Once New Hampshire leaves the union, what would our education system look like? Would it collapse without federal funding and support? Would our students suffer? Would we still be able to transfer seamlessly between colleges in other states of the union?
These are valid questions.
Let’s begin by taking a quick look at the education system within New Hampshire:
As of 2021, there were 185,000 students from pre-k through high school. Around 4,000 students were home-schooled. There were also 189,000 college students attending the 25 colleges within the state.
The New Hampshire government spends over $2.6 billion per year on education. The state government’s annual budget is $6.5 billion, and municipalities add their own taxation and spending for education. The state’s education trust fund is funded by various sources, including $100 million from the NH lottery system, $300 million from taxes on businesses, and $360 million from property taxes. In addition to state funding, municipalities raise $2 billion from the local portion of property taxes and use the money to fund their government-run school systems on a local level.
The federal government takes around $4 trillion dollars by force from citizens throughout the united states annually. Each year, politicians from DC send around $2 billion to the New Hampshire government, much of which is comprised of education grants.
When DC sends money back to New Hampshire in the form of education grants, they require that all of the schools in the government school system obey extra restrictions. This is in addition to all federal laws in Title 34 of the Federal Code, which would take a lifetime to read in its entirety. A well-known example of the federal government using extortion to convince state governments to obey their commands involved the ‘Common Core’ standards for English language arts and mathematics. As of this writing, New Hampshire and nearly every other state has accepted the ‘Common Core’ federal standards because they wanted the federal money.
Of course, all of the money sent from DC politicians to states and localities for education spending was obtained by taxing workers throughout the union.
Years after its implementation, progressive states like New York still cannot even educate half of their public school students to a ‘proficient’ level in Math or English language arts (the two categories they measure) according to their own data. After leaving their government-run high school, only one in four students in NYC is deemed ‘college ready’, as reported by PublicSchoolReview.com. Throughout the united states, government spending on education has skyrocketed while actual educational achievement has remained flat or worsened.
Without federal influence, New Hampshire’s students would be much more likely to receive the education that their parents and other policymakers in New Hampshire decide is best for them. If you believe that DC politicians know how to best educate your children, you should not support independence. If you believe that New Hampshire’s parents could and should be the primary decision makers in the education of their children, you should support independence.
Practically speaking, independence from DC politicians is unlikely to stop the constant flow of students across the state’s borders in both directions. Many students would likely still travel from southern New Hampshire to study in Boston and elsewhere, and many students from Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, and elsewhere would still study in New Hampshire’s colleges.
If a person believed that this would not be the case, they would be claiming that the anti-border, pro-travel federal government suddenly would lock down its northern border and prohibit travel to or from the union. This is extremely unlikely and would be among the most hypocritical policy changes by a government in world history. The federal government (both major parties) have been increasingly supportive of totally eliminating all of their borders for the past few decades. And we know that New Hampshire’s legislature certainly would not close its borders, either.
Regardless of travel to and from the state, New Hampshire’s students could continue to excel in all aspects of their education, including college and graduate school. Within our state, we have 25 colleges, a medical school, a law school, and various other graduate programs. This means that even if our students could not leave the state for some reason, we would be just fine, and we could still produce plenty of doctors and lawyers.
Perhaps the most drastic change that would occur if New Hampshire declared independence from the union would be the tremendous prosperity of education faculty and support workers. Currently, teachers and other school employees in New Hampshire pay around 20-30% of their income to DC politicians under the threat of force. Once we cut ties with the federal government, all of that money would stay in their pockets. If you want to give every teacher in the state a 33% raise, you should consider supporting independence.
This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Liberty Block or any of its members. We welcome all forms of serious feedback and debate.
