President Biden has implemented numerous education policies denounced by Republicans who hope former President Trump would sweep them away if he returns to the White House, but some could prove more unyielding than others.
Biden reforms on everything from student loans to Title IX could be on the chopping block in a second Trump administration.
“We’ve seen this before: The regulatory ping-pong between administrations is something the higher ed community probably expects at this point,” said Stephanie Hall, senior director of higher education policy at the Center for American Progress. “I do think alarm bells are going off, though, maybe more so … under precedented times, because there’s a number of routes” that can be taken to overturn Biden’s policies.
One of the biggest potential fights would be over the new income-driven student loan repayment program called Saving on Valuable Education (SAVE). The first part of the SAVE plan, which made the income protected from payments rise from 150 percent above the federal poverty guidelines to 225 percent, went into effect last year. The second part, which had previously been set for this month, included slashing monthly payments from 10 percent of discretionary income to 5 percent for undergraduate loans.
Republicans have denounced the plan numerous times, with several red states challenging the initiative in court. Judges have swung back and forth on blocking certain parts of the SAVE plan, and one group of Republican-led states has appealed for an emergency ruling from the Supreme Court.
“If there’s a second Trump administration, there’s a number of routes they could go to eliminate the SAVE plan,” Hall said.
A Trump administration would also almost certainly go after the new Title IX regulations that include protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Multiple states have sued over the Biden’s administration Title IX changes, which allow transgender students into their preferred locker rooms, restrooms and sports teams.
A reelected President Trump would almost certainly stop defending those reforms in court, potentially allowing the state challenges to do his work for him.
“The department, the administration, can choose to stop defending regulations. That isn’t super common, but it does happen, and it is an option,” Reid Setzer, director of government affairs at the Education Trust, said.
“That can happen, but it is complicated, and still gives less control to the administration. They’re still going to be subject to what a judge or appellate system or Supreme Court wants to do,” he added.
The new Title IX changes also rolled back some Trump-era policies that required a stricter evidentiary standard in regard to sexual assault or harassment on campuses.
Changing Title IX from the inside would require a lengthy reform process, including a public comment period.
In the case of higher education issues such as the SAVE plan, a new head of the Department of Education would have to start the negotiated rulemaking process, which would require getting stakeholders together and having multiple meetings.
Both processes could take months or more than a year to complete and require exorbitant resources to accomplish.
“You’ll see that oftentimes higher ed changes won’t really be consummated, finally, until the latter half of a four-year presidential term because of this process,” Setzer said.
Trump has not indicated his thoughts on the SAVE plan, but has been steadfast against student loan forgiveness after the Supreme Court struck down Biden’s universal debt relief, celebrating the decision.
If Republicans can accomplish a government trifecta in November, the easiest route for Trump to undo at least some of Biden’s policies would be through the Congressional Review Act (CRA), which allows lawmakers to review and overturn government regulations.
Republicans attempted to use the CRA to stop Biden’s $20,000 student debt relief effort last year, but were not able to get the necessary votes. Even if they had, Biden would have vetoed the move.
“If there’s unified conservative Republican control of government, it would enable that majority to remove regulations promulgated, roughly speaking, in the last six to seven months of this current administration,” Setzer said.
“It can do that via a 50-vote threshold in the Senate. And this technique, this method, was employed three times by congressional Democrats in 2021 for Trump rules, and then it was employed several more times, I want to say 10 or 11 times, by the Republican majority in 2017. So when you’re an incoming administration, if you have that as a potential option that clears the desk, so to speak, it requires you to do less,” he added.
While big swings in policies aren’t as common due to the time-consuming process to undo a prior administration’s work, experts say the impact of any attempted changes should not be ignored.
“I think what we’ve been trying to focus on is what this means for students. I think they’re going to be the ones who pay the price, whether it’s student loan borrowers, who are going to see their bills go up […] they’re going to go up by the thousands for typical borrowers if the SAVE plan is eliminated,” Hall said. “That’s going to hit people in the pocketbook.”