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How Trump Can Make Universities
Great Again
The message he
should send to college presidents: reform, or lose funding
Universities occupy a uniquely privileged position in
American life. They enjoy tremendous prestige and billions in public
subsidies, even as their costs have exploded, saddling the country with
$1.7 trillion in outstanding student debt.
Do universities deserve their status? A growing number of
Americans don’t think so. Far from delivering on their promises, most
universities have devolved into left-wing propaganda factories. Nearly 60
percent of Republicans say that universities have a negative effect on the
country, and only one in three
independents has “quite a lot” of trust in higher education institutions.
The trendlines suggest that the disillusionment has yet to hit bottom.”
My response: Universities should not be utterly defunded or
destroyed: they serve their purpose and give people credentialed, formal, certified,
higher education. But make no mistake: learning is personal and
self-directed if the student is a maverizer out to auto-didact and maverize
for a lifetime.
R: “This is a crisis—and an opportunity. The Trump
administration has a once-in-a-generation chance to reform higher
education. The president and his prospective education secretary, Linda
McMahon, should seize it.
The starting point of any serious higher-education agenda
should be to recognize many universities for what they are: ideological
centers that have abandoned the pursuit of knowledge for partisan activism.
They have not earned their position as acclaimed credentialing
institutions; rather, the schools have amassed their wealth and power from
generous policy decisions bankrolled by American taxpayers, whom they have
repaid mostly with contempt. These schools posture as though their position
is untouchable, but their business model is nearly entirely reliant on
federal largesse. Demanding that universities behave in a manner worthy of
their unique financial and cultural position is long overdue.”
My response: Universities should never preach social
activism, postmodernist skepticism, or ideology of any kind. They should
offer students education and an opportunity to acquire knowledge in exchange
for an earned degree, nothing more and nothing less.
R: “But reform will not come easy. The Trump administration
must renegotiate the deal between the citizens and the universities,
conditioning federal funding on three popular demands: first, that the
schools contribute to solving the student-debt crisis; second, that they
adhere to the standard of colorblind equality, under both federal civil
rights law and the Constitution; and third, that they pursue knowledge
rather than ideological activism.”
My response: Three sensible and doable reforms which Trump
should advocate and pursue.
R: “Here is how it can be done.
At the outset, we should acknowledge the dirty secret of
higher education: it has become a creature, or, less charitably, a
parasite, of the state. It is no stretch to say that the entire business
model of higher education is fundamentally dependent on federal money.
First, consider direct grants. Universities collectively
receive more than $50
billion in federal grants yearly. One-eighth of
Havard’s annual budget—and two-thirds of its research funding—comes
directly from the federal government. Likewise, Washington sends $900 million to Yale
and $800 million to
Columbia each year. Some of this money goes to noble causes, such as cancer
research. But much of it is devoted to
ideological drivel, such as the $600,000 sent to Yale to study the “impacts
of mobile technology on work, gender gaps, and norms”; $700,000 to the
University of Pennsylvania to study how to allocate Covid vaccines on the
basis of race; and $4 million to Cornell University to increase
“minoritized” faculty in the medical sciences. And at some schools,
administrators get the biggest cut, skimming up to 60 percent of grant
funding as “indirect” overhead costs, which Congress once capped at a mere 8 percent.
The real boon to universities comes not from direct federal
subsidies, however, but from federally backed student loans and other
financial-aid programs, which cumulatively add up to another $100 billion a year
in subsidized debt. These loan programs, signed into law by President
Lyndon Johnson decades ago, were intended to ensure that tuition was not
prohibitive for aspiring students. In practice, however, they have
subsidized runaway tuition costs, while burdening many students, especially
poor ones, with debt. Today, students from the lower half of the income
scale make up a smaller percentage
of today’s university campuses than they did in 1970.”
My response: The poor find it hard to attend university.
R: “What have universities done with all this cash? They
have built glittering new campuses; stocked humanities departments with
activists; padded their endowments; and gone on an administrative hiring spree, such that
many schools now boast ratios of one non-faculty employee to just four
students. (Among these administrative officials are those staffing the DEI
bureaucracies, which have expanded their on-campus footprint after the 2020
summer of George Floyd.) The result of all this has been a crushing student
debt load, much of it guaranteed by taxpayers and verging on delinquency.
Before the Covid pandemic paused debt payments, the Brookings Institution estimated that 40
percent of student loans would be in default by 2023. Students’ financial
prospects have hardly improved since.
The Trump administration should act before taxpayers are
asked to bail out those who borrowed money for expensive degrees. Instead
of this upward redistribution, Congress should send the bill directly to
those who have benefited the most from the business model: the universities
themselves. The entire loan system should be reformed to ensure that
universities have skin in the game and taxpayers are no longer forced to
underwrite substandard programs that often fail to graduate students or to
provide a worthwhile education.
This will require privatization. Decades ago, William
Bennett, secretary of education under Ronald Reagan, offered a hypothesis
that multiple in-depth studies have since
confirmed: federal financial aid allows colleges and universities to hike
tuition. When the government floods the market with loans, colleges can
easily spend more and offload the risk to students—and, ultimately, the
taxpayer.
Private lenders, by contrast, would assess loans with a
rigorous cost-and-return formula. A loan officer at a major bank would
easily approve a qualified applicant for, say, an engineering degree from
MIT but would likely reject an applicant seeking a gender studies degree
from a third-tier university. A bank, unlike the government, would look not
only at the value of the institution but also at the student’s proposed
course of study—pressuring schools to deliver on both cost and quality.
Other policy options are available. The small tax on
university endowments in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, currently 1.4
percent, could be raised to 35 percent, a solution proposed by
then-senator J. D. Vance. At a minimum, Trump could use the threat of such
a tax as leverage for broader reforms—an Art of the Deal–styletactic
that could function similarly as threatened tariffs on various countries
(some of which, such as those on Canada and Mexico, the administration has
now put into effect).
The point of these proposals isn’t to punish universities
but to improve quality and reduce costs.
The second item for the Trump administration is to force
universities to wind down discriminatory DEI bureaucracies and to uphold
the standard of colorblind equality. These institutions get billions of
dollars in government generosity and must comply with the Civil Rights Act
of 1964 and the Constitution. The president has already started this
process by issuing an executive order directing a review of illegal DEI
practices in institutions receiving federal funds, including universities
with endowments of more than $1 billion. But much more could be done to
force universities into compliance with civil rights law.
For decades, universities have flouted this obligation and
structured their admissions, hiring, and promotion policies around
discrimination, in the name of “diversity.” But an ostensibly noble cause
does not justify lawbreaking. Rather than continue these practices, the
administration should enforce the plain language of the Civil Rights Act of
1964 and the Supreme Court’s 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v.
Harvard decision, forcing universities to ditch DEI in favor of
colorblindness. As Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his Students for
Fair Admissions concurrence, “racialism simply cannot be undone by
different or more racialism.” The Court has finally held, correctly, that
the racially preferential “balancing” done by Harvard and other
universities is unconstitutional. And as employers, universities are
subject to the even more stringent Title VII standard, which doesn’t admit
room for any racial preferences in hiring and firing, and unlike
admissions, has never had a special carveout time to practice affirmative
action.
The Trump administration has several levers at its disposal
to ensure compliance. It can adapt some left-wing tools, such as civil
rights investigations and Dear Colleague letters, to force significant
changes to university DEI programs. As part of its investigations, the
administration could demand internal admissions data, such as students’ SAT
scores, GPAs, and class ranks, disaggregated by race, which would almost
certainly show continued widespread discrimination against white and Asian
applicants at many selective schools and would open the door to further
lawsuits. As a senator, J. D. Vance proposed the creation of a “special inspector”
to monitor racial discrimination in college admissions, but the tools to
execute such monitoring already exist within the federal law-enforcement
apparatus. The Republican Congress could provide extra support by bringing
college presidents before relevant committees and forcing them to defend
their DEI bureaucracies and discriminatory programs.
The administration should also remember that universities
are not only in the business of admitting students but are also large
employers, subject to non-discrimination laws. Those laws prohibit schools
from making hiring and firing decisions based on race. Yet universities
have been very open about their racialist hiring practices—using DEI
programs, statements, and hiring criteria that favor some races over
others.
This, too, can change with appropriate pressure. The
Departments of Education and Justice can announce investigations into the
discriminatory hiring practices at Ivy League universities, subpoena
relevant documents, and make a public case that DEI is incompatible with
the law and runs afoul of Trump’s recent executive orders. The
administration can follow through by placing noncompliant universities
under a federal consent decree, via the DOJ, or, in conjunction with the
Secretary of Education, pause or terminate federal funding to schools that
fail to adhere to the law.”
My response: All of Rufo’s proposed reforms above would
help.
R: “Third, the Trump administration should use
administrative means to curb violent and intimidating forms of campus
activism.
In autumn 2023 and spring 2024, universities across the
country hosted multiple rounds of illegal protests, encampments, and
occupations. The cause du jour was Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel and
the subsequent war in the Middle East, but the incidents are best
understood in broader terms. Campus activists targeted Israel, which, for
them, is a stand-in for whiteness, colonization, and the West; October 7
was merely the latest inciting incident for their longstanding hatreds.
These activists deploy the same playbook—disruptive protests, tent
encampments, deplatforming speakers, intimidating political enemies,
destroying property—for whatever cause is in the headlines.
The administration can put an end to the illegal elements of
this playbook. As interpreted by the courts, Title VI of the Civil Rights
Act requires universities receiving federal funds to ensure that racial
harassment does not disrupt anyone from attending school. A demonstrator
screaming anti-Semitic epithets is protected by the First Amendment, but if
that same protester prevents Jewish students from moving around campus
safely or attending classes, he’s on the wrong side of the law. If a
university administration is complicit in such activity, it, too, can be
held accountable. The Trump White House should thoroughly investigate such
demonstrations, and where merited, withdraw funds from schools that have
failed to prevent racial harassment of groups that the progressive Left
disfavors: white, Jewish, and Asian students, most commonly.”
My response: Yes, students can protest peacefully and
nonviolently, violating no one’s rights, and the Feds should guarantee that
campuses are lawful, civilized centers of learning not ideological
rowdiness and social unrest.
R: “Likewise, the administration can use another overlooked
provision of existing law—the Clery Act—to put a
price on violent protests and other mob-like behavior on campus. The act
requires universities, which often have private police departments, to
record and disclose within 48 hours all criminal reports. Every time a
university fails to do so, the federal government can assess a penalty of
up to about $70,000; given the thousands of ignored incidents of criminal
behavior on campuses in recent years, this could multiply into a hefty sum,
and force schools to crack down on illegal protest.
Finally, last summer’s encampment protests included many
foreign students, who are here by the grace of the American people and do
not enjoy the same rights and protections as citizens and permanent
residents. The Trump administration would be justified in permanently
revoking the student visas of foreign nationals who participated in
protests supporting terror organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah. If
universities refuse to provide the names of such students, their funding
should be cut.
Again, these proposed actions merely require the
administration to enforce existing laws with rigor. Universities that fail
to comply should have their federal funding and student-loan-program
eligibility withdrawn, which would devastate university budgets and ensure
that all but the most ideologically captured institutions change course.
Taken together, this agenda would restore, rather than
destroy, America’s once-great university system. While we support a
reduction in the number of students attending four-year colleges in favor
of trade school and apprenticeship programs, the United States certainly
needs elite universities. The conservative reform program should not be
misconstrued as a campaign against higher education. Conservatives believe
in higher ed; we oppose its corruption.
America’s universities should be places where the country’s
brightest students pursue truth, engage in debate, prepare for the
professions, and learn the duties of citizenship. An increasingly unstable
world demands that the United States retain its edge in groundbreaking
research and technological development.
In the end, universities are like any other institution:
they respond to incentives. We have already seen subtle shifts in policy,
including a major accrediting body in California and Hawaii scrubbing DEI from
their standards and replacing it with an emphasis on “educational
excellence and success.” While these are likely cosmetic gestures, not
substantive changes, the actions show how pressure can often be the
strongest incentive for reform.
President Trump should present universities with a simple
choice: reform, or lose billions in funding. He can back up the ultimatum
with every administrative measure at his disposal. With some concerted
action, it might yet be possible to shake universities out of their
ideological torpor and remind them of their highest purpose: the pursuit of
knowledge and the cultivation of democratic citizens.”
My response: Notice that Rufo wants universities to regain
their focus: the pursuit of knowledge and the cultivation of democratic
citizens, and these aims apply to lower-level public and private schools
too: to educate, to teach morals and civics to the children of America, its
future.
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