Louisiana Governor and likely presidential candidate Bobby Jindal told a conservative audience in DC on Wednesday that public education is a fundamental pillar of American democracy.

“Why is it important to fund and support public education?” he asked the attendees of the American Principles Project’s conference. “Because if we want to keep the republic we have, our republic can only be as good as our citizens. So we need an educated population with critical thinking skills. We need to train citizens to be responsible, functioning adults. I always hear from parents, from the Chamber of Commerce, from business groups that we’ve got to fund education.”

But Jindal, whose mother studied at Louisiana State University after immigrating from India, is currently trying to cut the budget of the state colleges by as much as $300 million — nearly a third of the system’s current budget.

Officials in Louisiana on both sides of the aisle are blasting Jindal’s proposed budget cuts, saying they would cripple the state’s public higher education.