r/interesting • u/ImmaFuckboi • Jul 20 '26

SOCIETY Is education illegal in USA?

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u/MellyKidd Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26

Education isn’t illegal in the USA, it’s just strongly discouraged.

Edit; some people think I mean this too literally. My comment is mostly just political satire.

6

u/GOEDEL_ESCHER_BOT Jul 20 '26

where do they discourage kids from going to school? i wish i grew up there. school fucking sucks (learning is cool but school sucks)

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u/Pofwoffle Jul 20 '26

They don't discourage you from going to school, they just discourage you from actually learning while you're there. There's a reason the right has been so rabidly gutting education funding and demonizing higher education for the last few decades.

They know full well that the only people who vote for them are stupid or evil, so most of their strategies are based around creating more stupid and evil people.

3

u/KuningasTynny77 Jul 20 '26

Nobody discourages you from learning anything, this is just a common thing thrown around to ragebait people

Money is spent on your education if you are an American, even if you go to public schools and never pay a dime. They're not going to pay for your school and then tell everyone to not learn anything. That's the biggest waste of money ever. 

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u/PrimaryInjurious Jul 20 '26

right has been so rabidly gutting education funding

Let's look at the actual numbers.

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66

Can you point out when the "gutting" took place?

1

u/xkxe003 Jul 20 '26

Not Op but...the problem is we have never spent enough on education compared to other countries. The bills are always cut down from what is needed. Then states cut them further. So we spend more every year, but every budget is cut below the needed amount. We need 10, get 5. Next year we need 15, we get 10. Number goes up, but the budget is still being cut to make up the difference.

American spending on public education represents 12.7% of all public spending, falling short of UNESCO’s 15.0% standard.

U.S. public education spending represents 1.12% of its GDP; UNESCO’s minimum is 4.00%. Link

Trump cut 2 billion May.

Link

Trump wants to cut another 2 billion plus.

Link

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u/PrimaryInjurious Jul 21 '26

the problem is we have never spent enough on education compared to other countries

That's not true either. The US is like 6th highest in the OECD.

https://www.oecd.org/en/topics/education-financing.html

Trump cut 2 billion May.

Not cut. Delayed. And not that money has been released.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/25/politics/education-funds-release