Jerry Falwell Jr., President Of Liberty University, Asked To Lead Trump’s Higher Education Reform Task Force

Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. has been picked by President Donald Trump to lead a task force that will recommend changes to the Department of Education's policies and procedures.

"The goal is to pare it back and give colleges and their accrediting agencies more leeway in governing their affairs," Falwell reportedly said. He also mentioned that he has been discussing several issues with other college leaders for the past few months. "I've got notebooks full of issues," he added.

The mission and size of the task force has not been formally announced yet.

Falwell said he met the president in November at Trump Tower, but he declined the offer at the time because he "wanted a role that would allow me to stay at Liberty."

Len Stevens, the Liberty spokesman, told NBC News on Tuesday: "The main thing that he is seeking to do for the task force is to eliminate what he sees as excessive regulation of educational institutions and would bring a focus on overregulation and micromanagement of higher education."

Falwell's father, Rev. Jerry Falwell, was a co-founder of the Moral Majority and an architect of the conservative Christian political movement that supported Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980.

Falwell is also a lawyer aside from being the president of Liberty University. While Falwell acknowledged the several controversies surrounding Trump, he reportedly said that Trump was a better choice for the improvement of conservative Christian communities.

"I've seen firsthand what the Department of Education is doing to college and universities, using the leverage of financial aid to micro-manage college and schools with regulations that are overly burdensome," Falwell told MarketWatch late last year. "Those are my particular areas of interest."