Beyond all the scrutiny of Hillary Clinton’s private server e-mails and outcry over Donald Trump’s “locker room” talk about women, an array of important higher education issues hang in the balance Tuesday as votes are cast to determine the next occupant of the Oval Office.
Much of the next administration’s approach will be reflected in who gets appointed to lead federal education policy and who gets appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, observers say.
“The big difference between a Clinton and a Trump administration regarding higher education would come from the vastly differing philosophies of the people appointed to run the Department of Education,” said George Leef, director of research for the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.
“With Clinton, they would undoubtedly match the left/progressive philosophy of the Obama administrators, so we would get a continuation of current policies on sexual assault, free speech, diversity, hostility to for-profit schools, and so on,” Leef said. “With Trump, I think it is probable but by no means certain that leadership in the Department would go to people who are generally skeptical about the benefits—and even legality—of the Obama administration’s activism. The Department would shift from unbounded interventionism to undoing its initiatives of the last few years.”
The candidates have different approaches to college affordability—an issue that had gained some traction in the long and grueling run-up to Election Day.
Clinton has indicated that she wants to reduce the interest rates on student loans so that the government does not “profit” from the loans—although that characterization of the problem, as well as the workability of her planned solution, has been called into question.
