From Wharton to War: American Higher-Ed in the Trump Administration
Donald Trump at the U.S. Military Academy Graduation during his first term as president. Photo courtesy of Flickr.
Trump’s leadership psychology has been a central focus of this column since I began writing for the Columbia Political Review. It started with Trump’s federal funding cuts and tirade against the bureaucracy, the rapid decline of America’s national image following the dismantling of USAID, and the White House’s aggressive personnel restructuring in the DOJ that subverted local politics in New York City. It is fitting, then, that this next installment takes up the question of higher education and the federal government’s unprecedented attacks against universities around the nation. In the past, I have written emphatically about the need for administrators to reassert their institution’s values in the face of Trump’s bigotry. It is my firm belief—and perhaps the conviction of others—that there is an urgent need for universities to double-down on the type of democracy that makes higher education possible. Given Columbia’s recent capitulation to some of the federal government’s demands, the need to preserve academic freedom has never been greater. But I want to be quite obstinate about my commitment to originality and non-repetition; I do not wish to rehash the sentiments—expressed earlier—that most of Columbia’s community, and student body especially, seems to share. Instead, I seek to explicate the perplexing psychological factors that might explain why our (Ivy-educated) President and his allies would go about attacking the institutions from which they have personally benefited.
Readers of the Review might at this point expect a thesis statement or outline for the kind of analysis that I am about to provide. But accepting any broad claim, structure, or framework about Trump’s political psychology toward higher education would defy logic itself. While it is possible to piece together an organized behavioral theory, I argue that doing so would try to explain away Trump’s inherent irrationality by using theory. In other words, no deductive principle of behavioral science or political psychology can lead to the type of meaningful conclusions I am willing to accept in my writing. Scholars of political psychology might recommend the Madman theory to explain the type of behavior many have come to expect from the nation’s commander-in-chief. This might offer a framework to analyze Trump’s psychology, but only in limited contexts like international affairs. Even still, scholars disagree that such a theory is applicable to Trump’s second term and, in the rare cases that it might be, it only works in a limited number of cases. Therefore, in undertaking a discussion about Trump’s relationship to higher education, I favor an inductive approach instead. Consequently, I will step through a few important perspectives and considerations to create an image of Trump’s rationale that we might interpret as motivation for his actions.
It should be noted, however, that the type of psychological impetus for Trump’s actions against higher education is different from the political posturing he is using to apply his influence. Ben Olinsky, Senior Vice President for Structural Reform and Governance at the Center for American Progress (CAP), made clear that this posturing relies on the weaponization of antisemitism. Olinsky suggests that Trump has moved beyond using the term as a mere yardstick to measure the severity of student misconduct. Rather, it has become a method to systematically crack down on free speech and dissent, according to an article in Rolling Stone. It also provides enough rationale for Trump to wield the type of sweeping funding cuts seen here on Columbia’s campus. On March 7th, the Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism announced the cancellation of $400 million in federal grants while considering stop work orders on $51.4 million in contracts.
But Trump’s federal cuts began reaching other universities as well. Trump froze $175 million at the University of Pennsylvania during late March and $210 million at Princeton University during early April. Around that time, Northwestern and Cornell Universities had a combined $1.79 billion frozen by the federal government. The White House is also expected to withhold nearly $510 million at Brown University, according to an article in the Brown Daily Herald. So far, Harvard University has been one of the only universities to explicitly say no to Trump’s policy demands that, if not agreed to, would cost the institution around $9 billion in funding. They went so far as to file a lawsuit against Trump and his administration arguing the unconstitutionality and wrongdoing of their threats against the school. Harvard’s dissent acknowledges the type of draconian bargaining that the White House is using to write off antisemitism as a reason for intervention. But Princeton University President Christopher L. Eisgruber suggests that even if events at universities—like Columbia—raise concern about antisemitism on campus, “the government can respond to those concerns without infringing on academic freedom.” So, what on earth would motivate Trump to carry out such drastic attacks on higher learning?
The timing of his actions is opportune, and with national discourse focusing on rising antisemitism on college campuses, Trump is perfectly positioned to attack universities using federal funding as leverage. Justifying his approach by outwardly expressing a desire to crack down on antisemitism is perhaps a strategy to implement what Trump wanted all along: the downfall of higher education. But why would he be inclined to seek such action against the institutions that benefit him and so many others like him? It is well known that Trump transferred from Fordham University in New York to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania to complete his college education. In that sense alone, Trump benefited quite substantially from the education and prestige of places like Wharton. It is perplexing, seemingly, that he would be so eager to break the very institution that helped to educate and propel him beyond the gates and into America’s business sphere. This might be why the University of Pennsylvania is at risk of losing the lowest amount of federal funding relative to its peers: $175 million is a far cry from the $400 million that Columbia stands to lose or even the $9 billion at Harvard. Even if adjusted for endowment size, the federal government seems to be pulling its punches against Wharton and University of Pennsylvania as a whole.
That discrepancy in the amount of federal funding being threatened could be explained by three things:
On the one hand, it might show Trump’s attachment to Wharton. Unwilling to gut his alma mater, Trump’s choice to sanction a smaller amount of funding cuts might reflect his attachment to the University itself. He has found numerous opportunities to tout his affiliation to the school throughout his time in office, seemingly to underscore his appreciation for Penn and his time at Wharton. But to buy this theory about Trump’s fondness for Penn, we would have to assume that Trump is capable of the type of empathy that allows him to see himself in relation to Wharton and the University of Pennsylvania. The American public would have to believe that Trump sees his education as more than a diploma that he paid for and, rather, as an earnest attachment to what Wharton and Penn stands for as an institution. It requires a type of empathy and compassion for the institution that is hard to reconcile with Trump’s current behavior. And if his brutal immigration track record is any indication, I would argue that this empathy is overstated.
On the other hand, given his current policy positions, many would doubt that Wharton had any influence at all on the President. His approach to tariffs is a perfect example. An analysis by the American Enterprise Institute says that the equation Trump and his administration used to create those tariffs “does not make economic sense.” Seeing that Trump learned very little—if at all—from an institution like Penn, his feelings for the university might be overshadowed by other things. Trump’s rebuke of transgender inclusivity in sports at Penn could instead be motivating his hatred towards his alma mater, an ire he is willing to wield having so little to show for his time there. Then we have to wonder how Trump is “pricing” his cuts to higher educational institutions. Is antisemitism a more punishable “offense” than transgender inclusivity? Is that why Columbia is facing more federal funding penalties than Penn? Asking such questions means that we have to wonder what kind of wrongdoings Harvard committed to get slapped with $2 billion in federal sanctions. Is its portfolio of ground-breaking scientific research even more dangerous and blasphemous to the Trump administration than Penn and Columbia’s “crimes?” It is a concerning thought, but one that—believe it or not—makes slightly more sense than the final theory outlined below.
Finally, a third theory presents a much more petty resolution to Trump’s federal funding tirade. About 25 years ago, as Columbia was developing its Manhattanville campus, then-President Lee C. Bollinger declined to acquire real estate held by Donald Trump in favor of constructing the new campus closer to Morningside Heights. The amount Trump asked for? About the same amount he is trying to cut from Columbia today: $400 million for the desperately-needed real estate needed to expand the university’s campus. Trump also stipulated that the deal would require Columbia to rename its school after him; but such a demand would require a gift that Trump was unwilling to give. Now, his move to take back $400 million from Columbia seems more like revenge for a missed business deal than anything concretely rooted in politics. If that is true, Trump’s antagonism to Columbia seems more like petty corporate posturing rather than proper presidential politics.
If we buy the first theory, then Trump is acting on his empathy towards Wharton and withholding more drastic federal cuts to Wharton and the University of Pennsylvania. But if we buy the second theory about his ambivalence, we must wonder why the cuts are so small and even how they are determined in the first place. Former University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill resigned from her post back in December 2023 following concerns and controversies about antisemitism on campus. If the President’s crackdown against antisemitism is as concrete as he says, he would gain a fair amount of credibility by attacking Wharton and the Penn at large; slashing more than $175 million in federal funding would advance his position against antisemitism. Moreover, he would seek even more cuts to advance his anti-transgender stance—outlined in a January executive order—on Penn’s campus.
The case of Penn reveals Trump's nonsensical psyche and his motivation for attacking higher education. There is no reason why he should be going easy on his alma mater––he obviously does not have a deep attachment to the education he “received” there, and controversies plagued the school back in 2023. Penn’s embrace of transgender equality brings even more perplexity to this act of interpreting Trump’s psyche. Yet he is withholding a significantly smaller portion of funding from Penn all the same. We, the public, must do the impossible task of reconciling Trump’s “soft side” for Wharton, his lack of any evident education from the school, his position against antisemitism on college campuses, vehement decries against transgender inclusivity, and the political credibility he would gain from being more aggressive. It is an impossible task. But it might reveal an unexpected conclusion. Despite these competing priorities, the case of Penn might show Trump’s hollow, rather than complex, leadership psychology. If there’s no logical reason to justify the conflicting motivations that the President is juggling to cut federal funding to Penn, then why should we assume that Trump’s psyche contains any logic at all? It stands to reason, then, that he might be more widely influenced by his peers and allies rather than a personal credo.
Given that fact, the question of Trump’s cabinet becomes a natural next step of this inquiry. This column investigated each member of Trump’s second-term cabinet, their educational background, and the type of school—public or private—that they attended for their undergraduate and graduate education. A similar analysis with Biden’s cabinet was performed. Results were computed as a rounded percent of the total cabinet membership attending private and public institutions (keeping in mind that fractional degrees are extraneous). Beyond this public versus private distinction, no other metrics were used to distinguish types of schools from one another. Doing so would deal arbitrarily with different ranking schemes and an inability to control for exogenous factors (i.e. changing rankings over time or the rise and fall of prestige). The results show a drastically different educational landscape at the highest levels of American governance.
In Trump’s current term, less than half (43%, from Table 1) of confirmed cabinet members announced on the White House website attended private universities for their undergraduate education. This number was slightly higher for graduate schools. Of the members of Trump’s second cabinet that attended graduate school, just over half went to private institutions. The numbers for Biden’s administration are starkly different. Seventy percent of members in Biden’s cabinet attended private institutions for college and of those that acquired a graduate degree, 83% of them did this training at a private institution. This analysis gives important results pertaining to two main metrics: (1) the amount of education capital—or specialized training beyond college—within the highest levels of US governance and (2) the extent to which private institutions contribute to that capital.
Relative to the Biden administration, the amount of college degrees in the US cabinet that were attained at private colleges dropped the most compared to the other variables. The data show that less than half of Trump’s cabinet attained college degrees at private institutions and shows that a much larger portion of the current cabinet owes their educational capital and skill set to public colleges. A similar story can be said for graduate institutions across administrations. While a whopping 83% of Biden’s inner circle did graduate school at a private institution, the same can be said for only 56% of Trump’s current cabinet. This is a smaller relative difference between administrations, representing a 31% decrease in graduate degrees in the US cabinet attained at private universities. Still, further research and investigations into the composition of the US cabinet since the first Obama administration in 2009 reveals even more interesting results.
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the Obama administrations had some of the most highly-educated cabinet members relative to other administrations that followed. Obama’s cabinet in both his terms had some of the largest numbers of privately educated college graduates and led in his second term with the most number of private graduate schools represented. Interestingly, Trump’s first term saw the highest percentage of privately-educated college graduates among all other administrations, leading with 82%. The fact that number dropped to around just half of that during his second term (Chart 1) speaks volumes to how his current policy against private universities and higher education in general might have precipitated. Seeing such steep drops among the representation of private universities in his new cabinet, Trump would be much less motivated to empower those institutions by keeping funding alive. Antisemitism and Trump’s war against leftist politics—politics now highly represented among universities in general—might be enough for him to justify his volatile stance against these types of schools.
These data motivate new conclusions about the Trump administration and his personal attacks on institutions of higher learning. Trump as an individual might have a completely illogical internal approach for his attacks against private universities around the nation, but his cabinet says otherwise. With a smaller number of members owing their education to private institutions, there is very little personal motivation for cabinet members to stand against Trump’s attacks. Plummeting markets and widespread consumer uncertainty following tariffs eventually forced Trump to change direction given some internal pressures. Those were economic impacts that ignored the type of educational differences—between private and public institutions—taken up in this column. No such stopgaps seem to exist for Trump’s advisors when it comes to the federal cuts to private colleges and universities around the nation. With relatively little representation of these institutions in the highest echelons of the US government, the White House gains nothing if they soften their stance.
The analysis in this column shows two things at the same time. First, to levy the funding cuts against other universities while keeping—intentionally or not—Penn in a less perilous position, Trump must triangulate between way too many conflicting motivations simultaneously. Even for the most organized person, such a task would be unthinkable. This means that he must be delegating some of that work to his peers who also reinforce his nonsensical logic. The lack of private university representation among the US Cabinet during Trump’s current administration compared to Biden supports a strong conclusion that their lack of engagement might be motivating their ongoing attacks against higher learning in America. Even if this analysis only looks at Trump’s second term, the underrepresentation of private colleges and universities in government must be making some sort of impact.
Many readers might be skeptical of these conclusions. But I offer that this perspective is one of several that tries to understand Trump’s psyche and motivations for attacking higher learning so fiercely. It adds to my previous work that unpacks why Trump’s influence and rise to power has jeopardized New York City, imperiled our national image, and unsettled government efficiency. It allows the public to more clearly see and understand just how crazed our new Commander-in-Chief is, despite his best efforts to say otherwise. But another possibility exists whereby nothing and nobody can explain or interpret the rationale behind Trump’s decision-making. That would mean that no motivation other than chaotic tyranny exists to explain why our federal government is waging a financial war against American colleges and universities. To entertain such a reality would be to contradict the experts who argue that our nation is heading toward authoritarianism by admitting that our government is already there. I hope for our sake that there is still time to change course before it is too late.
Ishaan Barrett (CC ‘26) is a junior studying urban studies, political science, and Arabic language and culture. His previous writing has been featured in URBAN Magazine at Columbia GSAPP, the Harvard Urban Review, the Barnard-Columbia Urban Review, the Columbia Policy Journal, and the Columbia Daily Spectator. He can be reached at i.barrett@columbia.edu.
Edited by Cecily Bush, Henry Michaelson, and Adam Kinder.