States Should Lead on Higher-Ed Reform

In recent years, federal policymakers have pursued sweeping higher-education reforms. Yet these efforts are often slow, legally contested, and subject to reversal. For example, during both of his terms of office, President Trump has made significant reforms to higher education: ending regional accreditation in favor of a competitive national system, shrinking the Department of Education, and calling universities to account for campus antisemitism and civil-rights violations. Congress and the Supreme Court have also been busy overhauling student loans and ending racial preferences.

While Uncle Sam has an important role to play, higher-education governance is primarily a state responsibility. At the same time, many federal Trump-era reforms have failed to stick. The president’s 2025 anti-DEI “Dear Colleague” letter has been struck down by courts. Gone, too, are Trump’s efforts to cap indirect research funds paid to universities by the government.

One lesson from the Trump era is that, while Uncle Sam has an important role to play, higher-education governance is primarily a state responsibility. Public universities are created, funded, and regulated by state governments. State legislatures and governing boards have direct authority over curriculum requirements, governance structures, admissions standards, spending and tuition policy, and intellectual climates (including policies on free speech, academic freedom, and institutional neutrality).

Public universities are creatures of state law, and their governing boards derive authority directly from state legislatures. This is purposeful. Public universities are creatures of state law, and their governing boards derive authority directly from state legislatures. By contrast, the federal government’s influence on higher education is largely indirect. Its power is exercised mostly through federal expenditures (grants, loans, and attached strings) and the “soft but considerable power of the presidential bully pulpit.”

While federal policy matters, state legislators and university trustees have the local knowledge and authority to make an outsized difference—from the classroom to the chancellor’s office. Lasting reform in higher education is far more likely to originate in statehouses than in Washington.

What’s more, state reform efforts are often more nimble than federal policymaking. Federal rulemaking can take months of notice-and-comment procedures and is often tied up in litigation. What might take years in Washington can be done much more quickly and effectively at the local level. The rollback of DEI policies serves as an informative example. Recent federal efforts to end DEI initiatives were swiftly challenged in court. In response, the Department of Education abandoned its attempts to address civil-rights violations masquerading, it said, as “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” In comparison, Florida was able to make sweeping changes to DEI programs in a single legislative session.

Federal reform also tends to be broad and bureaucratic. By its very nature, the federal government creates one-size-fits-all policies. The uniform list of inputs that accreditors must include in their standards, mandated by the Higher Education Act, showcases this problem. In contrast, state-level reform allows for experimentation and replication. States were meant to be laboratories of democracy, and that has certainly been the case in higher education. Many of the most significant recent higher-education reforms have originated at the state level, demonstrating that lasting institutional change is more likely to emerge from statehouses than from Washington.

One important example is Tennessee’s adoption of a performance-funding model for all of its public colleges and universities. Enacted in 2010, Tennessee’s law quickly became the “gold standard” for the nation. Other states soon followed its example, including Ohio, Indiana, Florida, Texas, and Washington. Institutional-neutrality policies followed the same pattern, but, instead of spreading from state to state, they spread among institutions themselves. UNC-Chapel Hill became the first public institution to adopt institutional neutrality in 2022. Since then, more than 40 additional schools have made similar commitments, with the number continuing to grow rapidly.

These are just a few illustrations. Over and over, state-level experimentation in higher education has served as a proving ground for effective policies that, once validated, are adopted and adapted by other states, driving nationwide improvement.

State and institutional policy changes can also be more durable, especially when compared to changes made via executive order or departmental guidance. The 15-year tug-of-war over Title IX’s sexual misconduct regulations proves a good example. From 2008 until earlier this year, the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations have gone back and forth over what constitutes due process in campus sexual-misconduct hearings. Similar stories can be told about gainful employment and federal student-loan debt relief.

Reforms made at the state or institutional level can be better tailored to local institutional cultures and economic needs. Lastly, reforms made at the state or institutional level can be better tailored to local institutional cultures and economic needs; policies don’t have to be one-size-fits-all. What works for a state flagship won’t necessarily work at a small regional university. States with both systemwide and campus-level governing boards, like North Carolina, are better positioned to test and scale reforms than states with a single centralized authority, such as Nevada.

For these reasons, the Martin Center concentrates its reform efforts on state and institutional policy. For these reasons, the Martin Center concentrates its reform efforts on state and institutional policy. Reforms made by state legislatures, university systems, and institutional trustees can significantly improve student outcomes. One example of a successful reform that made a real difference to students’ lives and financial outlooks was the UNC System’s 10-year tuition freeze. Other North Carolina reforms have also contributed to student savings: caps on fee increases, guaranteed-tuition programs, and NC Promise. Few federal reforms can boast effects that have been as quick and effective.

This is the way federalism is meant to work. The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution specifically states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Since education is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution, it is clearly a state prerogative.

To be sure, federal policy plays an important role, particularly in areas such as student aid and civil-rights enforcement. But most federal interventions are blunt instruments. They lack the authority and adaptability of state-level governance.

That’s why reform in the states is essential. State policies and practices affect every interaction between students and their universities, from the paying of tuition bills to what happens in the classroom. If meaningful reform is to occur, it will not come primarily from Washington. It will come from state legislatures, governing boards, and institutional leaders willing to act decisively. That is where the future of higher education will be shaped. The Martin Center is proud to participate in such important work.

Jenna A. Robinson is president of the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.