Donald Trump is the official president-elect of 2016, and students and faculty are debating what he will do with his presidential power.

The results of the election started coming in after 6 p.m. Tuesday leaving the country anxiously awaiting the announcement of the next president.

Chloe Gottschalk, a junior mass communication major, said she stayed to watch the polls come in until Trump reached 244 electoral votes.

“I woke up at 6 a.m. and looked online to see that Trump had won and instantly started crying,” Gottschalk said.

Colleen Danaher, a senior communication studies major, said she stayed up until midnight watching the results. She said she turned the TV off because the results were coming too close.

“I woke up at 2 this morning and checked, it was so nerve-wracking,” Danaher said.

The New York Times reported that the election shocked many Americans, along with the rest of the world, not only with the results, but also with uncertainty as to when and what policies Trump will implement during his term in office.

Political science professor Karen Swenson said Trump is a man of action and will try to implement his policies fairly quickly when he enters office.

“There are executive orders concerning immigration that Obama has put out; I’m thinking about (Deffered Action for Childhood Arrivals),” Swenson said.  “Because that’s just an executive order, it’s something President Trump could rescind, which could make a big difference to people who have been granted relief from deportation, and that certainly includes students here at Eastern.”

DACA was implemented by the Obama administration in June 2012 and allows select undocumented immigrants under the age of 16 to come to America and receive a work permit with exemption from deportation.

Meghan McEvoy, a senior recreation administration major, said she thinks the senate and the house will check some of Trump’s policies.

“I do not think it will be as bad as people are anticipating, but I think a lot of people are nervous,” McEvoy said.

Swenson said another policy priority Trump has is rolling back or potentially eliminating the Affordable Health Care Act. Swenson said Trump might retain some popular elements of the act such as requiring insurance companies to keep children on their parent’s insurance until age 26 and preventing insurance companies from denying coverage for people who have preexisting health conditions.

“He is definitely a free enterprise guy, so I do not think he likes the idea of the government taking responsibility for getting everybody insured,” Swenson said.

Gottschalk said she thinks women and people in poverty are going to be the most affected by Trump’s healthcare.

Danaher said she plans to be on her parent’s insurance for a few more years, but said there are going to be changes to a lot of things people are not used to.

According to NPR, Trump’s October speech addressed three main areas of focus he will start to work at within his first 100 days in office that includes cleaning up Washington by imposing term limits on Congress, protecting American workers and restoring rule of law.

Gottschalk said she is not sure if Eastern will be able to survive the presidency.

“We barely survived the state economic problems, and I am very worried I will not be able to finish my last year at Eastern,” Gottschalk said.

McEvoy said she is not too informed on Trump’s policies regarding higher education, but she has no concerns about her education as she is graduating soon.

As for the local election, Swenson said since the 110th district is a heavily Republican area it was not surprising that Reggie Phillips won state representative, but the election was a fairly tight race against Dennis Malak, who had respectable results as a result of his campaign for funding Eastern.

“I hope that will send a message to the state legislature that this is something we care deeply about,” Swenson said.

Swenson also said there is a move nationally for states to fund their public institutions of higher education at a lower level to make the tuition to drive the cost rather than have it subsidized.

“I think Eastern has a future here, but we may find that it becomes more expensive to go here,” Swenson said.

The New York Times also reported backlash towards the media after the election results, mainly their wrong prediction of the polls.

Gottschalk said it is common for polling stations to predict wrong, which just shows the media can blow up anything they want to affect results.

“Them blowing it up made it seem like Hillary Clinton was cheating, which made people probably lean towards Trump even more,” Gottschalk said.

McEvoy said there is truth behind everything in the media, but she does not think the whole truth is always there.

Marisa Foglia can be reached at 581-2812 or mjfoglia@eiu.edu.