States Are Taking Up Higher-Ed Reform

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | May 14, 2025 | Scott Yenor

[karpov]

The Trump administration’s flurry of action on education reform creates space for states to chart their own paths. Efforts to abolish the Department of Education aim to “return education to the states.”

Yet most conservative states have mostly been timid in embracing and building a better future for higher education. This is partly a fault of imagination, partly a lack of will.

Florida led the way in both imagination and will. Many acts of the DeSantis administration presaged those of the Trump administration. Florida banned DEI offices, while the Trump administration is using national civil-rights laws to root them out. Florida acted against antisemitism on campus in 2024; the Trump administration has taken the battle national. Florida has been taking on the accreditation cartel, requiring its state institutions of higher education to switch accreditors; the Trump folks aim to loosen up the cartel with national power.

Florida has used the sovereignty afforded under the federal system to chart its own course in higher education. It has regulated schools of education under its power to certify teachers, thus attempting to rid teacher-preparation programs of critical theories. Florida has three unique centers dedicated to bucking today’s academic consensus, including the Hamilton Center at the University of Florida, the flagship among new academic centers around the country. Gov. DeSantis has placed ideological allies on boards of trustees so that university and college leaders are more likely to support his agenda. More sympathetic presidents have emerged in some universities and colleges, though hardly all. The New College experience stands out as a singular example of conservative institutional takeover.

Florida has also reformed general education. Under Florida law, administrators in the State University System and the Florida College System removed courses infused with identity politics from the list of general-education requirements

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TOPICS: Education
KEYWORDS: college; florida; highereducation; texas

[Socon-Econ]

Great post — with good news and action-oriented proposals instead of venting.

[Savage Beast]

"most conservative states have mostly been timid in embracing and building a better future for higher education. This is partly a fault of imagination, partly a lack of will"

..and partly because those in authority lack the intelligence and courage to resist the brainwashing inherent in the decadence of Western Civilization in America.

[Twotone]

State university systems need to de-fund ethnic centers, women’s centers & LGBTQ centers, too. Stop with all the “safe” places lefties have to have.

[Chgogal]

Bookmark

[Jacquerie]

Love my Fl gov and legislature!