The World of Higher Education

SEPTEMBER 19, 2024 | ALEX USHER

This fall, much of the world’s attention is focused on the United States, where Vice President Kamala Harris is squaring off with former President Donald Trump in the presidential election on November 5th. Education was one piece of the government apparatus where Trump 1. 0 was not actually all that radical. Yes, he appointed Betsy DeVos, a passionate advocate for private education and voucher schemes, to be his Secretary of Education. But on the post-secondary file as a whole, the administration did not leave much of a legacy. True, towards the end of the mandate, there were emerging themes of trying to force universities to be anti woke. On the other hand, the Trump administration did add a fair bit of new funding to historically black colleges and universities. However, the world’s changed a lot in four years and few now expect a Trump 2. 0 administration to be anywhere near as benign.

Today, my guest is Michigan State University, professor of higher education, Brendan Cantwell. Faithful readers and listeners may remember that Brendan came on the show in the spring to argue, among other things, that Conservative opposition to higher education at the state level was to a certain degree, performative. Conservatives were largely happy to fund education, but really, they just wanted something to fight about in the culture wars. Not necessarily to win, just to keep the fight going.

Over the summer though, Brendan wrote a couple of pieces, pointing out that a Trump win in 2024 might end up being a lot less performative, and do some real damage to the system. Damage from which it might have a hard time recovering. He’s focused not just on potential Republican control of the White House and Congress, he’s also pointed to the significant role that a Trump Supreme Court could play in shaping higher education policy, and indeed arguably has done so over the past four years through such cases as Students for Fair Admissions that was decided in the summer of 2023. Another Trump win might seal a right wing, a right leaning court for a generation. Very hard to come back from.

Anyways, this discussion is lively and Brendan, as usual, is thoughtful and provocative. So let’s turn it over to him.

Brendan Cantwell (BC): The Constitution gives states the authority to supply and regulate education. But over the decades and centuries, the federal government has taken a much more active role in higher education. Its main role is running the student financial aid system. The federal government operates the large student loan system that many students rely on for higher education, and it offers the largest need-based grant system, which is much larger than most state financial aid systems.

In addition to financial aid, it’s also the main supporter of research—funding about 60 percent of academic research in the country. Through these two major roles—organizing student financial aid and funding research—it also regulates the sector by attaching many conditions to participation in these programs. The federal financial aid system, in particular, allowed enrollments to grow rapidly in the second half of the 20th century. It’s hard to imagine the scale of higher education in the U.S. today without the federal government playing that pivotal role in financing student access. Students could use the federal aid to pay tuition, and that money fueled the expansion of the sector.

AU: The 2024 election cycle now underway, we normally see a dynamic—at least for the last 30 or 40 years—where the Democrats are more favorable to the higher education sector, more favorable to students. I assume that’s happening again this time, but how big of a deal is higher education in the overall campaign? It doesn’t seem like it’s getting much attention compared to previous cycles.

BC: There’s almost no attention to higher education this cycle. In the last couple of cycles, both parties talked quite a bit about higher education. Both more or less promised to make higher education cheaper for students—lowering the price—and to focus on making credentials more economically relevant, improving the return on investment. Neither party was particularly specific about how they would achieve that, but both emphasized wanting to make higher education more affordable and to help students get jobs.

Starting in 2020, the Democrats also took up the mantle of reducing loan burdens for students. Biden promised to forgive student loans and expand programs that would modify how students repay them, potentially providing relief to people in public service occupations. However, the courts have largely shut down the Democrats’ student loan forgiveness plans. So, the Democrats don’t want to talk about it, and the Republicans don’t have any popular programs on this issue either. They’re not explicitly addressing higher education in the campaign, although I will say Trump’s website does list some ideas about higher education.

As far as I know, the Democrats haven’t advanced any specific plans, and Trump isn’t really talking about the plans he claims to have for higher education, which involve establishing a kind of alternative credential national academy. How that would work is unclear, and whether people are interested in that idea is also pretty unclear. So, higher education just isn’t a big issue this time around.

AU: One of the things you’ve written about recently is the threat that a second Trump administration would pose to higher education, and how the federal government could “kill” higher education—I think that was the title of one of your recent blogs. You were on the show a few months ago, and you argued that conservatism at the state level, at least around higher education issues, was often very performative. Clearly, you don’t think that’s true at the federal level. What’s different?

BC: At the federal level, there is both the power and perhaps the desire to really reshape the sector and end it as we know it. The clearest mechanism to do that would be to cut off the federal financial aid system, particularly the student loan system. Either bring it down to zero or dramatically reshape it. There are indications in the conservative, right-wing intellectual branch of the Republican Party that they view the federal role in supporting higher education, essentially through the loan system, as unconstitutional and contrary to their political interests. They might be quite interested in either redesigning or eliminating it. I think that’s the main tool they could use—to rework the loan and grant system. We can talk about how that might play out.

Another way they could do it would be to dramatically reduce or change how science funding works. The federal government could decide how much is spent on research and direct that funding in particular ways—like cutting off climate change studies. They could also attach strings to how grants support the administrative overhead of universities. One of their specific proposals is to cut down on the overhead support that the federal government provides. So, those are the broad ways they could make changes.

AU: Okay, we’ll get to the means in a second, but I’m wondering why the politics are different. At the state level, there’s a lot of performative posturing, but in the end, most people in state legislatures have post-secondary institutions in their districts, and they don’t really want them shut down—they want them to keep getting money. Surely that’s true in Congress too. If you stop funding student financial aid, like Pell Grants, that would close a lot of institutions and hurt a lot of Congress people. So, what would be the incentive for Congress—even a Republican Congress—to go along with a move like that by President Trump?

BC: Good question, and what you’ve described definitely captures how things have worked in the past. There has been bipartisan support for expanding student financial aid programs. Even if individual members of Congress had ideological opposition, they didn’t want to hurt the colleges in their districts. They focused on providing college access to their constituents who demanded it. But what’s changed is the nationalization of everything, and the effect on individual districts—especially where there’s no chance of the party flipping. Now, what matters is the primary, and ideological adherence is far more important. You could see a Republican Congress going along with things that would hurt the institutions in their districts because it aligns with their ideological program, and they would perceive it as in the interest of the Republican Party.

At the state level, posturing and exerting some control over the culture of public higher education is important, but governors and state legislatures are still closer to the institutions and their constituents, who may be angry at universities but don’t want to see them go away. At the federal level, that kind of responsiveness to local interests is less of a factor because of polarization dynamics and the nationalization of nearly every political issue. The pragmatic interests of members of Congress are less of an influence, and sticking it to institutions they view as hostile to their party or pursuing radical proposals consistent with their limited government ideology becomes more likely at the federal level.

AU: You mentioned the possibility that they might try to end or curtail student financial aid. How would they do that? One of the issues where the Biden administration stumbled on student loan forgiveness was overstepping its presidential power vis-à-vis Congress, who actually has the power to make this policy. If you were part of a Trump administration coming in January, how would you go about getting rid of student aid?

BC: I think it would be challenging to get rid of it completely, but there are ways an administration could go about it. The courts have said that the Biden administration can’t forgive student loans, but there is an established precedent that the administration, working with Congress, can decide how student loans are administered. One proposal in the Project 2025 policy document—a manifesto from a right-wing think tank many believe is a blueprint for the next administration—calls for a dramatic privatization of the student loan system. This would allow banks not only to issue federally guaranteed loans, which happened under the Bush administration, but also shift the focus of the student loan system to making money for the federal government and banks. Right now, the system is primarily about providing aid and access, but this proposal casts suspicion on the federal interest in providing those loans, suggesting only banks have the right incentives to make the loans. That could potentially allow banks to decide who receives federal financial aid and which programs or institutions qualify, which could dramatically reshape or reduce the aid system.

AU: So, it sounds like it would be relatively easy to cut back on loans. You haven’t talked about grants like Pell. Is there a way Pell could be restricted?

BC: Only through Congress. To get rid of Pell, there are possibilities for a Trump administration to experiment and see if the courts allow it. For example, they could say institutions aren’t eligible for Pell Grants or other federal aid if they fail ideological balance or free speech tests, effectively red-lining certain campuses. It’s unclear if the courts would allow that, but the idea that the courts would hold a Trump administration to the same standard of restraint as they have with Biden is an open question. The courts have shown asymmetrical preferences, especially for Republican administrations. So, Trump could be granted much more deference in terms of administrative rulemaking and steering money than Biden. This is speculative, and some of it borders on conspiracy theory, but the Project 2025 document leaves a lot of latitude for an administration to engage in a politics of punishment through the higher education system.

AU: Brendan, we’ve spoken a little bit about the power of the presidency. We’ve spoken about the power of Congress. But there’s a third branch of government, right? The Supreme Court. You’ve mentioned in some of your writing that maybe it’s the Supreme Court that could do the most damage to higher education. What could the Supreme Court do beyond what it’s already done on race-conscious admissions? And how likely is it that the court will take such actions?

BC: One distinct possibility is that the court could find that the Department of Education is broadly inconsistent with the Constitution because the Constitution explicitly gives powers related to education to the states. One challenge could be to the authority of the Department of Education to regulate in ways that affect state governance. For example, could the Department set rules that interfere with how states administer education? The courts could impose broad limitations like this.

The courts could also strike down sections of the Higher Education Act or the Civil Rights Act, both of which limit how state universities operate. One specific area conservatives have floated is eliminating proactive civil rights enforcement by the Department of Education, such as the disparate impact standard. This standard says that if a policy or practice at a state or institution disproportionately benefits or harms a protected class, it could be a civil rights violation, even without evidence of discriminatory intent. Eliminating that standard would be a significant change.

The courts might also target anything related to gender equity, particularly protections for transgender students. The court has shown some willingness to engage with those issues. These areas were not explicitly covered in original legislation, like Title IX, which is used to enforce gender equity. The courts could say that such interpretations go beyond the scope of the law, and efforts by the Biden administration to ensure gender equity for transgender people could be struck down.

AU: So, that brings me to the question—presumably the Supreme Court could take these actions even under a Democratic administration, right? These decisions aren’t necessarily predicated on Trump coming back to power and Project 2025 being enacted. How likely is it that this happens under a Kamala Harris government, and what do you think the administration’s reaction would be?

BC: I’m not sure how the administration would react, but I think if we had a Kamala Harris administration, you’d see more of what we’ve seen in recent years with the Biden administration’s Department of Education. The courts are already in the process of invalidating much of the Title IX guidance, and they’ve eliminated the loan forgiveness programs that Biden wanted to enact. They’re also showing skepticism about public service programs, which are congressionally authorized programs that reduce student loan debt for those working in public service occupations.

The Harris administration would likely try to expand civil rights protections using existing statutes, as Democrats typically do. However, the courts and Republican states would be especially hostile to these efforts. The courts could make both narrow rulings striking down specific rules and much broader rulings that hollow out landmark legislation like the Higher Education Act and the Civil Rights Act, which would be consistent with previous decisions, like when the Roberts Court hollowed out the Voting Rights Act during the Obama administration.

AU: Another potential route to policy change you’ve raised is the dismantling of accreditation standards. Accreditation is regional, but there are some national standards that a president could interfere with. What are the methods of policy change in this area, and are there any checks and balances to prevent anything too drastic from happening to quality assurance?

BC: The short answer is that a Trump administration could make significant changes to how higher education is governed, particularly through the federal financial aid program. The federal government has historically been able to attach conditions to institutions’ eligibility for federal financial aid, using regional accreditation as a quality assurance measure. Accreditation in the U.S. is decentralized and often critiqued for being too weak. It’s carried out by regional, non-profit organizations that engage in peer review to ensure institutions meet basic standards. While the standards are regional, they’re more or less nationalized in practice.

Recently, conservatives have argued that accreditation constrains state governments’ ability to govern higher education as they see fit, particularly in areas like curriculum and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. One proposal floated by some conservative groups, and something that could be part of a Trump administration’s higher education policy, is allowing states to self-accredit. Instead of relying on external regional bodies, states could establish their own quality assurance boards that would do whatever the state government wants, and those standards would be sufficient for participating in the federal financial aid system.

This could allow deep-red states to exert much more control over their public higher education systems, particularly regarding curriculum and issues like gender and race equity. The potential result would be state higher education systems with very different quality standards and very different cultural standards to issues like academic freedom and inclusion, which would be a significant change in U.S. higher education.

AU: That’s interesting because that’s actually how Canadian provinces do it. They’re implicitly self-accrediting, but there aren’t huge variations in what the right things are to accredit in terms of substance. We had Simon Marginson on the show a couple of weeks ago, and we were talking about whether institutions anywhere in the world are capable of resisting populist or even fascist governments. His view was that institutions can’t do much to protect themselves. You’ve mentioned before that higher education doesn’t have many champions outside its own sector. Do you think that’s likely to change in the next six months, or is the sector as exposed as it looks come January 20th?

BC: I think the sector is still quite exposed. What has protected it so far has been broad public support, but that’s eroding. Strong sector norms have also helped—institutions have been unwilling to break ranks and go along with ideas seen as beyond the norm in higher education. Politicians, until recently, haven’t been keen to challenge those norms either, at least not explicitly. But all of that is changing. There are very few legal or formal mechanisms that protect institutions, even private ones, which are vulnerable due to their reliance on federal aid and grants.

Institutions aren’t practiced in defending themselves, and even if they think clearly about it, there aren’t clear remedies for the kinds of overtures the federal or state governments might make. So, I think Simon’s basically right—there’s not much institutions can do. To the extent that they can protect themselves, it’s through direct appeals to the public. But institutions are reluctant to do that because they’re not used to it, they might not be good at it, and they might find that the public isn’t on their side.

AU: You’ve laid out what sounds like the worst-case scenario if Trump wins. Is there a best-case scenario—or maybe just a better case? What’s the best thing that could emerge from a second Trump presidency?

BC: Yeah, I think the best-case scenario, which is actually pretty likely, is that Trump doesn’t pay much attention to higher education policy. They will almost certainly make changes around Title IX, reverting to the Betsy DeVos guidance, which gives students accused of sexual harassment and violence more rights. They’ll likely get rid of some accountability metrics like gainful employment, which Democrats have championed. They’re more sympathetic to the interests of for-profit institutions that have been on the receiving end of those regulations.

But beyond that, higher education might just experience the same regulatory flip-flopping we’ve seen before—where each administration enacts new rules when it comes into power. That kind of scenario is likely under any Republican administration, not just Trump. What’s changed is that the certainty of this happening is lower now than it would be under, say, a Nikki Haley presidency. Under Trump, everything is on the table, and that kind of uncertainty is hard for the sector to prepare for.

AU: Brendan Cantwell, thank you so much for joining us.

BC: Thank you very much. It was fun.

AU: And it just remains for us to thank our excellent producers, Tiffany MacLennan and Sam Pufek, and you, our listeners, for tuning in. If you have any questions or comments about today’s episode or suggestions for future ones, please don’t hesitate to contact us at podcast@higheredstrategy.com. Join us next week when my guest will be Mary C. Wright, author of Centers for Teaching and Learning: The New Landscape in Higher Education. She’s from Brown University, and we’ll be talking about this fascinating subject. We’ll be back in a week’s time. Bye for now.