What the Trump administration means for education and EDI

Since Donald Trump’s administration began there has been a flurry of chaotic executive orders and department scourges that are impacting every single sector, especially education.

In the US, there will likely be reductions in student aid and an end to student debt forgiveness, not to mention the possible dismantling of the United States Department of Education. This will start a cycle of cuts to research, education funding, EDI initiatives and a reintroduction of the travel ban on Muslim countries.

Trump himself cannot unilaterally abolish a federal agency without the approval of Congress but the planned executive order follows years of campaign promises to abolish the Department, which was established in 1979.

In September 2023, Trump posted a video to social media saying, “One other thing I’ll be doing very early in the administration is closing up the Department of Education in Washington, D.C., and sending all education and education work and needs back to the states.”

It is clear that Trump’s re-election represents a major challenge to the progress of EDI across education in the US, potentially hindering the appetite to choose the country as a study or work destination.

An attack on EDI 

It’s not a surprise that EDI initiatives came under fire pretty instantly when Trump took office. A key point in his campaign and in Project 2025 is his war on what he describes as the “woke culture”. Even before Trump was re-elected, “educational gag orders” attempting to restrict conversations of race and LGBTQ+ issues in school classrooms had been introduced in at least 46 states.

Therefore, most likely for the duration of this one, we can expect Trump and his cabinet to launch a multi-pronged attack on EDI policies across companies and campuses. So how will this impact schools and universities?

Firstly, it has already started. In 2023 a number of states passed “Don’t Say Gay” laws that ban classroom discussion on sexual orientation or gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project, which tracks LGBTQ+ policy. Both Florida and Kentucky have issued a ban all the way up through 12th grade.

During his State of Address earlier this month, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced his intention to end EDI programmes in public education.

“Last session, we banned DEI in universities. We must ban DEI in grades K-12. We must also expand the ban on DEI in our public universities. We must purge it from every corner of our schools and return the focus to merit,” Abbott said.

We have continued to see EDI office closures and policies being scrapped from small to drastic changes across both Democrat and Republican states including: 

• Ivy Tech University - It closed its Office of Diversity, Equity, and Belonging.

• The Kansas State University system - It eliminated the use of diversity statements in hiring and admissions in April 2024 following a directive from the Kansas Board of Regents.

• Stanford University - The University took down several EDI surveys, dashboards, webpages, and links, including the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access in a Learning Environment (IDEAL) and DiversityWorks websites.

• Missouri State University - It closed its Office of Inclusive Engagement, banned diversity statements, eliminated hiring policies that streamlined the hiring process for diverse faculty and staff candidates, eliminated identity-conscious scholarships, and eliminated program-participation requirements that limited eligibility based on identity characteristics.

Last week, the administration gave schools and universities two weeks to eliminate diversity initiatives or risk losing federal money, raising the stakes in the president’s fight against “wokeness”.

The memo targets college admissions offices, ordering an end to personal essays or writing prompts that can be used to predict an applicant’s race. It forbids campus or graduation events for students of certain races. 

While the demand doesn’t change federal law, it does demonstrate a shift in the government’s interpretation of anti-discrimination laws and efforts to hire educators from underrepresented groups could be seen as discrimination.

While it is clear what Trump seeks to do to eliminate EDI policies, it is uncertain exactly what will actually come to pass and it will in large depend on how education leaders respond.

How will this impact international students?

During the first Trump presidency, the US implemented a ban on travel to the US from seven Muslim-majority countries, suspended the issuance of H1-Bs (post-study work visas), and cancelled thousands of Chinese students’ study visas.

Now the international education sector is bracing for immigration changes that could affect their students as well as their ability to recruit overseas.

On 20 January, Trump signed a vague but worrying executive order: “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats.”

This order is aimed very much at reviving some version of the previous country travel bans. However, it goes much further, revealing government action to revoke and prolong visas of foreigners living inside and outside the US based on their political and cultural views.

The order directs immigration officials to follow guidance including:

• “Evaluate all visa programs to ensure that they are not used by foreign nation-states or other hostile actors to harm the security, economic, political, cultural, or other national interests of the United States.”

• “Identify countries throughout the world for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries pursuant to section 212(f) of the INA.”

• “Identify nationals from those countries have entered or have been admitted into the United States on or since January 20, 2021, and take immediate steps to exclude or remove that alien unless she determines that doing so would inhibit a significant pending investigation or prosecution of the alien for a serious criminal offense or would be contrary to the national security interests of the United States.”

The shower of restrictive executive orders is cause for concern and only time will tell how significantly it will affect international student mobility, but it's important to remember how lucrative and effective international education is and has been for the US economy.

International students are attractive to US institutions for several reasons. They bring new perspectives to campus. They generally come well-prepared for academic success and many of them pay a full fare of tuition. 

According to recent analysis from NAFSA and JB International, international students studying at US colleges and universities contributed $43.8 billion and supported 378,175 jobs to the economy during the 2023-2024 academic year. 

Up against a wave of aggressive immigration and anti-EDI policies, US education institutions will have to work even harder to implement proactive policies to attract international talent and remain a leader in the global education market.