Since his second inauguration on January 20, 2025, President Trump has signed over ninety executive orders—issuing more than any of his predecessors at this point in their terms. This unprecedented flurry of executive activity has left many first-generation student success professionals struggling to keep up and understand what impact, if any, these actions will have on their work.

Learning to distinguish substantive policy proposals from merely symbolic ones is key if one is to #AdvocateFirstGen effectively. Below, you’ll find resources that will help you identify and track the policies most likely to affect you and your students. As always, be sure to consult with your institution’s general counsel if you have questions about how specific policies might impact your work.

Executive Actions

Executive actions are any activities the president undertakes to advance his agenda. The president can take an executive action without Congress’s approval, but Congress, as well as federal courts and subsequent presidents, can undo any such action. These actions take three major forms: executive orders, memoranda, and proclamations.

Executive orders (EOs) direct federal government operations. They function like laws because they are an exercise of the president’s constitutionally granted “executive power” and/or congressionally delegated authority. EOs only direct the activities of federal employees and contractors. The White House must publish all EOs publicly in the Federal Register.

Memoranda function like EOs. The White House does not need to publish memoranda publicly, though it sometimes chooses to do so. The media sometimes publishes memoranda that administration officials leak. Memoranda do not need to cite the authority under which the president issued them.

Proclamations are ceremonial and have no legal force (unless Congress has told the president he must issue a proclamation to do something it has empowered him to do in law). The president typically issues proclamations to commemorate federal holidays.

You can review most of these documents on the White House’s official website here.

Federal Legislation

Federal legislation is both one of the most effective and difficult ways to execute the president’s agenda. Unlike executive actions, federal legislation requires the approval of the president, a majority of the U.S. House of Representatives, and (typically) a supermajority of the U.S. Senate. Because undoing federal legislation requires one to pass another piece of federal legislation, this form of policy change is more permanent than that enacted through an executive order.

GovTrack is a free service you can use to research and monitor federal legislation. This website allows you to receive email alerts on specific bills, bills mentioning certain keywords (e.g., “first-generation college students”), or those dealing with specific subjects (e.g., “higher education”). 

This website also uses an advanced algorithm to calculate the likelihood that a bill will become law. You can use this prognosis to determine whether you should invest your limited resources in understanding and/or advocating for or against the bill.

State Legislation

While federal legislation overrides state legislation, the latter typically has a more immediate impact on the lives of those within the covered state. As such, knowing which bills your state representatives are considering is essential.

BillTrack50 is a service you can use to research state legislation for free. While the free version does not allow you to set up email alerts for bills of interest, you can usually do so through your state legislature’s website once you find a bill you’d like to monitor.

What Can I Do With This Information?

Once you identify policies of interest, you should feel empowered to contact your elected officials at the federal and state levels to discuss how they will impact you and your students. You can identify your federal and state representatives by entering your address on this website.

Unless you are authorized to speak on your institution’s behalf, you should always be clear that you’re contacting your representatives in your personal capacity. Engaging directly with your representatives in this way is a powerful way to #AdvocateFirstGen.