When it comes to access to higher education, experts say that a Hillary Clinton administration will likely look a lot like President Obama’s if she is elected president of the United States in November.
But if Donald J. Trump wins, scholars worry that support for public and minority-serving institutions (MSIs) will almost certainly wane.
When queried on the campaign trail about his plans for higher education, Trump has been vague. In his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July, the billionaire businessman did promise to help students with college debt, but declined to offer specifics.
“We’re going to work with all of our students who are drowning in debt to take the pressure off these young people just starting out their adult lives,” he said.
But with the general election less than 60 days away, it’s unclear what Trump’s specific policies are as they relate to higher education. Some policy advocates say that they’ve been increasingly disheartened that Republicans’ longstanding support for historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) wasn’t included in this year’s platform planks presented at the GOP convention.
“This year, under Trump’s leadership, the Republicans went another way,” says Lezli Baskerville, president and CEO of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, the umbrella organization of the nation’s HBCUs and predominantly Black institutions (PBIs). “And that’s very unfortunate.”
Baskerville says that prominent ranks within the Trump camp, including Omarosa Manigault, a television personality who appeared on the first season of The Apprentice and now teaches at Howard University, have expressed their support for HBCUs.
