Trump's plan to stifle university funding

WashingtonUS President Donald Trump has expanded his attack on universities with a new executive order that threatens the indirect revenue of those institutions that do not align with his ideological agenda. The president signed a decree on Wednesday that directly targets the accreditation process of the country's universities and threatens to exclude students from federal loans at those universities that are at odds with the government. The signing of the document comes right in the midst of resistance from Harvard, which has refused to give in to Trump's economic pressures and has sued his attempts at coercion in a Massachusetts court.

The order aims to use the university accreditation system to combat practices and "ideologies" that the Trump administration considers "discriminatory." Republicans have long described diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies as "anti-meritocratic." "Many of these external accrediting entities have been based on ideologies." woke to accredit universities, rather than based on merit and performance. This executive order reflects changes to the university accreditation process and also applies to law schools and other graduate programs," Cabinet Secretary Will Scharf announced when he read the order to Trump for his signature.

The document is titled Reform accreditation to strengthen higher education and accuses these accrediting bodies of having "failed in their responsibility" and of having "abused their enormous power." According to the text, they have "abused" their power by making the application of DEI policies "a formal criterion for accreditation and, therefore, a condition for accessing federal aid." Hence, Trump asks his Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, to legally hold accountable "including through the denial, supervision, suspension, or revocation of accreditation recognition" of those entities that, among other things, have made diversity policies a criterion for granting accreditation to universities.

The Department of Education, in conjunction with the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), authorizes external organizations to certify that universities meet a series of quality standards. One of the criteria students use when choosing a school is accreditation, as it gives them access to federal student loans (which often have better terms than private loans) and because it influences the credibility of the degree when looking for a job.

The battle with Harvard

With this interference in the accreditation process, Trump aims to force universities to abandon their diversity policies or lose billions of dollars in student loans and Piel scholarships, which represent a significant source of indirect income for many institutions. This new move represents a way to increase pressure against those universities that do not align with the president's ideological agenda and comes just after Harvard sued the government for economic coercion. On Monday, the nation's richest university filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for leading a broad attack against the university "to influence and control academic decisions."

Harvard has become the first university to confront the US president's crusade against Ivy League schools—elite universities—such as Columbia, Brown, and Princeton, which he has already accused of "anti-Semitism" in an attempt to influence others. In Harvard's case, it has a endowment –a kind of economic reserve– of more than $50 billion, which gives it room to withstand the Trump administration's onslaught. Faced with this reality, the White House is now looking for other avenues to weaken the schools, such as the income they receive from their students and the scholarships or loans they receive.