Weaponization of Student Aid Is the Next Frontier

This spring, we will likely see one of the most dangerous attempts to assert ideological control over the higher education sector: the weaponization of federal student financial aid.

Forces antagonistic to higher education, driven by narrow viewpoints and goals, are uninterested in debate or deep thinking about bettering the nation. Their approach to short-circuiting democracy mirrors the Trump administration’s strategy on tariffs, recently struck down by the Supreme Court: Circumvent legislative and deliberative processes and use money as a weapon to bolster authoritarianism.

By way of background, institutions gain eligibility for federal financial aid by meeting accreditation standards. Across the sector, this amounts to more than $120 billion each year in grants, work-study funds and loans that help about 13 million students pay for their education. It is one of the most effective sets of programs in the country for individual economic opportunity and collective economic prosperity.

The strategy to wrest control from higher education seeks to limit or eliminate the freedom of institutions to self-govern and of students and faculty to think, learn and research without fear of retribution. It seeks to deny students the fair opportunity to pursue a better life through access to higher education. The playbook has been on display at the federal and state levels with the freezing of research funding, board takeovers, the closure and consolidation of several academic departments and programs in Texas, and attempts to dismantle tenure in Oklahoma.

Accreditation is the next tool to be used to place institutions, students and democracy in a hostage-like posture. This spring, there are three likely courses of action.

Alteration of the Accreditation Handbook

There will likely be significant changes to the accreditation handbook, which guides accreditors on federal policy compliance, and subsequent institutional eligibility for federal financial aid. This could link curriculum, governance and services on campuses to ideological or operational limitations similar to those outlined in the fall 2025 “Compact.” The Manhattan Institute made an argument for this hard-line approach, and the appointment of new board members to the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity in November was a strong first step. 

The Department of Education claimed these new members would dismantle a “protectionist system” that prioritizes “divisive DEI standards.” Just last week, the department sent letters to two accreditors warning them over their DEI standards. Both agencies, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education, had already suspended their DEI standards, but the department is now pushing them to abolish those standards altogether.

The Education Department also plans to select a committee this spring to engage in negotiated rule making regarding accreditation. Among its charges are to require accrediting agencies to have standards that assess program and student achievement “without reference to race, gender and sex”—despite the fact that the use of data disaggregated by race, gender and other identities has been critical to improving outcomes across the sector.

Withholding Title IV Funding for Select Institutions

Another potential and more precise tactic to influence institutional behavior could be that the federal government withholds Title IV funding from a handful of institutions until they adopt ideological limitations similar to those in the 2025 compact. This approach would lead to some institutions being held up as examples of what’s to come for others if they don’t fall in line. Only the wealthiest would be able to stand up against this reality—and though it would be challenged in court, one cycle of missed or delayed funding would be catastrophic for many American institutions.

Underlining this risk, just this month we’ve seen San José State University sue the Trump administration to counter threats to its Title IV funding stemming from the participation of a transgender woman on the SJSU women’s volleyball team from 2022 to 2024.

Ideological Control Through Annual Program Participation Agreements

College and university leaders annually sign participation agreements for Title IV funding, ensuring their institution can receive federal financial aid dollars. There is now a proposal for the System for Award Management (SAM)—which institutions must register with to be eligible for any federal dollars—to adopt requirements similar to those outlined in a now-unlawful February 2025 Dear Colleague letter issued by the Department of Education, which effectively alleged that institutions could not have policies or programs that addressed racial equity.

Notably, the Dear Colleague letter and the proposed changes to SAM both use perverse definitions of civil rights, casting efforts to create more equitable institutions as illegal discrimination. The Education Department’s letter to the Middle States Commission on Higher Education compounds this by incorrectly suggesting that all DEI programs are connected to race—neglecting the fact that work to support veteran students, or those from rural areas, is also essential to supporting diverse groups of students.

Ultimately, the use of accreditation or SAM to force the sector’s alignment with the administration’s ideology is an end run around the legislative and legal processes that have generally shown the faulty logic and unconstitutionality of the administration’s desire to wrest self-governance, freedom of thought and decisions around access and success from institutions themselves.

In all of these scenarios, there is a natural proclivity for advocates and those across the higher education sector to call on chancellors and presidents to stand strong in the face of challenge and simply say no. It’s critical to understand that many colleges and universities across the country—even those with considerable endowments—do not have the financial resources to weather the withholding of Title IV funds while lawsuits are filed and the judicial process moves ahead.

Focus, instead, needs to be on the environment that could force a college leader to make an untenable decision that will ultimately hurt the nation. In all of these cases, federal tax dollars are being used as weapons against the public interest, hidden in the darkness of complex processes very few Americans have visibility into.

Colleges and universities are the engines of our society. They are where we solve complex problems; train the next generation of teachers, firefighters, accountants and CEOs; and create new knowledge that is then translated into new businesses, economic growth and opportunity. This plan aims to hijack these essential knowledge hubs in the false name of “viewpoint diversity” and “meritocracy” as other nations open their doors to America’s brightest minds.

Our sector is in the spotlight. We must use this crisis to proactively set a visionary path toward a thriving, accountable and representative academe. The stakes for our democracy could not be higher.