Higher education has not played a starring role in this year’s tumultuous presidential race. But change is on the horizon for the sector, no matter which party secures the White House, Congress, and statehouses.
As the votes are tallied, here are four questions for higher-ed watchers.
Will the diploma divide widen?
In recent elections, the college degree has sharply divided the electorate, with college graduates more often voting for Democrats and people without a college degree voting Republican. That’s likely to be the case again, said Matt Grossmann, a political-science professor at Michigan State University and director of its Institute for Public Policy and Social Research.
Former President Donald J. Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance has famously called professors “the enemy,” and some Republican lawmakers are cracking down on what they see as liberal indoctrination on campuses.
“As the diploma divide becomes more well known to the public, it is likely to even further our conflicts over higher-education institutions,” Grossmann said.
The divide is particularly pronounced among white voters. The Pew Research Center reports that there is no major difference in partisan affiliation of Hispanic voters with or without bachelor’s degrees, and Black voters overwhelmingly vote Democrat no matter their education level.
Over all, educational attainment is on the rise, and Democrats will be eager to see if this results in a net gain. In recent years, the Democratic Party has been gaining college graduates but also losing voters who did not attend college.
Voters without college degrees had been gravitating toward Republican candidates before Trump’s ascent, Grossmann said.
“The trend that is more specific to Trump,” he said, “is actually repelling college graduates to the Democratic Party.”
What will college leaders say, if anything?
Yet again, college leaders must consider whether and how to talk publicly about the election’s aftermath. Those decisions will be closely watched this year.
This election cycle is a litmus test in an era when institutional neutrality has come into vogue. Many college leaders have watched their words carefully in 2024 after some presidents came under scrutiny for their statements — or their silence — after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel last year. Since then, two-dozen colleges have vowed to not comment on social or political issues of the day.
Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill, director of the Campus Free Expression Project, said she would be surprised if college presidents made statements about the election’s outcome.
“Higher education has become a partisan issue, and a statement that decried or celebrated the outcome of the presidential election would exacerbate the partisan divide of higher education,” Pfeffer Merrill said. “That would risk further decline in confidence in higher education, which, frankly, the sector cannot afford.”
Remaining nonpartisan while also supporting students can be a tricky line for college presidents to walk. The past two elections prompted a range of responses from colleges, many of which centered on the campus reaction rather than the elected candidate. In 2016, presidents sent messages that promoted civil dialogue, acknowledged students’ anxieties, and condemned hateful acts. In 2020, when the election took days to call, college leaders had to navigate an interim of uncertainty.
A post-election university statement carries different implications depending on one’s view of institutional speech. To some, commenting on the election’s outcome could chill speech or constrain academic freedom. To others, like Jennifer Ruth, silence on this year’s election signals a lack of intellectual courage at a time when the autonomy of institutions, students, and faculty members is under “extreme, targeted attack.”
“By taking a position of neutrality, they’re taking a position of compliance,” said Ruth, a professor of film history at Portland State University who has co-authored books about free speech and academic freedom.
Will there be protests?
Colleges are also bracing for potential unrest. Campuses across the country erupted in protests following Trump’s election in 2016 and have grappled with ongoing demonstrations related to the war in Gaza over the past year.
The turbulence has become a contentious issue in American politics: The Republican Party vowed to “deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again” in its 2024 policy platform.
“There’s a lot of pressure on colleges to get this right, obviously,” said Kevin Goldberg, a lawyer and First Amendment specialist at the Freedom Forum. “But it’s not the first time they faced it, so they can get to the right answer by being prepared.”
After pro-Palestinian encampments spiraled out of control in the spring, many colleges worked to update or introduce new protest policies. Goldberg said he believed many of the new protocols were an overreaction, creating more confusion and curbing free-speech rights.
Mylien Duong, senior director of research and innovation at the Constructive Dialogue Institute, said the climate of political violence in the United States in 2024 is heightened from what it was in 2020 and 2016.
“It is not a typical thing in a democracy for there to be assassination attempts against political candidates,” she said, referring to the two assassination attempts made against Trump in recent months. “I think it just speaks to how far we have come in terms of the heat and the rhetoric that is in our nation.”
Will college students vote?
Historically, college-age voters have been viewed as a disengaged part of the electorate. That changed in the 2020 election, when 50 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds voted, according to an analysis from Tufts University.
But some experts say the youth vote in 2024 is uncertain, amid a wave of new voting laws and frustrations tied to the war in Gaza.
“Young people are among the largest potential block of eligible voters, and the incredible variability in their actual turnout rates means that they definitely can make a difference, particularly in those states where it’s going to be close,” said D. Sunshine Hillygus, a professor of political science at Duke University who co-authored a book about youth voter turnout.
Stricter voting rules can disproportionately affect youth turnout compared to other groups, Hillygus said. New restrictions have been enacted across at least 30 states since 2020, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.
These laws, like two in Idaho that prohibit the use of student IDs as an acceptable form of voter identification, can be particularly confusing for first-time voters, Hillygus said.
Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, known as FIRE, sent letters to dozens of colleges in key swing states over allegations that some students were threatened with discipline when doing political canvassing.
Although young voters tend to be more progressive, some students are turning to third-party candidates who are more outspoken about Palestinian rights, like Jill Stein, or they may not vote at all — posing a significant challenge for the Harris campaign.
Hillygus said early indicators suggest youth turnout will not exceed the 2020 rates. But young women appear particularly motivated to vote, she added, driven by concerns over reproductive rights.
“There does appear to be a large push of young people saying, ‘I see other issues at stake that are important enough to still cast a ballot,’” Hillygus said.
