Under President Donald Trump, the administration’s approach to higher education has become increasingly focused on reshaping college admissions policies, with significant implications for diversity in academics. Trump’s strategies have utilized a multitude of tactics—including civil rights investigations and funding cuts—that collectively suggest a goal of creating a less diverse academic environment, potentially resulting in lower enrollment of Black and Latino students.
Central to this agenda is a new higher-education compact proposed by the administration that mandates universities to adopt admissions systems reliant solely on standardized test scores and GPAs. Institutions resisting this directive are accused of employing illegal racial preferences. This agenda reflects Trump’s previous actions during his first term when the Justice Department pursued a lawsuit against Yale University for alleged racial bias in admissions. The lawsuit presented data indicating discrepancies in admission rates across different ethnicities, leading the Trump administration to accuse Yale of discrimination.
Following the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2023 against affirmative action in the case of Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the Biden administration withdrew the Yale lawsuit. However, the ruling did not significantly alter the demographic makeup of elite universities, indicating the complex dynamics at play in college admissions. For example, while Black student enrollment at Harvard declined, it remained stable at Yale.
In a renewed effort, the Trump administration seems to view the SFFA ruling as an opportunity for further action against perceived racial preferences in college admissions. Earlier this year, the Department of Education sent letters to all colleges condemning “pervasive and repugnant race-based preferences,” although it later retracted portions of the directive after legal pushback concerning its broad interpretations.
In recent negotiations, the administration reached agreements with institutions like Columbia and Brown to ensure compliance with its merit-based admissions framework, where the absence of racial considerations is emphasized. These negotiations also included demands for extensive data collection on admissions, disaggregated by race and academic performance metrics. The administration intends to leverage this information to substantiate claims that institutions are not adhering to a meritocratic admission standard.
Critics argue that defining “merit-based admissions” through GPA and test scores alone overlooks essential qualities that may contribute to a well-rounded educational environment. Moreover, the requirement for standardized testing, which has seen many selective institutions opt for test-optional policies in recent years, may challenge the administration’s capacity to accurately assess admissions fairness as part of its broader statistical analyses.
The push for increased scrutiny of college admissions practices could indeed limit the diversity of future leadership in America, as the administration’s focus appears to marginalize nonwhite applicants. With elite institutions historically favoring a holistic approach to admissions, relying solely on quantitative metrics may hinder their ability to foster diverse and dynamic academic communities.
As Trump positions himself for a potential return to the presidency, the implications of these educational reforms underscore the ongoing debate over the role of race and diversity in American higher education.