BY JONATHAN REES

Did you know that Donald Trump has promised to create a free national online university if he gets to become president again? You can read the basics of his proposal in Politico:

Donald Trump wants to “revolutionize” higher education if elected president.

And in a new campaign policy video, he is pledging to do so by creating a federally funded online university that awards free degrees — one where “wokeness or jihadism” are not allowed.

Trump’s latest policy proposal proposes taxing large private university endowments to pay for a new institution called “American Academy.” The school would grant credit to prospective students for past coursework and use their credentials to apply for jobs with the U.S. government and federal contractors, according to plans shared in advance with POLITICO.

Why hasn’t this proposal attracted more attention? I think the obvious reason is that it’s very hard to take seriously. For example, Donald Trump’s best known venture into higher education was Trump University, and we all remember how that worked out, right? And it shouldn’t take a blog published by the AAUP to note that a university that bans “wokeness and jihadism” probably isn’t going to be particularly friendly to the idea of academic freedom.

I think the reason this proposal hasn’t attracted more attention is the fact that making these criticisms seems so tame compared to all the other extremely scary ideas that candidate Trump has proposed lately. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel, and everybody who agrees with you is probably not going to vote for Trump anyway. I bring this proposal up here not to make those rather obvious arguments, but to try to draw your attention to something that applies to online education in general rather than just Trump’s proposal specifically.

In the Chronicle of Higher Education‘s coverage of Trump’s proposal, they get into a little more detail about his speech (subscription required):

Whether you want lectures, or ancient histories, or an introduction to financial accounting, or training in a skilled trade,” Trump said, “the goal will be to deliver it and get it done properly using study groups, mentors, industry partnerships, and the latest breakthrough in computing.”

Notice any particular group missing there? It’s the faculty, of course. This may be because he thinks we’re all a bunch of woke jihadists, but it also suggests a general lack of respect for what we we’ve devoted our careers to doing well. It’s like he thinks that all it takes to teach college is to wave a wand over students’ heads and declare that they’ve graduated.

Sadly, I think this is a trait that Trump shares with an awful lot of college administrators these days. Over the summer, my friend Doug Eskew, who works out of the office next to mine at Colorado State University Pueblo, published an op-ed about race and regional comprehensive universities like ours. I knew that argument well since he’d rehearsed it on me for months at that point, but he threw in another argument related to that one which still shakes me months later:

“The message to faculty is loud and clear: your classes are a nuisance, check off boxes on a degree plan; the university values your teaching so little that they encourage students to avoid taking your classes. It is, then, no wonder faculty morale is low. No wonder students are disengaged. No wonder administrators increasingly regard the faculty with contempt.”

I happen to believe that there are good online classes and bad online classes, so I wouldn’t dismiss an entirely online university out of hand. It’s possible to create a challenging and worthwhile online educational experience when the faculty member running the class is skilled and the infrastructure in place respects the instructor’s expertise, but the chances of anything Donald Trump proposes falling into this category strikes me as being near zero.

Contributing editor Jonathan Rees is professor of history at Colorado State University Pueblo.