With the return of the Trump administration to the White House, higher education leaders across the country are preparing for a potentially transformative era—one where institutions may have to make consequential decisions about winners and losers. Whether Trump and his education secretary move to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education entirely or settle for implementing sweeping reforms, the nation’s colleges and universities are bracing for significant change.
And yet, if the past is prologue, the response of higher education is likely to be characteristically restrained. History suggests that colleges will quickly adapt to meet the immediate challenge, and then fall back into their comfort zones.
Higher education has always possessed an enormous talent for self-preservation, but this knack for resilience could be both a blessing and a curse. The threats now faced by these institutions go far beyond the policies of a Trump administration—and they are increasingly existential in nature.
The declining confidence in higher education has collided both with a demographic cliff that threatens to roll back recent enrollment gains and a deepening completion crisis to create a self-reinforcing spiral where deteriorating student outcomes further erode public faith and drive down enrollment. It’s not sufficient to maintain the status quo, fly under the radar and simply survive until the next crisis because, as it turns out, the old adage is true: an ostrich with its head in the sand isn’t much safer than a sitting duck.
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Rather than retreat from the moment, institutions instead should seize it to fundamentally reimagine how they serve learners. Bold changes to higher education policy and practice are no longer optional—they are imperative and long overdue.
Meet students’ basic needs
For too long, colleges have focused narrowly on academic outcomes while overlooking the non-academic barriers that prevent students from succeeding. Addressing basic needs like food security, housing and mental health should be a top priority for institutions.
About one-quarter of undergraduate students are experiencing hunger. Learners cannot thrive academically if they are consumed by concerns about how to find their next meal or where to sleep at night. Research has found that students who experience food insecurity while enrolled in college are more than 40% less likely to graduate.
One-stop support centers that integrate services like financial aid advising, mental health counseling and food pantry services can help meet these needs. Some institutions have also introduced emergency micro-grants to help students weather unexpected financial challenges that might otherwise derail their education.
Transform the college-to-career pipeline
While students increasingly view career preparation as the primary reason for attending college, a surprising number of institutions continue to treat career services as peripheral rather than core to the student experience. Colleges will need to better bridge the gap between college and work by embedding career readiness into every aspect of the student journey.
Consider the case of Paul Quinn College. Once on the brink of financial ruin, Paul Quinn worked to reorient itself entirely around student success—not just during students’ time in college, but also in preparing them for success well beyond graduation.
As one of only 10 federally recognized “work colleges” in the country, the institution integrates work, community service and experiential learning into one cohesive educational model. While not every institution should aspire to be a work college, it is essential that all aspects of the college experience align closely with the personal and professional ambitions of their students.
Streamline pathways to completion
Of course, students cannot enjoy the career benefits of a college degree if they never actually graduate. An alarming number of learners never earn a degree, with nearly 37 million working-age adults now having left college without a credential. Enormous racial and ethnic disparities remain in completion rates.
Complex and fragmented pathways to a degree are a significant barrier for many students. Simplifying these pathways is essential to improving graduation rates and ensuring students stay on track. Institutions can start by addressing inefficiencies in transfer processes and by offering clear, structured roadmaps for students. Approaches like tightly structured “meta-majors” and co-requisite remediation have also proven effective in streamlining and simplifying paths to completion.
At Georgia State University, for instance, students are grouped into learning communities based on meta-majors such as STEM or health, with pre-designed block schedules that keep them on track and foster peer support. These structured pathways have significantly reduced major-switching and improved retention.
Ensure students start strong
The first year of college is a pivotal time for student success. About one-quarter of first-year students do not persist into a second year of college. Institutions should prioritize setting learners up for success from day one by building programs that ensure momentum early on.
Dual-enrollment programs, for instance, allow students to earn college credits while still in high school. Similarly, awarding credit for prior learning can help adult learners and transfer students avoid unnecessary or repetitive coursework and accelerate their progress toward a degree.
Students should have access to targeted, proactive advising from the moment they enroll—or even earlier. At Olive-Harvey College, eligible first-year students are automatically enrolled in a program designed by the Chicago nonprofit One Million Degrees. The program provides learners with holistic academic and financial support, professional development, and personal coaching from the start.
With 72% of all U.S. jobs requiring a credential beyond a high school diploma by 2031, but just over half of U.S. adults holding a college degree, certificate, or certification, there’s enormous urgency to act quickly. Without bold action to expand access, improve completion rates, and align education with career demands, the promise of the degree as a pathway to opportunity will remain unfulfilled. Higher education’s mere survival is no longer enough.
From the turbulent campus protests of the Vietnam War through the devastating 2008 recession to the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, colleges have consistently proven their ability to persevere. But rather than hunkering down and hoping to weather oncoming storms, institutions should rekindle—and reignite—that indomitable spirit that helped them to reinvent themselves in ways that proved transformative for student success outcomes.
If we believe in the power of education to change lives, then we should aspire to nothing less.
