Project 2025's plan for Higher Ed

[Diogenes]

I know this will be spicy here but I think this article is worth discussing. Project 2025 is a moonshot set of goals, but regardless of who is president next year, it's also the playbook of Rs in the House and Senate, and 2/3 of SCOTUS. Highlights include: dismantling the Dept of Ed., ending financial aid via the government, ending Title IX, reneging on all student loan relief programs (including PSLF which was started by George W. mind you), dismantling independent accreditation.

The one hot take I'll start with is while I am not an economist, I can't see getting what they want re: student loans wouldn't just trigger another 2008 level financial crisis. All of a sudden millions of people losing income based repayment plans won't go well in this economy. And a massive brain drain will ensue from all sorts of industries.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/politics-elections/2024/07/11/how-project-2025-could-radically-reshape-higher-ed

[treeoflife]

The former Trump Education Secretary failed to do even one thing and this was a woman that was that financed education reform think tanks for more than two decades. I think a second Trump presidency will be the same: all talk.

[Diogenes]

I wouldn't be so sure this time around. He's promised on Day One to reclassify most career public sector employees to be political appointees so he can purge them all and replace with sycophants. Project 2025 has people lined up for him and have been gathering intel on current employees! The masterminds have outright said this time around, they are prepared to do that since last time they weren't, since no one, including Trump himself, expected to win. So hopefully the courts and Congress could stop/slow that. But it's not like he didn't cause major damage to Higher Ed. He axed a huge amount of funding to NSF/NIH/etc.and Biden has not been able to get that money completely back.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Trump will probably surround himself with loyalists instead of institutionalists this time around, which should mean more action to go along with talk. I'm sure he will do considerable damage to higher education, to the federal government, and to democratic norms. That having been said, overseeing a major shift in the structure of the federal government will take time and a certain level of attention and competence that his administration will probably struggle with. For example, the process of reclassifying federal employees may be a day-one promise, but it will take months if not years in practice.