McMahon Touts Arizona State as Example for Nation

Education Secretary Linda McMahon had a firm message for America’s higher education institutions last week—be more like Arizona State University.

“Our message to the sector is simple: Follow ASU’s example,” McMahon said.

She praised ASU’s business partnerships, accessibility, innovation and its “high-quality degrees at a reasonable cost.”

“The Trump administration is reorienting higher education to ensure that there is no ‘lesser than’ degree or credential. Any pathway that offers an affordable route to a good career and a good life deserves to be celebrated,” she said. Thanks to ASU President Michael Crow, “ASU has emerged as a model for the new American university. You remind us that college belongs to students from every background, and that excellence is measured not by whom you shut out, but by how the students you welcome in go on to advance [their] careers,” she added.

But the secretary’s decree—given from a podium at the university’s College for Teaching and Learning Innovation—was about more than just touting ASU’s achievements. It was a platform to condemn colleges she said have morphed into “sprawling business enterprises that put their own corporate interests first” and to boast about how the Trump administration is fighting back with a focus on affordability, alternative pathways and value.  

The speech was the third in a four-part series titled “The Next 250: American Education.” The first two installments focused on K–12 education and workforce development and were held earlier last week at a preparatory academy in Utah and the College of Southern Nevada, respectively. Before these engagements, McMahon last delivered a speech dedicated to colleges and universities in September 2025 at Hillsdale College in Michigan. 

The secretary spent much of her time addressing the “costly illusion that a more expensive education is a better one.” 

She highlighted a new tool the Trump administration has added to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as the earnings indicator, which provides students with the average salary of alumni shortly after graduation at each institution they’ve applied to and compares it to the average earnings of a high school graduate in the same state. Since the tool’s launch, McMahon said that 25 percent of students who were applying to a college flagged for “low earnings” took it off their list. It’s “proof that students are smart consumers when they have the right information,” she said.    

McMahon also celebrated the policies in the 2025 budget bill known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, including the effectiveness of loan borrowing caps for parents and graduate students in driving down the cost of college. “Dozens” of colleges have lowered their prices since the policy took effect in July, she claimed. However, she cited only graduate programs, and none that were institutionwide. Many advocacy groups as well as students and parents have pushed back on the loan limits, saying they could hinder low- and middle-income families from being able to finance their students’ education.

Still, McMahon said that as a result of OBBBA, “universities can no longer simply raise prices at will—they must reassess their programs, cut costs and deliver real value.”

She also trumpeted the bill’s new Workforce Pell program, which supports short-term job training and “shattered the old notion that opportunity exists only within a traditional four-year path.” She promoted a new earnings test, which will operate much like the FAFSA earnings indicator but on a program-by-program level and will carry financial penalties for institutions whose graduates don’t earn more than a high school graduate. 

McMahon applauded Arizona for becoming the seventh state to receive Workforce Pell approval; students at Pima Medical Institute can now use Pell dollars to enroll in phlebotomy technician programs. She also praised ASU for maintaining “modest” tuition increases, modeling the transparency Trump’s reforms “aim to make universal” and delivering on the promise that students who invest thousands of dollars in their education will not “end up worse off because of it.”   

The secretary ended her speech saying the Trump administration champions excellence “in every form.” 

“For some, that means a traditional college degree. For others, it means an online program, military service, community college or workforce training,” she said.