Trump targeting college accreditation process in new executive order

CNN
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President Donald Trump is set to take aim at the college accreditation process with a new executive order Wednesday, a White House official said, his latest move to exact control over America’s higher education institutions.

The order, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, targets the federal government’s process for deciding what colleges and universities can access billions of dollars in federal student loans and Pell grants – a significant source of indirect revenue for many of those institutions.

The executive order asks the secretary of education to “hold higher education accreditors accountable including through denial, monitoring, suspension, or termination for poor performance or violations to the federal Civil Rights Act,” the White House official told CNN.

It also “directs the attorney general and the secretary of education to investigate and terminate unlawful discrimination by American higher education institutions, including law schools and medical schools,” the official said.

The action was spearheaded by Trump’s Domestic Policy Council, the official said, as part of ongoing efforts by deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and others to advance the president’s agenda on higher education.

It comes a week after the Trump administration announced a sweeping $2.2 billion funding freeze on Harvard University, setting up a major clash over academic freedom, federal funding and campus oversight.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon will be present in the Oval Office for the 5 p.m. order signing, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.