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CounterCurrent:
Shock and Awe Reform
A recap of 2025 and its major reform efforts, and a look at the year ahead

CounterCurrent is the National Association of Scholars’ weekly newsletter, bringing you the most significant issues in academia and our responses to them.
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Category: Education Reform, Government Policy, Higher Ed;
Reading Time: ~5 minutes
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2025 brought the first serious reform to higher education in over a decade. The industry began the year with attempts to defend its promotion of racial preferences and campus radicals, ideological capture, and acceptance of foreign funds and influence. That tune quickly changed. Title VI investigations found striking examples of schools arbitrarily enforcing student code-of-conduct rules. Schools began hiding or renaming their “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) bureaucracies.

The Trump administration, Congress, and state leaders have passed legislation, enacted executive orders, and reinterpreted long-standing regulations largely with the support of the courts. Our culture has moved beyond the Great Awokening of the 2010s and early 2020s, allowing criticism of higher education to reach new heights, slaying many of higher education’s sacred cows.

And yet much work must be done. Some reforms go too far, carpet-bombing the industry with arbitrary, sometimes contradictory policies. As we march into the year ahead, I’d like to provide a retrospective on the best shock-and-awe reforms of the past year.

First up on our list, the Trump administration has signaled a reorganization of the Department of Education (ED). Much of the agency's actions will be split among agencies that already interact or oversee related programs. This will ideally streamline program efficiency, enacting Congress’s intent, and xxxxxxing ED programs from ideological capture. NAS has long proposed that ED needs extensive reform to properly serve the educational system—as codified in our February 2025 report, Waste Land ([link removed]) . While the Trump administration’s actions should have largely beneficial effects—i.e., ridding government of bureaucratic and superfluous educational programs and policies—as always, it would be in the best interest of education reformers if changes to the ED were enshrined by congressional action so as to not be undone by a following administration.

Another reform effort of note is the extensive use of Case Resolution Agreements within higher education. These agreements are formal, legally binding contracts negotiated between higher education institutions (IHEs) and federal agencies. Many of the case resolution agreements made by the Trump administration followed investigations into IHEs for failure to comply with nondiscrimination law. Examples include tolerance of anti-Semistism and the usage of race or sex discrimination in student admissions and in hiring of faculty and staff. Many of these case resolution agreements include requirements to remove programs that promote unlawful race-based outcomes, such as DEI. They also typically include provisions to decrease financial dependence on international students and further require compliance with federal foreign gift and contract reporting obligations.

While these case resolution agreements have proven effective, they maintain policy downsides. They point toward a desire for quick political victories over entrenched reform. These case resolution agreements may deter other IHEs from unlawful activity, but they cannot replace effective legislation. Additionally, the agreements require enforcement. As we’ve seen previously, IHEs can go years without running afoul of regulators, so this is likely the strategy’s weakest link.

These case resolution agreements are further aided by the administration’s decision to no longer use the disparate impact standard ([link removed]) . This action opens the door to real, useful student discipline policies and makes special education more effective.

If you would like to learn more about Case Resolution Agreements, see our White Paper ([link removed]) and read up on existing agreements using our tracker ([link removed]) . The National Association of Scholars (NAS) will be hosting a webinar covering Case Resolution Agreements on January 13—register here ([link removed]) !

Last spring, the Trump administration issued “Restoring Gold Standard Science ([link removed]) ,” an Executive Order that declared that all federal agencies' use of science must be reproducible, transparent, and characterized by procedures that address the irreproducibility crisis of modern science. NAS enthusiastically endorsed ([link removed]) the order, as we have encouraged such policy changes for nearly a decade. Furthermore, our Shifting Sands ([link removed]) report series concluded this summer with the launch of our fifth report, False Positives ([link removed]) , which offers policy-centered recommendations to address the irreproducibility crisis of modern science.

The passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) in July of 2025 paved the way for congressional Republicans to push more higher ed reform ([link removed]) than other prior legislation, and it is likely that at the top of the to-do list ([link removed]) for 2026 will be holding colleges and universities accountable, lowering college costs, and reforming accreditation. The OBBBA allows the federal government to cap annual and lifetime student loans, and in conjunction with other government actions ([link removed]) , this will hopefully curb the ongoing college costs crisis.

Onward!

Last year, NAS added to our collection of education standards, with the addition of The Archimedes Standards ([link removed]) , model K-12 mathematics standards which “seek to establish a sure foundation in the concepts, processes, formulas, and practices discovered by great mathematicians throughout history in American mathematics education.” In recent days, some states have looked to our work to inform legislation, state standards, and other state educational ([link removed]) policies ([link removed]) —and for that, we are honored. Next month, we will be publishing a new set of English Language Arts Standards, so stay tuned for more information.

At the end of this month, the ED will be launching ([link removed]) its new foreign gift reporting portal under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act. In years past, the ED’s portal and reporting system have lacked transparency and accountability (which is why NAS launched our own database ([link removed]) ). The first Trump administration updated the reporting system, but the Biden administration ED did not make enforcement of Section 117 reporting for colleges and universities a priority. Now, the ED promises ([link removed]) the new reporting system has “improved features," which "include the ability to upload foreign funding disclosures in bulk rather than individually, executive summary visualizations to
improve public transparency, and other helpful tools for drafting, reviewing, and submitting reports to the Department.” Hopefully, this update will provide needed transparency for colleges and universities receiving foreign gifts and contracts totaling more than $250,000 in a given calendar year. More on this to come in the next month.

We look ahead to the rest of 2026 with hopes of more precision shock-and-awe reform efforts. More accountability and transparency are required of colleges and universities in all financial matters. Stronger curricula and better attention to instilling virtuous citizenship. A revitalization of the humanities to enrich our culture. And more action from Congress to solidify the wins of the past year. Cheers to the new year.

Until next week.
Kali Jerrard
Communications Associate
National Association of Scholars
Read the Article ([link removed])
For more on education reform, government policy, and higher ed:
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December 23, 2025


** History Without Dogma ([link removed])
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Wenyuan Wu

It seems that legislative and administrative efforts to defund race-essentialist teaching in the Sunshine State’s college system have not negatively affected UF’s ability to embrace academic rigor or advance viewpoint diversity. But the other side remains unimpressed.

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December 22, 2025


** Remedial Nation ([link removed])
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David Randall

Students can’t read or do math because teachers were never taught the subjects they teach.

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August 19, 2025


** Report: Shifting Sands: False Positives: The Irresponsibility Crisis of Science Policy ([link removed])
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David Randall, Stan Young, and Warren Kindzierski

Shifting Sands: False Positives provides a policy-oriented conclusion to our Shifting Sands reports by outlining Policy Recommendations for how to address the irresponsibility crisis of science policy.


** About the NAS
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The National Association of Scholars, founded in 1987, emboldens reasoned scholarship and propels civil debate. We’re the leading organization of scholars and citizens committed to higher education as the catalyst of American freedom.

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