It’s been a rough few weeks for college presidents – rough enough they braved a big D.C. snowstorm to join forces in droves in the nation’s capital.
They roamed the halls of Congress last week, urging lawmakers to set aside partisan politics and support higher education after President Donald Trump’s first month brought a chaotic whirlwind of executive actions their way.
The White House has jeopardized billions of dollars in federal higher education funds. Scientists have been stopped from continuing lab work. Research programs have been scrapped. Contracts to publish key federal data about students were yanked overnight. Executive orders have led schools to scrub web pages and abandon outreach, for fear they might violate the president’s directives to ban diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI.
It also seemed for a brief moment in January as though the multibillion-dollar student loan and financial aid system might grind to a halt. When the White House ordered a freeze on all federal funding, students across the country worried their Pell Grants, which help low-income families pay for college, could disappear. The U.S. Department of Education, the agency that administers Pell Grant funding, ultimately clarified that federal financial aid programs wouldn’t be impacted by Trump’s executive order, which a judge subsequently paused. But that hasn’t stopped colleges from scrambling to review policies to ensure they comply with a pile of other presidential demands.
Meanwhile, last week, Trump derided the Education Department as a “big con job” and said he wants it to be “closed immediately.”
There’s little precedent for such upheaval in the history of American higher education. Yet the tumult reminds some college presidents of the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. The unpredictability and wide-reaching impact of COVID-19 sparked similar anxiety among some students and faculty directly impacted by them, said Félix Matos Rodríguez, the chancellor of The City University of New York, at a conference panel Wednesday at The Kennedy Center.
“The COVID example has been on my mind a lot,” he said.
