close
close

Apre-salomemanzo

Breaking: Beyond Headlines!

    • With Trump in office, is a new era of college surveillance on the way?
    aecifo

    With Trump in office, is a new era of college surveillance on the way?

    Umito Posted on

    The GOP has made clear it wants to control colleges in new ways. From now on, the Republicans will control Congress. And Linda McMahon, a staunch Trump ally, is set to lead the Department of Education.

    play

    WASHINGTON — There is an irony in the way some Republicans plan to control the nation’s universities.

    On the one hand, conservatives believe in smaller government and fewer regulations. An executive order issued by President Donald Trump in 2017 directed all federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Education, to “reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens.” Before securing a second term this month, Trump called for dismantling the Department of Education.

    On the other hand, Republicans are increasingly criticizing “liberal indoctrination” on campus and proposing big ideas about reforming how universities operate. But some of these proposals would likely require more government intervention, not less.

    The elected president wishes, for example, to create a new university without tuition fees funded entirely by taxes from the wealthiest schools. Others in his party have demanded that the federal government step in to rein in diversity, equity and inclusion positions and programs while doing more to combat anti-Semitism on campus. Several sweeping GOP-sponsored bills in Congress – proposing to reshaping the student loan system And end “awakening” on campus – would radically change the rules governing colleges and the students they serve.

    With the Republican Party poised to control all levers of power in Washington on Jan. 20, its plans to overhaul higher education collide with other GOP efforts to limit the authority of the federal government. Big changes could be difficult to achieve given the narrow Republican margins on Capitol Hill and recent Supreme Court decisions limiting government intervention. But in Washington, everything indicates that a new era of college surveillance is coming.

    “It’s our job to speak out against what’s happening” on college campuses, Rep. Virginia Foxx, outgoing chair of the committee that oversees education in the U.S. House of Representatives, said in an interview with USA TODAY this week. “That’s what surveillance is for.”

    Still, the North Carolina congresswoman agrees with Trump that federal government overreach must be curbed.

    “It will be difficult to get the federal government out of its role in education,” she said.

    Leading this effort within the Trump administration will be Linda McMahon, whom the president-elect named Tuesday as his nominee for secretary of the Department of Education (the same agency he has said he wants to abolish). A staunch Trump ally and co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment, she led the Small Business Administration during her first term.

    Although McMahon has relatively little experience in education compared to a typical candidate for the position, Trump said she would bring a “deep understanding of education and business” to the position.

    “We will send education back TO THE STATES,” Trump wrote in a social media post, “and Linda will spearhead this effort.”

    Learn more: Who is Linda McMahon? Donald Trump names WWE co-founder and chief ally as Secretary of Education

    Competing GOP visions for higher education

    Andy Smarick, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, said two different visions could shape how the newly empowered Republican Party approaches higher education policy.

    One such plan would be to “move the federal government out of education as much as possible,” he said. If Trump chooses this path, he could hamper the Education Department’s ability to set rules and issue guidance. Or he could try to abolish the agency as he has promised (although experts say such a proposal would likely face an uphill battle in Congress, even under Republican control).

    Learn more: Trump wants to close the Department of Education. This is much easier said than done.

    Another approach, according to Smarick, would be to issue more conservative regulations.

    “Traditionally, Republicans have opted for the first solution,” he said. “It seems that Donald Trump did not come from this school.”

    Civil Rights Enforcement and Student Loans Could Change

    During Trump’s first term, the Department of Education repealed many Obama-era rules and wrote its own versions. The one that got a lot of attention involved Title IX, a federal law that prevents sexual misconduct in schools that receive federal funding. Under Betsy DeVos, Trump’s first education secretary, the Department of Education raised the bar for the amount of evidence needed for investigations, prompting critics to say it strengthened the rights of those accused of sexual assault and harassment.

    The agency changed course under President Joe Biden, eliminating Trump-era rules and try to expand the definition of sexual misconduct must include discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The Biden administration new policies have since been halted in dozens of states due to legal challenges.

    Shiwali Patel, who worked as an attorney in the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights during the Obama administration and resigned during Trump’s first termsaid she was worried about Republicans’ plans for her former workplace.

    “They clearly have a goal of rolling back any sort of progress made under the Biden administration on Title IX,” she said, “and going even further and using Title IX as a weapon to engage in further discrimination against students.”

    If Trump reverses the Biden administration’s guidelines, students who identify as LGBTQ+ and those who experience sexual misconduct could feel less safe on some campuses, according to Brendan Cantwell, a higher education professor at Michigan State University.

    “You’ll feel like your campus offers you fewer protections,” he said.

    The federal government’s student loan system could also see big changes during Trump’s second term. Although Biden approved billions in student loan relief for millions of Americans, his attempts to launch new reimbursement programs and repair existing ones were met with even more adverse court battles.

    It’s likely the new administration will cancel some of these programs or scale them back, said Karen McCarthy, vice president of public policy and federal relations at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

    “There are many ways to kill something,” she said. “You just can’t prioritize it.”

    Republican student loan overhaul could come to a vote

    Much remains unclear about what the Republican trio might ultimately do to change the nation’s universities. For clues, some Washington experts are looking to a conservative bill that Foxx, the North Carolina Republican congresswoman, introduced last January.

    THE 224 pages The College Cost Reduction Act would impose sweeping – and controversial – reforms to the higher education system. Proposals in the bill include stricter caps on student loans and a program that would effectively require colleges to cosign on loans. While some have argued the bill would prevent certain groups from attending college and leave more Americans saddled with debt, Foxx and his fellow Republicans say it would make the system fairer and ease the burden on taxpayers.

    Learn more: Wealthy universities leave students with crushing debt. The Republicans want to fine them for this.

    Foxx said she is consulting with congressional leaders to bring the bill to the House before the end of the year.

    Zachary Schermele is an education reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele.

    Umito
    View all posts

    You Might Also Like