The 2024 national election

The days before the 2024 national election brought varying reports of how Senate and House elections would go and diverse predictions related to the "toss up" between Harris and Trump. The days before the November 5 final balloting included increasing threats that a Trump administration would undo the U.S. Education Department, warnings in Pennsylvania that public campuses couldn't restrict election-related speech, some faculty bringing the election into the classroom and others canceling classes, campuses in swing states mobilizing students to vote, and VP Harris bringing her message back home to Howard University on election-watch night. To say that the 2024 election year has been tumultuous is an understatement and most U.S. voters just want it to be over it, while accepting the reality that it may be days before all ballots are counted, confirmed, and winners declared.

The stakes for higher education were very high with Trump declaring during his campaign, "We spend more money on higher education than any other country, and yet they're turning our students into communists and terrorists and sympathizers of many, many different dimensions." Campuses turned to a variety of strategies to calm anxiety and election day included youth enthusiasm that many hoped would carry the ballot. But by election night that anxiety moved to a sour mood at Howard University where Harris supporters had hoped to celebrate. As citizens, and particularly faculty, staff, and students on college campuses, woke up to a Trump win, questions began to emerge about where the U.S. government is headed. America joined the rightward shift of wealthy countries around the world and the reality that fundamental change is ahead was on many minds. The "second Trump presidency is likely to amplify concerns about the value of postsecondary education and inflame public anger over campus culture issues," with value and resentment front and center for the base who brought him back for four more years.

Hang on, higher education. Rough waters ahead!