While many are in panic mode about the Trump administration’s changes on the education file, it points to some big-picture trends that I think will be good for the future of education, rather than the doom and gloom that some analysts predict.
There Will be Great Disruption
The second Trump administration’s sweeping changes will of course bring disruption of K–12 schools and higher education, but in ways that have been needed for many years. These include dismantling the Department of Education, axing student loan forgiveness plans, ending DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) in higher education, barring accreditors from requiring DEI standards, overhauling the accreditation system, starting a national online university, creating a new accreditation system that would defend the American tradition and Western Civilization, and taxing and fining large university endowments of schools that won’t go along. These would be monumental changes.But they won’t be easy. Getting rid of the 45-year-old Department of Education with its 4,000 employees and $80 billion discretionary budget would take an act of Congress, as would ending the current system of accreditation. These changes will also be challenged in court, as we are already seeing.
The Crisis of Confidence in Higher Education Will Continue
Many Americans have lost faith in the value of a college degree. The consensus of “college is normal,” is collapsing as more high school students are dismissing it as an option.True, college is not for everyone, and vocational and tech schools can be a great option for many. Nevertheless, confidence for this former “staple” of American life continues to drop. Many are wondering if college is worth it. Gallup charts confidence in a college education every year. In 2015, 57 percent of Americans had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education. Today only 36 percent do.
Many schools have bought into “anti-formation”—not addressing the societal and cultural responsibilities that accompany professional expectations. This, coupled with a lack of training in basic subjects, leaves many graduates unprepared for the marketplace and ignorant about the culture and civilization they will inhabit. Along with rising costs, many parents wonder if college is worth it and are concluding it is not.
Declining Enrollments Will Continue Amid an Approaching Demographic Shift
College enrollment has been declining since 2011. The national birth rate has been declining for the past 17 years, plummeting from 2007 to 2009 due to the Great Recession. It has not recovered since. The so called “cliff” begins in 2026. It is the 18-year mark after this financial crisis when schools will begin to see the effects of smaller classes.Higher Education Will Move in a Somewhat More Conservative Direction
The pendulum is starting to swing back in the other direction. There is pushback on the campus discrimination against Jews and Asians. We are seeing growing disagreement with the previous administration’s revised Title IX regulations, which opened the door wider for men in women’s sports and locker rooms. This stylized inequity in higher education (and corporate America) seems to be losing steam.The previous administration’s Department of Education spent over $1 billion on grants to advance DEI in hiring, programming, and mental health training. Fostering DEI in U.S. schools was a major priority of the Biden administration. Now some states are banning it. The recent Supreme Court rulings will challenge the practice of race- and gender-based quotas. Just as consumers and corporate shareholders are calling on companies to stick to value-producing business and quit trying to re-engineer society, we are starting to see some of the same calls in higher education.
Quality Residential Education Will Hold Its Own and Adult Online Education Will Grow
In light of all these trends, quality residential colleges and universities that have not become ideological monocultures will still grow, along with small private religious schools that have not been radicalized. In fact, they are in demand. So far, many of them have bucked the general trend of enrollment decline.Expect adult online and hybrid education to grow. It will appeal to non-traditional learners, to those who are living longer and entering second or third careers and it will appeal to many younger students as well. While it lacks some of the educational benefits of in-person education, it brings the benefits of flexibility and much lower overhead costs that will appeal to both universities and consumers.
These are just a few of the trends that will shape higher education under the Trump administration. Underneath it all is the reality that while the higher education landscape will change in the coming years, higher education is not going away. Education lifts people, and, as Aristotle said, “the fate of empires depends on the education of youth.”
