Here’s How Trump May Reshape Higher Education in His First 100 Days
Credit: Scott Olson / Getty Images News- Incoming President Trump will likely look to reinstate many of his previous higher education priorities.
- The landscape has changed, however, meaning new actions could be incoming.
- Trump’s plans for federal financial aid and student loan programs will impact millions of current and former college students.
Donald Trump will soon assert control over the Department of Education (ED) again, promising to enact changes sure to shake up the U.S. higher education system.
The president-elect didn’t often highlight his higher education agenda on the campaign trail, but his actions during his first term in office hint at possible plans to come.
The higher education landscape has also changed substantially since his first term, underlined by President Joe Biden’s reversal of many Trump-era regulations.
It remains to be seen whether his nominee to oversee ED, businesswoman Linda McMahon, will be confirmed, but higher education experts told BestColleges they expect Trump to be active in higher education policy within his first three months in office.
One priority for ED during the first months of the Trump administration will be facilitating the release of this year’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form and the resumption of federal student loan repayment.
BestColleges spoke with experts in many facets of higher education to better understand what Trump may prioritize in his presidency.
Financial Aid Changes
Nearly three-quarters of all undergraduate students receive federal financial aid, meaning any changes to the system could substantially impact college affordability.
Income-Driven Repayment
President Biden created the most generous income-driven repayment (IDR) plan for federal student loan borrowers, dubbed the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan. The future of the plan is in doubt after federal judges blocked its implementation in June.
Michelle Dimino, director of the Education Program at the think tank Third Way, said this court battle likely spells the end of the SAVE plan.
ED is named a defendant in the case to preserve the SAVE plan. Once Trump takes office, Dimino said he can simply choose to stop defending the case, which will lead to an inevitable court loss.
“We don’t expect SAVE to survive,” she said, “so what happens to the borrowers who already enrolled in the plan?”
The Trump administration will need to shepherd more than 7.5 million borrowers enrolled in SAVE into another IDR plan. The Biden administration reopened the application process to enroll in two other plans in mid-December, but those plans are less generous than SAVE.
Student Loan Forgiveness
Even before the start of Trump’s second term, Biden’s “Plan B” student loan debt forgiveness plan fell to the wayside. His administration withdrew proposed regulations that would have offered debt forgiveness for specific types of borrowers, likely anticipating a post-inauguration reversal.
Dimino said Trump may also target other debt forgiveness programs early in his administration. One such program is borrower defense to repayment.
Trump’s previous secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, took the unique approach of refusing to process borrower defense claims during Trump’s first administration, which later led to a $6 billion settlement. The president may take the same approach or simply reduce the number of ED workers processing claims to stall approvals.
Preston Cooper, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), also expects fewer borrower defense claims to be approved under the Trump administration.
Alternatives to a Four-Year Degree
Trump championed four-year degree alternatives during his first term and is likely to do so again.
Apprenticeships
Trump is an advocate for apprentice programs, going so far as to create a new apprenticeship system during his first administration.
Taylor Maag, director of workforce policy at Jobs for the Future (JFF), said Trump created the Industry-Recognized Apprenticeship Program (IRAP) in 2017 through executive order. This reduced the requirements for employers to run apprenticeships by lowering the amount of paperwork required to be approved and requiring less classroom time.
“What we’ve seen in the past … and what we’re expecting to see is a focus on expanding pathways to postsecondary outside of a four-year degree,” Maag said.
Biden did away with IRAPs shortly after taking office to put money back into the registered apprenticeship model.
Maag expects Trump to reinstate IRAPs, potentially even in his first week in office.
“For Trump’s voter base and his promises,” she said, “I think it’s going to be big.”
She said Trump may also seek to enshrine IRAPs through congressional action. This may be difficult because many states and unions have heavy investments in the traditional registered apprenticeship program.
Short-Term Pell Grants
Worries that a Trump presidency could lead to Pell Grant funding cuts may be overblown, experts told BestColleges.
Jill Desjean, senior policy analyst at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA), said the program has broad bipartisan support in Congress. Despite some pointing out the fact that Pell Grant funding is “unauthorized,” she said lawmakers’ continued funding of the program acts as a pseudo-reauthorization of the program each year.
More likely, we could quickly see an expansion of Pell Grants to apply toward certificate programs lasting as little as eight weeks.
Karishma Merchant, associate vice president of policy and advocacy at JFF, said expansion of Pell could be imminent. Trump included a proposal to do so in a previous budget request, plus his ED secretary nominee expressed support for short-term Pell in a recent opinion piece.
“It fits very well into the agenda of nondegree pathways and builds the case that there are just as viable pathways,” Merchant said. “If they’re going to move something in higher education, that would be it.”
Action could come through a vehicle like the Bipartisan Workforce Pell Act or JOBS Act, she said. Pell expansion could also slip into a budget reconciliation bill early in Trump’s presidency.
Still, some roadblocks remain, Merchant said. There has been disagreement in the Senate about how to pay for this Pell expansion.
Reversing Biden-Era Policies
Many of Biden’s higher education actions involved undoing Trump’s regulatory changes. Trump will likely look to reinstate his policies in his second term.
For-Profit Oversight Rules
Biden made many regulatory changes to how the federal government oversees for-profit colleges and universities, including reinstating the gainful employment (GE) standard.
Jason Altmire, CEO of the for-profit trade group Career Education Colleges and Universities (CECU), said he expects swift action to address these changes.
However, rather than reverting them back to the regulation enacted by Trump during his first presidency, Altmire hopes the focus will be on instituting lasting changes that apply to all colleges and universities, not just for-profit institutions.
“Our ultimate goal is not simply to repeal these regs or roll them back,” he said. “Our goal is to stop this game of ping-pong where every administration comes in and makes a 180-degree change.”
This may take congressional action, he said, which could cause this priority to slip later into Trump’s presidency.
Still, he’s optimistic this goal can be accomplished. Altmire said leading lawmakers, including Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, have expressed support for this method of oversight.
“It’s not going to be quick, but our goal is to make it lasting,” Altmire said.
Dropping Defense of Lawsuits
Prescient decisions await Trump regarding ongoing lawsuits. ED is the defendant in a number of cases regarding policy topics including:
- Borrower defense to repayment
- Accreditation
- The SAVE repayment plan
There is some uncertainty about what the Department of Justice (DOJ) will do with these cases. Some experts told BestColleges they expect Trump to abandon defending these cases altogether, while others believe the DOJ will continue to defend Biden-era policies — even if Trump disagrees with them — because they are finalized regulations.
Title IX Reversal
The future of Title IX, the civil rights law that protects students from discrimination based on sex and gender, is in doubt.
Just weeks before Trump’s inauguration, a federal district court in Kentucky struck down Biden’s finalized Title IX rule changes nationwide. Trump likely would have looked to overturn Biden’s changes, but now it’s unclear how he may address Title IX.
Biden’s proposal would have expanded the definition of “sexual harassment” for Title IX cases and broadened the definition to include discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. It also would have changed how institutions must process Title IX claims, giving them the option to use a single-investigator model or live hearings.
Cait Smith, director of LGBTQI+ policy at the Center for American Progress (CAP), said they expect Trump to try to reverse Biden’s changes. More specifically, Trump will aim to weaken protections for students discriminated against based on sexual orientation or identity.
That may manifest as issuing guidance to schools on how to interpret Title IX.
Institutions may have to quickly reverse course on their own Title IX practices and adjust to new Trump guidance early in 2025.
“It’s probably going to be very confusing,” they said, “and I think that’s an important piece in this.”
Biden never finalized his proposed regulations regarding transgender students’ participation in college athletics, Smith added.
Accreditation
Trump has threatened to “fire” existing college accreditors.
“When I return to the White House, I will fire the radical left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist maniacs and lunatics,” he said in May 2023.
Cooper said taking action against accreditors or making changes to the accreditation system overall will likely take longer than 100 days. One thing that Trump can do early on, however, is open the door to recognizing new college accreditors.
Biden stopped considering new accreditors during his presidency, Cooper said.
It takes years for a new agency to be recognized by the federal government. Letting potential accreditors apply for recognition during Trump’s first 100 days might allow them to be recognized by the end of his presidency.