Hofstra University students are primarily concerned about financial aid following Trump’s latest

executive order.

Students at Hofstra University have expressed concerns after President Donald Trump signed an executive order which will “begin eliminating the federal Department of Education.”

Trump signed the executive order on March 20, and is part of the Trump Administration’s Project 2025, which includes the closure of the Department of Education (DOE). The order also calls for the return of “authority over education to the States and local communities.” The DOE was established in 1979 during the Jimmy Carter administration. This executive order is part of a slew of orders that Trump has signed during his first few months in office.

Financial aid is the primary concern for some Hofstra students after the executive order was issued as the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is administered by the DOE.

Tyasijah Watson, a freshman pre-health major, said that she depends on FAFSA as a first-generation college student. With the uncertainty surrounding FAFSA now that the executive order has been signed, Watson said she is worried that she will not be able to continue attending Hofstra.

“I’m trying to become a doctor, so I don’t want to stop, [not because] I was going to lose my motivation, but I just don’t want to stop where I am and lose what I’ve learned,” Watson said. “I’d just rather keep going, so that’s my biggest fear: not being able to come back and finish my [undergraduate education].”

Similarly, sophomore biology major Carlos Jimenez said his concerns stem from the possibility of not being able to remain at Hofstra due to trouble with financial aid.

“I pay how many thousands of dollars to [be] here?” Jimenez      said. “So, if something were to happen, it would mean that everything that’s happened up to this point to me would be kind of for nothing. Surely, it must count for something, but there’s that fear that it can all be invalidated if something were to happen.”

Trump cannot shut down the Department of Education without Congressional approval. According to political science professor Rosanna Perotti, whether the executive can remove an entire department or agency without Congress depends on the wording of the law under which the authority of an agency originates.

“In general, it is Congress that creates departments,” Perotti said. “So, for every department that we have, Congress has passed a law creating it, and therefore Congress has to pass a law to uncreate it.”

Perotti said that the situation might have some effect on how she operates as a professor, but not in terms of content.

“It’s not going to have a bearing on what I say,” Perotti said. “It will cause me to be more considerate of a student’s situation – the uncertainty of their situation. I have to bear that in mind. I think we all have to bear that in mind.” 

As for what the executive order might mean for the university, Perotti spoke about financial aid. The responsibility of determining whether students will receive loans and how much they will receive will be delegated to the Small Business Administration in the case that the Trump administration is allowed to move forward. Perotti said that while the Small Business Administration has its own programs, they are not student programs.

“I think that at the very least, we have to ask whether the people working for the Small Business Administration are able to tackle this task,” Perotti said.

Watson criticized the handing off of the DOE’s responsibilities to another entity. 

“If you wanted to improve it, improve the department,” Watson said. “Don’t give it to someone else and add more work to them and then [have them] not care about it as the actual department [did] or focus on it as much.”

Aside from FAFSA, there is also concern about whether Trump is overstepping his authority as president. 

“I’m just hoping that Congress will be able to be more reasonable than Trump because I know it has to go through Congress before an executive order is officially passed,” said Ashley Graf, a senior writing for the screen major. “I could get into the whole ‘I think Trump is overreaching with executive orders in general’ thing, which is very scary. I think he’s overstepping his boundaries and rights as a president.” 

Perotti said that the actions by the Trump Administration thus far have been “unorthodox” in relation to the United States Constitution and are indicative of a philosophy that the executive branch has the most power of the three branches of government.

“These efforts by the executive branch are efforts to expand the powers of the executive where there is actually a vacuum created by the Constitution,” Perotti said.

Perotti also spoke about how, historically, it is unusual for the president to use executive orders the way Trump has. The elimination of the DOE is also related to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

“As a country, we should be concerned about the use of executive orders to trim the size of government because there is no question that the government needs to be made efficient, and there’s no question that there are programs and positions out there that could be cut,” Perotti said. 

Perotti drew a historical comparison to when Bill Clinton was president. During the Clinton Administration, then-Vice President Al Gore was assigned the task of finding inefficiencies within the government. Affected agencies, Congress and the private sector were all consulted during this process. The National Partnership for Reinventing Government (NPR) led to the elimination of 351,000 positions within the federal workforce. 

“That was a lot of jobs,” Perotti said. “But you didn’t see anything near the pain we’re seeing now because the agencies that were the targets had an opportunity to find their own inefficiencies, and this was done in consultation with Congress, too, and the private sector.”

There are other uncertainties that both students and professors like Perotti are grappling with. These uncertainties surround DOGE as well as what Trump’s pattern of executive orders might mean for the future.

Jimenez voiced his beliefs about the DOE along with worries about where the administration is headed.

“If he’s willing to change this, what else is he willing to change?” Jimenez said. “If it’s something as important as this, who’s to say he’s not going to change something more important?”

Perotti noted how the order to begin eliminating the DOE will likely be challenged in court. Organizations such as the National Education Association, Democracy Forward, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and others have filed lawsuits already as of March 24. Additionally, the student loan program, which is under the DOE, holds students’ information. Perotti expressed skepticism as to what is beingdone with that information.

“We are not convinced that their information has not been compromised,” Perotti said. “It’s a key issue.”

DOGE is currently facing several privacy lawsuits over concerns that personal data has been compromised. Currently, DOGE is facing a lawsuit that bars it from accessing the data on student loan borrowers through the DOE.

Hofstra President Susan Poser sent out a statement via email addressing the situation.

“The implications of President Trump’s order to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education remain unknown,” Poser’s statement read. “We continue to follow developments, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to supporting the entire Hofstra community and being true to our mission and core values.”