If there is any single hub of Resistance to President Trump, the Republican Party, and conservative values generally, it is colleges and universities. In an election where virtually every demographic swung right, one of the few that went the other way was “postgraduate degree holders”—and it was already blue to begin with.

Trump has vowed to take on higher ed in his second term, claiming “The time has come to reclaim our once great educational institutions from the radical Left.” His “secret weapon”? The accreditation system.

So what would it actually look like for Trump to use this “secret weapon”? As with other potential policies, there is a maximalist version of what he could do that would require buy-in from Congress or lengthy court battles, and then there is a (more plausible) version that can be achieved through executive action alone. We’ll look at both below. But first, a few words on what accreditation is and why it has become a problem.

If you’re reading this newsletter, then you already know higher ed is a far-left hive of scum and villainy. Colleges and universities are the vanguard of progressive ideology, incubating all the insane beliefs that eventually escape the lab and spillover to the general population. And yet, they are also the last gasp of Boomer, 1970s leftism—as students demonstrated earlier this year when they staged sit-ins and built encampments in praise of terrorists.

At least some of these problems are encouraged by the current crop of higher education accreditors, which are NGOs recognized by the Department of Education to judge the quality of colleges and universities. If you want to set up a new school and get a slice of the roughly $115 billion federal student-aid pie, you don’t go directly to Uncle Sam; instead you go to a regional or national accrediting body, which will grill you on your curriculum, compliance with various laws, student resources, etc.

Problem is, these accrediting organizations are woke, just like the colleges and universities they oversee. For example, when UNC decided to open a new school committed to free speech and civil discourse (read, a “conservative” school), the head of UNC’s accrediting body, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), threatened to put the university “on warning” for a supposed violation of procedure. The American Bar Association, which accredits law schools, has similarly waged a cold war against George Mason’s conservative-leaning law school for its lack of racial diversity and other perceived sins.

Here's what Trump has to say about these accreditors:

The accreditors are supposed to ensure that schools are not ripping off students and taxpayers, but they have failed totally. When I return to the White House, I will fire the radical Left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist Maniacs and lunatics.

We will then accept applications for new accreditors who will impose real standards on colleges once again and once and for all.

So could he do this?

AEI’s ed-policy mastermind Max Eden concludes it would be difficult to “fire” accreditors without inviting years of painful litigation and revolt. But conservatives at Ed may still be able to prod accreditors into line, for example, by pressuring them to live up to their statutory requirement to assess colleges’ “recruiting and admissions practices” (which, at minimum, would seem to forbid the unconstitutional practice of affirmative action) and “student support services” (which could reasonably  be interpreted to encompass efforts to maintain order and protect students from protests and riots on campus). Conservatives could also dilute the accreditation cartel by encouraging and expediting applications for new accreditors that will actually focus on relevant metrics like student outcomes rather than DEI and other political missions.

If the Trump administration really wants to shake things up, it could also take ideas from some of the many excellent bills that conservative reformers have proposed to fix the accreditation system. For example:

• Jim Banks and Elise Stefanik’s No Tax Dollars for College Encampments Act, which would require accreditors to assess colleges and universities for their ability to prevent public disturbances and other threats to learning on campus.

• Mike Lee and Chip Roy’s HERO Act, which would empower states to recognize accreditors according to their own needs and standards.

• Marco Rubio’s Fairness in Higher Education Accreditation Act… prohibits accrediting bodies from considering affirmative action or DEI when accrediting IHEs.

• Josh Hawley’s proposal to create an alternative accreditation program for career and technical education programs, so more vocational and trade schools can receive Pell Grant funds.

These proposals have largely languished in a Congress that hasn’t reauthorized the Higher Education Act since 2008. The admin should consider whether any of their goals can be accomplished already using existing tools and authorities. If not, it should put muscle behind passing them into law.

Trump is right that accreditation is a “secret weapon” that subtly shapes higher education in the United States. Smashing the accreditation cartel and building something better will be difficult, but at least this time around the issue is getting the attention it deserves.

Policy News You Need To Know

#HigherEd — In other education news, Tufts is in hot water after its political-science chairman said he would no longer place interns in Rep. Seth Moulton’s office after Moulton expressed the most tepid of reservations about allowing dudes to play contact sports with his daughters. Tufts has now scrambled to refute the professors’ remarks. Ross Douthat quips: “Tufts decides, upon further reflection, that it is actually unenthusiastic about the taxation of university endowments.”

#Regulation — Yesterday we discussed what it would take to create the DOGE, and concluded that it would likely take the form of a presidential commission, which can be created by executive order, rather than an actual department, which cannot. It sounds like we were right. Trump just announced that the DOGE will provide advice from “outside of Government,” while working with the White House and OMB to “drive large scale structural reform.” So DOGE will not be a department, after all, but more akin to a blue-ribbon commission, and Elon and Vivek can get to work at once. Elon is teasing a “leaderboard for most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars,” which certainly sounds fun.

#Regulation —  Speaking of, Thomas Hochman at FAI has published a “State Permitting Playbook” to take on infrastructure-impeding regulations at the state level. Hochman notes that 75% of permitting requirements are at the state level. It’s not just NEPA.

#Immigration — Anna Giaritelli of the Washington Examiner previews the Trump administration’s deportation priorities, which include rounding up illegals with criminal records and increasing the tempo of worksite raids. 

#Chyna #Cybersecurity — Newsweek reports that “capture the flag” style hacking competitions are flourishing in China, often with state backing. This is raising alarms among national-security professionals, who believe China is incubating a new generation of hackers to penetrate Western networks. As the Salt Typhoon hack demonstrated, China already has formidable hacking skills. It’s only getting better. 

#Governance — The great Santi Ruiz has a piece in The Free Press about how incoming Trump officials can be effective as administrators. Our favorite tip: “find out what authorities you actually have.” That is, the stuff written down in statute. Reading is good for you. 

#Democrats — Matt Yglesias has expanded on his list of principles for “Common Sense Democrats,” which we discussed last week. Still missing from his manifesto? Any mention of immigration or the border. Seriously, we did Control+F. Nada.

#Mandate — Reihan Salam and Charles Lehman dissect last week’s election at City Journal. They conclude that Trump won by appealing to the “forgotten middle”—voters who “want their cities to be safer, their schools to be better, and their culture to be saner.” 

#Entitlements — Cato’s Romina Boccia has a new paper, the “Social Security Trust Fund Myth,” that demystifies how Social Security works—not by saving money for individual workers like a piggy bank, but by transferring income from today’s workers to yesterday’s. While this is true, this is also not what Americans believe about the program. For their entire working lives, they have accepted lower wages in return for the assurance that they were "paying into" (symbolically) a program that would, in exchange, ensure their economic security in old age. This is the promise that the political and cultural elites of America made to its population. And we don't think simply talking about how the trust fund is an accounting fiction will make the recipients of that promise feel better. Entitlements are unsustainable, but reform will mean giving recipients something (what that is, we don't know) in exchange for giving up something else.

#Media — The Blaze has been doing excellent work platforming new ideas and warning Americans what time it is, as the kids say. Now it has launched a quarterly magazine, Frontier, featuring articles by James Poulos, Matt Peterson, Curtis Yarvin, and other thought-provoking writers. Check it out here.