Trump’s second-term push to reshape higher education targets DEI, funding and visas
President Donald Trump moved swiftly in his second term to reshape higher education, launching a sweeping effort to curb what he calls a “woke” agenda on U.S. campuses. Framing colleges as “infested with radicalism,” he has focused on reversing diversity, equity and inclusion policies and asserted a more direct federal role in how universities admit students, design curricula and run their operations.
The push lands at the center of long-running cultural and political battles over immigration, transgender rights, student loan forgiveness, admissions practices and free speech. Trump has leveraged federal power to threaten funding and restrict foreign student status, demanding an unprecedented role in higher education governance.
In doing so, he has invoked accusations of antisemitism and a law-and-order posture to press administrators, and he has used civil rights laws aimed at ensuring fair access to recast the definition of discrimination and roll back safeguards for historically disadvantaged groups.
The campaign has also zeroed in on individual institutions that resisted, most prominently Harvard University. The administration has filed lawsuits and cut or threatened to limit billions of dollars in funding to influence university policy on issues ranging from DEI and LGBTQ+ interests to immigration policy, leadership and academic content.
Agencies across the government — including the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense and NASA — have imposed funding freezes that drew varying levels of resistance from university leaders. Immigration enforcement has been a parallel lever. Combining goals of restricting immigration and curbing protests critical of U.S.
policy, universities have reported student visas being revoked for participation in demonstrations as well as for criminal violations, including some described as minor traffic infractions. Those actions have led to some students being detained or deported, including in several high-profile arrests nationwide.
Student loan policy has been another flashpoint. Student loan reform was a priority for many Republicans critical of former President Joe Biden’s debt relief actions. Biden and his administration erased some $190 billion in borrowed funds — moves Republicans said defied court orders and were politically motivated to bolster the Democratic base.
Federal agencies, including the Education Department, have also targeted what the Trump administration is calling “woke” spending, reflecting the view among many conservatives that higher education is biased and that research agendas are used to validate a Democratic platform.
Republican calls to eliminate the Education Department — an idea floated since the agency’s creation in 1980 — have gained renewed momentum among hard-line conservatives who bristled at pandemic-era school shutdowns and what they saw as policies undermining parental rights while advancing DEI and LGBTQ+ interests.
Collectively, the funding threats, legal actions and immigration measures have triggered a wave of pushback from campuses and set off continuing disputes over who sets the boundaries for admissions, speech and governance in American higher education.