President-elect Donald Trump has said he wants to change how colleges and universities operate. Among the threats: a plan to remove a college's accreditation.
Katherine Knott, the news editor for Inside Higher Ed, explains that Republicans claim students’ civil rights are at issue. And it is somewhat a response to campus anti-Semitism.
Katherine Knott, Inside Higher Ed: It is. But we've also seen Republicans increasingly interested in using the college accreditation system, which is key to a college getting federal financial aid or student loans, Pell Grants or any of that.
In order for colleges to get that money, they have to be accredited. And so, we've seen Republicans see this as a system that is ripe for overhaul. And Donald Trump said in May of 2023 that his secret weapon was going to be the college accreditation system. So, he's been signaling for a while that accreditation is an area that he could use to change how colleges operate.
Carrie Healy, NEPM: Aren't colleges already bound to uphold student civil rights?
Yes, they are. And that is enforced by the federal Office for Civil Rights at the Education Department. And they've been investigating colleges — hundreds of them — since the protests, and October 7th [attacks].
So, is it an empty threat, then, to remove accreditation? Aren't college accreditors like New England Commission of Higher Education private entities. So how would the Trump administration go about that?
Yeah. You know, when I first heard about these threats, I called up some accreditors and I was like, "What does this mean?" And all of them said it is not the federal government's job to determine if an individual college is accredited.
In fact — it's kind of complicated, so stick with me — it is the federal government's job to accredit the accreditors, essentially. That's not the right word. They recognize the accreditors, but it's essentially the same thing. And then the accreditor decides which colleges it will then accredit.
So, if the Trump administration comes in and says, "We really don't like how the New England Commission [of Higher Education] is doing things," they could decide to de-recognize the New England Commission, and that would then make all the colleges recognized by that accreditor unaccredited.
However, everyone has said that that is not going to happen, because there are laws that determine how the federal government can recognize accreditors. So, it's essentially an empty threat and would be way more complicated than just, "You, Mount Holyoke are no longer accredited, today."
Yeah, it sounds a little convoluted. So, could Trump and his advisers be looking then to other mechanisms that could be used to penalize these institutions who fail to make these Republican preferred changes?
I think we could definitely see more enforcement from the Office for Civil Rights. That is something that is within the executive branch.
Republicans in Congress are also interested in passing more laws that could penalize colleges that they don't feel are doing enough to protect Jewish students on campuses. We just saw a report come out in December calling for Congress to pass a law that would strip federal financial aid from any college that divests from Israel. And that was a really specific response to the way that colleges responded to the protests.
Also in the Trump crosshairs, are DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] initiatives. Mount Holyoke President Danielle Holley is preparing to stand up to the incoming Trump administration and not hide the fact that the college's DEI and LGBTQ outreach exists. Holley says she will not yield to the pressure of consultants and lawyers. Are you aware of other institutions, like Mount Holyoke, who are planning to stand up for what they just believe is right? What's going on with DEI?
This is something we're going to be following closely at Inside Higher Ed. And we have seen a few college presidents come out and say, like, "Students, we've got your back. We are not going to reverse course." But I would say those are fewer and farther in between.
You know, recently, the University of Michigan has said that they might be reevaluating that, [what] a board member wants to do.
So, it's all over, you know, of colleges kind of reevaluating. What exactly Congress or the Trump administration can do about it is unclear. It will really depend on who President Trump puts at the Department of Education — he's appointed an education secretary, so far, Linda McMahon — and how eager Republicans in Congress are to pass some laws.
