[prmph]

Not exactly. Trump and his base do not care about Universities, which are seen as "liberal." Universities becoming fully open does not help his base or the economy as a whole, and thus his re-election chances.

This is a move aimed at destabilizing or collapsing the higher educational system. If safety from the virus continues to be a concern (as seems likely for the foreseeable future), universities cannot just resume fully, no matter what. Caught between the Trump order and the virus, things will start going downhill.

[totalZero]

I don't think that your analysis is coherent given the demographics of the political divide. The GOP has more support among high-income Americans than the DNC, and that support increases as you go further up the line. Rich people tend to send their children to universities. It doesn't serve them to destabilize or collapse the higher education system.

I think the larger weakness in your line of argument is that whatever happens to students will have externalities that reverberate beyond universities themselves. Students who are not in school will probably live at home, reifying the pandemic in the minds of their parents. They may question their tuition, creating a quagmire for universities that suddenly have to explain the high price of education via glorified webinars. They may choose to take time off and compete for jobs in the labor market.

It would be somewhat demoralizing for a middle-class family to be unable to send a college student back to school.

[User23]

This is a nice example of the mind-reader fallacy. Plenty of Trump supporters care deeply about universities, but feel that they are presently not fulfilling their societal role very well. That role being to preserve and add to our intellectual and cultural heritage while forming young persons to be thoughtful and productive members of society.