Colleges’ Realities May Curtail DeVos’s Agenda

Kevin Carey wrote for the Chronicle of Higher Education about how Betsy DeVos's appointment could affect higher education:

When all the smart people assumed that Hillary Clinton would be elected president, fashionable speculation in Washington held that the next secretary of education would be a "higher-ed person."

Ever since the job ascended to cabinet-level status in 1979, every education secretary has come from the world of K-12. Colleges were relegated to the office of the under secretary, a lesser concern. But when the "free college" debate rose to prominence during the 2016 campaign, many advocates dared to dream that a college president might be tapped to lead President Clinton’s ambitious college-affordability agenda.

Then Donald J. Trump happened. This week, the president-elect kept the K-12 streak alive by appointing Betsy DeVos, a wealthy Michigan philanthropist and longtime supporter of private K-12 school vouchers, to become the next secretary of education.

What does this mean for higher education? Nothing good, probably.