The return of Donald Trump to the White House after his victory in the 2024 Presidential election has altered nearly every aspect of American policy, and the world of higher education is in no way immune from these changes. Trump’s public fights with the Ivy League and other elite colleges have taken most of the media attention, but colleges across the nation have experienced their own share of changes, as have the students attending them. 

Admissions, Affirmative Action and International Students

Since his inauguration earlier this year, Trump has focused heavily on reforming a college system that his administration argues is financially bloated and biased against white applicants. Much of the administration’s reforms have focused on eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, particularly surrounding affirmative action, which was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2023. 

The administration argues that colleges have continued to apply affirmative action, primarily through proxy measures such as personal statements, in making acceptance decisions, and Trump has released a barrage of executive orders on that subject. Last month Trump signed a new order that forces colleges to share data about their applicant pools and acceptances, giving the Department of Education power to investigate these alleged proxies. 

The Department of Education, meanwhile, had threatened to cut federal funding to institutions that it claims engaged in race-based decision making, though these threats have been caught up in court. These latest orders follow an immediate effort within the opening days of the second Trump presidency to eliminate DEI resources and initiatives from the Department of Education’s website, as well as directing the various branches of government to identify and investigate colleges, corporations and foundations with DEI initiatives. 

The administration has also attempted to restrict international students, both in the numbers that can be admitted and in the length of time they can remain. Trump’s attacks against international students have so far targeted individual schools, such as his suspension of visas for students studying at Harvard or his requirement that Columbia “decrease financial dependence on international student enrollment”. However, the administration has begun to move from changing the rules for individual schools to changing the rules for all international students. 

One recent memo from the Department of Homeland Security proposes to restrict student visas to a duration of four years. At present, student visas have “duration of status,” which permits students to remain in the country while they continue to make progress towards a degree. Critics argue that restricting student visas to a four-year term will prevent international students from completing a bachelor’s degree program if they require time beyond the standard 4-year plan and will limit their ability to participate in doctoral programs that frequently last five years or more.

Student Loan Changes

While the Trump administration’s policy has influenced admissions policy and diversity initiatives across higher education,  changes to student loans and financial aid will most directly impact students. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) has implemented a series of restrictions on federal borrowing. Parent PLUS loans, which typically helped cover the gap between student loan limits and the rising cost of college, have been capped, maxing out at $20,000 annually and $65,000 total per student. When combined with the $7,500 annual limit for undergraduate federal loans, that limits families to $27,500 per year in federal loans. With the average annual cost of undergraduate education reaching $38,270, these federal loan caps will leave students with, on average, over 10 thousand dollars still to cover, either out of their own pockets, through scholarships or through the private loan market.

For those seeking a graduate education, the OBBBA has eliminated Graduate PLUS loans and added additional caps to federal borrowing. Graduate students are now only permitted to take out a maximum of $20,500 per year, while professional students (those in medical school, law school, and other similar programs providing training for a specific job) can take out a maximum of $50,000 per year. With the average annual tuition cost of medical school at $59,605 and the average tuition cost of a masters’ degree being $62,820 over two years, graduate students will likewise need to find approximately ten thousand dollars in additional funding to cover the cost of their degrees.

The OBBBA has also reduced the variety of loan repayment options. Previously, federal loans provided multiple income-driven repayment options to help lower-income students pay back their loans, and President Biden expanded that list by signing the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan into law last year. However, the OBBBA replaces these plans with the new Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP), which now becomes the only alternative to a standard fixed-payment plan. 

The RAP has a minimum monthly payment of $10 (SAVE had no minimum monthly payment), has a term length of 30 years (SAVE had a 20-year term, or 25 years for graduate loans) and begins counting its income percentage immediately (SAVE ignored the first $35,000 of income). This collectively means that a borrower making $40,000 annually would see their monthly payment increase from $40 under the SAVE plan to $132 under the new plan. RAP does, however, provide substantial discounts for those with dependent children, and is generally a less expensive plan for those with higher incomes.

In short, the OBBBA has reduced both the scale of federal loans and the variety of repayment plans that exist for both undergraduate and graduate education. In the immediate future, more students will have to seek alternate sources of funding, whether those be private loans or additional external financial aid/scholarships. The decline in international students, who typically pay higher tuition prices, will make the scholarship budgets even tighter at many institutions. It’s unclear just how many students will be forced to reconsider their educational plans because of these changes, but the tradeoffs of higher education will certainly become more relevant than ever in the coming years.

Photo by Solen Feyissa via Uplash.

The influence of social media is nothing new. Many children have access to or  use social media platforms daily, but all this is possibly about to change. Australia is on track to pass a social media ban for children who are under the age of 16 to avoid trafficking and protect juveniles online. The plan behind this ban is to issue up to a $33 million fine for social media platforms if underage users are found on their sites. 

While many parents are protective over their kids’ safety, according to an article published by The Washington Post called “Can you stop a teen from using TikTok? Australia finds out,” experts and the owners of the sites aren’t as enthusiastic. Elon Musk, the owner of X, has reportedly called this law, “A backdoor way to control access to the internet by all Australians.” Other companies have expressed their concerns by calling this law “rushed” and saying there will be “unintended consequences.” Despite these protests, this ban idea is becoming more appealing to other countries and their leaders. Foreign countries are following suit, with Paris recently passing a bill that banned social media for teens under the age of 15. Trump’s top pick for U.S. Surgeon General, Janette Nesheiwat, has been claiming to want a social media ban for children since July of this year.

 During an interview with the Washington Post’s Tech Brief, Nesheiwat stated, “In my opinion, I think social media should be banned for all teenagers, to all young children, because it’s done nothing but harm.” This is a much different approach from what the current U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek H. Murthy, has taken in the past. Murthy has talked about parents working together to protect their children online, yet cabinet members have never called for a total social media ban. Nevertheless, Nesheiwat has come to the same conclusion that the legislative body in Australia has reached: there should be a ban on social media for teenagers under 16. 

Many have wondered if Nesheiwat can impose a ban, and it seems unlikely. A Washington Post article titled “Trump’s surgeon general pick called for banning social media for teens” has stated that a ban to this degree would anger groups that are a part of the tech trade, such as Amazon, Meta, and Google. The president-elect has yet to express his views on the topic. For now, America is at a standstill regarding social media and whether a ban is ethical. Meanwhile, Australia is heading towards the future with a ban attempting to keep teens off social media for as long as possible. As this trial run occurs across the ocean, other countries will be watching to see what happens and if parents can truly protect their children from the potential terrors of technology. 

Photo by Drew Hastings via Uplash.

“Falcon’s Flight,” a product of the Liechtensteiner manufacturer Intamin, has been advertised as the longest, fastest, and tallest roller coaster in the world. First announced by Six Flags on Aug. 26, 2019, the record-breaking coaster is currently under construction and projected to open by 2025 as part of the Six Flags Qiddiya grand opening in Saudi Arabia. 

The 3D rendering of “Falcon’s Flight” features three separate LSM launches, 4.2 kilometers (2.6 miles) of track, a top speed of 251 kilometers per hour (156 miles per hour) and a 640 foot drop. For reference, the average roller coaster is only 610 to 914 meters (2,000 to 3,000 feet, less than a mile) in length, 24 to 46 meters (80 to 150 feet) in height, and reaches a top speed of 64 to 97 kilometers per hour (40 to 60 miles per hour), paling in comparison by every metric to the ambitious blueprints for “Falcon’s Flight.”

“This project is daunting and requires many engineers and designers to make it work safely and provide enjoyment for many riders,” said Dr. Blane Baker, professor of engineering and physics at William Jewell College, in an interview with The Hilltop Monitor. “Working collaboratively is important. In my view, the design team would consist of a diverse group with expertise in design, safety, crisis management and public relations.”

The new amusement park Six Flags Qiddiya, home of “Falcon’s Flight,” will be part of the ongoing development of a project called Qiddiya City. Qiddiya City is being constructed near Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and will play a key role in the Saudi Vision 2030 initiative – an effort by the Saudi Arabian government to reduce the country’s reliance on oil by promoting new tourism and entertainment efforts, such as amusement rides like “Falcon’s Flight.” Oct. 9, 2024, Bloomberg reported that Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 Projects have reached $1.3 Trillion in value. 

For many years, Saudi Arabia has garnered negative attention from the rest of the world due to an abysmal record of human rights violations. This largely stems from a theocratic government, in which the public practice of any religion other than Sunni Islam is illegal and punishable by detainment, torture, and in the case of atheism or agnosticism, even the death penalty. LGBT+ individuals are heavily persecuted and subject to exemplary punishment, such as a 27-year-old man whose identity is unknown who was sentenced to 500 lashes and a fine of 50,000 riyals (equivalent to approx. $13,000 USD) for the crime of homosexuality. To add to the list of examples, male guardianship over women in Saudi Arabia was codified in 2022 and the kingdom has faced backlash over the state-sanctioned murder of independent journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, after having criticized Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in The Washington Post.

For these reasons along with an abundance of other concerns, many have critiqued Vision 2030 as not only a way to diversify the country’s economy but to distract from its failure to rectify these concerns. While LGBT+ Saudi Arabians are forced into exile, Saudi Arabia notes on their official government that the kingdom welcomes LGBT+ tourists wishing to visit, clarifying that travelers will not be required to disclose such information. Many critics have taken notice of this contradiction in standards, such as Pakistani journalist, Kunwar Khuldune Shahid, who characterized the hypocritical measure as “a grotesque insult to the local gay community.”

Due to the extreme and ambitious nature of the record breaking roller coaster, “Falcon’s Flight,” many coaster enthusiasts have debated whether the ride will live up to the standards it has promised to meet – or whether it will even be built at all. For many, the coaster was merely wishful thinking until photos of the construction process began to surface earlier this year.

“The viability of the coaster will depend on regular inspections and the ability to carefully monitor sensors installed along the track,” weighed in Dr. Baker. “Drones and other modern technology could be very useful for monitoring the performance of the coaster and how riders are doing. Protocols must be in place to keep coaster staff vigilant and ready to respond to problems. The absence of welds in the track should eliminate problems with welds cracking.” 

If or when Six Flags Qiddiya opens its doors, American consumers are largely split on how this will impact their spending patterns at local Six Flags parks. Following their merger with Cedar Fair on July 1, 2024, Six Flags owns a total of 42 amusement parks across 17 states, along with locations in both Canada and Mexico. This includes one park local to our campus and publication: Worlds of Fun in Kansas City, Missouri. 

The Hilltop Monitor conducted a series of anonymous online surveys asking students whether Six Flags’ involvement in Saudi Arabia’s 2024 would impact their willingness to support local amusement parks owned by Six Flags. 60 randomly-selected students representing a variety of departments and academic backgrounds volunteered to complete our survey. 30 percent of students answered that Six Flags’ partnership with the Saudi government would influence whether they would spend money at Six Flags parks such as Worlds of Fun in the future, of which 15 percent noted strong influence. 25 percent noted that this would not impact their decision. Another 25 percent noted they would not have planned to visit the amusement park for reasons unrelated to the partnership, while the remaining 20 percent stated that they would need more information to make a decision. 
Though the future of “Falcon’s Flight” and Flags Qiddiya is rather unclear, the record-breaking coaster continues to stir controversy and spark discourse regarding ethical challenges and the plausibility of the park delivering on its bold promises. Updates can be tracked on the official website for Six Flags Qiddiya. As of the time of publication, an official opening date is yet to be posted to the site.

Content warning: This article contains descriptions of violence and mentions of anti-Semitism.

Origins
This is the second article published in The Monitor about the Israel-Hamas war (2023-present). The first was written by Alee Dickey and is available on The Hilltop Monitor’s website or in last semester’s Issue 7 print edition. Dickey does an excellent job of explaining Israel’s rise to statehood. It does not, however, address the rise of Hamas – the other main agent in this conflict. This article will examine the rise of Hamas and its involvement in Palestine.

Maps are critical to understanding this conflict, and this article would not be complete without one. The Monitor has created such a map for this article. For the cartography connoisseurs who are not satisfied with just one map, here are multiple other maps from other news outlets on the subject.

Jewish involvement in Palestine dates from between eighty to three thousand years ago. We have to start somewhere, though, so the scope of this article begins in 1967  with UN Security Council Resolution 242. The resolution came out of the Six-Day War between Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Syria. The details of the Six-Day War are beyond the scope of this article. In practice, the resolution demanded “termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force”. In part, if this resolution had been adopted, each state in the region would have maintained its recognized borders at that time. UNSCR 242 did not include a specific list of states, but the UN’s website implies that Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Israel would have been included.

This resolution was not legally binding, however. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), then the recognized government of Palestine, initially rejected Resolution 242. According to the PLO, Resolution 242 implied Israel’s “sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence,” which the PLO would not accept.

Later, though, the PLO became more open to input from the international community. In 1988, the PLO began talks with the US government shortly after the start of the First Intifada. Intifada is an Arabic word that literally means “shaking off [Israeli invasion],” although the term can also be used to generally refer to revolutions or revolts. Around this time a group now known by an acronym, Hamas (short for Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-Islāmiyyah, which translates to English as “Islamic Resistance Movement), split from the PLO. In 1993, the PLO signed the Oslo Accords, which, among other things, called for a two-state solution via “arrangements for a smooth and peaceful transfer of authority from the Israeli military government and its Civil Administration to the [PLO].” 

Overthrow
Hamas is not solely a military organization, as it has political aims and represents “one of the Palestinian territories’ two major political parties.” Given its Islamist origins, Hamas rejected the PLO’s vision of a secular state, claiming in its original manifesto that “we are unable to exchange the present or future Islamic Palestine with the secular idea.” Hamas called for the destruction of Israel as a state: “Our struggle against the Jews [will continue],” reads their 1988 manifesto, “until the enemy is vanquished and Allah’s victory is realised.” This anti-Semitic slant has caused multiple countries and regional entities to designate Hamas as a terrorist organization, including the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union.

Hamas updated its manifesto in 2017, stating that “its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine.” Hamas does not define Zionism in this manifesto, however.

In 2006, Hamas won a majority of seats in parliamentary elections. On June 15, 2007, Hamas took complete control of Gaza with violence and by force. Hamas representatives announced via radio that “the past era has ended and will not return… The era of justice and Islamic rule have arrived.” Hamas has ruled in the Gaza Strip and West Bank ever since. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, “Palestinians have not voted for a legislature since 2006, nor a president since 2008.” For comparison, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was elected to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in 2009. He has been the Prime Minister from 2009-2021, and then again from 2022-present.

As of the time of writing, Israel has only declared war on Hamas. However, another entity must be understood for a full picture of the conflict: Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which backs Hamas.

Hezbollah claims direct involvement in the conflict: its leader, Syed Hassan Nasrallah, claimed in a Nov. 3, 2023 speech that “[t]he Islamic resistance in Lebanon started operation the very next day” after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Nasrallah further described the Oct. 7 attack as “a big event to shake this oppressive … occupying, usurping Zionist regime and its supporters in Washington and London.” Hamas has not explicitly accepted or rejected this labeling, though.

Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Israeli government represent the major players in this conflict.

Goals
Each side of the conflict has stated goals, which are briefly explained here.

Hamas, according to its 2017 manifesto, “believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea.” It is willing to consider the 1967 borders as a possibility, though it rejects Israel as a state. Its stated goals involve destruction of the state of Israel, which it labels as “the Zionist project” and thus as an occupying power.

Israel’s goals are threefold. Israeli ministers have spoken about the war as a three-stage operation. The first stage – invading Gaza – has been ongoing since the Hamas attack on Israel in Oct. 2023 that killed approximately 1,200 people. According to AP reporting and the Gaza Health Ministry, as of Feb. 5, 2024, the Palestinian death toll as a result of the ongoing war is 27,478 people. 

Israel’s second stage, according to Netanyahu, is “to destroy Hamas’s governing and military capabilities and to bring the hostages home,” referring to the more than 200 hostages Hamas took in its initial attacks. More information about the hostages Hamas took will be published in part two of this series.

Israel also seeks to maintain security in Gaza. According to Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, “The third step [of the invasion] will be the creation of a new security regime in the Gaza Strip, the removal of Israel’s responsibility for day-to-day life in the Gaza Strip, and the creation of a new security reality for the citizens of Israel and the residents of the [area surrounding Gaza].” Gallant did not provide further details as to what this “security reality” meant.

Iran-backed Hezbollah supports Hamas. Its role in this conflict would likely be as a spoiler. Hezbollah has little involvement in this war so far, but its strategic location – to Israel’s north – would force Israel to fight on two fronts if Hezbollah were to invade.

This article serves as background for the Israel-Hamas war. In this series of articles, I will address the initial attacks, war crimes committed by both parties and the path to a sustainable peace. 

If there is something in this conflict you believe needs featuring or would like Mr. Naber to write about, please contact the Hilltop Monitor’s email address. He will respond to comments as he is able.