Higher education institutions continue to function as powerful engines of social mobility. They need more, not less, support

It’s no secret that the Trump administration is not a friend of the country’s higher education system. During a speech he gave at the National Conservatism conference in October 2021, vice-president JD Vance pinpointed American universities as “the enemy” while repeating a litany of increasingly familiar charges about their purported cultural elitism, radical-left ideological agenda, and incapacity to prepare students for the real needs of the labor market.

More recently, Donald Trump has also endorsed plans to tax university endowments and abolish the Department of Education, which oversees both the federal Pell Grant system and most federally subsidized student loan programs, jointly accounting for about 40% of the country’s higher education revenues.

Carlo Invernizzi-Accetti is executive director of the Moynihan Center and full professor of political science at the City College of New York.