To anticipate the higher ed priorities of a Trump administration, look to policies already proposed by Republicans in Congress. That's the consensus of many observers of federal higher education policy when asked to gauge what kinds of policies President-elect Donald J. Trump is likely to pursue early in his administration.
During much of the presidential campaign, Trump's higher ed positions remained a mystery, except for comments from a surrogate unearthed by Inside Higher Ed. While Democrat Hillary Clinton made higher ed policy a core element of her campaign with a proposal to make public higher education debt-free, and then tuition-free for most students, the Republican candidate was largely silent until an Oct. 13 speech in Cincinnati, when he made remarks criticizing unaffordable student loan debt, “tremendous bloat” in campus administrations and large university endowments. But his plans remained vague.
After a surprising election night win, it’s no more clear what exactly his higher education agenda will consist of.
But policy analysts say Trump is likely to act in at least a handful of areas over which Democrats and Republicans have sparred -- and particularly areas in which the change in administration provides opportunities for agencies under new leadership to roll back initiatives started by their predecessors. And in many cases, they say, Trump will be likely to support priorities of the reinforced Republican Congress that also emerged from Tuesday's election.
These include the Obama administration's aggressive enforcement of for-profit colleges, its intensified focus on sexual assault on college campuses and its efforts to strengthen labor unions and other worker benefits.
Read more at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/11/10/trumps-higher-ed-priorities-undoing-many-president-obamas