Trump wants colleges to take on more 'financial risk' from student loan debt

Donald Trump.
(Image credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

There's more to President Trump's free speech order than meets the ear.

In a Thursday press conference, Trump railed against colleges and universities for becoming "increasingly hostile to free speech." So he said he's unveiling an executive order to punish those "anti-First Amendment institutions" by withholding their federal research funds — while simultaneously tackling the ballooning student loan industry.

Millions of Americans hold a collective $1.5 trillion in student debt, per the most recent Federal Reserve statistics. Trump's order tackles that problem in some fairly expected ways: Crafting a federal website that shows students their loan "risks" and "repayment options," and making sure colleges educate students on those same things. Yet CBS News' Kathryn Watson also highlighted a more unexpected part of Trump's Thursday conference:

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The details of that proposed proposal aren't included in the actual text of the order, so it's unclear just how the Department of Education will make it happen. Trump also didn't elaborate much further, instead just going on to share how much he loves loans. Kathryn Krawczyk

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Kathryn Krawczyk

Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.