Since President Donald Trump took office in January, he has sought to destroy higher education as we know it.
He’s undermined colleges’ funding by trying to cancel billions of dollars of federal grants and block international students. He’s eroded their independence by attempting to force them to rewrite their curricula and threatening their accreditations and tax-exempt status. He’s chipped away at their authority by casting them as cesspools of “anti-American insanity.” And he’s punished grads by limiting eligibility for student loan forgiveness and going after borrowers who have defaulted.
The megabill would take the war on college to the next level by targeting the students of tomorrow.
But the Republican megabill working its way through the Senate would take the war against college to the next level by targeting the students of tomorrow.
Trump’s executive actions were bad enough, but some of America’s colleges and universities pushed back with lawsuits that have already blocked some measures, at least temporarily. If Democrats retake the White House, the next president could also sign a new executive action undoing them, which would mitigate the damage somewhat.
But if the megabill passes in its current form, it will write the attack on higher education into law by targeting its weakest point: student loans.
Various provisions in the bill would reduce Pell grants for low-income students, set lifetime caps on student loans that would make medical school vastly more expensive, end subsidized loans that don’t accrue interest while students are still in college, raise monthly student loan payments by hundreds or thousands of dollars per year and eliminate deferments for borrowers who lose their jobs or face other financial hardships.
(The Senate parliamentarian also found that some other provisions in the bill were against budgetary rules — meaning they will most likely be cut — including barring student aid for some non-citizens, applying new loan repayment rules to people who have already borrowed money and allowing Pell grants to be spent at unaccredited and for-profit institutions.)
Our college loan system is far from perfect, and each of these measures might be defended if they were part of some larger attempt at tuition reform or simply a standalone bill.
But added all together, they would make college dramatically less affordable, putting it out of reach for many lower-income students and saddling graduates with higher bills. If Trump’s other actions also succeed at restricting colleges’ finances, the end result would be to fundamentally break the 81-year-old promise to America’s next generation that they can go to college to secure a better future.
Since Congress passed the GI Bill in 1944 to ensure that veterans returning from World War II could get an education, America has stressed that a college degree is your ticket to the middle class. Parents are barely out of the maternity ward before they start getting ads and mailers telling them it’s time to start saving money for college in a 529 plan. Teenagers who slack in school are warned that bad grades might hurt their chances of getting into a good school. Businesses list an undergraduate degree as a requirement for entry-level jobs. Trump has argued that his war on colleges is really just an attempt to fight antisemitism or to reform schools that are too “woke.” He’s claimed that he wants to send the money instead to trade schools, presumably as part of his vague plan to bring everyone back to factories where they can put “little screws” in iPhones. He’s said he just wants to ensure students are getting a good value. Trump views colleges as his political enemies, so he is doing everything he can to tear them down. These are all smokescreens. Trump views colleges as his political enemies, so he is doing everything he can to tear them down. That may be because college graduates overwhelmingly voted for his Democratic opponent, or because college professors produce the research that undermines his baseless claims about everything from climate change to tax cuts. Or he may be influenced by a branch of conservative evangelicals who believe that they need to take over education and other realms. With Trump, the simplest answer is often the most likely. After winning the Nevada Republican caucuses in 2016 due to support from people who never went to college, he infamously proclaimed, “I love the poorly educated.” He’s now doing his best to ensure more Americans fit that description. Subscribe to the Project 47 newsletter to receive weekly updates on and expert insight into the key issues and figures defining Trump’s second term.
Ryan Teague Beckwith is a newsletter editor for MS NOW. He has previously worked for such outlets as Time magazine and Bloomberg News. He teaches journalism at Georgetown University’s School of Continuing Studies and is the creator of Your First Byline. 
