After becoming the 47th President of the United States, Donald Trump has enacted or plans to enact a series of changes and executive orders that will impact the lives of college students from around the country. These changes and executive orders include the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, the elimination of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives and the potential abolition of the Department of Education.
Mass Deportations of Undocumented Immigrants
As a candidate in the 2024 Presidential Election, part of Trump’s platform was centered around having the largest amount of mass deportations since President Dwight E. Eisenhower in 1954. After assuming office on Jan. 20, Trump’s administration instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to increase the rate of daily arrests of undocumented immigrants in major American cities, with the estimated amount reaching 1,200 arrests a day.
Trump revoked the protected status granted to educational facilities, places of worship and hospitals that prohibited ICE officers from going in and arresting undocumented immigrants. Now, ICE officers will be permitted to enter these areas to conduct arrests and detainments of undocumented immigrants, which includes American colleges and universities.
According to a study conducted by the President’s Alliance, there have been an estimated 408,000 undocumented university students in the United States since 2021 who were unable to qualify for the temporary legal protection status granted by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Despite the uplift in restrictions for ICE officers being authorized to enter university campuses, immigration customs would still need to obtain a court-sanctioned criminal arrest or search warrant that would allow them to arrest and detain an undocumented immigrant. However, these immigration actions by the Trump administration give a significant level of uncertainty to the undocumented population of university and college campuses.
Elimination of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiatives
President Trump signed executive orders that effectively banned all DEI programs inside the federal government, arguing that DEI policies promoted “illegal discrimination” that violated the civil rights of Americans and eliminated a merit-based opportunity system. This executive order can impact the funding received from the federal government towards institutions that practice DEI, including colleges and universities that receive federal grants to conduct research.
In 2024, Gov. Greg Abbott’s Senate Bill 17 ordered all Texas colleges and universities to ban DEI policies at their institutions. As a result of Texas’ state-wide DEI ban, several Texas public colleges and universities eliminated their DEI offices and programs—leading to the layoff of hundreds of higher education employees. Proponents of DEI in education would argue that it is critical to establish a diverse pool of students and strengthen essential skills of thinking since students would be exposed to various sets of beliefs.
With the federal government now supporting actions to restrict and terminate DEI, it makes higher education students wonder which DEI-adjacent facilities on campus could be removed to maintain compliance with state and federal orders.
Ambitions to Abolish the Department of Education
According to NBC News, Trump intends to sign an executive order aimed at shutting down the Department of Education. Trump and conservative politicians have justified their support for wanting to abolish the DOE with arguments that education should be regulated by state governments as opposed to the federal government.
In 1979, the department was created to handle several education-related tasks: distributing funds to public schools, monitoring discrimination in education and providing university and college students with financial assistance to pay for their higher education. According to the College Board, for the 2023-24 academic year, American college and university students received $256.7 billion in federal financial aid. Since Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is a part of the Department of Education, college students worry their financial aid could be placed into jeopardy, as Trump has yet to address how financial aid would be handled in a post-DOE United States.
Trump designated former WWE/F CEO and former U.S. Small Business Administration administrator Linda McMahon as the nominee for Secretary of the Department of Education. McMahon is scheduled to undergo Senate Confirmation hearings on February 13th, where the United States Senate will then decide on whether to support or reject McMahon’s nomination as the Secretary of Education.
