US President-elect Donald Trump’s second term in office might have serious consequences on some of the educational policies introduced by the Biden administration. Trump earlier mentioned that American universities are run by “Marxist maniacs.”
The Biden administration has worked really hard to approve millions of dollars for student debt relief initiatives despite the legal actions and setbacks. Not only that, the administration also worked to codify the new protections for LGBTQ+ students and cracked down on colleges that rip students off. However, some of these efforts sparked serious controversies and setbacks.
It is unclear what the president will accomplish in the educational sector within his four years in office. The presidential election results revealed a partisan division between American degree-holders and non-degree holders. Now, the question is, will Trump capitalize on the mandate of the nondegree voters to chart a different path from Biden for American universities?
The senior vice president for government relations at the American Council on Education, Jon Fansmith, stated: “The Trump campaign has been very critical of colleges and universities.” “If you’re a college president this morning, and we’ve heard from a bunch of them, there’s a lot of uncertainty.”
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The Biden administration has enacted billions of dollars in student loan forgiveness plans, which Trump regards as a “disaster.” Trump has vowed to “keep men out of women’s sports,” however, the Biden administration has pushed to enshrine protections for LGBTQ+ students and staff in schools. Biden also revived the Obama-era college oversight rules, which Trump scrapped during his first term in office.
According to Lynn Pasquerella, the American Association of Colleges and Universities president, the regulatory impact that will likely arise over the next few years will be difficult for colleges to process.
She stated: “There’s an extraordinary amount of moral distress.”
Education Department
Many Republicans, including Trump, became more emphatic about dismantling the Education Department in interviews.
Trump told the media in an interview that, “We’re going to take the Department of Education (and) close it. I’m gonna close it.”
Sen. Sherrod Brown said in a radio interview in October, “We’re going to get rid of some of these agencies that don’t make any sense, like the Department of Education, and just move that money to the states.”
Trump can’t abolish the Education Department, unlike Congress, which agrees with it. Although Trump wants to dismantle the Education Department, he can also use it to his advantage. According to some experts, it will be less politically beneficial to shutter it.
Derrell Bradford, the president of 50CAN, an education advocacy group, said: “Frankly, you can’t do any of the things that he wants to do without the department in play.”
Current US Supreme Court rulings that have shortened the power of federal agencies, including the Education Department, will intensify the uncertainty about what colleges should expect from the White House.
Robert Kelchen, a professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, stated that “Most of the policy movement for the last 15 years has been through executive actions.” “It’s likely to be more difficult to do that.”
