Trump Vowed to Disrupt Higher Ed. Here Are Five Bipartisan Ways to Do It.
With the Trump Administration poised to make good on its pledge to remake the federal government, higher education is entering a period of immense uncertainty. From aggressive proposals to tax university endowments and calculated efforts to dismantle DE&I programs on campuses to rumors of a sweeping executive order designed to gut the federal education agency entirely, President Trump and his team have made their intentions clear: they plan to upend the status quo with precision. But while the future remains uncertain, this moment also presents an opportunity to reevaluate and strengthen a system long overdue for reform.
The challenges facing the nation’s colleges and universities are neither new nor partisan. Students and families are grappling with rising sticker costs, swelling debt, and uneven career outcomes. Colleges are facing greater scrutiny from parents and caregivers, not to mention the students taking on debt, to provide the value of a degree. Institutions without a clear value proposition face declining enrollment, in some cases deservedly so.
Meanwhile, employers are struggling to find workers with the skills they need. The administration may be surprised to find a strong bipartisan appetite for reshaping higher education to better serve students and meet the demands of a rapidly changing workforce.
Here are five policy changes the Trump administration can pursue to ensure its reforms lead to progress for students, workers, and the economy—not just change for the sake of change.
Reform Accreditation. Accreditation agencies have long served as the gatekeepers of higher education, deciding which institutions qualify for federal funding. These agencies are entrusted with ensuring that when students invest their time and money into college, they can count on those institutions to deliver on the promise of a meaningful education.
But for too many students, that promise goes unfulfilled. Nearly 37 million working-age adults have left college without ever earning a credential. Of students who do graduate, more than half are underemployed after earning a degree. About 45 percent of graduates remain underemployed a decade later.
The challenge is what the current system values. Accreditation often prioritizes institutional inputs—such as faculty credentials or even the size of the library—over outcomes like the employment rates of graduates. This disconnect between accreditation standards and real-world results leaves many students with degrees that don’t translate into worthwhile career opportunities.
By aligning accreditation more closely with the needs of students and the labor market, the Trump administration could ensure that federal dollars are invested in programs that deliver real value to students and employers alike.
Link Funding to Career Outcomes. Of course, the fear of losing accreditation should not be the primary motivator for institutions to close the gap between education and careers. To further incentivize improving career-based outcomes, additional federal funding could be tied to specific performance metrics such as job placement rates or graduate earnings.
These measures would give colleges and universities an additional incentive to prioritize delivering tangible results for students while aligning their programs more closely with workforce demands.
For example, institutions should expand and modernize work-study programs to provide students with more career-relevant experiences. Instead of limiting work-study roles to campus jobs like library assistants, institutions could partner with businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies to offer students practical, hands-on experience.
Reform student aid and Federal Work-Study. The Trump administration should also focus on reimagining how work-study programs are funded. Currently, work-study funds are often allocated to institutions rather than directly to students. This approach limits the flexibility students have in using these funds to address their specific needs, whether for tuition, living expenses, or gaining work experience in their chosen field.
Instead, the focus should be shifted from institutions to individuals. By channeling funds directly to learners, in a manner similar to student loans, students could have greater autonomy to decide how best to allocate those resources.
This might mean using funds for tuition, transportation to internships, childcare, or other essential supports that allow them to balance education and work. It might also mean using the funds to unlock entirely new opportunities that enable them to take charge of their career trajectories.
Imagine a scenario in which a student could approach their dream company and propose an internship placement, explaining that they have the funding to support their proposed internship or apprenticeship.
Cut regulations and red tape to spur innovation. Unfortunately, colleges that hope to make these kinds of changes often find themselves held back by reams of red tape. Streamlining the complex web of rules and regulations governing higher education can remove barriers that often burden institutions and stifle innovation. While some rules are, of course, critical for ensuring quality, many are outdated, redundant, or unnecessarily complicated.
From duplicative reporting requirements to outdated compliance measures, excessive bureaucracy not only diverts resources away from teaching and learning but also drives the administrative bloat and rising costs that higher education is frequently criticized for. Simplifying regulations would enable colleges and universities to focus on what matters most.
Empower American workers with lifelong learning accounts. Finally, the administration should advocate for creating lifelong learning accounts. As technology like artificial intelligence reshapes industries at an unprecedented pace, the ability to continuously learn and adapt will be crucial.
And yet, traditional financial aid is often tied to specific programs or timeframes, leaving many workers without the resources needed to reskill or pursue new opportunities later in life. Employer-backed lifelong learning accounts could provide individuals with portable, flexible funds to invest in education and training at any stage of their careers.
By providing support to help workers complete a technical course or pursue a degree program related to an emerging field, such accounts would not only help workers continue to thrive in the labor market but also ensure businesses have access to the talent they need in an increasingly dynamic economy. As a former Republican governor in deep blue Massachusetts, I have seen firsthand how bipartisan collaboration can drive meaningful change in education and workforce development.
By embracing practical reforms, the Trump administration can transform its penchant for disruption into an opportunity for progress. If the administration chooses to prioritize bipartisan, outcome-oriented policy changes, it could disrupt higher education not merely for its own sake, but in the name of millions of students whose potential is being held back by outside policies.
