What the presidential candidates have done on education – and where they stand

When it comes to education policy, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris not only have largely different visions, but also different track records.

Harris calls for a broader role for the federal government and greater investment to improve educational opportunities. Trump is focused on reducing the federal role in education and relying on states, localities and parents to make educational decisions and investments.

At the same time, there are some commonalities, including the growing importance of vocational and technical training. What follows is a look back at what the two candidates accomplished in the world of education during their time in office.

To higher education

Candidates share concerns about the high cost of higher education. However, they have different ideas about how to address these costs. As California attorney general, Harris secured a $1.1 billion judgment against Corinthian Colleges for false advertising. The ruling provides refunds to students who were misled by claims about placement rates, program offerings and military affiliation.

While Harris has accused for-profit colleges of fraud, Trump has focused on encouraging innovation by reducing regulation and expanding alternatives to traditional higher education. This includes facilitating accreditation of online, religious and for-profit institutions.

As part of the Biden administration, Harris has sought student loan debt relief. She has also expressed strong support for expanding access to the Public Service Lending Program. This is because she co-sponsored debt-free college legislation as a U.S. Senator.

The government faced challenges to the constitutionality of the loan forgiveness initiative on the grounds that the president did not have the authority under existing law to unilaterally cancel debt. Opponents also said any debt relief would have to be approved by Congress. Critics also say loan forgiveness does not address the root causes of the rising cost of higher education. Loan forgiveness could lead to further price increases if institutions believed students would care less about college costs in anticipation of debt forgiveness.

Trump created two panels to advise the federal government on workforce development and training needs: a council of federal officials and an advisory board of business leaders.

In 2019, Trump signed a bipartisan bill that established $250 million in permanent annual federal funding for historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), which previously had to be renewed annually.

Harris has called for reducing degree requirements for federal jobs. She also promoted job training programs as an alternative to incarceration as part of her Back on Track initiative as California's attorney general from 2011 to 2017.

As attorney general and then-U.S. senator from California, she called for greater control of for-profit college advertising and debt relief for former for-profit college students. She also supported expanding federal aid to public and nonprofit colleges, including free community colleges and large grants to HBCUs.

On K-12 education

The 2024 Trump campaign platform calls for sweeping changes to K-12 education policy. These include universal school choice and greater parental control over schools, which would mean parents across the country could use education dollars to fund private schools through vouchers or tax credits if they wish. It is also characterized by a drastically reduced federal role in education. In fact, Trump wants to abolish the US Department of Education. Many of these plans, such as direct parental election of school leaders, are unlikely to be implemented because schools in the United States are primarily under state and local control.

As part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, Trump expanded 529 college savings plans to allow parents to save up to $10,000 per year tax-free for K-12 private school tuition.

As president, Trump made several other proposals that could foreshadow his future plans. These proposals include creating a $5 billion federal tax credit for private school tuition, cutting the budget for the U.S. Department of Education in annual budget requests, and converting Title I allocations for additional services for students in poverty, such as e.g. B. smaller classes or tutoring a flat-rate subsidy to states.

The Biden administration has sought to expand federal funding for full-service community colleges. Full-service community schools are public schools that receive additional funding and staffing to meet students' academic needs as well as extracurricular factors, such as access to health care and healthy eating, that impact learning.

The Biden administration also expanded Title IX's sex discrimination protections to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

As a candidate for president in 2019, Vice President Harris also called for federal funding to give teachers an average pay raise of $13,500, although she has not made a similar demand this campaign.

As California attorney general, Harris made reducing chronic absenteeism a key issue when she led the anti-truancy initiative In School and On Track. This initiative included additional funding for districts and schools to use data to better understand and monitor absenteeism and communicate with parents about the importance of school attendance.

The data and communications-focused approach was an evolution of her original approach as San Francisco district attorney, which placed more emphasis on prosecuting parents for truancy.

About early childhood learning

Neither Trump nor Harris has a significant record of concrete action on early childhood education. Project 2025, rejected by Trump but written by close allies of the former president, calls for eliminating Head Start, a federally funded, locally run early childhood learning program that supports low-income families.

Although Trump made several similar proposals to cut funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant by about 5%, these were not enacted by Congress.

Harris has called for free, universal pre-kindergarten for all four-year-olds, but the Biden administration has failed to get her early childhood proposals through Congress.

Recent studies of some universal preschool programs have raised questions about how long academic gains from early childhood programs last. However, online, evidence from the highest-quality studies of high-quality early childhood programs in general and the Head Start program in particular suggests that they improve children's cognitive abilities.