Tag: budget

  • Congress Proposes Increasing NIH Budget, Maintaining ED

    Congress Proposes Increasing NIH Budget, Maintaining ED

    The House and Senate appropriations committees have jointly proposed legislation that would generally maintain the Education Department’s funding levels, plus increase the National Institutes of Health’s budget by more than $400 million this fiscal year. It’s the latest in a trend of bipartisan Congressional rebukes of President Trump’s call to slash agencies that support higher ed.  

    For the current fiscal year, Trump had asked Congress to cut the NIH by 40 percent and subtract $12 billion from ED’s budget. The president proposed eliminating multiple ED programs, including TRIO, GEAR UP and the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant program, which all help low-income students attend college. He also proposed reducing the ED Office for Civil Rights budget by over a third. 

    But the proposed funding package senators and representatives released this week maintains funding for all of those programs. 

    “We were surprised to see the level of funding for the higher education programs actually be increased, in some regards—and be maintained,” said Emmanual Guillory, senior director of government relations at the American Council on Education. “We knew that level funding would be considered a win in this political environment.” 

    This latest set of appropriations bills is the final batch that Congress must approve to avert another government shutdown at the end of the month. Democrats have said passing actual appropriations bills, as opposed to another continuing resolution, is key to ensuring that federal agencies spend money as Congress wants.

    Joanne Padrón Carney, chief government relations officer for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, told Inside Higher Ed that the NIH budget increase is essentially “flat funding,” considering inflation. But she said “this appropriations package once again demonstrates Congressional, bipartisan support for research and development and the importance of these investments, as well as rejecting the administration’s very dramatic cuts.”  

    Earlier this month, Congress largely rejected Trump’s massive proposed cuts to the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Energy Department, three significant higher ed research funders. These developments are adding up to a more encouraging 2026 funding picture for research and programs that support postsecondary students. 

    But Congress has just 10 days to pass this new funding package, and Trump must still sign both packages into law. A government shutdown will begin after Jan. 30 for those agencies without approved appropriations legislation. 

    Guillory noted that—despite the Justice Department declaring last month that minority-serving institution programs are unlawful because they “effectively [employ] a racial quota by limiting institutional eligibility to schools with a certain racial composition”—Congress still proposed funding these programs. 

    “Pretty much every single program that is a minority-serving institution program received an increase in funding,” he said. 

    The appropriators also want to send another roughly $790 million to the Institute of Education Sciences, compared to the $261 million Trump requested. Last year, his administration gutted IES, the federal government’s central education data collection and research funding agency. But, like the broader Education Department, laws passed by Congress continue to require it to exist. 

    Beyond the appropriations numbers, the proposed legislation to fund the NIH would also prevent the federal government from capping indirect research cost reimbursement rates for NIH grants at 15 percent, as the Trump administration has unsuccessfully tried to do. Indirect cost rates, which individual institutions have historically negotiated with the federal government, pay for research expenses that are difficult to pin to any single project, such as lab costs and patient safety. 

    The appropriations committees released an explanatory statement alongside the legislation that says “neither NIH, nor any other department or agency, may develop or implement any policy, guidance, or rule” that would change how “negotiated indirect cost rates have been implemented and applied under NIH regulations, as those regulations were in effect during the third quarter of fiscal year 2017.” 

    GOP members of the House Appropriations Committee didn’t say they were bucking the president in their news release on the proposal. Instead, they said the legislation demonstrates “the will of the American people who mandated new priorities and accountability in government, including priorities to ‘Make America Healthy Again’ and ‘Make America Skilled Again.’” 

    “Investments are directed to where they matter most: into lifesaving biomedical research and resilient medical supply chains, classrooms and training that prepare the next generation for success, and rural hospitals and primary care to end the chronic disease epidemic,” the release said. 

    Democrats claimed victory for Congress. 

    “This latest funding package continues Congress’s forceful rejection of extreme cuts to federal programs proposed by the Trump Administration,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, in a release.  

    “Where the White House attempted to eliminate entire programs, we chose to increase their funding,” DeLauro said. “Where the Administration proposed slashing resources, we chose to sustain funding at current levels. Where President Trump and Budget Director Russ Vought sought broad discretion over federal spending, Congress, on a bipartisan, bicameral basis, chose to reassert its power of the purse.”

    Carney says she thinks passage is “highly likely.” 

    “Ostensibly, what they call the ‘four corners’—the chair and ranking members from both chambers and both parties—have come to this agreement on this package,” she said. So, barring “last-minute surprises,” she said, “it should be relatively smooth sailing.”

    Rep. Tom Cole, the Republican chair of the House appropriations committee, urged his fellow lawmakers to pass the legislation.

    “At a time when many believed completing the FY26 process was out of reach, we’ve shown that challenges are opportunities,” Cole said in a statement. “It’s time to get it across the finish line.”

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  • Podcast: Free speech, Scottish budget, Mickey Mouse

    Podcast: Free speech, Scottish budget, Mickey Mouse

    This week on the podcast new polling suggests over a third of students think Reform UK should be banned from speaking on campus – a higher proportion than previous surveys found for the BNP or English Defence League. So what does this tell us about free speech in higher education?

    Plus Scotland’s budget settlement and legislative changes, and unpacking what “Mickey Mouse courses” really means.

    With Andy Long, Vice Chancellor at Northumbria University, Jess Lister, Director of Education at Public First, and Debbie McVitty, Editor at Wonkhe and presented by Mark Leach, Editor in Chief at Wonkhe.

    On the site

    41 per cent of Reform-voting undergraduates don’t think Reform should be allowed to speak on campus

    So you’ve been accused of harbouring “Mickey Mouse” courses at your institution… now what?

    Identifying “mickey mouse” courses

    Scottish Budget 2026 to 2027

    You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, Spotify, Acast, Amazon Music, Deezer, RadioPublic, Podchaser, Castbox, Player FM, Stitcher, TuneIn, Luminary or via your favourite app with the RSS feed.

    Transcript (auto generated)

    It’s The Wonkhe Show. A third of students want Reform off campus. We’re talking about what’s really going on behind the data. It’s been a big week of fees and funding in Scotland and the Mickey Mouse row returns. But who’s really taking the mic? It’s all coming up.

    And it is obviously reasonable for people to question the value of university courses based on, for example, academic rigour, student outcomes, and broader societal value. But it’s not reasonable for them to arbitrarily decide on this based on no evidence. I’m afraid I see this article as really very lazy journalism.

    Welcome back to The Wonkhe Show, your weekly guide to this week’s higher education news, policy and analysis. I’m your host Mark Leach, and here to chew the fat over this week’s news, as usual, are three brilliant guests. In Newcastle, it’s Andy Long, Vice-Chancellor of Northumbria University. Andy, your highlight of the week, please.

    Thanks, Mark. Yesterday, we had a tour of our soon-to-be-opened North East Space Skills and Technology Centre. It’s going to be the home to some really exciting research and teaching on satellite and space science and technology, and we were accompanied by the North East Mayor, Kim McGuinness, who’s a great supporter of this initiative.

    Lovely. And with us is Jess, Director of Education at Public First. Jess, your highlight of the week, please.

    Hello, yes. Mine is a bit of a brag, I’m afraid. We launched our report this week on national numeracy. And usually when you launch a report, you’re looking for pick-up in The Times or The Telegraph, or one of the broadsheets. But I was delighted that for the first time, our report was discussed on This Morning, on the sofa. So there you go. A report launch first for me.

    Very good. And in North London is Demetri Onakés-Elizadebi. Your highlight of the week, please.

    Well, I had an excellent meeting of the Audit and Risk Committee of the organisation that I’m a trustee of, which is the National Institute of Teaching. It sounds terribly dull, but actually we had a very lively discussion about internal audit, and that was very much the highlight of my week. That’s pretty sad, but there it is.

    The Higher Education Policy Institute has conducted a third wave of polling of student views on free speech. The first of these waves was in 2016, around the time of Brexit. The second was in 2022, around the time of Covid. The latest was conducted in November and published this morning, and it’s trying to explore whether, as some commentators have suggested, the era of “woke” is over, in light of the election of Donald Trump and a supposed sea change in public views.

    What we see here is some really quite mixed results. There’s growth in the number of students who think universities are less tolerant of the expression of a free range of views. That’s up to 47 per cent, which is a little bit concerning. Fifty-two per cent think student societies are typically oversensitive. That tends towards the idea that students are coming away from what would be characterised as anti-free speech positions. But support for safe space policies and trigger warnings has grown over the same period, which points the other way.

    The eye-catching result that is all over the press this morning is that one third, about 35 per cent, think Reform UK should be banned from campus. Earlier waves polled on organisations like the EDL, BNP and UKIP, and around a quarter to a third of students in earlier waves expressed support for those organisations being banned from campus. Reform is obviously something a little bit different.

    DK has unpacked this on the site today, and one of the things he notes that is worth contextualising is that the number includes Reform-voting students, so there is something going on there. He also notes that only 18 per cent of students said that nobody should be banned from campus. There is clearly something going on here about students’ attitudes to political parties. There are loads of other questions in there about events, memorials and curriculum. One thing to take away is that a lot of students are in the “it depends” camp. There is more nuance here than it might look like at first blush.

    Yes, lots going on here. Just where to begin, because a lot of this looks quite contradictory on the face of it. For example, 41 per cent of Reform-voting students don’t think Reform should speak on campus. Is this about students in general and attitudes to politics, or is there a partisan thing going on here?

    One of the first things you learn when you start doing public opinion research is that people can comfortably hold competing views in their heads and not see the logical inconsistencies. This is a large sample of around a thousand students, done by a reputable polling company, and HEPI is a reputable outlet. It’s not possible to look at this and say the sample is wrong or the poll is wrong. What is interesting is thinking about what sits behind some of the questions.

    Take the headline that a third of students would ban Reform UK from campus. I’m interested in whether they want them banned, or whether they just do not want to listen to them. That has always been one of the tensions in free speech policy. You can have a right to lawful free speech on campus, but you do not have a right for anyone to turn up and listen to you, or to like you for your views. Sometimes all of this gets muddled up.

    It’s a really interesting finding. It’s going to wind up all the people who like to be wound up by these things. It should also cause everyone else to pause for reflection. This should not be dismissed. There is a conversation to have about what university leaders can do to break down polar opposites of views. “I do not mind free speech, I just do not want to hear from these people. I do not want to engage.” That is a substantive discussion.

    In terms of the polling, it would be interesting to follow this up. Polling shows what people think. It does not explain why. It would be useful to see more discussion about why students think parties should be banned from speaking, and what they mean by “banned” in this context.

    It makes me wonder whether students have a more nuanced view than this makes out. There is lots of support for safe spaces and content warnings. Does that suggest that this language of banning, and the binary debate that often dominates the free speech conversation, is not where they are in their heads?

    I think Jess captured it well. It may be about whether students want to ban things or whether they just do not want to hear them. Social media, and how people interact through it, colours expectations. In the past you might have expected to hear a range of views through different media. Now your social media channel can be largely focused on things you agree with, and you may be more reluctant to engage with those you do not.

    In the end, a proportion of the population will always want to ban things they do not like. Students may not be terribly different to the rest of the population. What we also know is that 18 to 24 year olds are far less likely to support Reform than, for example, the Green Party. A recent YouGov poll showed that 10 per cent of that age group supported Reform and 30 per cent supported the Greens. It’s interesting in this study that 7 per cent of people want to ban the Greens from speaking on campus. Put together, people often want to ban, or avoid hearing from, people they disagree with. If fewer young people support Reform, more of them want to see Reform banned, or just do not want to hear from them.

    It’s also interesting that in previous waves of this survey, parties asked about were more extreme than Reform. In 2016 and 2022, the survey asked about the BNP and the English Defence League, and similar older, defunct but still culturally present far right organisations. This year, if you put all the parties asked about on a left-to-right scale, Reform is the most extreme. It would be interesting to see whether the polling is showing that people do not want the most extreme parties to come to campus, or whether it is Reform specifically.

    What really matters is how universities respond to this. I see no evidence that they are banning speakers from different political parties. The only evidence I have is when we had hustings for the mayoral elections. Our students’ union organised those, all candidates were invited, and the Reform candidate decided not to come. They would have been welcome to come and put their case forward and answer questions from our students, but they did not want to.

    Student leaders are in a really interesting position here. I’m reminded of a conversation I had at the Festival of Education in November, around the time this polling was being conducted, with a student leader wrestling with her responsibilities around a Reform society on campus. Inevitably it was framed in free speech terms. The students who wanted to set up the society and invite speakers felt strongly about it, as did the students who felt it was inappropriate. As a student leader, she had to navigate that space. That nuance of how you listen to both camps, and what purpose political societies serve on campus in terms of civic engagement and political debate, is part of the picture.

    Mark asks about Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice, who has jumped on the polling and called the findings appalling. He claims British universities have abandoned being centres of genuine learning, rigorous debate and intellectual challenge, instead becoming echo chambers of far left indoctrination run by activist academics. This is his long-held position already. It plays neatly into how he wants to talk about universities, and it frames the culture war quite starkly. There is a danger the nuance gets lost in the mainstream.

    Students having left-wing views should surprise nobody. That has been true for a long time. Richard Tice believing universities are far left indoctrination camps is also a long-held view. None of this is new. He did not use the “left-wing madrasas” line this time. What is interesting is the second paragraph of his statement, which arguably gives the sector an answer. He says universities bear responsibility for allowing this culture to fester. Universities do now bear responsibility for helping and encouraging as healthy a debate as possible on this topic. If I was a university vice-chancellor, I would be thinking about how to get better debates on campus. We are a long way out from an election, but this issue is going to bubble and bubble unless universities are seen to do something.

    This debate only ever interests the political elite. It is not usually a mass public opinion issue, but it acts like a barnacle on the sector’s reputation. The more work you see on how to have debate on campus, including with people you disagree with, the less weight these “echo chamber” attacks have. This also draws heavily from the US playbook. Under Trump, Republicans had universities in their sights and started stripping out grant funding, often using free speech as a rationale. You can see Reform dipping a toe in the water about something like that here in the UK, without really understanding the funding system they would be trying to reshape. They are pulling from what has happened in the US and trying to make it a UK-wide debate.

    There is also something about “woke” as a category. The origins of the term are about being attuned to social inequality and understanding how different groups can be marginalised, particularly around racial and ethnic marginalisation. But it has expanded and taken on a pejorative life of its own, used from a hostile ideological position towards universities. It would be odd if students themselves, who are not immersed in anti-woke discourse, were to treat a basket of positions around free speech as a coherent “woke” label. That coherence is often assumed by the people asking the questions or analysing the results, rather than by students themselves.

    In Wonkhe polling, there is also a link between a sense of freedom to speak on a personal level and being part of a marginalised group. We can too readily assume freedom of speech means freedom to attack left-wing positions. It can be as much about feeling safe, feeling part of a community, and understanding the purposes of speaking up as it is about entitlement to be exposed to controversial views. Now that the sector has been through the free speech debate, the legislation, the regulator, and the policies, there is a case for going back to students and asking what matters to them in taking part in a conversation, what the purpose is pedagogically, and what it does for development as a graduate and citizen in a complex political environment.

    Let’s see who’s important for us this week.

    Hi, I’m Shine Jackson, an employment partner at Mills & Reeve specialising in the sector. After months of parliamentary back and forth, the Employment Rights Act 2025 finally made it into the statute books just before Christmas, with wide-ranging implications for the sector. From new rules on unfair dismissal and zero-hours contracts, to tougher requirements on sexual harassment and major changes to industrial action, these reforms will have a real impact on how universities manage their people and risk. In my blog I’ve set out five things sector leaders need to know to prepare for these reforms, with a handy table of implementation dates.

    Now, Jess, it’s been a busy month in Scotland. Tell us what’s going on.

    It has. In Scotland we’ve seen the launch of a Future Framework for universities, a joint government and sector initiative to scope out the long-term needs of Scotland’s higher education system all the way to 2045. It’s worth noting this is not a full review. It’s more the start of an evaluation of the sector’s long-term financial sustainability, what it might need, and what Scotland’s economy might need. It is not a promise that anything in the current system is going to change. It is also a reminder that the Scottish system is much more reliant than the English system on direct government funding because students currently do not pay fees. So what the government decides its long-term settlement is going to be is key.

    We’ve seen indications the Scottish government is willing to provide some further support. There’s been an above-inflation increase in teaching and research budgets announced this week, perhaps in the hope of avoiding another Dundee-style incident. The final thing that’s interesting is that, similar to England and Wales, the Scottish government is now trying to scope out not just what a higher education funding strategy looks like, but a tertiary one too.

    Debbie responds that Scotland is already more “tertiary” than England in the sense of a post-16, post-18 offer across the system. There may be politics going on. Before Christmas the minister announced a plan to work with the university sector on the funding framework. Scotland’s universities face a genuine financial crisis, which is also a problem for the country. The framework plan may be designed to get under the skin of the issues and carry the conversation across the Scottish Parliament elections in the spring. The tertiary approach is also connected to the Tertiary Education Bill, and may reflect pressure from Scotland’s colleges that a higher education funding settlement implicates them too.

    Committing to a strategy is a step above annual budgets, and it signals a desire to link system sustainability to national goals. But there is always a risk that strategies keep the conversation going without real action. Funding higher education long term is difficult. The approach may be useful, but delivery remains uncertain.

    Andy notes that Scottish universities receive up to £2,000 a year less per home student than English universities do, and are even more reliant on international student income. There is also a relatively small group of Scottish universities that can do very well in international recruitment, meaning there is less to go around for others. England faces its own pressures, including undergraduate fees being flat for 11 of the last 13 years and recent reductions in international student numbers, but the challenge is greater in Scotland.

    Jess suggests that a joint government and sector review, without promises, could be a model for England closer to 2030. The question is whether it becomes a good conversation without political and funding heft behind it. Andy cites a London Economics statistic from a few years ago that in England students and graduates cover around 84 per cent of the total cost of higher education, with government funding around 16 per cent, and contrasts this with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The rhetoric from politics recently has often suggested students should pay more, not less, which does not suggest a more generous settlement is imminent.

    There is also an acknowledgement that, despite everyone insisting the Scottish review is not just about fees, it inevitably is. The politics of “free education” remain a touchstone, particularly for the SNP, but there is a sense that without a clever political route to change, the funding crisis will continue. There are alternative models, such as salary-based graduate repayments, but implementing them is difficult. Scotland may choose to try something different.

    That’s about it for this week. Remember you can go in deep on anything we discussed today. You’ll find links in the show notes on wonkhe.com. Don’t forget to subscribe. Just search for The Wonkhe Show wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to get ahead of everything going on in UK higher education, hit subscriptions on the site to find out more. Thanks to Jess, Andy and Debbie, and to Michael Salmon for making it all happen behind the scenes. We’ll be back next week. Jim will be here. Until then, stay Wonkhe.

     

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  • Lane Community College Board Approves Budget Reduction

    Lane Community College Board Approves Budget Reduction

    The Lane Community College Board of Education voted to approve college leaders’ plans for a budget reduction on Jan. 7, despite fierce pushback from the faculty union. The latest controversy comes amid a dramatic year for the Oregon community college, marked by long, fractious board meetings and an ongoing battle between administrators and faculty over stalled labor negotiations and course cuts.

    College administrators argue the approved proposal—cutting spending by $8 million over the next three years—is a financial necessity. They say the college regularly falls short of a board requirement to maintain 10 percent of its balance in reserves. Administrators also conducted a new multiyear forecast that predicted expenses are going to grow.

    The college is expected to be “in a deficit every year … if we continue on the same trends that we have been in the last two or three years,” said Kara Flath, Lane’s vice president of finance and operations. The plan also proposes using some of the freed-up money for deferred maintenance and other projects.

    But faculty union leaders disagree with the administration’s view of the college’s financial present and future. Adrienne Mitchell, president of the faculty union, the Lane Community College Education Association, believes leadership’s projections are pessimistic and that a roughly 8 percent cut to the $104 million operating budget is excessive.

    “We don’t believe any of those cuts are necessary,” Mitchell said. “Currently, all of our funding sources—state funding, property taxes and student tuition revenue—are up.”

    The union came out with an independent report last week suggesting that the college is in a sound financial position and should invest more, not less, in faculty and the campus over all. But faculty and administrators fundamentally disagree on how much spending will rise and what tranches of money the college has at its disposal.

    The union’s perspective that the college can spend less “makes the numbers look better,” Flath said. “But as finance people, we have decades of finance experience” and such cost estimates are “not fiscally viable.”

    Mitchell also argued that Oregon Local Budget Law requires the board to follow a legal process that includes forming a committee of board and nonboard members, presenting the budget and hosting a public hearing, before formally adopting a budget. The union put out a legal memo on the matter in September.

    But administrators say their overarching plan isn’t the final budget—it doesn’t specify where exactly cuts will be made—so it doesn’t need to go through such a process yet. They said they plan to review programs, solicit community feedback and draw up a list of recommended cuts in the spring.

    Board members, initially skeptical of the plan’s lack of specificity, held multiple ad hoc budget committee meetings last week to discuss it ahead of the meeting on Wednesday, which lasted almost five hours.

    Board member Zach Mulholland said at the Wednesday meeting that he still sees “red flags and concerns with regards to unspecified cuts” but concluded, “at this moment in time, this appears to be a balanced proposal.” Mulholland and other board members on the ad hoc committee recommended the board move forward with the plan, as long as it includes annual updates and regular progress reports from administrators.

    “Now maybe as a college we can work together,” Flath said.

    Fraught Faculty Relations

    But the college is also mired in other controversies. The faculty union, which represents about 525 full- and part-time professors, has been without a contract since June as administrators and faculty clash over the details.

    Discussions have soured over disagreements about workloads, class-size limits, cost-of-living adjustments, the timing of layoff notices and the college’s efforts to strike some provisions, which Mitchell says amounts to a “net divestment” of over a million dollars in spending on faculty. The administration argued some of the issues in the proposed contract aren’t directly connected to faculty benefits, including proposals to add immigration status to the college’s nondiscrimination policy and ramp up campus safety measures.

    Grant Matthews, vice president of academic affairs, said significant progress has been made since the summer, but “really, we’re stuck on economics.”

    “We’re trying to really have a fiscally sustainable institution, and the proposals that we’re receiving at the table are not fiscally responsible,” he said. He estimated that the current contract proposal could cost the college up to $61 million.

    Professors aren’t pleased with how the process is going. In a December survey of 271 faculty members, 87 percent reported low morale, 90 percent said they didn’t trust the college’s president and 69 percent reported that they fear retaliation for expressing their views. The union has also raised concerns that faculty of color are leaving the college. On Wednesday, about 75 union members and supporters picketed outside ahead of the board meeting.

    Two more bargaining sessions are planned for this month, and mediation is scheduled after.

    Recent course cuts have also frayed relations between faculty and college leaders. Lane cut about 100 course sections for the winter and spring terms after introducing a new system that allows students to sign up in the fall for courses for the entire year.

    Administrators said this is a typical number of course cuts for the college, on par with past years, to optimize their academic offerings, and advisers are ensuring students still get the classes they need. But Mitchell described the move as a blow to part-time faculty, who lost classes that might have filled up later in the year. The union filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the Oregon Employment Relations Board, arguing the eliminated courses should have been a part of bargaining. Mitchell also worries the cuts are a roadblock for students who need to take certain courses, noting that a popular biology class—a prerequisite for many health professions courses—has a wait list of 168 students.

    Leadership Tensions

    The board, meanwhile, has had its own share of drama over the past year.

    The faculty union has accused administrators of encroaching on board responsibilities and criticized the board for failing to exercise its authority.

    “There’s been a lot of controversy surrounding the administration essentially taking over the role of the Board of Education,” Mitchell said.

    Meanwhile, in August, a third-party report concluded that Mulholland, formerly the board chair, and other board members discriminated against President Stephanie Bulger, a Black woman, on the basis of race and sex. The report described Mulholland and some other board members as displaying a dismissive or hostile attitude toward Bulger, cutting her off in conversations, and deferring questions to male staff. The report also found that Mulholland had intimidated a student. In September, the board censured the former board chair, who apologized, and the full board then came out with a joint apology.

    “We are deeply sorry for the negative impact our behavior has had on you and the college community at large,” said Austin Fölnagy, the current board chair, who was also accused of adopting a dismissive tone toward the president. “President Bulger, please accept the board’s apology for treating you badly.”

    Mitchell said the union is “very concerned about any type of discrimination, and we think it’s really important for everyone on the campus to feel safe.”

    The college’s accreditor, the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, also deemed the college “substantially in compliance” with accreditation standards but “in need of improvement” in a notice last March. The accreditor recommended the college evaluate its internal communication and ensure decision-making processes are “inclusive of all constituents,” among other suggestions.

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  • UNL faculty blast chancellor’s $1.1M severance payout amid budget cuts

    UNL faculty blast chancellor’s $1.1M severance payout amid budget cuts

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    Dive Brief:

    • The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is under fire from faculty over a hefty monetary payout for its departing leader, Chancellor Rodney Bennett, as the campus braces for program and faculty cuts he put in place. 
    • Bennett unexpectedly announced Monday that he would resign effective Jan. 12. A copy of his separation agreement obtained by local media through records requests details a one-time payment of $1.1 million. 
    • On Tuesday, the UNL American Association of University Professors blasted the severance payment and called for a halt to all faculty cuts and reconsideration of the program eliminations approved by the University of Nebraska board of regents last month.

    Dive Insight:

     UNL has gone through a tumultuous few months under Bennett as he has tried to eliminate millions of dollars from the university’s budget in an effort to slash away at a structural deficit.  

    In September, he proposed axing six academic programs to cut costs. Faculty quickly condemned the plan and questioned its methodology. They also warned that Nebraska would suffer from losing subject-matter knowhow. 

    Critics also questioned the fiscal necessity of the program eliminations. An auditor hired by the AAUP voiced doubt the university was undergoing a budget crisis, finding historical budget surpluses and other markers of financial health.  

    Bennett would go on to reduce his proposal to cutting four academic programs and over 50 jobs, a move regents later approved. In November, UNL’s faculty senate voted no confidence in the chancellor — the first such vote in the university’s history.

    The faculty body voted overwhelmingly for the measure, which alleged “failures in strategic leadership, fiscal stewardship, governance integrity, external relations, and personnel management.”

    Less than two months later, Bennett resigned. His message to the UNL community focused on positives, including fundraising milestones and new records for six-year graduation rates and first-year student retention under his tenure. 

    “Your energy, your enthusiasm, your optimism, and your determination to do your part to make our communities, our state, and our world better are an inspiration to us all, and it has been my highest honor and privilege to have served as your Chancellor,” Bennett, who joined UNL as chancellor in 2023, wrote on Monday. 

    And then came the revelations about his severance, which was first unearthed by the Lincoln Journal Star. 

    The UNL AAUP pounced on the payment, arguing that it “demonstrates that substantial funds remain available for executive compensation even as entire academic units are dismantled and careers are disrupted, if not destroyed.” 

    “The university cannot credibly claim that it lacks the resources to sustain academic programs and faculty positions while simultaneously paying over a million dollars to a failed chancellor,” Sarah Zuckerman, president of the AAUP chapter, said in a statement. Zuckerman is a professor in UNL’s educational administration program, one of the departments set for elimination.

    She added, “This payout exposes the administration’s financial crisis narrative as a matter of priorities, not necessity.”

    Replacing Bennett in the interim is Kathy Ankerson, who served as an executive vice chancellor at UNL until her 2024 retirement. Ankerson and system President Jeffrey Gold plan to hold campus listening sessions in the coming months to take public input. As Gold put it in a public message, “The news about Chancellor Bennett is one change on top of many other changes” at UNL.  

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  • Layoffs, Cuts and Closures Are Coming to LAUSD Schools As District Confronts Budget Shortfalls – The 74

    Layoffs, Cuts and Closures Are Coming to LAUSD Schools As District Confronts Budget Shortfalls – The 74


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    Budget cuts, staffing reductions and school consolidations are coming to Los Angeles Unified as the cash-strapped district works to balance its shrinking budget, a top school official said. 

    LAUSD’s chief financial officer in an interview last week said declining enrollments and the end of pandemic relief funds have forced the district to take cost-cutting measures.  

    Schools have already been notified of how much they will have to cut from their budgets. The cuts will go into effect starting in August. 

    LAUSD officials in June had predicted a $1.6 billion deficit for the 2027-28 school year. But an updated version of the budget approved by the board last week eliminates the deficit by using reserve funds plus cost-cutting measures over the next two years. 

    The planned cuts to school budgets will begin in the 2026-27 school year, with school consolidations and staffing reductions planned for the following school year, said LAUSD Chief Financial Officer Saman Bravo-Karimi. 

    “We have fewer students each year, and in LAUSD that’s been the case for over two decades,” Bravo-Karimi said. “That has a profound impact on our funding levels. Also, we had the expiration of those one-time COVID relief funds that were very substantial.”  

    The district recently contracted with the consulting firm Ernst and Young to create models for closing and consolidating schools. While school officials wouldn’t say which schools or how many would be closed, the district has clearly been shrinking. 

    Enrollment last year fell to 408,083, from a peak of 746,831 in 2002. Nearly half of the district’s zoned elementary schools are half-full or less, and 56 have seen rosters fall by 70% or more. 

    Bravo-Karimi said in the current school year the district will spend about $2 billion more than it took in from state, local and federal funding. The trend of overspending is expected to continue next year and the year after that, he said.

    The district’s board in June approved a three-year budget plan that included a $18.8-billion budget for the current school year. The plan delayed layoffs until next year, and funded higher spending in part by reducing a fund for retirees’ health benefits. 

    According to the plan approved this month, the district will save:  

    • $425 million by clawing back funds that went unused by schools each year 
    • $300 million by reducing staffing and budgets at central offices 
    • $299 million by cutting special funding for schools with high-needs students
    • $120 million by cutting unfilled school staffing positions
    • $30 million by consolidating schools  
    • $16 million by cutting student transportation 

    Bravo-Karimi said the district gets virtually all of its money through per-pupil funding from the state. Since enrollment in the district has fallen steadily for decades, and then sharply since the pandemic, funding is down significantly, he said.

    Most zoned L.A. elementary schools are almost half empty, and many are operating at less than 25% capacity. Thirty-four schools have fewer than 200 students enrolled; a dozen of those schools once had enrollment over 400.     

    The drops have prompted LAUSD leaders to talk about closing or combining schools, a controversial step that other big U.S. cities are already doing or considering. 

    Bravo-Karimi said the district would assess the needs of communities and the conditions at local schools before it makes any decisions about school closings or consolidations. 

    “That process needs to play out before any decisions are made about potential consolidation of school facilities,” he said.

    Bravo-Karimi said other factors, including ongoing negotiations with labor unions, and changes to state funding, will further impact the district’s budget in the coming months. 

    Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab and Research Professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, said the cuts planned for LAUSD are “relatively mild” compared to overall size of the district’s budget and cuts being considered at other districts around California and the rest of the country. 

    “I don’t think the people in the schools are going to notice that there’s a shrinking of the central office or that they’re using reserves,” said Roza. “Unless you’re one of the people who loses their transportation or if you’re in one of the schools that gets closed.” 

    But, Roza said, many of the cuts taken by LAUSD can only be made once, and the district still faces profound changes as enrollments continue to fall and downsizing becomes more and more necessary. 

    “This really should be a signal to families,” said Roza of the planned cuts in the district’s latest budget. “After several years of really being flush with cash, this is not the financial position that LA Unified is going to be in moving forward.” 

    LAUSD Board Member Tanya Ortiz-Franklin, who represents LAUSD’s District Seven, which includes neighborhoods such as South L.A., Watts and San Pedro, said the district will work to shield kids from the impact of budget cuts. 

    But, Ortiz-Franklin said, the district hired permanent staffers with one-time COVID funding, and now some of those staffers will have to be let go. 

    Still, LA Unified has made strong gains since the pandemic, she said, and the district must work hard to preserve its upward trajectory despite financial headwinds. 

    “We would love to share good news, especially this time of year,” said Ortiz-Franklin. “But the reality is, it is really tough.” 

    School leaders across LAUSD received preliminary budgets for the next year over the last few weeks, said Ortiz-Franklin. Some schools in her district are facing cuts of up to 15%, forcing them to make tough decisions on which staffers to keep and who to let go. 

    Several hundred additional layoffs will be announced in February, she said, when the district makes another assessment of staffing needs. 

    “We don’t know the total number yet, and we don’t know which positions yet,” said Ortiz-Franklin.


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  • The great UKRI budget shake-up

    The great UKRI budget shake-up

    UKRI has two functions. The first is to coordinate the work of seven research councils to improve research quality, impact, and infrastructure. The second is to use this convening power to achieve social good such as economic growth. The National Audit Office criticised the impact of UKRI against both of these missions.

    The standard approach of UKRI has been to fund blue-sky research, things that universities and others do that push the boundaries of accepted knowledge, and to fund a portfolio of other projects, buildings, and people, to achieve a broader set of missions shaped by DSIT.

    The forever tension is that this approach can lead to a great sprawl. The internal competition to establish grants underneath each research council requires a great degree of internal coordination. The bidding process for these grants is even sprawlier still. And there is no guarantee that blue-sky research will produce the kinds of things the government wants in order to achieve its mission of economic growth.

    Until now, research funding has been the story of nudges toward the things government wants through bodies it influences but does not control, and through setting the legal and reporting guardrails for the train of unrestricted and unhypothecated research funding largely allocated through QR. This is now going to significantly change.

    Bucketing down

    UKRI’s budget allocation process is the single most powerful tool it has to shape the research ecosystem.

    Today’s new settlement for the next four years of research investment has gone all in on developing cross-disciplinary funding to meet government priorities such as the industrial strategy, targeted investment in key technologies, protecting curiosity-led research, and significant increases to skills and infrastructure. It is funding that follows a government’s plan, and it’s also a marked shift in how the funder operates as an organisation.

    One instructive way in to what’s going on is to compare the newly published allocations explainer to the one covering 2025–26. That previous document was a slim six-page, 1000-word canter through how much each of the funding councils was getting, in essence. UKRI’s new allocations for the rest of the spending review period are a very different beast.

    First up, we’re told that it is “not possible to directly compare these allocations to previous budgets,” such is the nature of the overhaul. And while this sounds like it could be spin to distract from subtle cuts in less politically trendy areas, it is basically true – the whole budget process has been reimagined. It’s also worth observing from the get-go that the generous overall R&D spending review settlement makes it much easier to get away with these big and potentially thorny changes – compare the prompt announcement here with the ongoing wait for news about how the Office for Students’ strategic priorities grant will be reformed.

    In headline terms, it should come as little surprise to see the “bucket theory” front and centre – this had already been established by the Liz Kendall and Ian Chapman speeches last month. To recap, though, overall across the four years there is £14.5bn for curiosity-driven, foundational research (Bucket 1), £8.3bn for targeted R&D addressing strategic government and societal priorities (Bucket 2), and £7.4 billion to support innovative companies’ growth (Bucket 3), as well as £8.4bn for what is basically a fourth bucket, “enabling and strengthening UK R&D”.

    What we see today is that while Bucket 1 will be the largest part of the overall settlement, the increases on offer are located elsewhere – the exact figures are tricky to definitively pinpoint, given how certain elements are slowly moved from one bucket to another over the four years.

    Most surprising is how fundamentally the new way of thinking about what UKRI funds translate into research council settlements. The only per-council announcements we get are for applicant-led research, where each council is seeing increases over the period. It’s tempting to try to draw lines back to previous settlements – but it fundamentally doesn’t work like this.

    For buckets 2 and 3, there is no breakdown by funding council. Rather, each industrial strategy area gets its own separate item (in fact, for the digital and technologies sector, it’s split into four: engineering biology, AI, quantum, and the other stuff). The majority of the investment in bucket 2 for these areas “will be delivered by research councils,” we are advised – but this will be a separate process. Aside from specific investments such as the R&D Missions Programme and the Edinburgh supercomputer, this will flow via programmes, each led by an executive chair but described clearly as cross-UKRI.

    Over in bucket 3 we can find HEIF, but much of the rest will be run through Innovate UK, with a growing focus on industrial strategy sectors. After plenty of debate within the sector about where QR should sit, it’s firmly in bucket 1 despite some suggestions that this would both misunderstand its role as a flexible fund and leave it more at risk to future cuts. The UKRI thinking is that basically QR is not government-directed, and therefore it goes in the first bucket.

    Elsewhere we see a substantial investment in the collective talent doctoral funding line item (up to more than £800m next year and over £900m by 2028–29). And we understand that other doctoral funding could come from, for example, bucket 2 cash where linked to industrial strategy priorities.

    A single mission

    UKRI chief executive Ian Chapman describes the budget as being aligned to a “single mission”. He’s talking about the mission of advancing knowledge, improving lives and driving growth – but there’s also a clear sense that the way in which the funding landscape is being restructured gives a much firmer central UKRI steer regarding what gets spent and why, with the role of the funding councils, and Research England, more focused on delivery and detail.

    The role of the industrial strategy in choosing what research investment will be made is even more prominent than many will have expected. Predictably, it’s also very lopsided – AI-related programmes will swallow £400m a year by the end of the decade, while other areas see much less frugality.

    Whether this focus on the IS-8 sectors will translate through to choices about where funding gets invested, as we looked at earlier this week, remains to be seen. But the other issue with the industrial strategy lens, one that as the decade progresses will come into ever sharper focus, is what this will mean for the year after the spending review period, when a new government is likely and other priorities will suddenly have to be accommodated.

    For now, it’s a big ambitious reordering of how research money gets invested, which will have to be reflected within UKRI and its component parts, as they are being asked to work in different ways and pursue fundamentally different goals.

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  • Guilford College comes off accreditor probation after budget cuts

    Guilford College comes off accreditor probation after budget cuts

    Dive Brief:

    • Guilford College’s accreditor has removed the institution from probation after what its president described as significant improvements in financial management and operations, the college announced Tuesday.
    • Guilford President Jean Parvin Bordewich and a five-person delegation made their case over the weekend during a meeting with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. The delegation pointed to expense cuts and a balanced budget for both fiscal 2025 and the first five months of the current fiscal year.
    • SACSCOC initially put Guilford, in North Carolina, on probation in 2023, flagging the college for weak financial processes and later for inadequate financial resources. “Now we are on sound financial footing and well positioned to fulfill our mission,” Bordewich said in a statement Tuesday.

    Dive Insight:

    Just six months ago, Guilford was on the hunt for cash as it raced to balance its budget for fiscal 2026 — a necessity for maintaining its accreditation beyond the December meeting with SACSCOC. At the time, Bordewich said the private, Quaker-founded college was “between the proverbial rock and a hard place.”

    Guilford has since “turbo-charged” its fundraising, doubling last year’s number of alumni donors in just four months, Bordewich told SACSCOC in prepared remarks last weekend. The college has received $7 million in unrestricted donations for the first third of fiscal 2026, more than 66% of its goal for the year. For the calendar year 2025, Guilford has received $12.6 million in unrestricted cash, nearly five times what it had last year. 

    The college has also made painful cuts and now operates with one-third fewer employees compared to a year ago. 

    In June, Guilford’s governing board opted not to declare financial exigency — a process invoked by institutions in financial distress so they can lay off tenured faculty. 

    However, some faculty chose early retirements and exits. Faculty also, with staff, accepted suspended retirement contributions, according to Bordewich. 

    In all, Guilford cut its operating expenses by $5.7 million in fiscal 2025 and by another $6.6 million in 2026. 

    “The College needed serious pruning,” Bordewich told SACSCOC. “We dug into the core of Guilford’s financial dysfunction, implemented changes, and month by month, the institution grew stronger.”

    Along with slashing its budget, the college has also raised new revenue. Beyond donations, it has sold some $400,000 in art and struck a $7.5 million development deal with the Piedmont Land Conservancy for 120 acres of the Guilford Woods. The land deal will open up access to the green space for the public while Guilford retains ownership.

    Many of Guilford’s financial woes have stemmed from sagging enrollment. Between 2018 and 2023, fall headcount declined 23.4% to 1,208 students. That number is down 57.3% from 2010. 

    Prior to this year, the college reported a $2.4 million operating deficit in fiscal 2024 and $4.7 million operating deficit in fiscal 2023.

    “This has never been about the student experience in or out of the classroom, which has remained exceptional,” Bordewich said Tuesday. “This has been about finances, and SACSCOC has now affirmed that we have the financial resources to support Guilford’s unique approach to a liberal arts education.”

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  • Pell Grant program faces up to $11B annual budget shortfall

    Pell Grant program faces up to $11B annual budget shortfall

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    Dive Brief: 

    • The Pell Grant program faces a 10-year shortfall of up to $97 billion, with the recent expansion to include short-term workforce programs adding to existing structural funding problems, according to a Friday analysis from the nonprofit Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. 
    • The massive spending package Republicans passed this summer, called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, gave the Pell Grant program $10.5 billion in one-time funding to avoid a looming budget shortfall. However, this will only delay the shortfall, according to analysts.
    • CRFB expects the Pell Grant program’s costs to exceed its funding by $6 billion to $11 billion each year over the next decade. “The underlying structural gap between costs and appropriations remains unaddressed, and in fact was made worse under OBBBA,” the analysts said.

    Dive Insight:  

    Before Republicans passed their spending package, the Pell Grant program was expected to deplete its reserves by the 2025 fiscal year. With the $10.5 billion infusion, lawmakers staved off that crisis — but only by about two years, according to CRFB’s analysis. 

    That’s in part because the legislative package also expands Pell Grant funding to programs as short as eight weeks, starting in July 2026. CRFB pointed to Congressional Budget Office data estimating that the expansion, known as Workforce Pell, will add about $2 billion to the program’s costs over the next decade. 

    But authors of Friday’s analysis expect this number to be much higher —  $6 billion or more — depending on how many students apply for Workforce Pell, how states and institutions carry out the program, and how the U.S. Department of Education interprets and enforces the accountability measures established by Congress. 

    “History suggests that when new eligibility is created, enrollment often exceeds initial projections,” analysts said, citing a 2020 report on proposals at the time for short-term Pell from New America, a left-leaning think tank.

    In 2008, lawmakers expanded Pell Grants to be available year-round. At the time, the CBO estimated the program would cost $2.6 billion over the next five years. But in 2011, a U.S. Education Department official testified before Congress that the program expansion was costing 10 times higher annually than expected. 

    Similarly, in 2005, Congress lifted restrictions on federal student aid flowing to fully online colleges. While the Education Department expected the change to cost $697 million over 10 years, online-only colleges received “billions in federal aid dollars” in the 2018-19 award year alone, New America found. 

    In Friday’s analysis, researchers estimated the Pell Grant program would face a $61 billion 10-year shortfall if lawmakers keep its appropriations adjusted for inflation and maintain the maximum award of $7,395. If lawmakers keep both appropriations and the maximum award flat, that shortfall would reach $88 billion. 

    Moreover, the shortfall would hit $97 billion if lawmakers raise Pell Grant funding and the maximum award in line with inflation and Workforce Pell enrollment outpaces expectations, the researchers estimated. 

    The Education Department is meeting this week with selected students, employers, college officials and other stakeholders in a process known as negotiated rulemaking to work out regulations for implementing the new program. Under the 2025 statute, short-term programs must have a 70% job placement rate and a 70% graduation rate to be eligible for Pell Grants. 

    In a draft of regulatory language released last week, the Education Department proposed that, for the first couple years of the program, job placements would count regardless of what fields students enter. However, after the 2027-28 award year, programs would have to show that at least 70% of their students land jobs specifically in fields for which they were being trained.

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  • Building Your Teaching Mind Budget – Faculty Focus

    Building Your Teaching Mind Budget – Faculty Focus



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  • Building Your Teaching Mind Budget – Faculty Focus

    Building Your Teaching Mind Budget – Faculty Focus



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