Sharing the Facts About the Impact of Targeting Higher Education

The United States is home to many of the best universities in the world. Institutions of higher learning range from public to private, and states are often crucial partners and beneficiaries. However, the Trump administration is attempting to reshape America’s colleges and universities by threatening their accreditation and billions of dollars in federal funding appropriated by Congress. The far-reaching effort has encroached on states’ authority to oversee and regulate public schools and could add financial pressure to states.

University officials are concerned that the Trump administration’s efforts to force institutions to adopt its ideological perspectives could threaten the long-held collaboration between the federal government and the states. This would stall advancements in entrepreneurialism, innovation, and research. Federal cuts have already paused pioneering research into Parkinson’s disease, upgrading rural infrastructure, and avoiding nuclear disasters. Federal funding contributed more than half of the $109 billion that universities and colleges spent on scientific research last year.

In its lawsuit against the Trump administration, Harvard University said the threat to withhold billions in federal funding was “unlawful and beyond the government’s authority.” While President Trump took to social media to call Harvard “a threat to Democracy,” academic leaders from both public and private schools have said the real threat to democracy is the president’s targeting of free speech on college campuses.

More than 580 college and university presidents and scholarly societies, including around 180 from public schools, signed onto a letter that said the “unprecedented government overreach and political interference” is endangering higher education. While critical of the Trump administration, the university presidents wrote they would be open to “constructive reform,” noting they do not oppose legitimate government oversight. The White House dismissed the letter as “worthless.”

Meanwhile, faculty and university senates at more than half of Big Ten universities—a conference of mostly land-grant, public schools—have passed resolutions calling on their leaders to create a compact to share legal and financial resources if they were targeted by the Trump administration’s higher education crackdown. But some state schools have agreed to the federal government’s demands, concerned about the effect of the loss of crucial funding.

Here are some key takeaways about the Trump administration’s targeting of higher education, and its impact on states:

• States—not the federal government—have authority over public colleges and universities. This is executive branch overreach.
  • States oversee public schools’ academic practices through legislation and governing boards.
  • The Trump administration’s attempt to control what is taught, who gets to teach, and who gets to learn at public colleges and universities plainly violates the intended balance of power.
  • There has long been a funding collaboration in higher education between the federal government and the states. But states provide most of the funding for public colleges and universities. Cutting billions of dollars in federal funding will not just halt life-saving research and shift costs even more to the states, which are already struggling with tighter educational budgets.
• This is an attack on the core American principle of free speech, which is protected by the Constitution.
  • The administration is attempting to use federal funds as a tool to coerce states and universities to go along with its ideological views.
  • The federal executive branch doesn’t have the authority to tell colleges and universities what they can or cannot teach, who gets to attend those classes, and what sort of demonstrations are allowed on campus. This is clear government overreach and a violation of the First Amendment.
  • The free exchange of ideas leads to innovations and discoveries that drive state economies and medical systems.
• States enjoy massive benefits from state colleges and universities.
  • One of the key ways universities use federal funding is to hire and support researchers whose long-term projects produce jobs, innovations, startups, and patents in their states.
  • Universities are also major employers, accounting for more than 4 million jobs nationwide. But from California to New Jersey, universities have announced hiring freezes in response to this federal action. Maryland’s Johns Hopkins University was forced to lay off more than 2,000 people because of cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development. More colleges are at risk.
  • Public universities support states’ health care systems, fueling a pipeline of new doctors, nurses, and researchers. Academic researchers also provide crucial insights into fighting cancer, the spread of infectious diseases, and Alzheimer’s disease. Severe funding cuts to universities risk the health of the American people.
• Attacking higher education and states’ authority to oversee it won’t protect Americans. It will limit opportunities, harm state economies, and set back progress toward American innovation.