What the next Trump administration might mean for higher education

What might a second Trump administration mean for academia?

I’ve been exploring this question as a futurist for some time. Way back in 2016 I blogged about Trump’s higher education possibilities.  We read Project 2025 for months in our open, online bookclub.  I dug into JD Vance’s academic attitudes when Trump picked him as VP. In October we held a Future Trends Forum scenario exercise, exploring a Trump win (including his winning the popular vote).

Today I’ll summarize those findings and discussions in order to show possible directions and impacts, updated to include recent developments. First up are potential direct impacts, as when the new administration issues higher education policies.  Next we explore potential effects on academia of non-academic Trump actions.

I’m drawing on work done by observers, journalists, and commentators, usually linked to those sources. I hope to add my own thoughts to the discussion, including some points generally missed so far.

Please note that these are possibilities, options. That’s how I’ve done my futures work for years, extrapolating and deriving what might happen next by examining the present and recent history.  I must strengthen this caveat by noting that it’s even more difficult to pin down precise outcomes with Trump, who is so wildly uneven and changeable.  Much depends on whom he appoints to key positions, what he hears from postulants, and what he sees on television.

Today my focus will be narrow, on what a Trump administration might do to higher education. I’m excluding K-12, how academics might respond, and learning apart from post-secondary institutions, all for reasons of time.

Last note: I’ve tried to use an analytical tone throughout. This takes some effort, given the dread and outrage I feel.

1 Direct impact

The new administration might choose to eliminate the Department of Education or otherwise cut it back significantly, distributing its functions to the private sector, the states, and/or other federal agencies.  This was a major point in Project 2025, as well as a long-running Republican party goal.  Such a move would force college and university staff to change some administrative work, including regulatory compliance operations.  This would also change the vast student loan ecosystem, at least by altering which offices supervise it, if not by privatizing loans, not to mention ending the Biden administration’s loan forgiveness efforts.

Should Trump maintain the DoE in some form, he would likely order it to end support for DEI and other “woke” initiatives, notable for race and gender discrimination, while undoing any climate change research assistance.  Along those lines the new administration might go after trans athletes playing college sports:

“Jon Fansmith, the assistant vice-president of government relations at ACE… drew attention to what he suspects will be one of the Trump administration’s first actions: reversing the Biden administration’s rules under Title 9 of the Higher Education Act that allow the participation of trans athletes in sports.”

Biden-era protections for LGBTQ+ students will likely vanish.

A Trump administration could seek to require all colleges and universities (at least those receiving federal dollars) to cycle through different accreditors, as Florida now does.  We might also see a revised Department of Education offer grants and other rewards to campuses conducting “international business programs that teach about free markets and economics.”  Further, the new department could “require institutions, faculty, and fellowship recipients to certify that they intend to further the stated statutory goals of serving American interests,” although it’s unclear what that would mean in practice. (Project 2025, p. 356) Additionally, a second Trump DoE might follow the first one in supporting for-profit higher education.  Already one for-profit’s CEO has expressed hopes for the next four years, as did the head of a for-profit trade group.  And a new department might weaken Biden-era rules concerning sexual assault, as Trinity Washington’s president observes.

A new Trump administration can use other agencies beyond the Department of Education to change higher education.  For example, Project 2025 has the Department of Labor working with Congress to end college degree requirements for federal positions. A DoL could also encourage apprenticeships in competition with college and university study.  The DoE’s statistics gathering unit could move to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as one American Enterprise Institute writer recommends.  Further, the new government could create new educational units.  For example, one conservative futurist calls for a DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) for education, a cutting-edge R&D unit.

Going after higher education’s finances We’ve already mentioned possible changes to existing students loans, but a Trump 2.0 team could go after academics economically in other ways. In an interview vice-president-elect Vance praised Viktor Orbán’s attack on Hungarian academia, targeting curricula with a financial threat: “I think his way has to be the model for us: not to eliminate universities, but to give the a choice between survival or taking a much less biased approach to teaching…” This could play out in numerous ways, such as imposing new costs (cf the accreditation rotation mentioned above) to cutting federal financial support.  As Vance continued: “[W]hether it’s the incentives that you put into place, funding decisions that are made, and the curricula that are developed, you really can use politics to influence culture.”

Going after academic protesters A new Trump administration could pursue multiple courses of action against campus protesters.  Title IX investigations are one such path, as are blunter instruments, like pressuring state governors to call out their National Guards.  Academic resistance to this will surely enrage Trump, leading him to expand oppressive measures.

Changes to international higher education: the new administration could also mobilize Immigration and Customs Enforcement  (ICE) to remove certain international students, as well as faculty and staff, from academia.  The Agenda 47 platform puts it this way: “DEPORT PRO-HAMAS RADICALS AND MAKE OUR COLLEGE CAMPUSES SAFE AND PATRIOTIC AGAIN” (caps in original).  Project 2025 offers this:

ICE should end its current cozy deference to educational institutions and remove security risks from the program. This requires working with the Department of State to eliminate or significantly reduce the number of visas issued to foreign students from enemy nations. (141)

The Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Department of Justice, the Department of Commerce, and the various intelligence agencies might pressure and/or work with academia to reduce connections with China as part the broader strategy of intensifying US-China competition. This could take the form of trying to cut the number of Chinese students studying in America, especially in areas deemed strategic, as well as forbidding collaboration between the two nations’ academics.  (Trump tried something like this in his first term.)

Changes to academic research It’s clear from all evidence that the Trump-led Republican party opposes academic work on certain topics, including racism, gender studies (often referred to as “gender ideology”), and climate change.  We should expect various federal actions against such work, such as rebooting or closing the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and trying to reduce anti-racist studies. At the same time we might anticipate the opposite, as a new administration seeks to encourage research in other areas.  Project 2025 contains a series of cheers for research and development in technology and energy. We could therefore forecast federal support for such work in terms of grants, guidance, and more.

Changes to enrollment Black, Latino, Native American students numbers might decline. Trump clearly opposes anti-racist affirmative action. The combination of federal policies, supporting state policies, and aligned college and university policies/pronouncements could depress the numbers of underrepresented racial minorities.  Moreover, if new Trump policies gut federal support for black K-12 students (see this article), we might see fewer black high school grads in years to come.  Of course, a major federal deportation program should reduce the numbers of undocumented students, especially if campuses don’t manage to resist successfully.

A returned Trump might create new academic institutions.  Agenda 47 clearly calls for one or more such: “To reduce the cost of Higher Education, Republicans will support the creation of additional, drastically more affordable alternatives to a traditional four-year College degree.”  Project 2025 calls for launching other higher education entities, including a Space Force Academy to parallel West Point etc. and “a school of financial warfare” built by the Departments of Commerce and Defense.

One more angle: Trump historically loves fulminating, including naming and shaming all kinds of perceived enemies or weak people and organization. He could easily call out higher education from his bully pulpit, encouraging other people to go after higher education.  Such people might be local (state, city, county) officials or politicians, along with ordinary folks.  See the Springfield, Ohio story for one example (a good Chronicle podcast interview with a campus president).

A 2023 Trump video about higher education, which Elon Musk recently shared on Twitter/X. covers a lot of ground in just a couple of minutes:

• going after accreditors: firing them and “accepting applications for new accreditors” who would change curriculum and cut administrators, cutting DEI staff, allowing shortened and/or cheaper degrees, setting up “college entrance and exit exams” (Trump calls this his “secret weapon”)
• the Department of Justice filing cases “against schools that continue to engage in racial discrimination.” I think this is about various forms of affirmative action.
• slashing (?) endowments (not clear how)
• using Congressional budget reconciliation process to fine universities for reverse discrimination

2 Secondary impacts

Perhaps the signature campaign issue for Trump this year was cracking down on illegal immigration, and all signs since his election triumph point to making this happen.  Setting aside for a moment the immense human, political, and financial costs, we should consider the effect on international students.  Would-be students in nations which Trump directly targets with policies, like a return to his Muslim ban or the imposition of high tariffs, might find the United States less congenial a place to pursue post-secondary education. Would-be students in other nations might not be directly subject to such policies, but find them to have a similar effect on their attitudes.

Or maybe not. It’s important to recognize that international study decisions are complex and include many factors other than national policy.  Some would-be students might not care about Trump, and some might support him.  One initial study found small numbers of students concerned about the Republican.

Dahn Shaulis points out other potential impacts of Trump’s anti-immigration drive.  We could see federal agents or troops on campuses, as I pondered in 2016.  Campus finances will take hits if international student numbers fall, as would diversity.  Actually, Dahn does a heroic job of tracing out more implications, from local community economics to staff shortages.  You all should read him.

I’ve been speaking primarily about Trump actions, rather than academic responses, which I hope to get to in another post. But some academic responses might elicit further administrative responses.  For example, if a campus refuses to comply with deportations, as Wesleyan University’s president recently vowed, I would bet on Trump doubling down: increasing rhetoric, engaging lawfare, sending more troops. This could swiftly escalate.

A second Trump theme is growing America’s economy through aggressive tariffs. Most of the economics I’ve read think this is likely to cost the United States in multiple ways, notably by businesses passing tariff prices to consumers – i.e., as inflation. (Here’s a recent Paul Krugman column on this.) A worsening economy exacts many costs for colleges and universities, such as making state support more challenging, possibly weakening endowments, and more.  One potential bright spot might be if unemployment rises and enrollment builds as a result.

Also in the economic realm are changes to labor. We should count on Trump being anti-union. He will likely put anti-union people on the National Labor Relations Board. What impact might that have on academic unions and organizing?

We might also see American public health degraded if Trump fulfills his pledge to install Robert Kennedy Jr. as some kind of health tsar.  If that leads to rising diseases, weakened immune systems, etc., our colleges and universities will face that directly.

A Trump administration hostile to experts might encourage such attitudes in states and among the populace at large. This could take the form of more challenges to academics from state legislatures and governors, cyberactivism against certain academics, and increased surveillance, among others.

Trump’s habit of verbally and textually attacking minorities might inspire state governments to increase discriminatory policies, which then impacts academic populations. Similarly, Trump’s statements could encourage individuals to threaten and attack underrepresented minorities and women on campuses.

Along those lines, if Republicans expand abortion restrictions through a federal law, court rulings, or other measures, academia will lose some women to unwanted pregnancies, as well as to injury and death.

Summing up, a second Trump administration has many options for dealing with higher education. Its other actions might also impact colleges and universities.  I describe these as possibilities because Trump is a chaotic actor, because higher ed might not be a priority for his team, and because changes in both academia and the world could drive developments.  Think, for example, how the Gaza war triggered a high profile campus protest movement, which in turn elicited Congressional investigations and several major presidential resignations.

I’ve been working on this topic for years because I thought colleges and universities needed to prepare for Trump. Now it’s not a futuristic thing, but an unfolding reality. I hope we’re ready. The question I leave you with now is: what do academics do now?

(thanks to Steven Kaye, Alex Usher, and other friends for contributions)