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\u201cWe will not stand idly by and allow public institutions to violate their students’ constitutional rights,\u201d Trump said<\/a> before signing the executive order in the East Room of the White House. \u201cIf a college or university doesn\u2019t allow you to speak, we will not give them money. It\u2019s very simple.\u201d Clearly, Trump\u2019s threat to cancel research funding to protect free speech is attention-grabbing, but free speech on campus makes up just a small portion of the executive order. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The executive order also outlines the White House\u2019s plan to make college more affordable and transparent. It puts pressure on universities to share information on the earnings and average loan repayments of alumni who received federal student aid. According to the White House, this information will help individuals make the best educational choices on which college to attend or major to enroll in, based on their specific needs, interests and circumstances. Making this information available will also, according to the White House, \u201cencourage institutions to take into account likely future earnings when establishing the cost of their educational programs.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump\u2019s request for transparency in higher education, however, is not an entirely new concept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It falls in line with ideas presented in the College Transparency Act<\/a>, which recently has garnered widespread, bipartisan support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In essence, Trump\u2019s executive order could serve as the first building block to making higher education more transparent, and it could pave the way for the more comprehensive College Transparency Act. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It should not, however, stand on its own, according to Peter McPherson<\/a>, the president of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU).<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s critical that Congress pass the College Transparency Act, which would lift the student-level data ban,\u201d McPherson said in a statement. \u201cDoing so would enable the reporting of much more comprehensive and useful data, including outcomes for all students, not just those who receive federal aid. Because of the student-level data ban, the 39 percent of college students who don\u2019t receive federal financial aid are excluded from the Department\u2019s earnings data \u2026 All students count and should be counted.\u201d However, the transparency section of the order, which would be beneficial to students, is overshadowed by Trump\u2019s threat to withhold research funding to public colleges and universities. \u201cEvery year the federal government provides educational institutions with more than $35 billion in research funding,\u201d Trump said during the signing event. \u201cAll of that money is now at stake. That\u2019s a lot of money.\u201d Public colleges and universities, however, already have laws in place that protect free speech, no matter how controversial or offensive it is — making Trump\u2019s order seem more like a plea to his base than an effort to extend campus speech. Often, when a speaker is run off the stage or not permitted to speak, it is due to student protest, not university overrule. Trump made a similar threat when student protesters at UC Berkeley forced the cancellation of a speech by a far-right Breitbart News editor in 2017. He attributed the action to the university itself, though.
<\/p>\n\n\n\nRequest for transparency in higher education<\/strong>
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<\/p>\n\n\n\nFree speech on campus<\/strong>
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