January 20 marked one year of Trump’s second term. A year ago, The Beacon predicted what his policies would mean for the future of education. Now, the nation is reflecting on all that has changed and what the future may hold.
One of the first actions Trump took when he entered office was to declare war against critical race theory. He reversed a Biden era policy that protected LGBTQ+ students under Title IX, and signed an executive order threatening to keep federal funding from schools that practiced “gender ideology extremism” and “critical race theory”.
The administration has also cut more than $1.5 billion in grants for training new teachers, which in many school systems meant the shutdown of programs that were graduating large numbers of new teachers of color.
Despite these actions, many at JR don’t feel the full effects of these new policies. Senior Maddie Woods said while she’s “been seeing lots of stuff in the news about it, [she hasn’t] really experienced it or felt the effects here.”
Trump has been targeting colleges and universities in particular, having sent letters to schools nationwide threatening to withhold funding for DEI initiatives. This policy has the potential to be solidified on a national level; the Supreme Court is hearing a case that could potentially ban transgender females from competing on female teams.
In the summer of 2025, the Trump administration forced former UVA President Jim Ryan to step down. It was the first time in American history that federal officials explicitly tied federal funding to the resignation of a university President due to their university initiatives.
Social Studies teacher Amy Collins said that she is “growing con continuously concerned about what academic integrity looks like because of the revisionist history and the shifting of education ‘curriculum’ that the administration is promoting.”
These changes have sparked concerns amongst seniors who are planning to go to college and are faced with the reality of a higher education system reshaped by Trump’s policies.
Senior Will Nichols said “I hate [the new policies] and they’ve pushed me to go to Europe.” However, the actions of the administration have been making his plans harder as he’s “been trying to get a visa for three months and still haven’t gotten it.”
Senior Benjamin O’Toole echoed a similar sentiment saying, “it makes me concerned for certain new programs like environmental science and policy not getting enough funding at the school im going to because its liberal arts.”
For seniors still on the fence about college, changes in higher ed policy are playing a roll in where they are planning to go to college. Woods emphasized that “I’m considering it when thinking about college because I want a place that will emphasize my values and support all students, but it won’t be a deciding factor.”
Perhaps the most prevalent action that the Trump administration took against DEI efforts was at the collegiate level. Trump cancelled millions of federal research dollars and sent a letter to several top research institutions demanding they agree to denounce DEI – which many refused to sign.
Levenson said, “hearing the stories about colleges getting their funding cut, I don’t know what that’s actually going to mean for students on these campuses.”
While Trump’s efforts against DEI are much more well known, the President has also taken actions to change loan forgiveness plans. Trump recently introduced a new loan payment plan, the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP), which will replace the previous Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan under Biden.
The changes will go into place this July and require 30 years of repayment, instead of 20 or 25 under previous plans. The Institute for College Access and Success found that a family of two adults and two children earning the medium US household income of $81,000 will pay $440 a month under the RAP plan, when they would have only paid $36 on the SAVE plan.
Additionally, The Trump administration has slashed the Department of Education’s budget, and is now less than half the size it was a year ago, inciting fear that students at Jackson-Reed will be impacted. Budget cuts hit the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) which could impact seniors applying for financial aid for college.
Collins emphasized this saying she is worried about “what does support financially look like for college” under this administration. However, College and Career Center Coordinator Elizabeth Levenson said that “it seems like students are able to complete the FAFSA and those are getting processed.”
Woods said completing the FAFSA “was easy enough, overall I feel like it’s a pretty complicated system and so it didn’t feel worse than what I’ve heard.”
Levenson said that the only change is that she no longer has access to a database that allows her to see who has completed the FAFSA and who hasn’t, and thus “can’t reach out to the students who haven’t and support them.” However, she says it may not be because of policy but instead because of the shutdown and many staff cuts at the Department of Education.
Levenson pointed out that, despite the uncertainty, seniors and those preparing for college should “just try to move forward and make the best decisions you can with the information you have.”
While Trump’s full plans to reshape the American education have yet to take place, even in the first year of his second term, a lot has shifted for K-12 schools and universities. •
