Education policy of the second Trump administration
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Life and business 45th and 47th President of the United States Tenure
Impeachments Civil and criminal prosecutions |
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Under the second presidency of Donald Trump, the federal government of the United States has sought to influence many aspects of education. President Donald Trump appointed Linda McMahon, a co-founder and former CEO of WWE, to be the United States secretary of education. McMahon was confirmed by the U.S. Senate by a vote of 51–45 on March 3, 2025. Trump and McMahon have sought to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education; on March 20, Trump signed an executive order directing the secretary of education to "facilitate the closure" of the department, and the Trump administration has sought to cut nearly all of its employees. Trump has said that the disbursement of student financial aid and student loans would be transferred to the Small Business Administration, while the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services would assume responsibility for the education department's special needs and nutrition programs.
The Trump administration has also sought to crack down on universities that it accuses of antisemitism and that it perceives as having a left-wing bias that discriminates against conservative students. The administration paused billions in federal funding to universities. Multiple universities have reached settlements with the administration, agreeing to its demands, including the suspension or expulsion of students who participated in 2024 pro-Palestinian campus occupations, taking steps to adopt pro-Israel policies (such as adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism), paying fines, and enacting changes to its admissions policies. Harvard University publicly refused and criticized demands made by the Trump administration, filing a lawsuit against them and saying that the demands were an illegal overreach of government authority. In response, the administration paused over $2 billion in funding for Harvard. On September 3, 2025, Judge Allison D. Burroughs found the funding freeze illegal, writing that the government had infringed upon Harvard's free speech rights and that it was "difficult to conclude anything other than that defendants used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country's premier universities".
Simultaneously, the Trump administration's science policy resulted in the cutting or freezing of large amounts of funding used for research on topics such as climate change, vaccines, LGBTQ topics, and COVID-19. The administration's policies against initiatives for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has resulted in the removal of thousands of online resources as well as the removal of around 400 books from the U.S. Naval Academy library. The Trump administration has also targeted many non-citizen activist students and academics for deportation, revoking over 300 student visas as of March 2025 for those that it accuses of promoting antisemitism or of supporting U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations such as Hamas. Some efforts to deport activists have faced court challenges of their legality.
The administration opposes public education (Executive Order 14191 and One Big Beautiful Bill Act), has sought to reduce the separation of church and state, scaled back civil rights enforcement for "students with disabilities, students of color and those facing sex discrimination" while prioritizing "allegedly discriminated against white and Jewish students", reduced support for English learners, and promoted historical negationism (Executive Order 14190).