Donald Trump hates the state of higher education in the US so much that he wants to start a new online university that will dole out bachelor’s degrees free of charge to challenge existing colleges.
Trump has also vowed to “deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again”. He wants to dramatically alter the accreditation process that ensures colleges meet set standards, opening the door for programs that currently do not.
These are just a few of Trump’s ideas for overhauling colleges and universities – frequent targets of rightwing campaigns that view them as incubators for leftist ideology. Many of Trump’s higher ed proposals involve driving out these perceived ideas.
What is Trump proposing?
Trump’s higher education platform isn’t terribly detailed; it is composed mostly of one-liners that propose, for instance, to “Make Colleges and Universities Sane and Affordable”. He has, however, suggested what would be a seismic change to higher education: the dismantling of the US Department of Education, which helps distribute federal financial aid to college students. It would take congressional approval to shutter the agency, something Republicans haven’t been able to achieve despite saying for decades they want to close it.
His allies have proposed policies with more meat on the bones. Project 2025, the conservative blueprint created by the Heritage Foundation, includes ways to peel back protections for LGBTQ+ students, “restore due process” for people accused of assault and harassment on campus, and curtail student loan forgiveness.
If implemented fully, the conservative changes for higher education under Trump would be monumental.
What is ‘American Academy’?
One videoin Trump’s platform, dubbed Agenda47, focuses on the American Academy, which is designed to work against higher ed institutions that are “turning our students into communists and terrorists and sympathizers of many, many different dimensions”.
He says he would tax, fine and sue private university endowments, which fund those universities, and use the money to create this academy. It would offer a “free world-class education” without adding to the federal debt, he claims, by offering online courses that then give credentials that the federal government and contractors would be required to recognize, and grant people the “equivalent” of a bachelor’s degree.
“It will be strictly non-political and there will be no wokeness or jihadism allowed,” Trump said in the video.
Overhauling accreditation
In another video, Trump refers to the accreditation system as the “secret weapon” for overhauling higher ed. Accreditors basically oversee colleges and programs to ensure they meet educational standards, a form of industry self-regulation. But some conservatives claim the process is weaponized and overly burdensome.
Trump calls accreditors a failure and says he will “fire the radical left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist maniacs and lunatics”. He will then seek new accreditors that will create standards that include “defending the American tradition and western civilization, protecting free speech, eliminating wasteful administrative positions that drive up costs incredibly, removing all Marxist diversity, equity, and inclusion bureaucrats” and more.
Last month, the Guardian published video of a meeting between the House majority leader, Steve Scalise, and the pro-Israel lobby group the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), in which Scalise detailed plans to pull billions of dollars of federal funding from some of the most prestigious universities in the country, and to strip them of accreditation to punish them for allowing pro-Palestinian protests on their campuses.
Weaponizing civil rights law
Trump said he will use the Department of Justice to file civil rights cases against colleges that “engage in racial discrimination”. The justice department pursues discrimination cases regularly now, but the Republican president-elect says he would go after schools with diversity, equity and inclusion practices – what he calls “explicit unlawful discrimination under the guise of equity” – and schools allowing pro-Palestinian protests on their campuses.
He also mentions ending programs that research mis- and disinformation. “We need to break up the entire toxic censorship industry that has arisen under the false guise of tackling so-called mis- and disinformation,” he said. If any university programs flag social media content for removal to platforms, they should lose federal research funding and student loan access for at least five years, he suggested.
What do Trump’s allies propose?
Project 2025 includes detailed plans for higher education. Though Trump has previously disavowed the project, its plans often align with the president-elect’s new proposals and could become policy. Other groups, like the America First Policy Institute, also provide roadmaps.
Project 2025 aligns with Trump on altering accreditation. It claims many of these agencies serve as “gatekeepers” that do not approve of faith-based colleges, have hindered free speech and “done nothing to dampen the illiberal chill that has swept across American campuses over the past decade”.
The project calls student loan forgiveness essentially a political ploy. It wants to privatize student loans, and in the meantime suggests getting rid of forgiveness programs because “borrowers should be expected to repay their loans”. Joe Biden attempted a mass student loan forgiveness plan, shot down by the courts. He has put in place various programs that forgive loans for certain groups of borrowers and lower monthly payments.
The public service loan forgiveness program, in particular, should be ended, Project 2025 says. It allows loan forgiveness for people who work for the government or certain nonprofits after ten years of payments.
The project also suggests ending or significantly reducing visas for students from “enemy nations”. US universities increasingly rely on international students, who typically pay full tuition prices, to cover their bills and provide lower tuition for local students. America First Policy Institute advocates for similar, saying there should be “enhanced scrutiny” of students coming from “countries with adversarial governments”, though they have not specified which countries that includes.