- Steve Adubato back, and we are joined by Alan Blinder, who is a national correspondent with the New York Times.

Alan, good to see you.

- Good to see you too, Steve.

Thanks for having me.

- You got it.

We're taping on the 15th of July.

Be seen later.

Front page of The New York Times, your paper.

The Gray Lady, if you will, "Education department can be gutted Justices decide".

The Supreme Court of the United States has said, Mr. President, you can gut it, you can get rid of everyone there.

What is the impact?

And you write about education, higher education a lot.

What do you believe the impact of that could be, would be?

- Well, what we hear from analysts on a pretty routine basis, former Department of Education officials, people who watch this, this world very closely for higher education, they worry about delays to federal student aid going out and how that will all be processed going forward.

There, you know, the Department of Education is really kind of a funding clearing house, and they do a lot of civil rights investigations.

It remains to be seen how all this will really play out.

But it was an extraordinary decision from the Supreme Court that when you talk to, to critics of it, they think will really transform the American educational landscape.

And when you talk to supporters of it, they see it as, as removing, as removing bloat in the bureaucracy.

- You know, the cliche when you say bloat, waste, fraud, excuse me, and abuse.

Many presidents, disproportionately Republicans have been talking about, quote doing away with the Department of Education for years.

Do you think those who advocate for getting rid of the Department of Education have any understanding of what the impact, the implications of doing that really are?

- Yeah, I think some people probably do.

I think some people probably suspect that this is just a, it's, you know, government growth gone wild.

It's been a, but you're right, it's been a critique of the department for basically its entire existence.

There have been people crusading for its closure.

So we'll see how it actually materializes.

I mean, look at this point, the department is, as the front page put it being gutted.

But, you know, it's not, it's not closed in full yet, but it's really gonna be interesting and important to watch over the coming months and years how that actually materializes.

- It's not as if higher education, the elites in ivory towers haven't been attacked by politicians from the, in the White House or other places.

That's been going on for years.

But what is different about the Trump administration going after Harvard, other universities on their DEI policies on to what degree they're protecting Jewish students or fighting against antisemitism as they frame it in the White House, or a whole range of other, excuse me, higher ed policies that they say, because you're not doing what we want you to do, we are going to cut funding, we're gonna cut research dollars.

Is that unprecedented in United States history?

- Yeah, that's what you're getting at.

I mean, the idea that you would have colleges really losing research funding, in Harvard's case potentially billions of dollars in funding.

And to your point that we have heard, especially conservatives criticize higher education and the elite institutions for a long time.

But these tactics of opening these, these investigations of, of cutting off funding, of, in the case of Harvard and Columbia, really sending specific demands that would involve hiring and admission.

So elements of, of how the university is structured, that is something we have not seen before.

And that's why you're hearing so much alarm from people in higher education.

Look, people in higher education are used to getting beaten up by politicians, by the press, by people online.

What they're not used to is that, is that beating going from a rhetorical one into one that really is striking at their bottom lines of how they operate.

- So, so I'm a Rutgers grad and alum, thousands of others come out of the state university, New Jersey, Rutgers.

Rutgers is getting cut as well.

Rutgers is raising tuition as we speak, other colleges and universities raising tuition, making serious cutbacks in staff and faculty.

Do you believe that's what people voted for when Donald Trump won not only the electoral college, but the popular vote that he would be doing this as the president?

- Well, I don't think he ran on the platform of raising tuition.

Look, we've seen tuition rising at schools, even those that, that are not really in the, in the biggest line of fire so to speak.

You're seeing tuition increases across the board.

I'm taping this today just outside of Omaha.

And the University of Nebraska, for example, is raising tuition and doing some cuts in the coming academic year.

So it's not just the elite schools, schools all over the board that are, that are for a variety of reasons finding they need to raise, raise tuition, cut services.

The University of Minnesota is both raising tuition and cutting services.

So, you know, the idea of of doing more with less.

They, they're now students are gonna be getting less for less, less for more I'm sorry.

- But, but hold on.

You're in Nebraska right now.

And where you happen to be taping today.

University of Nebraska.

So you said that President Trump did not run on saying he wanted colleges and universities to raise tuition, but isn't it a defacto, and this is not an attempt to protect or defend higher education.

The cost of higher education is too high.

It has not in general has nothing to do with President Trump.

But when you cut federal funding to the higher ed community, doesn't that defacto mean on some level you'll either have to make serious budget cuts and or raise tuition?

- It can, yeah.

It depends on the institution how acutely that's gonna hit.

In some places, it's not just they're getting squeezed by federal issues, it's that their state appropriations are flat.

It's that their state appropriations are effectively being cut.

That's part of the pressure too.

It's not the, it's not just a federal thing.

There is, especially with major state universities, you'll see a fair number of schools that aren't getting more support from their, from their state houses.

And that's a significant drag on their financial model too.

There's a lot of, there are a lot of different inputs and outputs playing out here.

But no, there's no doubt the federal, it's a hugely consequential one, especially when it comes to research money.

- On the DEI side.

If higher ed institutions simply continue the same programs around diversity, equity, and inclusion, but just change the names of those programs and use different language to frame it.

If people in the White House or others look on the website and they don't see the words, diversity, equity, inclusion, but universities and colleges continue to engage in policies that diversify the campus, include others and promote equity in higher education.

Is that enough, in your opinion, to keep those who are going after higher ed institutions on the DEI side to let it go, or are they gonna look deeper?

- One of my colleagues was recently writing about the, the turmoil of the University of Virginia, one of the great, the country's great public institutions.

And the president there at Virginia, a guy named Jim Ryan had been a deep advocate of DEI initiatives.

And they, and they renamed some things.

I think someone had a title of, like, it went from like a diversity VP to a community engagement VP.

And at days end the Trump administration put enormous pressure on Virginia and said, well, you're not moving fast enough.

You're not moving swiftly enough, you're hiding the ball.

And now Jim Ryan is no longer gonna be president of the University of Virginia.

So no, the administration does not appear to be, to be warm to simply, you know, moving names around, moving titles around.

And they appear intent on, on rooting out these types of programs and figuring out what the, you know, what, where they, where they had been placed.

- Yeah, last question on my end.

Academic freedom.

Those of us who have taught in higher education and been a part of the higher ed community understand and appreciate academic freedom.

To what degree, from your experience as a journalist is quote unquote academic freedom in peril?

- Well, if you asked some of the universities that have gotten, you know, in the, into the Trump administration's line of fire, they see it as profoundly under threat.

I mean, I was talking to a, a number of people at Harvard, of course, in recent weeks, and they've argued that any kind of intervention from the outside around hiring, around admissions, around faculty power, around how, you know, their, on viewpoint diversity and demanding that, that certain things be be taught or added or whatnot.

- Or not taught.

- Or not taught, that's exactly, so I mean, they wanted to shut down DEI programs at Harvard is one of the conditions.

When you get into that, that kind of space, what I hear routinely from presidents and chancellors and professors and others, is that they see it as a, as a significant encroachment on academic freedom.

And that's, well you know, that's kinda been the cornerstone of American academia for generations.

So they see a profound threat emerging and they're not quite sure the way out of it at this point.

- Yeah, academic freedom and also freedom of the press.

I think that's in the constitution.

Do you think it is, Alan?

- I do think that, yes.

- I pretty sure.

Alan Blinder is national correspondent for the New York Times.

Alan, we appreciate you being with us.

- Thanks for having me.

- Particularly from Nebraska.

Thank you, Alan.

- My pleasure.

- You got it.

I'm Steve Adubato, we'll see you next time.

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