Well, the time has come. We’ve finally reached the part where a Trump we’re familiar with begins something normal in their life. I know that’s a foreign concept to most of the readers on this site, since the majority of Trump stories are about the bizarre things that family gets up to.
But now Barron’s going to college. He’s attending NYU, specifically the Stern School of Business.
“He’ll be going to Stern Business School, which is a great school at NYU,” Donald Trump said in an interview with Daily Mail [1] released Wednesday.
“It’s a very high-quality place. He liked it. He liked the school. We like NYU. I’ve known NYU for a long time. But it’s one of the highest-rated,” Trump said of his youngest son’s college choice.
Noting that he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s business school, Trump said, “I went to Wharton and that’s certainly one we were considering. We didn’t do that. We went to Stern.”
But don’t get me wrong. This isn’t going to be “normal” like your kid going off to college. He’s going to be surrounded by Secret Service. He won’t be able to do the things that “normal” kids get to do, like live their lives on Snapchat and Instagram… Or if he does, it will have to be closely monitored. Barron’s not going to have the leeway that his dad gets.
NYU has the Gallatin School of Individual Study. That would’ve let the youngest Trump pretty much do as he pleases, and that seems important to him. But it’s being reported he chose Stern, which is a top school, and we can’t help but wonder if some serious strings were pulled.
Barron certainly won’t have the freedom that he had when he was growing up. We’ve already reported that he was a bit of a wild child, and that’s being kind. According to one source we reported on, Barron has a history [2] that includes cruelty to animals and even other kids.
Obviously all of that is now out of the question.
But most importantly, that pesky social media thing will weigh heavily. We already know Barron is heavily into certain podcasts and streams, even having convinced his dad to do an interview [3] with one of the streamers he likes best.
But as Secret Service agent Paul Eckloff, who guarded George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump (and their families) pointed out in a recent interview, the impact of social media has grown exponentially over the years.
Barron’s safety and privacy will be more at risk now from social media than it has ever been a factor in the past.
For example, everyone reading this has been included in a picture that was posted to Facebook or Instagram, or a video on TikTok, or SOME form of social media, that the world can see. Usually you’re “tagged” in the image or video, and there’s a location involved. For some of us, that can be a point of pride. I sure didn’t mind having pictures taken of me and my girlfriend in Mexico at a beautiful resort for a wedding back in 2022.
Not so for the children of presidents.
“Let’s say that a president’s child is at a party and someone tweets out their picture. Now, their location is broadcast on social media, and they could become a target. That can endanger everybody,” said Eckloff.
Social media has always been something of a factor, for as long as it’s been around. When Malia Obama went off to Harvard, everyone on campus wanted to snap her picture and put it on their feed.
Then she had her picture taken candidly at Lollapalooza when it was in Chicago, smoking a cigarette (like her dad, who famously quit).
The next time she was photographed at a music festival, she had a Harvard hat on and a t-shirt with a hand-drawn slogan of “Smoking Kills.”
When her younger sister Sasha was photographed waiting tables at her job, it took little more than amateur sleuthing to learn that she was working in Martha’s Vineyard.
I don’t know why anyone would want to go after the Obama girls, but they could have based on just those pictures.
The whole experience can be confusing, in fact, for the children of presidents. Imagine if when you went off to school, everyone wanted to talk to you and take your picture — interrupting what should have been the same kind of experience any other kid might have had at college — not because you’re a pop star or actor, but because your PARENT is famous for being the leader of the free world (even if it was the past tense, in Barron’s case).
Photo – JIM RASSOL/THE PALM BEACH POST / USA TODAY NETWORK
The reason it took until now to learn even what we have learned about Barron is because he’s always been in private schools. Rich kids know how it works. They don’t want undue attention, either, and discretion levels at a private school are pretty high.
Universities are a completely different thing. And not just for the kids. For the Secret Service, it presents unique difficulties. Eckloff explains, “They have to be innovative in how they achieve the protection. You can’t secure the entire dorm, it’s just not realistic.”
Add to that the fact that if he’s anything like the other kids at college, Barron’s going to be trying to find ways to drink, go to parties, or possibly even entertain people for the night, and the Secret Service’s job just got that much harder.
But, as Eckloff puts it, “I think you’d rather have your college experience impacted a little than be kidnapped.” That certainly has to be true for a kid who’s never really had a real, unsheltered life of any kind.