“I’m considering taking $3 billion in grants from a very anti-Semitic Harvard at Harvard and handing it over to the trade schools across our land,” President Trump said in a major and frequent turmoil over the truth socialization last month. It’s a transparent and cynical strategy: one part of the education community with another educational community (rich trade schools with poor “trade schools”) and watching the teacher’s basis. But there is no doubt that this strategy is only effective in institutional, elite or other bait.
We are not sure what the president of “trade school” means, but suspect he refers to the country’s more than 1,000 community and technical colleges, an institution that educates about a third of all our undergraduates. We both spent our careers more investments in these universities, including through workforce programs, a cross-sea initiative that helped build a better path between education and good jobs six years ago.
(According to records: Trump’s allegations are Harvard being a “very anti-Semitic” ring from the man who presided over the Holocaust in Mar-a-Lago. It’s certainly unrecognizable to us – two of us spent more than 40 years between us in Harvard students, faculty and faculty, faculty and faculty.
If Trump actually cares about funding “trade schools,” he will first tell Congress leaders to strip the provision in what he calls a big beauty bill, which raises the credit hours of Pell Grant’s qualification. Community colleges serve most low-income students, most of whom must work while in school. The proposed change proposed by the House, not included in the Senate version of the settlement bill, could cut aid for 400,000 students per year and force many to withdraw.
But the threat is not only in the proposed legislation: Community colleges are already the goal of Trump’s politically motivated goal. Just last month, for example, his administration revoked awards from six technology centers created by bipartisan legislation to promote innovation, job creation and national security. Among them are projects in Alabama, Community College will expand biotechnology training; in Idaho, Community College plans to train aerospace workers; in Vermont, Community College is preparing a new semiconductor workforce.
And the incision is more than that. If the president really seriously supports the skilled technical workforce in the United States, he will expand rather than intuition, such as the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technology Education Program, which provides $1.5 billion in funding to more than 500 communities and technical colleges to develop cutting-edge training in areas such as advanced manufacturing and robotics. Instead, his budget recommends a 55% reduction in NSF, including a substantial reduction in education and workforce programs. The president’s budget also recommends eliminating all Perkins Act funding for community colleges (about $400 million) and limiting funds to middle schools and high schools, thus cutting the major support sources of federal support for technical training in middle schools.
If Trump passes “trade schools” that means education trade work, his hostility to immigrants undermines the students he claims to support. 8% of community college students are not U.S. citizens and some campuses have higher stakes. They are as crucial to the future of the United States as researchers at Harvard University. In 2024, immigrants accounted for more than 30% of construction workers, with 20% of American manufacturing workers. Close the door to the United States will not hurt universities: it will undermine our ability to build, build and compete.
Last week, we signed a friend-of-the-court summary with more than 12,000 Harvard alumni, pledging our commitment to defending not only Harvard but the wider range of higher education businesses from bullying attacks by the Trump administration. Over the past month, we have also spoken with community college leaders from all over the country, and we have covered their work in our 2023 book, The hidden economic engine of the United States. Without exception, these leaders expressed deep concern and understanding that if Harvard, by all its resources, could be forced to succumb to the will of a tyrannical government, would the institutions with lower resources have to defend academic freedom and maintain independence from government?
If elite universities, communities and technical colleges are united, we can defend not only education, but democracy itself. Harvard has no choice but to gain a foothold in this unprecedented attack on independence and higher education. Unlike more vulnerable victims (immigrants, civil servants, U.S. International Development, trans communities), Harvard has the resources to fight back. Ultimately, its rights, as well as rights against others, may be proven by the court. But during this period, many unnecessary damage will be caused to the lives of affected people and institutions. Most Americans may not often talk about abstractions such as academic freedom, due process, and the fate of democracy. But when they see a person, they know a bully.
