Subcommittee Ranking Member Nadler’s Opening Statement at Hearing on Republicans’ War on Higher Education and Science
Washington, D.C. (June 4, 2025)—Today, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust, delivered opening remarks at a hearing on President Donald Trump and Republicans’ war on higher education and science.
Below are Subcommittee Ranking Member Nadler’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, at today’s subcommittee hearing.
WATCH Subcommittee Ranking Member Nadler’s remarks.
Ranking Member Jerrold Nadler
Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust
Hearing on “The Elite Universities Cartel: A History of Anticompetitive Collusion Inflating the Cost of Higher Education”
June 4, 2025
Mr. Chairman, this hearing—like so much else that we have done in this committee under Republican control—takes a serious issue and uses it as little more than an excuse to launch a decidedly unserious so-called investigation.
Let’s be clear—the cost of tuition at many colleges and universities—not just Ivy League institutions—is too high and is unaffordable for too many families. But the same Republicans who today claim to be concerned about the ability of students and their families to afford college tuition proudly cast their vote two weeks ago for a budget reconciliation bill that would take direct aim at student loan programs and other vital student aid.
If they really cared about consumer prices, they would not undermine the ability of all students, especially low-income students, to access and afford higher education. They would not make cuts to Pell Grants that would reduce or eliminate access for up to four million students. They would not cut student loan subsidies, raising costs for an average borrower by up to $200 a month. They would not make student loan repayments even more difficult and push more students into the predatory private loan market. And they would not include devastating cuts to Medicaid, which will deprive roughly 3.4 million low-income students of much-needed health care.
But Republicans showed us very clearly that their priority is tax cuts for billionaires, not affordable higher education, so it is a little difficult to take their concerns seriously today.
This hearing also comes in the context of the Trump Administration’s all-out assault on education and research at colleges and universities across the country, and particularly at Ivy League and other elite universities.
The Administration has slashed billions of dollars in research grants to universities, which will set back technological innovation and medical advances by decades, not to mention harming our economic growth.
At the same time, they are revoking student visas and sending an unmistakable message to prospective students around the globe that they are not welcome. The result is that the brightest minds in the world, who once flocked to this country, will now look to bring their brains and talents elsewhere.
But this attack on higher education has an even more sinister purpose—its real target is academic freedom. Taking a page from the authoritarian playbook, the Trump Administration is using every tool at its disposal in a pressure campaign to impose its ideology on independent academic institutions and to bend them into submission.
And, unfortunately, they have a willing partner in the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee. Instead of using their power as legislators to make education cheaper, more accessible, and easier to pay off for all Americans, Republicans are using the power of this committee to aid and abet President Trump’s ideological war against a very narrow slice of higher ed institutions. How absurdly narrow is their focus? They are targeting 8 schools out of about 4000 in the U.S. That amounts to a focus upon less than one half of one percent of the American undergraduate population.
While President Trump threatens individual schools with cuts for not adhering to his ideology, they are using the power and resources of this committee to pursue yet another empty antitrust theory so that they can bully their political targets.
Sadly, this follows a familiar pattern. Last Congress, this subcommittee unleashed baseless antitrust investigations designed to undermine the free speech rights of advertisers and investors that held views disfavored by the Majority.
When advertisers made the reasonable determination that they did not want their brands associated with extremist views and hate speech on social media platforms, Republicans used a flawed antitrust theory to justify a campaign to threaten and intimidate them into abandoning their efforts at responsible advertising. When investors threatened the profits of big oil and gas companies by considering the risks that climate change pose to our economic future, the Committee rushed to the defense of their corporate allies with another hollow antitrust investigation.
And now today, they return to the same tired playbook, using the power of this Committee to support the Trump Administration’s efforts to target academic institutions. After having launched an overbroad fishing expedition against Ivy League universities, they are now holding a hearing today to justify these efforts at harassment and intimidation.
As I noted at the outset, there are real concerns when it comes to the cost of tuition at colleges and universities. If there is indeed collusion among the Ivy League schools, enforcement by our antitrust agencies, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice, is the answer—not a partisan probe that merely serves as another broadside against education in America under President Trump.
There is much we could do together to bring down the cost of tuition and broaden access to education. Unfortunately, Republicans would rather slash student loans to pay for tax cuts while threatening universities that do not bend to Donald Trump’s will.
Unfortunately, there is one clear loser in the Republican war on science and education—it is the students they claim to support.
I appreciate our witnesses for appearing today, I look forward to hearing from them, and I yield back the balance of my time.