At noon eastern today, Joe Biden will take the Oath of Office and become the 46^th President of the United States.  The Pumpkin Fascist may be out of our hair, at least for awhile, what with the pending bankruptcy, sexual assault charges, tax, bank and real estate fraud charges, the emoluments case, plus whatever charges he will face for his role in the Cosplay March on Rome earlier this month.  But the country still faces the task of getting out of a pandemic that has already killed 400,000 and possibly contending with a long-running low-level insurrection from various militia cells and armed QAnon lunatics.  And if you think I’m exaggerating, just consider the security arrangements for the inauguration.

With respect to higher education, the change of Chief Executives, along with a Democratic majority in the House and (barely) the Senate, will quickly alter a couple of things.  First, there will be significant (apparently $35 billion) rescue packages for COVID-beleaguered higher education institutions, though it seems that private higher education institutions (both non-profit and profit) may not benefit.  Second, the role of science in policy is going to expand: Joe Biden’s new Presidential Science Advisor, mathematician, geneticist and bona fide MacArthur Foundation-certified genius Eric Lander, is being included in cabinet.  Biden has also asked Lander – in a letter evoking the relationship between FDR and Vannevar Bush – to work on answering five key questions on ways that science and technology can benefit Americans (contrast: the Government of Canada abolished the never-very-influential Science Minister portfolio a year ago and now leaves science in the hands of a Science/Industry Minister whose entire science/innovation background consists of having been in-house counsel for ABB).  Third, he’s probably going to go through with a proposal to unilaterally forgive $10,000 of debt for all outstanding student loans, though it doesn’t sound like this is going to happen immediately.  And fourth, a whole bunch of Trump-era rule-making on matters like handling sexual assault complaints to banning diversity programs are going to go out the window. 

After that…well, it gets difficult.  Without a reform of the filibuster rule (and it doesn’t sound like that’s an option, given that not all Democrats will vote in favour), the Republicans still possess a blocking minority when it comes to passing a budget.  That means that big new spending ideas like block grants to states to pay for targeted free tuition are likely to be harder to pass (his free community college proposals might be easier to get through Congress).  The fact that Biden has chosen Miguel Cardona, a lifelong denizen of the Connecticut K-12 system, as Education Secretary no doubt makes teachers’ unions (a key part of the Democratic coalition) happy, but it’s a weird choice given that the federal Department of Education is mostly concerned with higher education. One wonders whether this might affect the issues to which the Department chooses to pay attention.  And most importantly, most states are in the hands of Republican lawmakers who, as a body, are becoming increasingly unhinged and doubling down on a know-nothing populism that actively defines itself based on hatred of “expertise”.  Since expertise is universities’ main output, this puts them in an unaccustomed position of not so much being neglected by Conservative legislators as being active objects of hostility, which matters since they rely on state rather than federal dollars.  Do not expect public universities to do well any time soon.

Plus, there are headwinds.  Many US institutions were facing significant enrolment challenges even before COVID, mainly because of demographic trends (like the ones Canada faced in the first half of last decade).  The departure of Cheeto Jesus and his coterie of racist immigration advisers like Stephen Miller might raise hopes about the ability of American universities to recruit abroad.  Undoubtedly some will try, but as I wrote for Education Next last year, it’s not clear – at anything below the top tier of universities – that international students are interesting in buying US education at the price American universities are selling it.  Moreover, it is well-known that physical security is a pretty significant decision-making factor for international students: and from that perspective, January 6 probably put back the image of the US for a decade.

Plus, let’s not forget the festering US-China issue.  A Biden administration won’t engage in silly name-calling the way Trump did, but the perception of China as a threat will remain unchanged.  There is every chance that relations will continue to deteriorate between now and 2024 and the possibility that China-US academic relations will break remains.  XI Jinping has been pretty loath to stop Chinese students going to America for school, partly because this form of knowledge transmission remains a key element in Chinese economic growth (as it has been since it was inaugurated by Deng Xiao Ping in 1978), and partly because having a child in a prestigious American school remains for many in the Chinese ruling class a key part of the “China Dream”.  But if that changes – look out.  It’s not so much the money those students bring in (as it would be in Canada), but the fact that many American labs in STEM subjects would simply cease to function if the supply of Chinese graduate students were cut off.  

From the Canadian perspective, I suggest that there are a couple of things to watch here.  Obviously, from a competition-for-fee-paying-students angle, Canadian institutions need to be keenly aware of what kinds of offers American universities are making and in which markets they will seek to engage.  As I said, I’m not convinced that a lot of the institutions that want to pitch internationally are doing so at a workable price point, but the situation bears monitoring. 

The more significant challenge is going to be on science and innovation.  For the past four years, our policy has more or less been LOOK AT US WE ARE PRO-IMMIGRATION AND NOT ANTI-SCIENCE LOVE US WE ARE NOT TRUMP.  We have largely avoided the difficult task of being world-class while comforting ourselves with “at least we are better than Americans”.  To the minimal extent that attitude was ever good enough, it ceases to be so at noon today.  Will we seem as good a destination for scientists and other highly-qualified personnel once Biden is office?  If Biden inserts a big science-support scheme in one of the recovery-packages (as Obama did with the ARRA), will our funding support schemes be competitive, or will we start to lose top graduate students and young faculty to the US?  The good news here, probably, is that a Biden administration might provide something of a model in terms of how to use science for economic growth.  The bad news?  There’s a good chance we’re going to look more clownish on this score than we usually do while we learn how to play the game against real competition for a change.  And we could lose a lot of good people.

But let’s put sombre thoughts aside.  Saying that all will not be perfect is not to say that things will not be a great deal better.  Close your eyes for a moment or two at noon today and breathe deeply.  We made it.  It’s over.  

And on January 20, 2021, that’s all that matters.