What Trump is doing, or is trying to do, to colleges and universities

This is a good overview. My own take is that since Trump himself is incapable of independent thought and action, what “policies” go out in his name depend on who has his ear at any given time.

The first six months of the Trump administration have brought a hailstorm of changes to the nation’s colleges and universities. While the president’s faceoffs with Harvard and Columbia have generated the most attention, students on campuses throughout the country are noticing the effects of the administration’s cuts to scientific and medical research, clampdown on any efforts promoting diversity equity and inclusion (DEI), newly aggressive policies for students with loan debt, revoking of visas for international students and more.

Many of the administration’s actions are being challenged in court, but they are influencing the way students interact with each other, what support they can get from their institutions — and even whether they feel safe in this nation. - Hechinger Report

Ending affirmative action is having dire effects

As you'll recall, because of a decision by the despicable Trump SCOTUS majority.

Gone, too, according to Hechinger Report findings, are dozens of public-university scholarships once reserved for students from underrepresented racial groups, amounting to at least $60 million, although the total is likely much higher. Government officials in Missouri, Kentucky and Wisconsin have ordered public colleges and universities in their states to end consideration of race in scholarship programs because of the court’s ruling.

It’s not just scholarships that have disappeared, another Hechinger Report review found. Also gone or under threat of disappearing in the year and a half since the court’s decision are scores of fellowships, pipeline programs and race-based mentoring opportunities, even though they weren’t mentioned in the court’s decision.

Although several schools are reporting substantial drops in the percentage of Black students entering this fall, we are still awaiting a fuller picture of what enrollment looks like for the first class since the decision, in part because much of the data is still unreported or unverified. - Hechinger Report

The community college system needs a student-oriented overhaul

I had not been aware of these numbers.

On paper, starting at a community college is a great idea. Community colleges typically have open admission and are comparatively cheap or even free. Four out of five students who begin at a community college say they plan to transfer and eventually earn a bachelor’s degree or higher.

But in one of the most persistent failings of the higher education system, only about one in six of them actually succeed...

They get lost in a process for which colleges and universities often offer little guidance, causing students to waste time and money earning credits that don’t count toward a bachelor’s degree. That not only thwarts the aspirations of students and their families; it also adds costs for the state and federal taxpayers who subsidize their educations.

And new figures show that, rather than improving, the problem has been getting worse. - Hechinger Report

COVID-19 as an excuse to slash humanities and screw up college in general

If I had a chance to do it over again, I'd major in philosophy, not engineering. But, no point in wallowing in regret. What matters is the here and now.

Although fiscal concerns are undeniably real, the proposed austerity measures — opposed by faculty unions and education activists who cite bloated administrative budgets and excessive spending on sports arenas and new construction — fit into a larger right-wing playbook that has long pressed for the restructuring of higher education.

Richard Kent Vedder, an adjunct scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and a senior fellow at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), lists these goals in his 2019 book, Restoring the Promise: Higher Education in America. Among them: dismiss “old rules” such as tenure and summer breaks; increase teaching loads; end affirmative action and related diversity programs; end or revise the federal student financial aid program; and give departments and professors a share of revenue based on student enrollment in their classes...

The result is the elevation of accounting, business, computer science, culinary and engineering programs over the liberal arts and humanities. - Truthout