What the Trump presidency may mean for private higher education

Perhaps a whole lot:

For the for-profit sector, its evisceration by the Department of Education likely will abate.  Too late to save Corinthian Colleges and ITT, whose access to the the federal loan cornucopia being cut off killed them dead.

But Apollo Group will now prosper.  DOE has been sitting on its request to sell out to private investors, who have offered something like $8.00 a share.  If you can get Apollo stock for around $6, you should be all right if the sale dies anyway.  And you likely will make a tidy windfall if, as I expect, DOE will give the deal a nod next year.  

On the non-profit side, expect the current crusade against sexual assault to peter out.  The downward pressure of the accrediting agencies to get tougher is also likely to relax.  After all, Mr. Trump apparently enjoys sexually assaulting women himself, and Trump University hardly had any academic standards to speak of.

A Trump labor board will once again lower the bar on decertification of faculty unions.  The Obama board raised it by making  participation in financial decisions the sina qua non of the faculty-as-managers test ala the 1980 Yeshiva University case.  Since the financial arena is where faculty tend to have the least influence, this made withdrawal of recognition a whole lot tougher than it had been.  Additionally, a Scalia clone on the Supreme Court means Yeshiva will be reaffirmed if a case makes it to SCOTUS.

Lastly, it's unlikely that Mr. Obama's $12 billion promised investment in community colleges won't happen.  Whatever Trump, the consummate entrepreneur, does with higher education, it's likely to have a private flavor to it with opportunities for the likes of himself to cash in.