As University of Bridgeport’s chief financial officer, William Guerrero is taking an enterprise-risk perspective as he, along with rest of the higher education sector, waits for what lies in store following reports that President Donald Trump is about to gut the Department of Education.
The following article is a part of University Business’ ongoing coverage of President Donald J. Trump’s impact on higher education during his second term in office. Click here for the latest updates.
Some education leaders have labeled the move a blatant power grab intended to steal resources away from under-resourced students. The way Guerreo sees it, however, college and university leaders need to transmute this fear into strategic planning. “It’s easy to get really paralyzed, but the headlines right now don’t mean anything has happened.”
Members of law firm Parker Poe, which represents clients in higher education, find it hard to imagine federal support for higher education would disappear. The Trump administration is mainly focused on opposing liberal ideals championed by the previous administration, they contend.
However, the mechanisms used thus far to reach those ends may carry drastic consequences. The White House’s budget office spread chaos across the country when its attempt to freeze federal grant programs to curtail “DEI, woke gender ideology and the green new deal” implicated other vital financial assistance programs, such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
“This is not a scalpel that is being used, it’s a sledgehammer,” says Nina Gupta, partner and education specialist at Parker Poe.
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The bludgeoning isn’t waning anytime soon. Congress, which ultimately holds the power to abolish a federal agency, already has a bill to shutter the Department of Education by the end of 2026. The short-term, worst-case scenario, according to Guerrero: Students’ ability to claim federal Pell Grants and loans would be thrown into jeopardy, excluding millions of low- and middle-income Americans from pursuing higher education. Measures to protect them from discrimination based on race, gender and disability would weaken.
“No doubt it would be very impactful to the already unstable institutions out there struggling with enrollment and financial challenges,” Guerrero says. As a result, the pace of colleges and universities closing across the country will inevitably increase.
But the end of a federal education agency also provides higher education an opportunity to more closely collaborate with state legislatures to mold new regulations, he adds. “There could be minimal impact, or there could be improvements.”
College and university leaders can use this time to share with their state legislatures the importance of their institution to the region’s workforce, says Bruce Thompson, partner and public policy expert at Parker Poe.
For example, the University of Georgia System accounted for more than 3% of all non-farm jobs in the state and created $20.1 billion in sales output in the 2022 fiscal year. “They need to tell their members of Congress—from programs, funding and related items—what they need to make sure gets preserved, no matter what happens to the bureaucracy,” Thompson concludes.
