The Trump Administration Moves To Tighten Grip on Colleges

Introduction and summary

The U.S. Department of Education has drafted a new rule that would fundamentally weaken the college accreditation process and open the door for broader political interference in the classroom.¹ In May, the department concluded a set of required stakeholder negotiation sessions that were convened to draft new regulations for accreditors. These draft regulations would implement a 2025 executive order that directs the secretary of education to approve accreditors with lower standards; stops universities from running diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs; and gives the federal government more power over what professors teach, research, and publish.²

These changes could ultimately leave students with fewer protections against low-quality programs, reduce the value of their degrees in the labor market, and even limit their exposure to diverse perspectives and areas of study that are critical for civic and economic participation.

This report shows how the department’s newly drafted rules would weaken academic quality by reducing oversight, removing safeguards against predatory schools, giving inexperienced agencies the power to grant accreditation, and letting colleges shop around for the accreditor with the lowest standards. The regulations would also use accreditors to end lawful student support services, such as affinity groups or mentoring initiatives, and let the government influence classroom lessons. Together, these changes push college accreditation away from its original purpose of quality assurance and make it a weaker system that can be easily evaded and used to push federal political agendas—leaving students to pay the price.

Here are six ways the Trump administration’s drafted regulations would weaken and politicize college accreditation.

The draft regulations create new requirements for accrediting standards related to faculty that may make it easier for the federal government to influence teaching and learning and to fire faculty with disfavored views. The proposed measures require accreditors to evaluate institutional policies relating to the “conditions under which a range of academic perspectives may be expressed and examined” and to “support, promote, and appropriately prioritize intellectual diversity and the free exchange of ideas amongst faculty.”⁵ These mandates differ from—and, in practice, may undermine—widely accepted standards of academic freedom⁶ that a vast majority of institutions have adopted as a part of their mission.⁷

This vague and ambiguous language may create the opportunity for the department to threaten accrediting agencies with loss of federal recognition unless they begin to more closely and carefully police the “range of academic perspectives” expressed on campus, a strategy that the department has already used to pressure accreditors to remove DEI standards.⁸ There is no clear guidance on how “intellectual diversity” is measured or evaluated and what the standards would be for an acceptable range. Accreditation experts argue that giving the federal government the authority to interpret and enforce such policies “would destroy the independence that has made American higher education different, and better, than the more regulated systems across the rest of the world” and that such changes would mean that its “degrees could no longer carry the same public assurance of academic quality.”⁹

While the federal government plays a role in maintaining academic quality via its recognition of accreditors, increased oversight over what individual faculty members research and teach threatens to politicize research and compromise its quality, ultimately threatening the foundation of the research and innovation ecosystem that helps drive the United States’ economic prosperity.¹⁹ One study estimated that postwar investments in research and development provided returns of between 140 and 210 percent.²⁰ Faculty members’ range of perspectives reflects the most relevant questions, debates, and trends in their field and informs the merit of the researchers’ ideas as judged by their peers. This peer review process, the evaluation of ideas by other researchers and subject matter experts within the same field, shapes which ideas are published and ultimately taught.²¹ The continuation of academic freedom requires that researchers with expertise—not the federal government—remain the ultimate judges of what is taught and published.²²

In addition, the department includes several provisions in the draft rules that attempt to weaken faculty tenure protections, including policies that require accreditors to evaluate whether the institution or program maintains “sufficient flexibility in instructional staffing.” Tenure, which—after a probationary period—protects faculty members from termination except for adequate cause or financial exigency (e.g., serious budgetary crises that require reductions in force), is a key pillar of academic freedom.²³ Tenure helps to protect the independence of research and allows faculty members the freedom to criticize federal, state, local, and Tribal governments or other powerful entities without fear of losing their position.

The proposed regulations may empower the federal government to leverage universities’ accreditation and access to federal financial aid dollars to pressure them to remove any remaining tenure protections and more easily fire professors who hold views with which lawmakers, donors, or other powerful figures disagree. The regulations might also empower political leaders at other levels to intervene in ways that are unhelpful to students and the educational process. For example, state officials or governing boards could pressure institutions to remove faculty who teach about race, gender, or other politically contested topics, even when those instructors are academically qualified. One such example is the decision of the University of North Carolina’s board of trustees to overrule the departmental recommendation to grant tenure to the prominent civil rights journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones.²⁴

This concern will be even more significant once a new accreditor is established under the new regulations, because state and potentially local governments would hold a controlling influence over the accreditor and could therefore shape its decisions before the federal government has an opportunity to weigh in.

The department’s draft regulatory language would make it easier for an inexperienced, untrained entity to become an accreditor, effectively creating new gatekeepers to billions of dollars in federal student aid. The revised proposal no longer requires the same level of hands-on accrediting history before application: It allows an agency to seek initial recognition after only minimal prerecognition experience, including establishing standards and procedures and having just one institution or program submit an application for accreditation. Previously, aspiring accreditors had to have at least one institution go through a full application and approval process to approve an institution or program before applying.

Moreover, the draft language eliminates the current requirement that agencies must have conducted accrediting activities, including granting or denying accreditation or preaccreditation, for at least two years before seeking recognition. The proposal also lowers standards for accreditor recognition by removing key application requirements, including the 24-month advance timeline for renewal submissions and the requirement to provide letters of support from institutions, educators, and employers demonstrating the agency’s relevance and credibility. Finally, these regulations also weaken oversight by eliminating the prior requirement for in-person site visits, replacing it with discretionary language that allows such visits to occur virtually. In combination, these changes would lower the threshold for initial recognition, and accreditation decisions could be handed to groups that have not yet proven they can apply standards consistently or competently.

As the gatekeeper for federal student aid, accreditors must be the core safeguard for quality assurance.²⁵ If an agency can gain recognition before it has built real expertise, students and borrowers may be exposed to weaker oversight and institutions with poor outcomes will maintain their access to federal dollars.²⁶ Most problematically, many of the accreditors that are positioning themselves for federal recognition under the newer, laxer rules have direct ties to former for-profit institutions with histories of fraud, abuse, and misrepresentation, which in some cases have left thousands of students in substantial debt for worthless degrees.²⁷ New accreditors may hold institutions to lower standards and leave students vulnerable to similar harms.

The draft regulations would create misleading requirements around civil rights, potentially causing misapplication and overcompliance. For example, they prohibit accrediting agencies from creating standards for institutions that “provide any preferences on the basis of race,” implying that any such preferences would violate civil rights law.²⁸ However, many uses of race—such as DEI efforts—remain lawful, and in some cases (e.g., a civil rights case resolution), they may even be required by law.²⁹

The intentions of the Trump administration’s Education Department are clear. It has continually sought to subvert and weaponize the definition of “civil rights” to limit campus activities such as affinity groups, diversity-related programming, and curricular topics—most notably in a February 2025 “Dear Colleague” letter (DCL).³⁰ Courts have already found these efforts to be illegal, with a district court striking down the DCL guidance as unconstitutionally vague.³¹

To skirt these legal roadblocks, the department has pursued new strategies to pressure institutions into overcompliance with its ideological goals, such as the proposed “compact” for higher education and cuts to federal research funding.³² Accreditors have faced official warnings for diversity-related standards,³³ while institutions themselves have faced retaliation in the form of funding cuts and civil rights investigations.³⁴As a result, institutions are avoiding risky and costly legal battles by preemptively slashing DEI programming.³⁵

Meanwhile, the department has failed to address actual claims of discrimination because it decimated the Office for Civil Rights, which has the authority and expertise to enforce the law.³⁶ Recent reporting shows that the office resolved 30 percent fewer claims in 2025 than it did in 2024, the largest drop in more than 30 years.

These regulations may spur colleges and universities to further cut initiatives and affinity groups that foster belonging³⁷ and inclusion,³⁸ moves that would undermine safe campus environments³⁹and harm the academic performance, retention, and mental health of all students.⁴⁰

New weakened accreditation rules would likely push students into low-quality programs that leave them with high debt loads and credentials that do not lead to good jobs. The department’s draft changes to §602.17 would no longer require an accrediting agency to show it “maintains requirements that at least conform to commonly accepted academic standards” or have subject matter experts, including academic and administrative personnel, on staff.⁵⁷ The institutions themselves would also no longer need to participate in a peer review process or a self-study to ensure they are meeting their missions and objectives. In addition, the department urges accrediting agencies to reduce barriers to institutions implementing “innovative models”—vague language that opens the door to accreditation for institutions that rely on unproven instructional methods. As a result, accrediting agencies may green-light federal funding for colleges that defraud students and provide worthless degrees without conducting meaningful oversight of the quality of their academic programs.

Simultaneously, the requirements for reviewing compliance with these standards have been relaxed. Agencies would no longer have to train staff on their responsibilities, including the “agency’s standards, policies, and procedures” for conducting on-site evaluations, establishing policies, or making accreditation decisions.⁵⁸ Thus, predatory institutions that exploit weak accreditation standards could slip under the radar and retain their accreditation. Even if this stripped-down process does reveal that changes are necessary, agencies would no longer be required to make any changes within “a reasonable period of time.” In the indefinite period in which agencies fail to take action, students would continue to unknowingly attend these exploitative institutions and become saddled with debt, while the legitimacy of university degrees would be undermined.⁵⁹

Student protections at institutions failing to meet standards and already on the brink of closure would be gutted even further. Under the draft rules, institutions that have been placed on probation would be able to drastically reduce program content, abbreviate courses, or move courses online without approval from an accreditor. As a result, institutions that already fail to meet the needs of students would be given even less oversight as they make dramatic changes.

College closures disrupt students’ educational and financial futures and risk wasting billions of taxpayer dollars on degrees without value. Recent historical examples discussed in detail below underscore the need for strong federal oversight from accreditors, where students have meaningful protections in place that shield them before an institution fails. If implemented, the proposed regulations would open the floodgates to more low-quality degrees and abrupt closures.

If these institutions close, the draft regulations would no longer require them to follow minimum standards around teach-out agreements—programs where students continue their learning at an alternative university.⁶⁶ Teach-out institutions and their programs would not be required to show they have the resources to deliver an educational program of acceptable quality or the capacity to fulfill all obligations to currently enrolled students. Additionally, teach-out institutions would not be required to disclose any additional charges imposed on students. These students are already in a precarious position; one study finds that more than half of students whose institutions close will not reenroll and 52.9 percent of students who do reenroll drop out.⁶⁷ Ensuring that adequate information is provided to students is necessary to ensure they reenroll, and quality programming is necessary to ensure they stay.

Teach-out program quality is largely inadequate, with some teach-out institutions closing shortly after receiving students.⁶⁸ Institutions often choose their own branch campuses as their teach-out institution, and these campuses may not have the capacity to serve displaced students.⁶⁹ The quality of these teach-out programs is important; a new report estimates that as many as 1 in 4 of the nation’s 1,700 private nonprofit four-year colleges are at risk of closing, putting nearly 700,000 students at risk.⁷⁰The existing requirements—that teach-out institutions are of acceptable quality, can meet obligations, and provide basic financial information to students—are insufficient and certainly should not be cut down further.⁷¹ Students who are facing academic instability deserve protections that ensure they can complete their education.

The department’s proposed changes would also make it easier for institutions—including colleges and programs that are already facing adverse action⁸² or other noncompliance issues, such as probation,⁸³ actions of noncompliance,⁸⁴ or loss of accreditation—to switch accreditors. The draft language weakens the federal guardrails that are supposed to prevent institutions from shopping for a more permissive accreditor by removing language that clearly requires approval and by creating a framework in which a change appears to be approved unless the secretary determines there is a specific reason not to allow it.

The previous administration drew a clear line against accreditor shopping and warned that it would not allow institutions to use a new accreditor as a way to lower academic standards.⁸⁵ In its 2022 guidance, the department emphasized that accreditation is supposed to protect students and taxpayers, not serve as a loophole for schools trying to escape accountability. Moreover, it cautioned that state efforts to bypass an accreditor could weaken that gatekeeping role.⁸⁶

Rather than discouraging schools from seeking the easiest accreditor, the draft regulatory language makes switching accreditors easier even when an institution is under scrutiny. For students and borrowers, this raises the risk that a school with poor performance outcomes, financial instability, or even regulatory concerns will stay open longer, under a lower standard of review, while still receiving federal aid. This could mean more federal student aid dollars flowing to institutions that are trying to evade oversight rather than improve quality.

In practice, these draft rules could lead to a race to the bottom where accreditors find themselves under pressure to grow quickly and approve schools or programs without the judgment needed to protect students, all while allowing institutions with poor outcomes to shop around for a more permissive agency.⁸⁷ For students, this could mean more programs that do not deliver strong earnings or completion outcomes and fewer reliable checks before taxpayer-backed aid flows to institutions.

These new regulations come at a pivotal moment in higher education. The department’s proposed changes would reshape who can accredit colleges, how they operate, and the level of oversight they must exercise over institutions relying on federal financial aid.

While many of these rules exceed the authority of the Higher Education Act of 1965 and will likely face court challenges, they give the Trump administration strategic leverage to pursue tactics it has already used to great effect: pressuring colleges into preemptively enacting its ideological goals via threats to funding, whether lawful or not.⁸⁸ Furthermore, the regulations threaten to weaken the entire college accreditation system by lowering standards, encouraging accreditor shopping, and easing restrictions for less qualified entrants. Ultimately, these shifts could leave students in the lurch with low-value degrees and poor career outcomes.