Navigating Trump's Higher Ed Shakeup

What could be the impact of a torrent of Trump Administration initiatives targeting higher education, and how should education leaders and students respond?  In this episode, we focus on the potential  fallout of dismantling the the U.S. Department of Education, the far-reaching efforts to banish diversity, equity and inclusion programs in both K-12 and higher education, and what might we expect when it comes to college affordability and student loan debt in the coming years.  In this episode, host Lande Ajose talks with James Kvaal, Underrsecretary of Education in the Biden Administration, and Danielle Douglas-Gabriel, higher education reporter for the Washington Post covering college affordability and student financial aid.  This episode was recorded just before the Trump Administration cut off $400 million in federal aid to Columbia University. 

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Transcript

Biden's Higher Ed Accomplishments

Speaker 1 0:05

Welcome to Sparking Equity, a podcast series focused on the best strategies to help all students succeed. I'm Lande Ajose. When we were planning this podcast, we originally were going to focus on college affordability, which, of course, remains a huge challenge for millions of students across the United States, but in light of the events of the last few weeks, we decided to start by looking at what is on the minds of college educators, administrators and many students across the nation how to respond to the torrent of initiatives already announced by the Trump administration which could shape the future of higher education. To help us sort through where we've come from and where we might be going, I'm pleased to welcome James Cavall, who was Undersecretary of Education in the Biden administration. There he led the Department of Education's work in higher education. He also served in the White House under both President Clinton and President Obama. His special focus over the years has been student financial aid and college affordability, but there's virtually no higher education topic which he can't speak to.

Speaker 1 1:11

Thank you, Lonjay. Also joining us is Danielle Douglas-Gabriel, a national higher education reporter at the Washington Post. As those of you who have read her frequent reports know, she focuses principally on college affordability and state and federal financial aid policies, and she's also been covering the many other developments in higher education since Trump became president. Again Welcome, Danielle. Thank you for having me. Let me start with you, James. What were the major accomplishments of the Biden administration in higher education over the last four years?

Speaker 2 1:44

It seems like a long time ago now. President Biden will be remembered for his ambition on student debt and while for many of us, student loans are a small price to pay, there are a lot of people out there who are really struggling with their loans and prior to the pandemic and the payment pause, we saw a million people a year defaulting on their student loans Many, many people owing more than they borrowed even a decade later, troubling racial disparities. We worked really hard at the loan forgiveness programs, so that means a million people who got public service loan forgiveness, about a million and a half people who were cheated by a for-profit college, a million people who had been making payments on their loans for more than 25 years, half a million people who had permanent disabilities. All these people were already entitled to loan forgiveness under the law, but they weren't able to navigate the department's bureaucracy, so that was a total of 5 million people. We also put in place tough accountability rules to identify where all this unaffordable debt is coming from.

Speaker 2 2:53

We worked really hard to lift up colleges and universities that are excellent in ways that maybe aren't recognized by the US news rankings, but are really critical for creating opportunities for people. And, of course, we worked really hard to implement the new FAFSA and that was a challenging rollout. It was frustrating for families, it was a lot of extra work for educators. But we're at a point now where the FAFSA is working well and more students are actually getting student aid than did a year ago.

Speaker 1 3:25

Danielle, I'm wondering if there are any other accomplishments that, when you think about the Biden administration's Department of Education, that you would point to in addition to what James has already mentioned.

Speaker 3 3:35

I think, certainly from the vantage point of a reporter covering the administration, the most notable thing, given what I cover, was just the shift to be more borrower-centric in a lot of the policies, making sure that borrowers were receiving the benefits that they were entitled to by congressional acts and statutes that have gone back to at least the 90s.

Threat to Dismantle the Department of Education

Speaker 3 3:58

I think that was an important point that was often lost in a lot of the discussions about student loan forgiveness. There was a lot of focus on the bigger sweeping forgiveness that was struck down by the Supreme Court, but the vast majority of the loans forgiveness that was provided was through existing programs that I had actually covered for years and knew quite well were not working as they were intended. Now, it wasn't perfect. I still hear from borrowers who are still awaiting forgiveness because they kind of got caught up in the backlog because of some of the legal problems that happened in efforts to try to strike down what the Biden administration was doing. But I think what was most notable was definitely seeing borrowers at the center of a lot of these policies and an effort to try and make sure that they were getting what was promised to them.

Speaker 1 4:47

So, you know, in light of both being borrower centric, thinking about the accountability measures, thinking about loan forgiveness I'd be curious to hear from both of you of what you make of this current moment, with President Trump's repeated pledge to shut down the department. What do you think? Do we need it? James, you spoke to the fact that there was a fair amount of bureaucracy in terms of people being able to navigate the department. Is there anything redeeming in this moment where there's a focus on trying to reduce the bureaucracy and potentially eliminate the department?

Speaker 2 5:17

Well, there certainly is a lot of room to continue to improve how the department operates these programs, but I don't think that's what we're seeing now. The president ran on a promise to eliminate the Department of Education entirely. He does not have the votes in Congress to do that, so he's doing, I guess, what he thinks is the closest thing. And we've already seen about 10% of the staff at Federal Student Aid take an early retirement and there are rumors of one or more additional rounds of large layoffs. That's an organization that has been flat funded for a long time, had a hiring freeze for three out of four years in the previous Trump administration, so it was already without the capacity it needed. And then you know, on top of that, you see people accessing borrower level data.

Speaker 2 6:14

It's not really clear why. It's the stated purposes of looking for waste and fraud. You don't need access to these databases to do that. You see them canceling grants and contracts overnight, in some cases not paying out expenses that were already legally occurred on those grants and contracts. You know the normal course might be to go to Congress and seek changes in the budget next year. So these are really really disruptive challenges. This is going to have a permanent impact on the capacity of the department. This is going to have a permanent impact on the capacity of the department. It's going to have a permanent impact on the willingness of people to work at the department and with the department, and these are not the steps you would take if you were trying to reduce waste and fraud. The people that they are showing the door are the people who find waste and fraud and ensure federal rules are followed and that money is spent effectively. So it is a grave, I think, concern for all of us who believe in the work that the department does.

Speaker 1 7:16

Danielle, what are your thoughts on this moment in terms of the Trump administration shutting down the department potentially, or at least a threat to do so?

Speaker 3 7:24

I mean certainly there aren't the votes in Congress. The president doesn't have unilateral authority to accomplish that. But the gutting of the department, I think, will be especially concerning once we start to see the effects on students and families right. If we are starting to hear about FAFSA files not getting to colleges on time, if we are starting to hear about delays in awards, financial aid awards, if we are starting to hear about students who can't pay back their federal loans because of problems with servicing, because there's cuts, there will likely be, and you know my reporting has shown that a plan is to cut back on call centers. They're already not functioning very well for borrowers who are trying to get help.

Speaker 3 8:08

I think to James's point federal student aid has not been staffed to the level of what is needed to support the amount of people who rely on that agency for the myriad of ways financial aid works in people's lives. And I think once we start to see how the impacts of these cuts start to affect families, perhaps it'll be clearer to the average person about why it was important to have all that staff in all of these places, because their functions made everything function right. So I'm really curious to see how this is going to play out. I know some of the people who have lost their jobs over the last couple of weeks and they had a level of institutional knowledge that I don't think can be easily replaced, so it's not really good for students or families, but certainly it'll take some time before we start to see the full effect of what will happen.

Speaker 1 9:02

Do either of you think there's a role for states to play in being able to make up for some of those gaps that will be caused by the potential retraction of federal funds? Could there be pressure on institutions to reduce tuition or think about meeting college costs in a different way, given the ominousness of potentially not having the same level of federal support?

Speaker 3 9:27

Well, that pressure is already there. There are a lot of states that have been trying to make sure that their institutions of higher education are more responsive to the pressures of costs. I think one of the really good things that we've seen in the last decade is an increase in institutional aid, as well as an increase in state aid for college. So the thing is, I don't know if states can maintain that right. What their budgets look like in the next coming years may force them to start to make cuts or to flatten the level of support they've been able to offer in the last couple of years. So they're already doing their part. I don't know if most states have enough capacity to increase that support.

Speaker 2 10:06

When I'm thinking about the things that I'm worried about. Unfortunately, there are colleges and universities still that use deceptive or misleading recruiting tactics or that use student aid in inappropriate ways. That could be an element where states could step up Extra help for students seeking to access federal benefits extra help for students seeking to access federal benefits. You know I'm very worried about student loan repayment. This is the year that missed payments start to count against you and potentially we could have millions of students entering default in one big group at the end of this year and if they're not able to get the help they need from the department, from loan servicers, you know there could be a real human cost and also a taxpayer cost to that.

The DEI "Dear Colleague" Letter

Speaker 1 10:51

So what's really roiled campuses across the country most recently is a dear colleague letter that was issued by the Trump administration ordering all educational institutions to eliminate what it calls quote discriminatory practices that, it says, have been under the banner of quote diversity, equity and inclusion. James, if you could clarify for us what a Dear Colleague letter is and then how you are seeing institutions respond to that letter?

Speaker 2 11:21

A Dear Colleague letter is a tool that the department uses to clarify its interpretation of the law or how it will enforce the law. It does not in self make law, but they are intended to be helpful to the community as a way of explaining the current state of the law as the department sees it. That's not what this letter did I mean. This letter was very far reaching in its discussion about how institutions of higher education can consider race and consider diversity. I think it went, in my opinion, far beyond the state of the law and even, in some cases, were inconsistent with the most recent Supreme Court decision on admissions. I'm not a lawyer, I'm not providing anyone legal advice, but I do think it is important to proceed cautiously and carefully before we roll back our commitments to students or compromise the missions of our institutions. You know, based on one letter that I believe overreached.

Speaker 3 12:22

Danielle, what do you make of the letter? I think what's fascinating is to see how colleges are responding. They're certainly not moving in tandem together. There are some that have already begun scrubbing any reference to diversity, equity or inclusion off their websites, others who are saying that they are just studying the legal situation and many who are saying this is not binding and we're not going to enforce this, and there are already lawsuits. The American Federation of Teachers has filed a lawsuit against this and don't want to alienate their students and faculty Over preemptively. Doing what the administration wants before having a full understanding of what is legal and what is not certainly runs the risk of alienating a lot of students. I think we're starting to already see petitions coming from students questioning how universities are responding to these actions, and I suspect we're going to see a whole lot more.

Speaker 1 13:35

Do either of you think that higher education institutions are actually at risk of losing federal dollars if they don't comply with what the letter?

Speaker 3 13:38

is asking.

Speaker 3 13:40

I certainly think the Trump administration will try to find ways to claw back Title IV funds or cut them off from schools, but I imagine any university, particularly the larger ones, will fight this in court.

Speaker 3 13:53

I don't see this being an easy victory for this administration, in part because of just the demographics and the reality of this country you have.

Speaker 3 14:04

More than half of the public schools are made up of black and brown students. If colleges choose to alienate that population, this is going to be eventually an issue of tuition revenue. This is an economic issue. This is them potentially not being able to keep their doors open if they were to say that they're not going to make any effort to be inclusive of those populations on their campuses. I just don't see the vast majority of colleges being willing to give up on that potential money in order to meet the administration's demands, especially when there's legal questions around whether those demands are even appropriate. Can you explain what Title IV funds are? Federal financial aid funds, the federal loans and grants that students receive from the federal government. Certainly, if you were to violate civil rights laws or if you were to violate the rules around those programs, you can lose access to those programs, which means that your students can't get Pell Grants, they can't get loans, and that is a really important part of revenue for very many schools.

Speaker 1 15:11

What do you think their end game is in terms of this dear colleague letter and what they're really trying to get at?

Speaker 3 15:20

It's difficult to tell. On the one hand, I suspect that this administration wants to be able to say look, I did what I promised I'd do, in part because some of this is exactly what the president said he was going to do on the campaign trail and it is coming to fruition. I also suspect that they're hoping that, for every judge that sides against them, there'll be enough that will side with them, and even those that side against them if they can take it to the Supreme Court. There's no certainty that the law is going to land on the side of protecting students, at least to my mind. It's difficult to say for certain, like what is the end goal. I definitely think that this administration wants to be able to say that they accomplished what they set out to do, even if it gets tied up in the courts, because they could say well, look, these liberal justices tried to defeat our agenda, but at least we did make a good effort to do so.

Speaker 1 16:20

James is the Supreme Court. The end game Is it to pull a bunch of college presidents into Congress for hearings, the way in which we saw last year around the anti-Semitism? What's your thinking?

Speaker 2 16:32

You know, it's a little difficult to say because this administration has competing power centers with different priorities. In some cases they are very strategic, in other cases they're more improvisational, in some cases they're not wholly serious. I agree that in the case of the DEI letter, that they're hoping to make progress with the courts and, even if they don't get everything they're asking for, they're hoping to give, you know, the civil rights laws a big shove to the right. And I also think that they're aiming for a cultural change and colleges, universities, corporations, others who are currently going back through their websites and everything else that's happening. You know that is also their goal. You know, even if they end up losing in the courts, they may have achieved some progress through the cultural changes about what's expected of our institutions.

Student Life and Campus Organizations at Risk

Speaker 1 17:25

You know, I first heard about the Dear Colleague letter through my daughter, who was a first year college student. Her college sent out a note to all of the students telling them that this letter had come in the day before, that they were assessing the situation, that they would be back in touch with them and that the college stands by its fundamental values. It seemed pretty vague to her. So she called me and her key question was Mom, are they about to get rid of the BSU at my school? Her key question was Mom, are they about to get rid of the BSU at my school?

Speaker 1 17:59

Because, as a freshman, that has been a way for her, as an out-of-state student, to go to a new part of the country and start to find a community. And so I think not only about my own child, but I think about women centers on campuses. I think about centers serving disabled students or Hillel organizations, or women engineers or Black engineers. All of those things don't really seem like they are influenced by what in the letter refers to the Supreme Court decision on affirmative action, and so I just wonder, from your perspective, what would you advise students in this moment to be doing to protect really the quality of life that they want to have on their college and university campuses that is one of the ways.

Speaker 3 18:57

Making sure to reach out to the administration to explain to them exactly how important it is to have a Black student union and how essential it is to their quality of life is important, you know. Will that necessarily mean schools will listen? Maybe not, but it's still worth an effort, worth a try. Again, I don't think most colleges and universities want to run the risk of alienating their student populations and would be students down the road, and so now they have to take a stand on whether or not they're going to fight for those students on their campus and future ones who would want to come to their campus, or if they're going to preemptively do as the administration asked, before figuring out exactly what it means. Do as the administration asked, before figuring out exactly what it means. I mean.

Speaker 3 19:38

One of the things I think I've heard from college leaders has been really frustrating is there is no clear definition of what they mean by diversity, equity and inclusion. Does that include Black fraternities and sororities? Does that include the Black engineers group? Does that include Vietnamese student groups? What exactly are they talking about? All of those groups? Mind you are completely welcoming of students of all races, and have always been.

Speaker 3 20:01

But when you start to talk about things in these really subjective terms, without defining exactly what you mean, then it leaves an open question as to what would be included. And I'll be honest, I asked the Department of Education. I said what do you mean by this? Are you saying that there can be no more alpha chapters? Are you saying that you want all those schools to close that down? And I still haven't gotten an answer, because I don't think they fully thought this out. I don't think they have a full understanding of what college really is and what a college environment means and what a college campus does. And just the idea that they're not certain whether African-American studies would count with this, if Chicano studies, kind of fields that have been in existence since the 60s would be a part of this, is stunning.

Speaker 2 20:52

I think there's also an element to which vagueness works in their favor, because it may lead to chilling activities that are in a gray area, or even clearly on the right side of the line, in the interest of educators wanting to be cautious.

Speaker 2 21:07

So, you know, I think it is important to speak out. I think this is a moment where that matters, and I think that this is, in fact, a dramatic break in our nation's trajectory toward greater equal opportunity, and I think it turns its back on the ideals and the diversity of our people. That are some of the things that make our country great. That make our country great, and I think it does matter if judges and justices and members of Congress have the sense that a lot of people feel that way, and so I know that there were a lot of demonstrations during the first Trump administration and there seems to be a little less enthusiasm for that at this moment, but I do think that you know it's a really critical time for people who care about these things to make their voices heard in whatever way they can.

Future Outlook and Sources of Hope

Speaker 1 22:02

So I'm going to ask you both to prognosticate a little bit. I'm wondering how you imagine Congress engaging in this. Is there room for Democrats and Republicans to come together around a shared agenda when it comes to the Department of Education, when it comes to higher education in general, when it comes to thinking about issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, or is there so much of a toxic environment in the Congress that this will really only be played out through the courts?

Speaker 2 22:31

I think this set of issues is a very divisive one, it's a very partisan one, and I'm not sure that in the short term, congress is going to be riding to the rescue here.

Speaker 3 22:56

Democrats take the House in the midterms and it'll be a little bit more difficult for Trump to push through his entire agenda, but for now it looks like the courts are the primary place where we will see this play out in the next year.

Speaker 1 23:05

So let me ask you this, James, and I'll ask you the same question, Danielle Given the moment that we are in, what gives you hope?

Speaker 2 23:14

Well, the thing that always gave me hope was meeting young people. I was fortunate to be able to invite myself onto a lot of college campuses and meet students, and you know the stories I've heard are just incredibly inspiring. The young people I meet who are balancing their studies with their jobs and with caregiving obligations, and who are working incredibly hard to get a purchase on some economic security and make a contribution to their families and their communities, which is really inspiring and harder than the challenges I had to deal with at the department.

Speaker 1 23:53

Danielle, what gives you hope?

Speaker 3 23:55

I am inspired by what's happening at the state level in a lot of states. Despite the rhetoric around questioning the value of higher education, you're seeing a lot of states red and blue that are increasing their investment in higher education because they see it as a path for workforce development, a path for economic development, and I think that's going to continue, despite what's happening in Washington At least, that's my hope. I'm really impressed by the level of money that a lot of states are putting into state grant aid and also the level of money that institutions are putting into grant aid. I think, for all of the political divisiveness and the culture war aspects, this comes down to money and making sure that you have a strong economy, and one way of doing that is to have a ready and educated workforce, and I think that's not lost on any state, whether it's Tennessee, north Carolina, texas, connecticut, california. I do feel that the states is where we're going to see a lot of innovation in the coming years and a lot of continued investment to try to solve the issue of college affordability.

Speaker 1 25:08

Thank you, danielle. On that note, we have to bring this episode of Sparking Equity to a close. I want to thank our guests, danielle Douglas-Gabriel, national Higher Education Reporter for the Washington Post, and James Cavall, former Undersecretary of Education in the Biden administration, for joining us today in this very rich conversation. Thanks, london. Thank you so much for having me very rich conversation. Thanks, londa. Thank you so much for having me. Before we go, I want to thank our sponsors, the Hewlett Foundation and School Services of California. Our producer is Kobe McDonald and our executive producer is Louis Friedberg. Please subscribe to Sparking Equity wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Londa Ejose. Thanks for listening.