The U.S. Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon issued a letter to university presidents and board members to reaffirm their commitment to academic excellence and to outline reforms aimed at restoring confidence in higher education.
McMahon asked every postsecondary institution to publish a public statement by 2026 detailing how it plans to implement reforms to “restore public trust in higher education.” The letter says American higher education has shaped leaders and advanced civic life and cultivated economic opportunity.
McMahon argued that many colleges and universities have drifted from those principles, contributing to a decline in public confidence in the nation’s higher education system. Citing a Gallup poll that shows confidence in American higher education has fallen to 38%, down from 57% in 2015.
“It’s no surprise that public confidence in higher education is at an all-time low: tuition is out of control, admissions processes are opaque, and too many colleges have abandoned free inquiry and viewpoint diversity. We are encouraged that prominent institutional leaders have welcomed this call for bold reforms,” Department of Education spokesperson Ellen Keast told The Center Square. “The changes urged in the letter will go a long way toward restoring public confidence in higher education and strengthening the federal partnership.”
The department identified seven priorities for reform: transparency and merit in admissions, free speech and open inquiry, intellectual pluralism and academic vitality, affordability, value, and student outcomes, academic standards and rigor in the age of AI, safeguarding research integrity from malign foreign influence and prioritizing American interests.
McMahon’s letter points to examples of institutions that have acknowledged concerns about higher education. Yale’s Committee on Trust in Higher Education published a report this spring examining declining public trust in academia and recommending reforms.
The presidents of Vanderbilt University and Washington University in St. Louis argued that the humanities and humanistic social sciences have become increasingly politicized.
“Every field we have studied shows some signs of the pathologies sketched above: a deterioration in scholarly standards fueled by the substitution of political criteria for properly scholarly criteria in the assessment of research and a more general repudiation of long-standing ideals of rigor and objectivity,” the report stated.
This action follows the various lawsuits and investigations the Trump administration has launched into higher education institutions over alleged violations of federal law, including cases involving race-based admissions policies and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
The Center Square reached out to the University of California system and Yale University for comment but did not receive a response.