American higher education is looking towards an uncertain future under Trump’s leadership.

Rashid Khalidi, America’s leading scholar on Palestine, best described the poor state of higher education in the United States in a recent interview today.

Explaining his decision to retire from his position as the Edward Said Chair of Modern Arab History at Columbia University, he said, “I didn’t want to be part of that machine anymore.

“For some time now, given the way higher education has evolved into a cash register – essentially a money-making, MBA, lawyer-run, hedge fund-cum-real estate operation, with a small margin, I I am disappointed and scared of that in education, where money decides everything, where respect for pedagogy is minimal.”

Sadly, the situation that pushed Khalidi into very early retirement is likely to get worse in the near future.

Newly elected President Donald Trump has promised an all-out attack on American universities as soon as he returns to the White House.

During the campaign, Trump cited rising tuition fees at colleges and universities. But the UPenn-educated Trump put the blame on “radical left-wing supporters” who had allowed universities to be “dominated by Marxist fanatics and lunatics.” Meanwhile, his running mate, Yale University graduate J.D. Vance, has called university professors the “enemy” and pledged to “attack universities earnestly and aggressively.”

Broad aspects of what this presidency plans to achieve in higher education are already laid out in the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a conservative takeover of the state and all of its institutions, Project 2025. This project calls for an end to all diversity, equality and inclusion. (DEI) initiatives, and reject and remove “gender ideology” and critical race theory from all teaching materials. This underlines the need for accreditors to prevent educational institutions from adopting DEI policies. It emphasizes the need to protect faith-based institutions from the standards and criteria of accreditation agencies that it believes “undermine religious beliefs”. Project 2025 also calls for ending loan forgiveness programs and, ultimately, closing the Department of Education.

Trump will not be able to achieve all this in his upcoming term. But some of his stated plans for higher education are within reach and are likely to be implemented in some form or the other within the next year.

For example, Trump has promised to fire “radical leftist accreditors” and “Marxist diversity, equality and inclusion bureaucrats” and replace them with people committed to upholding a new set of standards, including Including “protecting American tradition and Western civilization”. , Although he will not be able to change the way higher education accreditation is conducted in the US in the short term, he can easily create an environment, and pass regulation, that will pressure institutions to move away from DEI initiatives.

To harm minority and marginalized communities’ access to higher education, Trump could easily weaponize the Justice Department and federal civil rights laws to target institutions that continue with DEI efforts and tax endowments. He could also withhold federal funding to “promote ideological conformity and promote conservative program priorities” in American universities. This would include forcing university leaders to crack down on Palestinian solidarity activists or, as Trump puts it, “pro-Hamas radicals” to make college campuses “safe and patriotic again.”

Title IX, the federal law banning sex discrimination in schools, will likely be in the eye of a storm. The Biden-era expansion of the definition of gender discrimination to include discrimination based on sexual orientation has upset conservatives. Therefore, the incoming Trump administration can be expected to remove existing protections for LGBTQ+ students and staff at federally funded colleges. Under Title IX, the Biden administration had also promoted “safeguards for victims of campus sexual assault” by expanding the definition of sexual assault and eliminating the live hearing requirement introduced by Trump during his first term. Trump is now expected to roll back these changes by “tightening the definition of sexual assault, raising the standard of proof for allegations, and (once again) allowing live hearings.”

Access to higher education will also be under attack under Trump. He has publicly denounced federal loan forgiveness programs and programs aimed at keeping monthly loan payments low and reducing the time it takes to repay loans as “unlawful and unfair.” Hopefully his administration will put an end to them. Of course, this would mean that millions of low-income and middle-income students would be unable to afford higher education.

Trump’s immigration policies and mass deportation plans will also impact higher education. Currently, there are 408,000 undocumented students in institutions of higher education in the US. Many states provide these students with access to in-state tuition and state financial aid. Only three states prevent undocumented immigrants from attending public colleges. Under Trump, many more public institutions may feel compelled to do so — or may outright be forced to do so. Trump’s incoming Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, former World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) CEO and passionate anti-DEI advocate, will undoubtedly work hard to turn Trump’s serious vision for American higher education into reality.

Some have pledged to push back.

In August, responding to J.D. Vance’s promise to “aggressively attack universities in this country” if elected to office, Todd Wilson, president of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), said, “We are at a critical moment. That will determine the future of higher education for decades to come. We cannot allow fascists to take it away. It’s time.”

After the elections, Wilson urged institutions, faculty, staff, and students to organize, arguing that the crisis in the field, with declining public funding, rising student debt, and increasing attacks on academic freedom, under Trump 2.0 “only Will be intense”.

However, others see Trump’s agenda for higher education as a reflection of what the American people want, and appear willing to compromise with an administration that is willing to reshape the entire sector to suit its ideological priorities. Is expressing.

For example, in a statement defending DEI efforts and academic freedom at American universities after the election, Wesleyan University President Michael S. Roth also suggested that universities, like millions of others, should “undertake the Trump/Vance approach.” One needs to be prepared to listen”. Americans have “made their voices heard (for them) with their votes”. Meanwhile, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) – one of seven nonprofit accrediting groups in the US, which oversees 170 colleges in Hawaii and California – has already removed “diversity, equity and It is proposed to delete “Inclusion”. PEN America expressed its concern about the timing of this measure, saying that doing so “in the face of an incoming president who has threatened to ‘fire’ accreditors … will not help create the impression that WASC may be bowing to political pressure”.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that some leaders and institutions of American higher education appear to be bowing to Trump even before he officially returns to the White House. Higher education has always been an instrument of American soft power, and its institutions have been eagerly serving the state’s agenda – whatever that agenda may be – since their inception. Under Trump’s leadership, America is ready to reassert itself in the world and restructure its internal dynamics. The incoming administration has made it clear that these major changes to “Make America Great Again” will require a complete overhaul of the education system. American universities may have no choice but to accept their fate and adapt.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.