not get any if they are randomly
distributed. Mr. Hess, did you study any other fellowship
programs to see if they have this kind of bias?
Mr. Hess. The Rhodes Scholarship sir.
Mr. Scott. What did you find there?
Mr. Hess. A similar finding, sir.
Mr. Scott. Similar finding?
Mr. Hess. Yes, sir.
Mr. Scott. Well, you consider left leaning if you have an
interest in racial justice?
Mr. Hess. Yes, right. DEI in particular was coded as----
Mr. Scott. Racial justice? That is not a universal kind of
idea, but that is a left leaning, disqualifying fact. Do you
need to balance that off with people that oppose racial
justice?
Mr. Hess. No, sir. It was a priority. For instance,
religious liberty tends to be coded as right leaning, sir.
Mr. Scott. Religious liberty, then by religious liberty you
mean like charitable choice that allows grantees of Federal
contracts to discriminate based on religion, so that if you
have a Federal contract, if a religious organization has a
Federal contract, they can have a policy that we do not hire
Catholics, Jews and Muslims?
Mr. Hess. No, I mean that in the biographies of the Truman
fellows when they describe their research interest as related
to advancing religious liberty.
Mr. Scott. Well, that is what I mean by religious liberty.
That is a conservative position on charitable choice. Did you
allow discrimination based on religion?
Mr. Hess. None of the Truman fellow bios got into the
question of, you know, at that level of specificity.
Mr. Scott. OK. Climate change is a left-leaning idea, is
that right?
Mr. Hess. That is how we coded it sir, that is right.
Mr. Scott. OK. Now, how many college students fail to
recognize the scientific fact of climate change?
Mr. Hess. I do not----
Mr. Scott. What portion of college students fail to
recognize the scientific fact of climate change?
Mr. Hess. I do not know.
Mr. Scott. What portion of college faculty--prospective,
college faculty can get hired if they say they do not believe
in science?
[No response.]
Mr. Scott. Not many. Let me ask Ms. Harrington a couple of
questions. In terms of access to education, you said a lot
about what that Big, Ugly Bill did. Just generally, what does
that do to access to education?
Ms. Harrington. It puts it further out of reach. It makes
college more expensive, more inaccessible, and it makes it
harder for people to go and to stay, and to stay in repayment,
in positive repayment once they get out of college if they are
able to go.
Mr. Scott. What about medical school in particular?
Ms. Harrington. It is going to put it out of reach for many
students of color, and so we are going to have a dearth of
black and brown doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, all because
of these caps that are made in the lack of investment put back
into these professions and communities.
Mr. Scott. Are you familiar with what the Department of
Education is trying to do with the Public Service Loan
Forgiveness, in terms of eligibility based on ideology?
Ms. Harrington. Yes, sir.
Mr. Scott. How does that work?
Ms. Harrington. It has the same chilling effect in terms of
which folks are able to go into these professions, and whether
they are going to be able to stay in them, and then what
services these organizations will be able to provide.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Owens. Thank you. I would now like to recognize my
friend from Missouri, Mr. Onder.
Mr. Onder. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all
the witnesses for being here today. When Congress established
the Truman Scholarship it made this finding because of the
desirability of encouraging young people to recognize that
political--and provide service in the highest and best
traditions of the American political system at all levels of
government.
It is especially appropriate to honor former President
Harry S. Truman through the creation of a perpetual education
scholarship program to develop increased opportunities for
young Americans to pursue and prepare careers in public
service. You know, Congress did not say left wing students, did
not say students interested in climate change, or DEI.
It said to prepare and pursue careers in public service,
and I think that should include all students, left, right and
center. We have got to ask ourselves today is the Truman
Scholarship encouraging young people to participate in public
service at the highest levels, or at least equally.
I think, unfortunately, the answer is no, the program only
encourages some young people to serve the public. You know, Mr.
Hess, as you mentioned in your testimony over the past 10
years, Truman scholars pursuing careers in left wing politics,
outnumber those pursuing conservative politics at a 56 to 1
ratio.
That speaks for itself. I mean prima facia, you know I
looked at this testimony preparing for this hearing, and I just
said OK, we just need to get rid of this damn thing. We just
need to get rid of it. It is irredeemable. Whenever there is a
pot of money the left manages to get in there and take it over,
and this Truman Scholarship, and I am from Missouri. I have an
affection for Harry Truman.
It is just one more example of that happening. I am trying
to be more positive today, Mr. Hess, so how can we change the
culture on college campuses to help conservative students feel
like applying to the Truman Scholarship is worth their time
because it seems part of the problem at least is the colleges
are encouraging their left wing students to apply, or even the
colleges play a role in the recommendation process, and they
are just recommending the left wing students and not the
conservatives.
Mr. Hess. Yes, it is a wonderful question. You know, one of
the healthy developments on college campuses I think we are
seeing as we come out of many of the excesses of identity
politics of the last 5 or 10 years, is there is an
understanding that there is a difference between identity
politics and wanting to ensure that everybody feels welcome.
Mr. Onder. Amen.
Mr. Hess. Included, so that we see colleges taking more
seriously how do we reach out to folks who are not on campus?
How do we recruit them, thinking about them as individuals and
not as members of identify populations?
Mr. Onder. Right.
Mr. Hess. That is what I would encourage Truman to do. How
can it reach out to campuses that are not historically sending
nominees forward? How can it reach out to faculty who may have
felt frustrated or tuned out in the past? How can it, as Mr.
Kissel suggested, take a look at its materials to ensure that
they are inviting to young, talented Americans who are
passionate about public service, regardless of their
ideological priors?
Those seem to me the kinds of steps that move us in a
healthier direction.
Mr. Onder. Very good. Ms. Kabbany, you know, how can we
change? Are there changes we need to make in the application
and selection process to make sure this program is free of
left-wing bias because it certainly seems that that is the case
right now. Is it just a matter of changing personnel, or are
there other structural changes we need to make here?
Ms. Kabbany. You know, I am like you. I want to be
positive, and think we can fix this, we can change it, we can
reform it, but it is----
Mr. Onder. There is another option to zero it out.
Ms. Kabbany. Well, that is the thing, and you know, we have
been doing this for 10 years, we have been doing this research
for 10 years. Every time we give the Truman folks leading this
program the information they shrug their shoulders.
Mr. Onder. Yes.
Ms. Kabbany. Now, here we are 10 years later before
Congress, will they change anything? I am actually wondering
whether they will, I mean.
Mr. Onder. I mean as has been testified, they worked hard
at making sure you did not have the information so you could
make those findings.
Ms. Kabbany. Exactly. I want to believe in reform, but it
is deeply broken, and I question whether it can be.
Mr. Onder. No. I do as well. You know, it occurs to me, you
know, Mr. Hess, the problem with the Truman Scholarship is not
only that conservative students are being sidelined. I think a
lot of our discussion has centered on that.
That left wing students are being given a leg up, you know,
they are giving a leg up as the farm club for the next
generation of left wing activists, or left wing politicians.
That just seems antithetical to a free Democratic society.
Mr. Hess. I think it does. I also think it represents
something of a distortion of the mission of the Truman
fellowship. You know one of the points Congress made a half
century ago in establishing the program, was it recognized
President Truman's commitment to national well-being, to
national security.
Well, if you look at the winners of Truman fellowships
today, they tend to be much more focused on current, cultural
advocacy, and you find remarkably few who are focused on
cybersecurity, on national defense.
Mr. Onder. Sure.
Mr. Hess. What is happening is part of the reason you are
seeing this bias is because we are leaning away from the exact
kinds of national imperatives that this program is supposed to
cultivate.
Mr. Onder. Thank you. I yield back Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Chairman Owens. Thank you. I would like to recognize my
friend from Florida, Mr. Fine.
Mr. Fine. Well, thank you Mr. Chairman, and we have talked
a lot in this hearing about the rise of the left, and the
left's pernicious influence over this program. I would like to
talk about something that arguably is worse, and the Truman
fellowship's embrace of Muslim terror.
I will not have any questions for Mr. Kissel, given his
institution's views on antisemitism, and its embrace of it, but
I will have a couple of questions to Dr. Hess and Ms. Kabbany.
Last year a student at Harvard who immediately after the worst
day for Jews in the world since the Holocaust, 1,200 were
killed, as thousands of Hamas terrorists and to be clear, Gaza
Arab civilians, streamed across the border engaged in a
genocide to kill as many Jewish men, women and children as they
could find.
A genocide that only stopped because the IDF repelled it
several days later. A student at Harvard who embraced this, and
embraced Muslim terror, was awarded one of these scholarships.
I am curious from either of you any insight you have, any
description you can have? This to me is beyond liberal bias,
this is a flat out embrace of Muslim terror, and the fact that
U.S. taxpayer dollars are being used to fund terrorists, so I
am curious if either of you have any insight to share on this
situation.
Mr. Hess. Well, what is more troubling is it is not an
isolated phenomenon. Shortly after the 2023d barbaric Hamas
attacks on Israel, a letter was issued by winners of many
prominent fellowships, Rhodes scholars, Truman scholars. There
were hundreds of names affixed.
If I recall right, it was about 55 or 57 Truman winners
from the prior 3 years signed a letter lamenting Israeli
genocide and calling on the need for the U.S. to refuse to
provide support for Israeli self-defense. No such letter either
denouncing or responding to the Hamas atrocities was
forthcoming from any of these individuals.
I think there absolutely is a pathology that we have seen
on campus, much of it supported with foreign money, and we have
seen it bleed into winners of these elite programs, and for a
program established to honor President Truman with a primary
goal to providing public service in the U.S. national interest,
it is an appalling State of affairs.
Mr. Fine. I would note that President Truman was the person
who recognized the State of Israel. Ms. Kabbany, do you have
any thoughts on this?
Ms. Kabbany. Just that the example that you raised from
Harvard of the young man who supports Hamas and terror, is the
quintessential example of why we are here because they are
advancing candidates who truly don't represent America, and in
many cases, not all, but just this example is one. It is a
problem that needs to be reformed.
When we brought it to their attention they just do not
care. They shrug their shoulders. Representative Stefanik had
asked for a review of that particular individual, and they
basically, I think ignored that request, so some--the
legislature needs to hold the Truman leaders more accountable
for their choices and their actions, which is I think really
the primary reason why we are here today is to get that ball
rolling.
Mr. Fine. Well, I can only give my view on this. I have
zero desire to reform the Truman fellowship. I am not
interested in borrowing 3 million dollars from my children and
grandchildren to give it to people who would like to kill them,
so I believe that we should shut down the program and be done
with it, so thank you all for being here and I yield back my
time.
Chairman Owens. Thank you so much. We will now move to
closing remarks. I would like to recognize Ms. Adams for her
closing remarks.
Ms. Adams. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our
witnesses. Today's hearing could have been an opportunity to
work together to tackle the real challenges facing students and
families. Instead we have seen a partisan attempt to
manufacture outrage over a respected scholarship program while
ignoring the growing crisis of college affordability and
student debt.
Let us not lose sight of what is at stake. The average cost
of college has skyrocketed. Tens of millions of Americans are
carrying student debt that impacts every aspect of their lives,
from starting a family, to saving for retirement. This burden
falls heaviest on those already facing systemic inequality,
women, first generation students, and communities of color.
Instead of offering solutions, Republicans passed the Big
Ugly Law, a policy that slashes financial aid, eliminates key
protections and increases monthly payments for most borrowers,
all while the Trump administration is illegally dismantling the
Department of Education, including the Office of Postsecondary
Education.
Together, these actions by Republicans make it harder to go
to college, harder to stay in college, and harder to recover
financially after graduation. Democrats are offering a better
way forward. The Lowering Obstacles to Achievement Now, LOAN,
this act would double Pell Grants, would lower interest rates,
and ensure student loan repayment is fair, and manageable.
It is a real plan to fix a real problem. The American
people do not want political theater. They want us to lower
costs, expand opportunity, and give every student a fair shot,
and that is what we are fighting for. Thank you again to all of
our witnesses and Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Owens. Thank you so much. This is a very
inciteful, I will say a very timely hearing. You know, as I was
listening to the comments there are four things that I wrote
down that is very, very evident when you look at it. One is No.
1, our country is built on the concept of freedom of speech.
That is who we are.
We are that people that might disagree, but if we feel
confident about ourselves, our education, we have tough
conversations knowing that in the long run it would just be
respectful and thoughtful that we can bring somebody to our
side. I also realize this, numbers do not lie. No. 2, those
numbers, whether it be 14 to 1 against conservatives, or 56 to
1 depending on the--what is looked at, is very, very
discriminatory. It says very simply that the Truman Committee,
in this entire process, is anti-conservative. 14 to 1 or 56 to
1 is not embracing, it is not bringing people into the process.
This has been a pipeline for Democrats. No question about
it, so I think we have a problem here that is not--I do not
think it is fixable. As we try to address it, try to have
conversations, try to see how can we come to this place of
being fair, they change the goalposts, they go someplace else.
This is the way it will continue to work. We have something
and I think it is systemic. We need to, even though it is 3
million dollars, I think it is part of its muscle memory. We
can stop wasting 3 million dollars, we can figure out how to
stop wasting 16 and 20 and 300 million, and we start here.
This program is not working for our country. Our country
works only when we have a diverse process of thinking, of
backgrounds, and we see that is not happening right now. I am
thankful, first of all, for this time we are having to have
this conversation for the public to see it.
I thank each one, every one of you guys for your thoughts,
your study, your commitment to our country, our commitment to
fairness, and I think as we move forward, we have to figure out
how to now I think end a program that is not working for
America anymore.
With that I would like to thank our witnesses again for
taking the time to testify before our Subcommittee today.
Without objections, there being no further business, the
Subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[all]