Since Inauguration Day, the Trump administration has unleashed a wave of sweeping cuts to federal spending. The Department of Education has shuttered entire offices and dismantled student support programs.  

For students already navigating complex systems with limited resources, the implications are immediate — and serious. 

Broad, indiscriminate cuts are likely to impede progress and deepen inequities that exist in education today. Widespread concern about these policies is warranted. But, as practitioners and researchers in behavioral science, we also believe that not all cuts are bad.  

In fact, some forms of cutting — what we call subtraction — are not only helpful but essential to student success. 

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Nearly two decades of research on behavioral interventions in education show that programs often succeed not by introducing new supports but by removing the barriers that make it hard for students to succeed. There’s an important distinction between additive changes (those that insert new features, resources or tasks) and subtractive changes, which reduce the demands placed on students by streamlining processes, clarifying choices and eliminating program components that add clutter and complexity.  

Supporting students doesn’t always mean offering more content, services or touchpoints. Sometimes it means one less form to complete, one less decision to make, one less barrier. 

Nor is subtraction just about simplifying what’s already there or eliminating options for students. It often means simply questioning whether the tools and materials that have been created to help might actually be adding more hoops to jump through.  

Subtraction is emerging as a crucial principle for institutions facing enrollment declines. Research shows that the most effective solutions tend to work because they lighten students’ loads by making it easier to focus, decide and act.  

We’re not calling for colleges to offer fewer programs of study or opportunities but to remove the small but persistent hassles and ambiguities that slow students down. The goal is to make it possible for students to focus on learning instead of time- and energy-consuming administrative tasks. 

A landmark example of this approach comes from a study in which low-income families who had their taxes prepared at H&R Block were offered help completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, the gateway to potentially thousands of dollars in subsidized loans and grants. Instead of simply providing families with resources and information about the financial aid process, the intervention used existing tax return data to pre-fill the FAFSA. 

It also offered real-time answers to any questions students or their families had, removing stumbling blocks and reducing uncertainty.  

The results were striking: FAFSA submissions increased significantly, and college enrollment rose by roughly 25 percent. By subtracting paperwork and mental effort, the intervention made it far easier for students to act on their college-going intentions. 

Not every system allows for such subtraction. In some cases, the right move is to add something new that makes completing an important task feel less daunting to students.  

That was the goal of a recent project at Calbright College, a fully online, competency-based community college serving adult learners across California.  

Calbright students value the flexibility the college offers but also need a clear sense of how to pace their coursework in a learning environment without terms or deadlines. To solve this dilemma, Calbright developed a set of nonbinding timelines laying out program milestones to help keep students on track to their target completion date.  

The key was that, along with adding something, the structured timelines also subtracted ambiguity and reduced the mental effort students had to expend just to stay on track. They also eliminated the need for students to create their own schedules from scratch.  

The result? In a randomized evaluation, students who received the structured timelines were nearly twice as likely to complete their program within one year. 

Related: Colleges ease the dreaded admissions process as the supply of applicants declines 

What these examples share is a design mindset rooted in subtraction that asks not “What more can we add?” but “What can we remove to better enable student success?” 

That distinction is critical. While recent federal budget cuts have been broad and blunt, behavioral science calls for something different: strategic, human-centered subtraction. Students shouldn’t have to navigate a maze of forms, websites and guesswork to reach their goals. 

Supports that inadvertently create more work for the people they’re trying to help should be cut. That’s the kind of cutting we need more of. Dismantling federal education programs under the banner of efficiency is not just misguided — it’s harmful.  

But we also shouldn’t let the damage of those cuts blind us to a more nuanced truth: Some systems fail not because they lack funding but because they demand too much from those they serve. 

That’s the power of subtraction. When we remove friction instead of layering on new features, we create systems that are easier to navigate — and more likely to work. When institutions make it easier for students to enroll, persist and succeed, everyone benefits.  

Tom Tasche is senior director of innovation at ideas42. Ben Castleman is a professor of public policy and education at the University of Virginia. 

Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org. 

This story about subtractive changes in education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter. 

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