Trump’s agenda for higher education: Axing loan forgiveness, tax cuts and more | Opinion
As a divided America adjusts to the prospect of another four years of Donald Trump backed by majorities in the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Supreme Court, one target for the reelected president’s ire is going to be universities. That’s in part because, at every school I looked at, Kamala Harris was the top recipient of political donations from staff members.
The impact on higher education will be felt across multiple fronts:
Loan forgiveness: President Joe Biden’s semi-constitutional effort to lessen the load of higher ed loans will end immediately.
Cabinet closure: The Department of Education, which controls nearly $30 billion in Pell grants and subsidized loans for college students, is on Trump’s list to close. How much will be moved to other departments and how much will be cut outright is to be determined.
Research cuts: The about-to-be formed Department of Government Efficiency is expected to target research dollars that go to universities for research in the humanities and other non-STEM elements of higher education research. How much is a moving target.
Student visas: During Trump 1.0, the president tried to restrict the number of students who come to the United States to study at colleges and universities. That’s likely to happen again, with more possibility of success this time. Such a move would cut off a major cash cow for schools across the country because foreign students usually pay full tuition.
Accreditation reform: Trump has targeted the agencies that supervise colleges and universities though their certification process called “accreditation,” targeting policies he says push schools to the left. The Trump administration is expected to create a new national accreditor that will push for more traditional approaches to colleges including teaching the great works of Western philosophy, literature and art in the humanities and more positive portrayals of the United States in history and political science. Women’s, ethnic and other new scholarly fields will be on the outs.
Increased tax on school endowments: How high it will be and which schools it will target is still up in the air, but in an administration focused on tax cuts, the effort to raise taxes on higher education will stand out. Elite schools such as Harvard and Yale with the biggest endowments are expected to be hit hardest. It just so happens that they are among the most liberal schools in the country.
Trump University redux: Trump plans to use new proceeds of taxes on university endowments to create a national online competitor to universities. Whether this is an innovation that helps students by creating competition, or a multibillion-dollar flub, will depend on implementation.
See the chart for how much your states’ biggest universities and university systems’ professors and administrators bet on defeating Republicans, and how out of touch they are with the electorate that funds them:
This story was originally published November 26, 2024 at 11:22 AM with the headline "Trump’s agenda for higher education: Axing loan forgiveness, tax cuts and more | Opinion."
