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In recent weeks, colleges and universities have found themselves at the center of the Trump administration’s efforts to reshape American society and culture. As the administration extracts concessions from universities and seeks to deport students based on their participation in protests, experts are raising questions about the future of the American academy and the country’s larger place on the world stage.
A lot of rising college freshmen have a different, more basic anxiety, however: They just want to know if they’ll be able to pay for school.
The Trump administration’s highly publicized efforts to dismantle the Education Department have some students questioning if federal student aid even still exists, according to nonprofits that support college access. “Students are wondering if the FAFSA is still available,” Marcos Montes, policy director of the Southern California College Attainment Network, told me.
Others are concerned that they won’t be able to get federal Pell grants or other financial aid they need to attend college, said Karla Robles-Reyes, chief program officer at OneGoal, a nonprofit that helps low-income students with college access.
As of now, both Pell grants and the FAFSA, or free application for federal student aid, remain available. But some students fear that if they use the FAFSA to apply for federal aid, information about their families’ immigration status could be shared with ICE — a concern that college counselors and advocates cannot fully dispel. That fear is contributing to a drop in federal financial aid applications, Montes said.
Graduating seniors are concerned about other issues too, like whether they’ll be able to exercise their freedom of speech on campus. But a lot of young people’s biggest worries are about “the critical resources that they need to pursue their higher education,” Robles-Reyes said — and whether those resources are still available under Trump.
It’s a reminder that although colleges and universities have become a topic of heated political debate — and students and professors a symbol of decadent liberalism to many on the right — postsecondary education is also just an increasingly necessary career step that a majority of Americans undertake at some point. And for this year’s high school seniors, especially those who are low-income or the first in their families to apply to college, that step could get a lot harder to take.
Students have very real fears about paying for college
Just to be clear, the Education Department still exists, and cannot be closed without an act of Congress. However, the Trump administration has announced the layoffs of more than 1,300 department employees, and in March, Trump signed an executive order directing Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to close the department “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.”
One of the biggest functions of the Education Department is overseeing the federal student aid system, including Pell grants (need-based awards of up to $7,395 per year) and federal student loans. Grants and loans are critical for low- and middle-income students across the country at a time when average college tuition ranges from around $11,000 a year for public institutions to more than $43,000 annually for private schools (the average annual wage in the US, meanwhile, is around $66,000). As of the 2019-20 school year, 55 percent of undergraduates got some form of federal aid.
So when high school students hear that the department could be “closed” or “dismantled,” they’re understandably scared. “There is a lot of confusion,” Montes said.
Students are asking questions like, “Should I just drop out of school and wait for another president, because I don’t know if I’m going to have the financial aid that I need to be able to pay for college?” Robles-Reyes said.
Trump has said that funding for Pell grants and student loans will not be affected by changes to the Education Department, and there’s no indication that the Trump administration is planning direct cuts to student aid. But experts say that layoffs at the department and the administration’s plans to move some of its functions to other agencies could cause errors in loan disbursement or a lack of support for borrowers. Students got a glimpse of what dysfunction in student aid could look like last year, when a new FAFSA form rife with technical issues led to long delays and application roadblocks for students and families.
“The largest amount of aid I receive is from the federal government,” Nomar, a first-year college student who asked that his last name not be used, told me. He worries that if student aid gets moved to another department, his loans or grants could be delayed, preventing him from registering for classes.
For students with parents or other family members who are undocumented, meanwhile, there’s an added concern: that filling out the FAFSA could reveal their family members’ immigration status to the federal government, leaving them vulnerable to deportation (the form asks applicants for parents’ Social Security numbers, which undocumented immigrants often do not have). Federal law prohibits the use of FAFSA data for any purpose other than student aid, but experts are cautioning students that there’s no guarantee the Trump administration won’t use their data to target their family members for immigration enforcement.
OneGoal tells students that they have no indication that FAFSA data is going to be used to initiate deportations, Robles-Reyes told me. But, she said, “we can’t promise that it wouldn’t.”
Even beyond federal aid, students have financial fears. Lila, a high school senior in California who asked that her last name not be used, told me she worries about losing access to scholarships aimed at people of color and other historically marginalized groups. Many such scholarships were meant to address centuries of racism and other biases in education, but they are now being targeted as part of Trump’s push to end diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
Trump’s anti-DEI efforts are also affecting colleges in other ways, with some overhauling or shutting down DEI offices, and others disbanding affinity groups for women, students of color, or LGBTQ students. College-bound students are left wondering if “they’re going to have the same services available that students previously had,” Montes said. “They’re not sure what going to college next year is going to look like.”
Young people have also been watching with concern as ICE officers arrest students who are in the US legally, apparently based on their participation in pro-Palestinian protests or advocacy. High school students have been asking for “rights trainings” and “trying to figure out how they can make their voices heard,” Montes said.
“I have to be careful with what I say, the opinions that I might put out in the world,” Nomar, a green-card holder, told me.
Disruptions to college could derail students’ futures — and the country
The heightened level of fear and uncertainty about college could have a serious impact on graduating seniors, Montes said. In California, the number of high school seniors completing the FAFSA was down by 25 percent in February, compared with the previous year, and the number of students with at least one undocumented parent applying was down 44 percent.
For some, no FAFSA could mean no college. “Without financial aid, college is very inaccessible for first-generation students and students from low-income backgrounds,” Montes said.
Forgoing college, in turn, could do long-term damage to students’ careers. “College is the number one workforce training out there,” Montes said.
It’s more than an individual issue. “Our economy requires a skilled workforce,” Robles-Reyes said. “If these disruptions in the Department of Education lead to more students not enrolling, then our economy really is at risk.”
State policymakers can help college-bound students by making state financial aid applications more accessible, Montes said. In California, for example, students can apply for state financial aid without fear that their data will be shared with the federal government.
When it comes to freedom of speech, Lila, the high school senior, wants to see colleges back up their students: “What I’m afraid of happening in colleges would be them buckling down under the pressure and just changing their policies to keep getting funds,” she said.
Universities and elected officials also need to keep students updated about how Trump administration policy could affect their education, Nomar said, so that “when we start the semester, we don’t have this huge worry or these huge questions that are going to take us away from what we came here to do.”
Despite the upheaval of the last two months, Nomar is clear on the purpose of college in his life. As a first-generation student “who grew up in a place where education was scarce,” he relishes “the opportunity to expand my knowledge and grow as a person.”
“For me,” he said, “going to college is the gateway for the world.”
Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware and 22 other Democratic senators sent a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon this week, requesting information on how the Education Department plans to protect the rights of students with disabilities amid layoffs, cuts, and restructuring. The department’s recent “reduction in force” will “critically damage your ability to fulfill your statutory duties to students with disabilities by eliminating nearly half of your workforce,” the senators wrote.
A survey of 1,500 11- to 13-year-old Floridians found that having their own phone was actually associated with a number of positive outcomes, including higher self-confidence and even spending more time in person with friends. However, posting frequently on social media was associated with problems like an increased risk of anxiety and depression.
Meanwhile, a recent poll conducted for Common Sense Media asked kids and parents what factors “make families strong.” For kids, the top answer by far was “parents who listen to their kids,” followed by “parents accepting their children no matter what.” (For parents, the top answer was quality education.)
My little kid and I have been reading The Rock From the Sky, a 2021 picture book about a big rock that falls out of the sky, and how some small animals react to it. I choose to see this as a story about anxiety, the impossibility of predicting the future, and also, of course, the ever-present danger of falling objects.
The Common Sense Media poll got me thinking about what kids and parents want and need from one another. If you’re a parent, what do you think your kids most want from you right now? What do they need (which could be very different)? And for everyone: as a kid, what did you most want and need from the people who raised you? What do you think kids today need most from adults right now? Let me know at [email protected]!
