Former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is calling out the national security risk of having a generation dependent on China as U.S. students fall behind in the classroom. 

"75% of eighth graders are not math proficient according to international standards," Ramaswamy told "The Ingraham Angle" on Thursday. "We're number 26 out of 38 developed countries. There are kids in other countries where English is not even their first language, out-beating our own students on English proficiency and I just think, speaking as an American and as a parent myself, that's unacceptable." 

According to recent studies, reading comprehension scores are hitting all-time lows in the U.S., with only 31% of fourth graders reading at grade level, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Now, President Donald Trump is attempting to turn around these statistics by supporting school choice and getting rid of CRT and gender ideology in the classroom. 

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY CHANGES ‘ILLEGAL’ PROGRAM THAT EXCLUDED WHITE MEN   

The former presidential candidate told Fox News that states must lead the way in improving education by allowing merit-based pay for teachers, giving families school choice and by encouraging students in American virtue. 

"Lighting a fire under the feet of our educational culture, not teaching our kids to be victims, but to be victors, rewarding excellence instead of victimhood. I think it's a cultural change we need in our educational system, too, and if we don't fix it, China is going to be eating our lunch if they already aren't," he said.

Ramaswamy explained the importance of returning to a "true American system" of education, with fewer participation trophies and competition in various academic fields. 

"This is a national security risk to the future of the United States if we have an entire generation that is dependent on China," he said. "It's unacceptable and yes, the woke left is responsible for a lot of this ...but it goes beyond that to where we got to just light that fire under the feet of a generation and teach them that achievement is actually worth working for."

"Hard work is an American virtue, and that doesn't start in college," he continued. "It doesn't even start in high school. It starts young and so, President Trump is leading the way with that culture, but it's going to take the states to really lift us up."

EXCLUSIVE: A GOP lawmaker is seeking to significantly raise taxes on endowment profits being banked by private universities to align their levy with the current corporate tax rate.

Many private universities have invested funds for operational use that acquire interest each year, known as an endowment. In 2017, the Trump-era Tax Cuts and Jobs Act enacted a 1.4% tax on the interest private universities were receiving from these endowments. 

However, a new Republican bill would raise that tax to hold elite educational institutions to the same tax standard as corporations, which currently see a 21% corporate tax.

Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, is expected to introduce legislation on Wednesday, the Endowment Tax Fairness Act, to raise the excise tax on annual private university endowment investment returns by nearly 20 percentage points, from 1.4% to 21%.

SCHOOLS NATIONWIDE BRACE FOR TRUMP, INCLUDING MEASURES COMPELLING TEACHERS NOT TO COOPERATE WITH ICE

The GOP-backed bill would then require the revenue to be deposited into the General Fund of the Treasury, a fund managing the government's budget, to be used to reduce the national deficit. 

Nehls tells Fox News Digital he introduced the bill because elite universities should not have "far lower" taxes than working Americans.

CONFIDENCE IN COLLEGES, UNIVERSITIES REACHES ALL-TIME LOW, NEW POLL INDICATES

"Elite private universities have accumulated and sit on massive university endowments and pay a tax less than 2% on the investment earnings of their endowments, which is far lower than what most hardworking Americans pay in taxes. Meanwhile, these universities have significantly increased tuition for America’s youth, which has overwhelmingly surpassed the average annual inflation rate," he said.

The tax would apply to private colleges and universities that meet certain requirements, such as institutions that have 500 or more students.

Additionally, universities that would be taxed are those that aggregate fair market value of assets of at least $500,000 per student and that have more than 50% of its student body located in the United States, according to the bill. 

Endowments subject to the tax, such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia, reportedly hold a combined $270 billion of assets under management.

"This is unacceptable," Nehls told Fox. "My bill would put elite universities with massive endowments on notice by holding them to the same tax standard as corporations."

If passed, the tax would begin effective immediately after the date of the bill's enactment.