On April 23, 2025, President Donald Trump signed seven executive orders meant to set policy for primary, secondary, and postsecondary education. These orders address topics related to accreditation, and apprenticeship programming, among others. Since President Trump’s inauguration, ACCT has been tracking his executive orders related to and impacting higher education.  

Here is a deep dive of these two executive orders, with a brief summary of the remaining five that were signed alongside them.

Executive Order:
Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education

Context:
Institutions of higher education receiving Title IV funding, which includes Pell Grants, must be accredited through an accreditation body to ensure that educational programming offered to students is of high quality. The role of the Department of Education in accreditation is not to accredit institutions of higher education or their programs, but to instead recognize an accrediting agency as a reliable authority when determining the quality of education an institution offers using parameters and processes set by the Higher Education Act and Department regulations. As of last year, the Department of Education has recognized 37 accrediting agencies.

Summary of order:
Overall, this executive order intends to forbid accreditors from implementing DEI standards in the accreditation process; it aims to make the accreditor recognition process more effective through technology updates; it seeks to open the accreditation field to new accrediting agencies; and it plans to encourage institutions to switch their accreditation agencies in favor for one that aligns with their institutional missions. 

This order directs the Secretary of Education, in accordance with the law, to do the following:

• Deny, monitor, suspend, or terminate accreditation recognition of accreditors who implement Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) standards for institutions seeking accreditation.
• Ensure that accreditation requires institutions to “support and appropriately prioritize intellectual diversity amongst faculty.”
• Mandate accrediting agencies require their member institutions to “use data on program-level student outcomes to improve such outcomes, without reference to race, ethnicity, or sex.” 
• Improve the effectiveness of the accreditor recognition process.
• Recognize new accrediting agencies to promote competition and accountability in delivering high-quality education outcomes.
• Lower barriers to innovative education models and promote credential and degree completion.
• Streamline the process for institutions to change their accrediting agency.
• Update Accreditation Handbook so that accreditor recognition and reauthorization are transparent, efficient, and unburdensome.
• Develop and launch an experimental site to promote innovation and accountability.
• Notify accreditors of member institutions found to be out of compliance with the Office of Civil Rights.

Executive Order:
Preparing Americans for High-Paying Skilled Trade Jobs of the Future

Context:
The federal government currently invests in preparing the nation’s workforce through three primary mediums: The Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act ($4.1 billion), the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act ($1.4 billion), and the National Apprenticeship Act ($285 million as of FY 24). Though these programs serve different segments of the workforce development infrastructure, they do not always coordinate with each other. 

Summary of order:
This EO calls for both a holistic review of all federal workforce programs and an expansion to the federal Registered Apprenticeship model in an effort to “align with the country’s reindustrialization needs and equip American workers to fill the growing demand for skilled trades and other occupations.” Specifically, the EO calls for the following:

Comprehensive Worker Investment and Development Strategy: The EO directs the Secretaries of Labor, Education, and Commerce to review all federal workforce development programs within 90 days and provide a report to the White House.

• Report should include ways to streamline programs from the administrative and data collections ends to improve use experience.
• Report should identify programs and related spending that are ineffective or fail to achieve the administration’s desired outcomes, and provide recommendations for consolidation, restructuring, or elimination of said programs.
• Report should identify statutory authorities to promote innovation and system integration.
• Report should identify alternative credentials and assessments to the 4-year college degree.

The EO also calls for the expansion of the Registered Apprenticeship (RAs) program and asks the Secretaries of Labor, Commerce, and Education to, within 120 days, submit a plan to reach and surpass 1 million new active apprentices.

• The plan should include ways to expand RAs to new industries and occupations.
• Way to scale the RA model across the country while improving its efficiency and providing support to program participants.
• Plan should identify opportunities through Perkins CTE and Federal student aid to better connect education with RAs.

Finally, the EO instructs the Secretaries of Labor, Commerce, and Education to improve the transparency and reporting of outcomes for Registered Apprenticeships.    

The remaining five education-related executive orders:

• Establishes an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Education Task Force to improve education through AI, creates a Presidential AI Challenge, enhances educator training via AI, and promotes AI-related Registered Apprenticeships.

• Establish and continue the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) with the primary goals of “increasing the private-sector role, including the role of private foundations” in supporting HBCUs, and “enhancing HBCU’s capabilities to serve our Nation’s young adults.”

• Instructs the Secretary of Education to robustly enforce Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which requires institutions to report qualifying foreign funds.

• Eliminates the use of disparate-impact liability (also referred to as disparate impact legal theory) within United States policy “in all contexts to the maximum degree possible.”  

• Requires the Secretary of Education to issue new guidance to local and state educational agencies “regarding school discipline and their obligations not to engage in racial discrimination under Title VI in all contexts, including school discipline.”

Carrie Warick-Smith is the Vice President for Public Policy at ACCT
José  Miranda is the Director of Government Relations at ACCT 
Genesis Santiago is the Senior Government Relations Associate at ACCT

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