Following the presidential election, President-elect Donald Trump’s administration has begun to form the Cabinet that will be inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2025. All nominations must be approved and confirmed by the Senate.
Department of Government Efficiency: Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy
Musk — a businessman and the owner of Tesla — and Ramaswamy — entrepreneur and former Republican presidential candidate — will lead the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency. Trump’s goals for this department are mainly to cut excess regulations, expenditures, agencies and spending; specifically, the Department of Education, which Musk and Ramaswamy will work to “dismantle” and “defund,” according to Northeastern Global News. To successfully do this, programs that make up the “bulk of the department’s spending” must be dissolved. These programs include, but are not limited to, federal student aid, higher education research, grants and data collection.
Department of Homeland Security: Kristi Noem
Noem, the current 33rd governor of South Dakota, will be put in charge of overseeing the security of the United States. She pushes for strong border security and plans to strictly regulate immigration into the country. Talk of the immigration issue has increased among higher education institutes since the Feb. 22 murder of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student at Augusta University. Riley was killed by Jose Ibarra, an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela. Noem has been transparent about her feelings about the incident. “Far too few (“illegal immigrants”) have been deported. If we don’t want more families grieving like Laken Riley’s, that has to change,” she posted on the social platform X.
Central Intelligence Agency: John Ratcliffe
Ratcliffe is a former Texas congressman who previously worked in Trump’s administration as the former director of national intelligence and was listed as a “contributor” to Project 2025, according to ABC News. Ratcliffe’s support of cybersecurity and concerns about China make it unlikely that Clemson will lift its TikTok ban on the campus network anytime soon. The CIA and universities often work together to prevent foreign countries from infiltrating the United States through higher education. For example, Harvard University allows the CIA to enroll undercover officers at the Kennedy School of Government.
Department of Health and Human Services: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
RFK Jr., a former 2024 presidential candidate, has demonstrated strong ideological stances on healthcare, specifically against vaccination. Kennedy will oversee the Affordable Care Act, Medicare and Medicaid. According to I Side With, Kennedy supports Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, supports increasing taxes for the rich to decrease student loan interest rates and wants to decrease the cost of education. The Department of Health and Human Services is a large financial contributor to medical research at universities.
Department of State: Marco Rubio
Rubio is in his third term in the Senate and works in the Committee on Foreign Relations and the Select Committee on Intelligence. In 2015, Rubio proposed a higher education reformation plan that would include an act mandating universities to tell students their expected income after earning a degree, prior to taking out loans. Last year, Rubio and colleagues also introduced the Fairness in Higher Education Accreditation Act, “which would protect free speech on college campuses and seeks to prevent a politicized Department of Education from further forcing diversity, equity, and inclusion policies into higher education,” Rubio stated in a press release.
Federal Communications Commission: Brendan Carr
Carr, who currently sits on the Federal Communications Commission and is an author of a chapter of the Project 2025 plan, will be the FCC Chair. “Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft & others have played central roles in the censorship cartel,” Carr posted on the social platform X. He also wrote, “We must dismantle the censorship cartel.”
Office of Management and Budget: Russell Vought
Vought previously served in the Office of Management and Budget during Trump’s first term and is another coauthor of a Project 2025 chapter. He is predicted to encourage the president to “slash spending programs without Congress” and utilize the “military during civil unrest,” according to Laura Barrón-López for PBS.
Department of Defense: Pete Hegseth
Hegseth is a FOX News cohost and former military veteran. He demonstrates a traditionalistic point of view, a stance evident in his book, “The War on Warriors.” He speaks about how “woke” generals and the leaders of the elite service academies have left the militarily weak and “effeminate” by promoting diversity, equity and inclusion, according to PBS.
