Overview · Brief 3 of 3
What This Plan Means for Schools, Healthcare, and Government Help
The Heritage Foundation plan would reshape three major systems that touch almost every American's life: public education, public health, and the welfare system. Here's what it proposes — and what would actually change for you and your community.
Source: Heritage Foundation, "Saving America by Saving the Family," January 2026 · Analysis by Social Intelligence Initiative
Read the original report here
System 1
Schools & College
$150B+ in funding targeted
System 2
Healthcare
Major agencies redirected
System 3
Government Help
90+ programs restructured
The Big Picture
The plan says too much college delays marriage, too much government help discourages marriage, and the healthcare system should focus more on helping people get married and have babies. So it would shut down the Department of Education, cut college loans, cap welfare benefits, and turn health agencies into marriage promotion programs. The money saved would go to new benefits — but only for married couples.
Schools & College
What Changes for Education
The Department of Education Would Be Shut Down
Already Started
The plan supports the current effort to close the Department of Education entirely. Before it closes, the plan says it should push schools to teach the "success sequence" — the idea that you should finish school, get married, then have kids, in that order.
What this means in real life
The Department of Education handles student financial aid, enforces disability protections (IDEA), investigates discrimination (Title IX), and oversees school accreditation. If it goes away without someone else taking over, all of those protections could disappear with it.
College Loans Would Be Dramatically Cut
Major Change
The plan says college keeps people from getting married because it takes too long and costs too much. The solution? Cut federal student loans. The PLUS loan program — which parents use to borrow for their kids' college, and which funds graduate school — would be eliminated entirely. That's $34 billion in lending gone.
What this means in real life
Without PLUS loans, many families can't afford to send their kids to college. Graduate and professional school — law, medicine, nursing, social work, teaching — becomes something only wealthy families can pay for. Over 3 million graduate students currently rely on these loans.
$34B
In loans eliminated over 10 years
3.2M
Graduate students affected
Colleges Would Be Told to Promote Marriage
Cultural Change
The plan says universities should make their campuses more "welcoming" to marriage. It points to religious colleges with a "ring by spring" culture as a model. Specific ideas: use campus buildings for weddings, offer discounts to couples who share wedding photos for "marriage marketing campaigns," and have professors offer pre-marriage counseling.
What this means in real life
Your state university could start running wedding marketing campaigns and pre-marital counseling programs instead of focusing purely on education and research.
Head Start Would Be Broken Up
Major Change
Head Start is the federal preschool program for low-income families — about 716,000 kids. The plan would convert it into block grants (lump sums to states with less oversight) or give parents vouchers to spend anywhere, including on at-home care. The broader message: daycare is bad for kids, and mothers should stay home.
$12B
Head Start budget restructured
716K
Children currently enrolled
Healthcare
What Changes for Health
The Health Department Would Become a Marriage Agency
Mission Change
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would be directed to promote marriage as a health solution. It would run "pro-marriage public awareness campaigns" and fund church-based marriage "bootcamps" where couples would take classes on communication and money, then have a group wedding at the end.
What this means in real life
Instead of focusing on diseases, mental health, drug addiction, and public safety, HHS would spend time and money running marriage campaigns. The plan even suggests ads with slogans like "Give her a ring before she gives you a baby."
Science Funding Would Need a "Family Impact" Test
Structural Change
Government research money — from the National Institutes of Health ($48 billion/year) and the National Science Foundation ($9 billion/year) — would need to show how the research helps families and marriage. Scientists would have to explain the "measurable outcomes on marriage and family" their work supports.
What this means in real life
A scientist studying cancer, climate, or physics would need to explain how their work helps families get married and have babies. Research that can't make that connection could lose funding.
$57B
Annual research money subject to "family test"
Drug Addiction and Mental Health Would Be Reframed
Perspective Shift
The plan talks about the fentanyl crisis (73,838 deaths a year), youth depression, and technology addiction — but frames them mainly as problems because they keep people from getting married. The goal of treatment shifts from "help people recover" to "help people become ready for marriage."
What this means in real life
If you're struggling with addiction or depression, the system would measure success not just by whether you're feeling better, but by whether you're on track to get married and start a family.
Government Help
What Changes for Welfare and Benefits
Marriage Penalties Would Be Removed — That's the Good Part
Bipartisan Support
Right now, if a single mom on government assistance marries her partner, she can lose $15,000+ in benefits because their combined income pushes her over the limit. That's called a "marriage penalty" and most people on both sides agree it should be fixed. This plan would fix it across 90+ programs.
The catch
The money to fix this would come from cutting benefits for single parents — not from new funding. So one group loses money so another group gains it.
Your Benefits Could Be Capped
Benefit Cuts
The plan says some families are getting "too much" when you add up food stamps, housing help, healthcare, and childcare together. It would put a cap on the total amount of help any family can get.
What this means in real life
A single mom making $20,000 a year might get about $46,500 in total help — food stamps, Section 8 housing, Medicaid, childcare subsidies. That sounds like a lot until you realize it's what keeps her family housed, fed, insured, and her kids in daycare so she can work. Cap it, and something has to go.
Millions Could Be Accused of Fraud
Enforcement
The plan says 14.6 million single people claimed the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for children — but only about 6-7 million should have. It calls the gap "fraud." But experts say the difference is mostly because the IRS and Census count families differently, not because people are cheating.
What this means in real life
If you're a low-income single parent who claimed the EITC — one of the most important tax credits for working families — you could face an audit based on a flawed comparison between two different databases.
Work Rules Would Get Tougher
Tighter Rules
The plan says everyone who gets government help and is able to work should be required to work. Loopholes in current rules would be closed. But remember — the same plan also says daycare is bad for kids and moms should stay home. So single mothers face an impossible choice.
The Single-Parent Trap
The plan says: You must work to get benefits.
But it also says: Daycare is bad for your kids.
And it says: Stay-at-home parenting is the best choice.
But the stay-at-home credit? That's only for married couples.
So if you're a single parent, you can't work (without "harmful" daycare), you can't stay home (without marriage benefits), and you can't keep your current level of help (because benefits are being capped).
Follow the Money
Where the Money Goes
| Program |
Amount |
What Happens |
| College loans (PLUS) |
–$3.4B/yr |
Eliminated — no more parent or grad loans |
| Head Start |
–$12B/yr |
Converted — block grants or parent vouchers |
| Health clinics (Title X) |
–$286M/yr |
Redirected — to fertility awareness methods |
| Welfare benefits |
–Billions/yr |
Capped — "excess" benefits reduced |
| Baby savings (NEST) |
+$9B/yr |
New — $2,500/baby, married couples only |
| Per-child tax credit (FAM) |
+Billions/yr |
New — $17,670/child, married couples only |
| Stay-home parent credit |
+Billions/yr |
New — $2,000/child, married one-earner only |
| Marriage bootcamps |
+$35M+/yr |
New — church programs with $5K wedding bonus |
How All Three Systems Connect
→ College gets more expensive → fewer people from working-class families get degrees
→ Without degrees, people earn less → earning less makes it harder to afford marriage
→ Unmarried families lose benefits → while married families gain new ones
→ Health agencies focus on marriage instead of health → people who need healthcare most get less
→ Single parents face work rules but lose daycare → creating a trap with no good options
→ The people who need the most help are the ones least likely to qualify for the new programs
What's Already Happening Right Now
Some of this isn't just a plan — it's already started. The Department of Education is being dismantled. The Department of Transportation is already sending more money to communities with higher marriage rates. HHS is already aligning with the "Make America Healthy Again" agenda.
Other parts would need Congress to pass new laws. And some — like overturning the Griggs court decision — would need the Supreme Court. But the foundation is being built now.