As Donald Trump returns to the White Home on this Martin Luther King Jr. Day—with a GOP Congress behind him, a vice chairman who’s referred to as universities “the enemy” and a WWE powerhouse tapped as his schooling secretary—it’s truthful to say that the one certainty for U.S. increased schooling is uncertainty.
Trump’s consideration to the sector throughout his first time period was fleeting. He didn’t make increased ed a central concern in his protracted marketing campaign for re-election, both, though he did name for axing the Training Division, firing accreditors, deporting campus protesters, eliminating DEI applications and launching a nationwide on-line college.
His conservative allies have loads of plans on the prepared. Undertaking 2025 has referred to as for radical reform to scale back the federal position in increased ed and hand energy to the states. GOP members of Congress shall be keen to cross pent-up payments they couldn’t get by prior to now 4 years—some welcome by many in increased ed, others stirring broad alarm.
And whereas Republicans are raring to reform increased ed, the sector limps into Trump Half II in a weakened state, scarred from plummeting belief within the worth of a school schooling in addition to scalding political rhetoric, congressional probes into campus antisemitism, state legal guidelines banning DEI applications and dictating curriculum modifications, and the politicization of boards and presidencies—to not point out the approaching arrival of the long-dreaded demographic cliff.
It’d sound like a grim state of affairs. However the priorities of the brand new administration and Congress—and the way they may have an effect on faculties and universities for each good and sick—are anyone’s guess at this level. So is their capacity, or political will, to cross and implement sweeping reforms.
Not everyone seems to be guessing, although. That is academia, in spite of everything—specialists know issues, or not less than have extremely educated guesses. So we requested a variety of distinguished leaders and students to establish their highest hope and biggest concern for the sector within the second Trump administration. No consensus emerges—once more, in spite of everything, that is academia. However their collective insights shed some sudden mild on each the challenges and alternatives Trump’s second 4 years could current.
A few of their fears won’t shock you. However a few of their hopes most likely will. The responses have been edited for readability and concision.
Paulette Granberry Russell
President of the Nationwide Affiliation of Range Officers in Greater Training
My highest hope is that the administration respects and upholds the autonomy of upper schooling establishments and doesn’t try to undermine them additional.
We have now witnessed continuous assaults by the states on institutional autonomy, educational freedom and free speech. I hope that federal coverage won’t prolong these assaults by the elimination of essential departments, drastic modifications by way of government orders or vital reductions in funding to the Departments of Training, Justice and Well being and Human Companies—businesses whose assets and insurance policies underpin fairness, inclusion and entry. For institutional leaders, braveness and consistency in prioritizing fairness, entry and alternative shall be essential to preserving the transformative mission of upper schooling.
My biggest fear is that inclusive methods and interventions, many catalyzed by landmark laws just like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX in 1972, will stall—or worse, regress. Federal coverage modeled after restrictive state-level laws would disproportionately hurt people and communities which have traditionally confronted discrimination. Efforts to dismantle applications aimed toward reaching extra equitable outcomes—applications which have yielded measurable advantages for generations—would erode the progress made in increasing entry and success for underrepresented college students. The implications of such rollbacks would prolong past increased schooling establishments, threatening the broader economic system and society. Numerous, equitable campuses don’t simply profit particular person college students; they create a pipeline of leaders and innovators important for a aggressive world workforce.
Miriam Feldblum
Government director of the Presidents’ Alliance on Greater Training and Immigration
Within the coming years, there’ll undoubtedly be harsh immigration and border insurance policies, elevated deportations and a few restricted alternatives to remain and work within the U.S. for these with non permanent or fragile immigration statuses. But my biggest hope is that we acknowledge, solidify and even increase actual alternatives to search out frequent floor, together with methods for increased ed establishments and campuses to help these college students and different campus members. President Trump just lately mentioned that he desires to work to discover a means for Dreamers to remain and hold contributing. He has additionally recommended giving inexperienced playing cards to worldwide pupil graduates and mentioned he helps H-1B visas. Greater ed leaders and establishments ought to seize these alternatives for frequent floor.
My biggest concern, in the meantime, is that America squanders the potential of Dreamers, immigrant-origin and worldwide college students by restrictive insurance policies. The U.S. is going through an immense expertise crucial to maintain our world financial competitiveness, drive innovation, fill workforce shortages and produce a skilled and devoted workforce. Greater schooling establishments are important to assembly these challenges. And immigrant-origin college students—together with Dreamers and refugees, and different first- and second-generation immigrant college students—together with worldwide college students make up over a 3rd of all college students in increased schooling. The lack of this expertise as a result of misguided immigration insurance policies, concern and focused enforcement actions could be self-defeating for our nation’s future.
Barbara Snyder
President of the Affiliation of American Universities
President Trump has repeatedly mentioned he desires to make America nice and hold us forward of China and different competitor nations. I’m optimistic that he’ll help insurance policies and investments that guarantee the USA continues to be the world’s chief in scientific analysis. The president and Congress can safe that place by each rising our public investments in cutting-edge analysis and by selling insurance policies that make it simple for the world’s greatest and brightest technological and scientific minds to review, work and keep right here and advance U.S. innovation and financial development.
My single biggest concern could be that some would possibly attempt to persuade the president to tug again these investments in America’s greatness and shut ourselves off from the worldwide expertise and data that has helped make our nation nice. I hope that he and Congress will resist that shortsightedness and can select to recommit our nation to the government-university analysis partnership that has made us the world’s strongest and most affluent nation.
Jeremy Younger
Director of state and better schooling coverage at PEN America
Over the previous 4 years, a gaggle of lawmakers and conservative assume tanks have waged cruel battle on free expression within the increased schooling sector. Fifteen states have handed legal guidelines that censor concepts on faculty and college campuses, and the brand new federal administration appears poised to increase this ideological battle on increased schooling into new arenas: weaponizing federal analysis funding, Title VI enforcement and accreditation to limit concepts on campus whereas participating in limitless bullying and jawboning of college leaders to power “voluntary” closures of range places of work and educational applications.
My concern is that the brand new administration will carry ahead this damaging playbook, actively suppressing politically disfavored viewpoints on campus and destroying the ideological autonomy of upper schooling establishments. However my hope is that it’s going to step again from the abyss. Scientific discovery, cultural creation, the fostering of essential pondering abilities employers search in new graduates and the promotion of democratic pluralism among the many rising era—these outcomes are solely attainable if faculties and universities stay locations the place all concepts are open for debate, not simply these the federal government agrees with.
Ivory Toldson
Howard College professor, editor in chief of The Journal of Negro Training and former government director of the White Home Initiative on Traditionally Black Schools and Universities
Underneath a second Trump administration, my highest hope is for the continued development and enlargement of HBCUs. These establishments have traditionally loved bipartisan help, and even Undertaking 2025 acknowledges the significance of offering federal help to traditionally Black and tribal faculties. In comparison with most of the highest-ranked predominantly white establishments (PWIs), HBCUs enroll a better proportion of U.S. residents, which can protect them from challenges related to extra restrictive immigration insurance policies. Furthermore, as race-conscious admissions insurance policies are rolled again, HBCUs may play a essential position in supporting Black college students who could also be denied alternatives at PWIs, additional solidifying their significance in U.S. increased schooling.
My biggest fear lies within the challenges to range, fairness and inclusion applications, which may go away Black college students at PWIs with fewer assets to deal with persistent problems with fairness, entry and institutional racism. With out these applications, Black college students could face elevated racial hostilities with fewer protections and help methods. Moreover, efforts to weaken or remove the Training Division may severely threaten funding for lower-income college students, notably by federal pupil assist applications. Mixed with rising anti–increased schooling attitudes, these threats may place faculties and universities beneath heightened scrutiny, damage enrollment and jeopardize the way forward for increased schooling as an entire.
Jeremi Suri
Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Management in World Affairs and professor of public affairs and historical past, College of Texas at Austin
Republican politicians like to assault the elitism of upper schooling, at the same time as they leverage their very own elite pedigrees for cash and energy. Republicans do probably not wish to destroy increased schooling; they wish to personal it for themselves. I count on that the subsequent 4 years will make this clear and open a wider dialogue about who ought to have entry to increased schooling and the way we will broaden it for many who really feel unnoticed. To this point, Republicans have relied on attacking DEI and “woke” tradition, however what do they wish to change it with on faculty campuses? They can’t return to the white male–solely establishments of the early twentieth century. As Republicans are pressured to articulate a coherent imaginative and prescient for entry in increased schooling, I count on a extra open and helpful dialog that may deliver us again to discussing range and affordability—not largely when it comes to race and gender, however when it comes to class and geography and household historical past. This may nonetheless be a tough dialogue, however one which could be extra substantive, advanced and even helpful.
Republican politicians have additionally promoted a brand new “civics” agenda in increased schooling, primarily based on an unproven declare that universities have deserted the subject material. The push for civics has meant extra traditionalism and patriotism, much less creativity and criticism. However that could be a tough agenda to take very far. If Republicans need universities to review extra Madison, Jefferson and Lincoln, how can they keep away from extra (not much less) examine of pluralism, separation of church and state, and civil rights—the core points for these most conventional historic figures? Republican advocacy for civics schooling should grapple with the advanced questions that many Republicans want to keep away from. A critical dialogue of civics in increased schooling will make this clear in coming years, and it’ll power these applications to widen their agenda or retreat into area of interest enclaves on campus. Most donors will favor the previous, which could construct bridges with ecumenical college and college students.
Nicole Smith
Chief economist at Georgetown College’s Middle on Training and the Workforce
My single highest hope is for a renewed deal with workforce growth and profession readiness. Amid rising debates in regards to the worth of upper schooling, they’ve remained key priorities on the Trump platform. This focus presents alternatives for increased ed establishments to proceed to innovate and increase applications that align carefully with labor market calls for. Vocational coaching, apprenticeship applications and technical schooling have been central to Trump’s agenda, offering a basis for faculties and universities to construct stronger partnerships with industries. This may drive innovation in areas similar to competency-based studying, stackable credentials and enhanced internship alternatives. By equipping college students with sensible abilities and clear profession trajectories, increased schooling can proceed to bolster its position as a key driver of financial mobility—a subject positive to be on the minds of leaders on this new administration.
My biggest fear for the sector? Poorer outcomes for traditionally marginalized college students, with no method to report it. Federal help for range, fairness and inclusion initiatives, in addition to educational analysis, is prone to be withdrawn solely beneath the Trump administration. Efforts to defund or prohibit DEI applications—notably in public establishments—could intensify. These restrictions may additionally result in the politicization of educational analysis, with areas like intergenerational mobility in schooling and revenue, gender fairness and any evaluations by race or ethnicity doubtlessly seeing funding reductions or shifts in precedence. Such modifications danger creating substantial obstacles for establishments dedicated to fostering inclusive environments and conducting analysis that addresses essential societal points. For Black professionals in increased schooling, this presents a twin problem: preserving DEI efforts within the face of exterior resistance whereas defending educational freedom in a local weather more and more marked by skepticism and mistrust of analysis.
Sherene Seikaly
Affiliate professor at UC Santa Barbara and facilitator of the College for Justice in Palestine community
My highest hope is that the Trump administration doesn’t interact in repression, securitization, censorship and attenuation of upper schooling. My biggest fear is that the Trump administration will escalate the repression of social actions on campus, and specifically the motion standing with Palestinian liberation and political rights.
Miriam Elman
Government director of the Tutorial Engagement Community
With alarming incidents of antisemitism occurring on campuses nationwide and beleaguered Jewish college students more and more reporting that they’re being harassed, bullied and marginalized, Donald Trump’s return to the White Home is prone to end in higher days forward. Trump has already warned universities to count on a harder stance from his administration, together with the attainable lack of accreditation and federal help, in the event that they fail to deal with the rising degree of antisemitism of their establishments. Underneath Trump, we may very well see a number of universities which might be deemed in violation of civil rights regulation get their federal funds absolutely or partially minimize off for not taking antisemitic bigotry and harassment severely. This shall be consequential not just for the affected faculties, however will ship a powerful sign to different universities that antisemitism received’t be tolerated.
More durable OCR [Office for Civil Rights] settlements are very possible coming down the pike, which is what many Jewish college students, college and workers are hoping for. However we needs to be anxious that at many colleges there quickly could now not be ample staffing to successfully handle and fight antisemitism. With a second Trump administration, a Republican Congress and new Training Division management, we’ll see extra range applications shuttered. For the Jewish group on campus, that’s going to imply a blended bag. In spite of everything, it’s onerous to see how antisemitism consciousness coaching and academic programming shall be rolled out if the workers wanted to arrange and facilitate these applications now not have their jobs. To make certain, some poor DEI trainings exacerbate divisions and have executed a horrible disservice to Jews on campus. Completed effectively, although, these applications can profit Jewish and all campus communities.
Kenneth Stern
Director of the Bard Middle for the Examine of Hate
I fear a few political assault on increased schooling and its impact on college students and the flexibility of school to show. Are college students who’re refugees from locations like Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan and elsewhere going to face deportation? Are we going to see 18-year-olds deported due to how they view the battle in Gaza? Will directors, fearing overly aggressive Title VI instances, choose to suppress speech and educational freedom? No college ought to tolerate college students being harassed or intimidated or bullied. However I concern that the brand new Congress and administration are going to attract traces not round precise security however emotional security, punishing universities that enable demonstrations with political expressions that some detest.
Vice President–elect JD Vance mentioned that, as in Victor Orbán’s Hungary, the U.S. ought to give universities “a alternative between survival or taking a a lot much less biased method to educating.” Funding and endowments could also be focused after Jan. 20, and students educating contentious topics could also be within the crosshairs. Sixty-eight years in the past, the Supreme Courtroom in Sweezy v. New Hampshire rejected a authorized assault towards a Marxist professor, upholding the significance of educational freedom. I don’t like a few of what’s being taught right now, both, however the treatment is actually not government-imposed guidelines on what to assume or educate.
Ted Mitchell
President of the American Council on Training and U.S. beneath secretary of schooling from 2014 to 2017
We’re inspired by the emphasis the incoming Trump administration and the brand new Congress have positioned on points similar to transparency and accountability associated to pupil outcomes. This isn’t new, and it isn’t partisan, however significant change is lengthy overdue. Discovering the suitable steadiness between making certain college students have entry to postsecondary schooling whereas creating significant penalties for applications that aren’t serving their college students effectively isn’t simple. However there are a variety of considerate proposals being mentioned that we hope will result in an actual answer within the subsequent two years. As I mentioned in an open letter to President-elect Trump earlier this month, our overriding objective is to supply extra alternative for all Individuals.
Given the big listing of competing priorities a brand new administration juggles, my greatest fear is that in making an attempt to pay for main spending cuts and cross tax laws, the administration and Congress will do the shortsighted factor and enact insurance policies like cuts to pupil monetary assist and analysis funding—all of which might damage college students, hold them from reaching their full potential and hamper our nation’s economic system and safety.
Jim Blew
Co-founder of the Protection Freedom Institute and assistant secretary of planning, analysis and coverage growth for the Training Division from 2017 to 2020
I’m optimistic that within the wake of the Biden-Harris administration’s administration of FAFSA and the scholar mortgage portfolio, the incoming administration and Congress will agree on the way to repair the damaged Workplace of Federal Scholar Support. That may require a brand new method, maybe positioned outdoors the division, that shields FSA’s operations from partisan agendas and modifications the damaging incentives inherent to a performance-based group that isn’t held accountable for monetary efficiency. Throughout these talks, I hope they’ll additionally align on coverage reforms that may assist all college students entry submit–highschool alternatives for a variety of high-value profession paths.
I’m anxious that increased schooling establishments will misinterpret the second and attempt to stonewall efforts to carry them accountable when their college students don’t get a superb return on their investments or don’t repay their federal loans. If the upper ed foyer isn’t sincerely on the desk, there’s a excessive danger that the ensuing coverage options shall be much less workable, or unworkable. There’s already a rising sentiment that the scholar mortgage portfolio has grow to be a weapon of partisan politics. I wouldn’t check Congress’s persistence, or there could be a extreme discount in the usage of federal taxpayer funds to assist our college students afford postsecondary schooling.
Greg Lukianoff
President and CEO of the Basis for Particular person Rights and Expression
My highest hope throughout the second Trump administration is for Congress to cross a invoice that defines student-on-student harassment persistently with the speech-protective definition set forth by the U.S. Supreme Courtroom in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Training. Campus speech codes, nonetheless effectively intentioned, are routinely used to punish nearly any speech that somebody on campus doesn’t like. Till a federal decide vacated the Biden administration Title IX guidelines, the Training Division was forcing faculties to make use of an unconstitutional definition of student-on-student harassment in each the Title IX and Title VI contexts. Correctly utilized, the Davis customary ensures that establishments defend college students towards precise discriminatory habits versus punishing college students who merely categorical controversial viewpoints.
My biggest concern additionally includes attainable laws. Final Congress, the Home of Representatives handed the unconstitutional Antisemitism Consciousness Act. Whereas antisemitic harassment is a major problem on campuses, the AAA’s examples of antisemitism embrace statements essential of the state of Israel, which is core political speech protected by the First Modification. Moderately than resurrect the AAA, members of Congress can craft constitutional laws that might handle antisemitism on campuses by prohibiting harassment primarily based on faith, confirming that federal regulation forbids discrimination primarily based on ethnic stereotypes and codifying the Supreme Courtroom’s definition of discriminatory harassment.
David Hoag
President of the Council for Christian Schools & Universities
We aspire to a better schooling system that’s extra reasonably priced, extra accessible and extra centered on the lifelong worth of upper schooling, notably inside Christian establishments. In 2025, the CCCU hopes that the incoming administration acknowledges the invaluable position of faith-based faculties in the USA. These establishments present academic alternatives and improve group engagement to the good thing about the complete nation. I’m involved that the present method seeks to measure increased schooling by purely transactional, monetary metrics, overlooking the holistic worth of a liberal arts diploma.
Walter Kimbrough
Interim president, Talladega School
My single highest hope is slim. I hope that the Trump administration will proceed to help the bipartisan HBCU fly-in annually in Washington, D.C., began in 2017 by Republicans. HBCUs are one of many few points that obtain overwhelming bipartisan help, and we hope that help continues not simply with the conferences, however elevated Title III and infrastructure funding, together with Pell Grant development.
My biggest fear is broad. The assaults on the Division of Training overwhelmingly deal with Ok-12. However there could be vital hurt executed to school college students and households if a number of the proposed modifications to the division really happen. As an alternative of viewing increased schooling because the enemy, there is a chance to push increased schooling with assets to be extra energetic in fixing the nation’s issues.
Robert Eitel
Co-founder of the Protection of Freedom Institute, senior counselor to the secretary of schooling from 2017 to 2020 and deputy basic counsel from 2005 to 2009
It’s time to deliver purpose and sanity again to Title IX. In defiance of the regulation’s textual content, construction and historical past, the Biden administration sought to leverage the regulation to institutionalize gender ideology in faculties, faculties and universities. With the 2024 Title IX laws vacated by a decide in December, I’m hopeful {that a} [Linda] McMahon Training Division won’t solely vigorously examine violations of the 2020 Title IX laws but additionally take steps to safeguard ladies’s and ladies’ athletics and services in academic establishments that obtain federal funds.
Whereas expectations are excessive for the second Trump Training Division, my biggest concern is that the tempo of Senate confirmations of essential subcabinet positions shall be too sluggish. Though the secretary units the objectives, expectations, tempo and tone, it’s within the principal places of work run by assistant secretaries the place the nitty-gritty work of coverage growth, rule making and grants administration happens. Lengthy-term vacancies in these places of work would severely disrupt the president’s schooling agenda.
Heather Perfetti
President of the Center States Fee on Greater Training
We face a chance to bridge views round essential federal coverage in ways in which advance vital dialogue for the good thing about our college students, our communities and our world standing whereas making certain that any regulatory shifts comprise a return on funding.
Federal coverage, nonetheless, should not inhibit increased schooling actions in methods which might be misaligned with the wants of scholars or the realities of the shifts within the sector. The more and more various pupil inhabitants faces challenges requiring establishments to honor the various individualized approaches that we all know assist college students obtain success alongside their educational journey. Insurance policies that lack flexibility and diminish revolutionary approaches will stray from the popularity that establishments maintain distinctive areas inside their communities and are pushed by distinct missions. Misaligned insurance policies, nonetheless, will make the sector’s challenges extra pronounced. Making certain a deep understanding of right now’s accreditation and dealing with us accreditors shall be essential to tell federal coverage, as accreditation stays one of the crucial highly effective levers obtainable for influencing change and assuring worth in increased schooling.
Todd Wolfson
President of the American Affiliation of College Professors
We’re deeply involved that the bombastic rhetoric coming from politicians and propagandists shall be used as justification to ramp up political interference and censorship in increased schooling and deepen the continued disaster of declining educational freedom, ballooning pupil debt and entry to schooling for working-class Individuals. And not using a thriving, inclusive increased schooling system that serves the general public good, the vast majority of Individuals shall be excluded from significant participation in our democracy and this nation will transfer backward.
Margaret Spellings
President and CEO of the Bipartisan Coverage Middle, secretary of schooling from 2005 to 2009
We’re falling quick. Many are questioning the worth of a school diploma. Too many households discover increased schooling out of attain. And our workforce faces a abilities mismatch, with a couple of million unfilled job openings. Nobody is questioning that there’s room for enchancment in increased schooling. BPC has launched a Fee on the American Workforce, which is able to convene throughout 2025 and draft a bipartisan technique for Congress to nurture expertise, increase alternative and put money into our workforce.
My highest hope is that we will make the longer term suggestions from our fee a actuality as Congress seems to be on the Greater Training Act, Workforce Innovation and Alternative Act and Perkins CTE Act.
Brigid Harrington
Greater ed legal professional
My highest hope for increased ed over the subsequent 4 years is that faculties and universities will deal with the tangible advantages of schooling and tailor their method to the present American workforce. What does that imply in 2025? Positively extra reasonably priced choices. Most likely extra distant and versatile choices. Greater than possible addressing the wants of scholars who are usually not on a standard submit–highschool path to a bachelor’s diploma.
My biggest fear is that faculties will overlook their academic mission within the midst of unprecedented stress from Congress and the manager department to bow to politics. Greater schooling has at all times been a bastion of the free alternate of concepts, and that ought to not change. Our college students and associates are usually not wallflowers and needs to be inspired to interact in sturdy debate of the problems and to not devolve these discussions into speech that’s harassing or, frankly, uneducated.
