Trump delivers on a generational conservative goal, but it could be risky for Republicans as well as students

CNN

21-03-2025

CNN —
President Donald Trump is claiming generational wins for the Republican Party on the cultural and ideological battlefield of education – which MAGA supporters see as a hostile bastion of liberal power ripe for disruption.
In a move he described as '45 years in the making,' Trump, seated among children at desks in a mock classroom set up in the White House, signed an executive order designed to obliterate the Department of Education.
'It sounds strange, doesn't it? Department of Education, we're going to eliminate it,' Trump said, aware that he's unlikely to get Congress to vote to abolish the agency – but that he can suffocate it from the inside anyway.
Republicans see the department as a hotbed of liberal activism, a source of 'woke' social policies on diversity and inclusion and an ally of teachers' unions, which are a foundation of the Democratic Party. A sense among GOP voters that the department promotes values antithetical to conservative principles was exacerbated by school closures during the pandemic and by debate about how to treat transgender students.
But Trump does not just have K-12 education in his sights as he attempts to use aggressive executive power in his second term. The administration is piling pressure on elite universities over curriculums. It's cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants as part of its purge of the federal government. And it is provoking fear on campuses with its hardline immigration policies that have targeted several academics and activists.
The approach has caused fears about government interference in higher education and about the suppression of the constitutional right to free speech – which is only underscored when it protects rhetoric that many Americans view as unacceptable.
The crackdown also raised the prospect that an American national jewel – the global power, reach and reputation of scientific research at US college – could be damaged and that there could be a drain of scientific brains and funding to foreign nations. Just last week, for instance, Johns Hopkins University announced that it was cutting 2,000 jobs across 44 countries after it lost $800 million in funding during the effort to dismantle the US Agency for International Development.
Trump takes aim at elite universities
Elite universities especially are braced for an escalation in the Trump administration's campaign – since they are regarded in the GOP as incubators of liberal protest and mores that the MAGA movement seeks to eradicate.
The philosophy was summed up by now-Vice President JD Vance, a graduate of Yale Law School who was at the time a Senate candidate, at a National Conservatism conference in 2021. Vance advocated a campaign against 'very hostile institutions' and added: 'If any of us want to do the things we want to do for our country and the people who live in it – we have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country.'
Such talk concerns historians familiar with the strategy of totalitarian leaders overseas, who target universities and other institutions, such as the press, as part of a broader assault against free speech.
One of Russian President Vladimir Putin's earliest acts in his 25-year rule was to drive Western-oriented and liberal democratic influences out of Russian universities as he suppressed academic freedoms. And one of the heroes of Trump's MAGA operatives is Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has long battered liberal institutions like universities. This is part of a playbook that also foreshadowed Trump's aggressive attempts to co-opt big business and to push executive power to the limit – and sometimes beyond constitutional limits.
The administration's new front in its immigration enforcement operation at universities was highlighted by the detention this month of Columbia graduate and Palestinian green card holder Mahmoud Khalil, who helped lead campus protests last year against Israel's war on Hamas following the October 7, 2023, attacks. The case is only one of several involving students at US universities linked to the Middle East, and Trump has promised a much wider sweep.
'This is the first arrest of many to come,' Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier this month in a reference to Khalil. 'We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it.'
Elise Stefanik, Trump's nominee to serve as US ambassador to the United Nations, meanwhile saw her profile in MAGA world – and nationally – soar after she made alleged antisemitism at Ivy League schools a signature issue. The New York representative's campaign was instrumental in the resignation of President Claudine Gay at Harvard University – Stefanik's alma mater.
Why education is such a fertile field for Republicans
Political incentives for Republicans to target education have steadily grown over recent decades as the party has transitioned from a haven for elites to a populist force that now speaks for working-class and non-college-educated voters – a process sent into overdrive by Trump in 2016.
At the same time, the Democratic Party has moved away from its blue-collar roots and based its most recent presidential election wins on big student turnout, college graduates and more affluent voters. The apparent contempt by some leading progressives for the party's former power base, and the way that universities have become havens for liberal social campaigns that alienate many conservatives, have hardened this new political fault line.
In fact, education level has now become one of the defining characteristics of political affiliation – and one of the starkest divides in a nation full of them. In CNN exit polls of the 2024 election, 56% of college graduates voted for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, while an identical percentage of voters without a college degree voted for Trump.
Top Republican politicians have also understood that fanning conservative hostility toward elite educational institutions can be a political winner. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, for instance, was a bitter critic of school shutdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic. He's also trying to remake his state's public universities to eradicate diversity, equity and inclusion programs and to seek ideological reforms by using the leverage of state funding in a model for Trump at the federal level.
Trump hedges on some aspects of his assault on the Education Department
Trump's executive order went a long way to fulfilling a promise made by President Ronald Reagan – whom he has replaced as the ideological guiding light of the modern Republican Party.
It instructed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take 'all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the states.'
The president justified the move by claiming that the US spends more money on education than many developed nations and yet trails in many educational standards assessments. Like many Republicans, he blamed such failures on the Education Department and argued that returning school policy and funding to states would fix the problem. However, since almost all education policy, hiring of teachers, responsibility for curricula and even the provision of textbooks already lies with the states and local school boards, he may be choosing the wrong target.
The Department of Education plays a vital role in managing the critical student loans sector; Pell grants for students from disadvantaged backgrounds; and funding for special education, students with disabilities and those from poorer areas.
The White House announced that student loans would remain within the department, as would some other popular programs, while Trump said that Pell grants and funding and resources for children with disabilities and special needs will be 'fully preserved' but may move to other departments and agencies.
This switch raises the possibility that while Trump seeks an ideological victory and a new highlight for his perpetual political show, he's worried that he and his fellow Republicans could pay a price for the disruption. This is especially the case since many of the federal funds disbursed for education go to red states that spend less per pupil on education. According to educationdata.org, for instance, 8 of the top 10 states in accepting federal funding for K-12 students voted for the president in 2024.
Kim Anderson, the executive director of the National Education Association, told CNN International on Thursday that Trump's moves would directly affect conservative-leaning districts from where he draws staunch support.
'They are going to have a lot fewer dollars to spread around to take care of students' needs, class sizes are going to go up, after-school programs are going to go down,' Anderson said. 'There are so many gaps that are going to impact students and what they need to thrive and to live into their full potential.'
While Trump claimed his moment of generational triumph on education on Thursday, he's also taking a big risk for students – and for the prospects of the Republican Party, which could now face some of the political downsides of its long quest to close the Department of Education.