Making Sense of Trump's First 100 Days

Plus Emily Oster on Data, Parenthood, EdTech, Testing, and More

It’s been a busy few weeks at Future U., as we sought to catch up with the frenetic set of federal actions impacting higher education with an eye toward what does this mean in the longer run.

The Presidents at Milken

Jeff Selingo moderated two conversations at the Milken Institute Global Conference that became Future U. episodes.

The first—Live from Milken: Hurdles and Hopes in Higher Education—was with the presidents of Dartmouth (Sian Beilock), Stanford (Jonathan Levin), UC San Diego (Pradeep Khosla), Yeshiva University (Ari Berman), and the CEO of ETS (Amit Sevak). You’ll want to watch or listen to it yourself here, as the group covered a lot: top challenges for higher ed; mental health on campus; brave versus hostile spaces; the withholding of federal grants and the broader federal government-higher education partnership; making higher education more inclusive; and measuring the ROI of college.

Two points that stood out to me:

First, I left with the sense that at least some of the presidents are open to a deeper rethink of the “partnership,” as Beilock called it, between higher education and the federal government’s funding of their research. As Levin said:

“I think Sian is absolutely right that that partnership is very important for the country. And so we have to find a way to try to continue that partnership. It may look different going forward than it does today. The funding models could look somewhat different.”

Second, here were Beilock’s concluding remarks around the current and future state of higher education:

“I would just say that I do think this is a time of self-reflection about what we can be doing better and where we can be asserting our value. And that's not mutually exclusive with being clear that we need to be fiercely independent institutions. And that's how we learn. We learn as institutions and people. And it's okay to always do that.”

Bill Ackman

The second conversation was with Bill Ackman, the founder and CEO of Pershing Square capital Management and, more recently, an outspoken critic of Harvard. Several of his quotes drove several media headlines in the days after. The full conversation, “Live from Milken: One-on-One with Bill Ackman,” is well worth your time so you can gather the full context of the exchange Jeff and Ackman had.

Making Sense of the First 100 Days

Jeff and I also released a Future U. episode where we dove into the rapidly evolving landscape in President Trump’s second term. As usual for me perhaps, I took a third way approach to the stand-off between research universities and the Trump administration. As I said at the top:

“What you're about to hear is a conversation that Jeff Selingo and I recorded at the ASU GSV summit on April 7. We covered a lot of ground: the fate of the Department of Education, international students, funding threats that range from the NIH overhead cuts to efforts to root out antisemitism; how the Trump versus higher ed narrative is playing out in the media, what boards have to say about it, and how do you change a campus culture anyway?

In the episode, we try to stay out of the breaking news elements and focus on the bigger picture. Ours is a podcast about the longer-term impacts on the future of higher education after all.

But since we recorded, the pace of events, which was already quick, has picked up even faster than we could have imagined, particularly the fight between the Trump administration and Harvard. I won't narrate the whole thing. There was the letter from the Trump administration. Harvard said it would fight back. The Trump administration keeps freezing various research funding to the tune of billions of dollars. And we've also learned that the administration may have sent the original letter by mistake. It's nuts. And frankly, by the time you're listening to this, who else knows what will have happened.

Now as you'll hear on the podcast, Jeff and I both have some sharp criticisms for the administration. You'll also hear that I think Harvard and other institutions have some big work to do as well. They are not blameless.

But the recent actions, intentional or not, by the administration have taken whatever lines they had originally crossed and put them in the rearview mirror and then some. I'm for the federal government enforcing civil rights laws. But ordering Harvard to reduce ‘governance bloat, duplication, or decentralization’ while that may be a good idea, is none of the federal government's business.

Telling Harvard to go through all existing and prospective faculty for plagiarism and make sure there is viewpoint diversity in each department, field, or teaching unit—that's infringing on Harvard's right to manage itself. And Harvard is right to push back.

Ultimately, as you'll hear time and again in this episode, this governing by executive action is, in my view, incredibly unhealthy and unhelpful for higher ed and the nation. It wasn't good during the Obama or Biden administrations. And, as these actions show, it's clearly getting much worse right now.

If Congress wants to step up and pass laws that create an incentive to improve value for students and institutions therefore decide to reduce costs, for example, go right ahead. It's a good idea.

But the actions the Trump administration is taking to micromanage the academic work of academic institutions is not OK. And to those in the Trump administration: No, just because the other guys did it doesn't make it any better. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

As you’ll hear in the episode, two of my big criticisms of the Trump administration center around due process and communication.

But I also worked through some of things that complicate this storyline—and some of the fault that institutions hold.

Here’s more of what I said:

“Let me use this maybe as a transition into what you've been alluding to around the Ivies, the $400 million that was at risk at Columbia, the $9 billion at Harvard, Princeton, you know, on and on. And to be clear, these grants are being revoked or examined because of antisemitism on these college campuses. So it's adjacent to the argument, around the 15%, etcetera, over the overhead cap.

And it's around not just antisemitic speech, to be clear, but blatant and illegal antisemitism, ranging from harassment and bullying to physical beatings to shutting down of classes and common spaces on the college campus of to Jews and Israelis, in some cases being specifically asked to leave certain spaces and classes and more. I could go on. I think, from my perspective, the hypocrisy of how Jews have been treated compared to other groups has been clear. But sadly, I will say it's been quite believable. And look. I haven't shied away from it. This is a personal issue for me. And I have frankly seen up close, and I have I've used my words carefully, but I've continued to see this academic year, some of these things up close at Harvard. So it is very much still an issue.

What I will say about the Trump administration's actions are sort of the following. What I think is oddly useful about them is that these cancellations or investigations of contracts remind people that the federal government is these universities' largest customer. And whether you like it or not, there's a saying in business, the customer is always right. Now I'm not saying that the administration is going about these things correctly. I think people have heard that [earlier in this episode]. But I do think there's some value in reminding these schools that when the federal government is your customer, you have to be attentive to what that entails. The bargain that you are making, what you are signing up for. And you have to understand that we have two-party rule in this country. And so that does mean being attentive to both parties, not just one. It's really bad practice to just care about one and forget the other. And it reminds us that, for better or worse, what the government giveth, the government can take it away, and it's not simply an entitlement.

Second, I think, ironically, the Trump administration has given administrators and leaders of these schools struggling to grab hold of their campuses in some ways, a way to actually put some common sense and rules back in place. To lead, in other words, which I think they were abdicating in many cases in the name of all sorts of pretend excuses. So, in a weird way, these leaders might be thankful that they can blame the Trump administration.

But there is another deep irony here, Jeff, and it's a sad one in my view, which is that most of the antisemitism has been coming from folks in the humanities. Most of the folks in the STEM fields, they just wanna freaking do research and work, not engage in this silliness. And yet they're the ones whose funding is getting hit because that's where the federal government as customer has the most leverage. And so I suppose you could say, you know, look, it wouldn't have happened if the administration of these places hadn't let this get so out of hand. But I also think it suggests a couple other things, which are problems from, you know, what the Trump administration has done and go into some of the same buckets that I've named earlier, which is that due process hasn't been followed as far as I can tell. There's been a bluntness to this, you know, similar to what you were describing. While perhaps effective in bringing institutions to the table, I don't think it's good precedent for anyone. And as a result, I think there's been clear overreach along a number of dimensions. And so, look, I don't think we should be cutting existing contracts unless due process is clearly followed. So that's sort of my take there. On the university side, I will say, I think they ought to own some of their fair share of the blame here. Academic freedom, freedom of speech, pursuit of truth, no matter how uncomfortable, not discriminating against individuals. These should be things that are done [not just] when their backs are against the wall, but all the time. And universities have been neglecting it too often. Now, look, there's a view that universities could say, well, we're fixing it. Leave us alone. I will tell you from my perspective, Jeff, they're not fixing it, right? And this external push has sadly been important.”

There’s much more in what’s one of our longest-ever episodes.

The World Is Her Oster

Finally, for those looking for another highlight from the April ASU-GSV Summit, I recommend this conversation on the mainstage that I moderated with Emily Oster:

We chatted about a lot of topics in just 25 minutes! Everything from the importance of data in Emily’s view to Emily’s role in informing—and calming—parents; nuances behind the science of reading; the research around screen time; the lack of consistency interest score data; how edtech companies should prove their efficacy; and how to think about what “success” in education looks like given the evolution away from college for all and toward more and more choice and career-connected learning. Enjoy!

And as always, thanks for reading, writing, and listening.