Today, while Trump continues to flood the zone, I want to establish a
sense of what the higher education baseline was before he cut loose.
As the new administration goes even more energetically after academia
I’d like to share some data about our sector’s standing.
Last year I tracked cuts and crises afflicting dozens of campuses. I
posted roughly every months, noting program cuts, institutional
mergers, and campus closures, as well as financial crises likely to
cause same: March 1, March 20, March 28, April, May, June, July, September, November. Today I’ll continue that line for the reasons I’ve previously given:
to document key stories in higher education; to witness human suffering;
to point to possible directions for academia to take. In addition, I
want to help paint a picture of the world Trump is starting to attack.
Some caveats: I’m doing this in haste, between the political chaos
and a stack of professional deadlines, which means the following will be
more telegraphic than usual. I may well have missed some stories, so
please let me know in comments.
Closing colleges and universities
Philadelphia’s University of the Arts closed in 2024. Now different
actors are angling for its physical remains. Temple University purchased an iconic building, Quadro Bay bought another, and while more bids appear.
Mergers
Gannon University (Catholic, Pennsylvania) and Ursuline College (Catholic, Ohio) agreed to merge by this December. The idea is to synthesize complementary academic offers and provide institutional stability, it seems.
Seattle University (Jesuit, Washington state) and the Cornish College of the Arts (private, Washington) also agreed to merge. As with the Lake Erie schools, one motivation is to expand curricular offerings:
Emily Parkhust, Cornish’s interim president, said the deal opens new doors for the tiny school’s nearly 500 students.
“This strategic combination will allow our students opportunities
that we simply weren’t able to offer and provide at a small arts
college,” she said. “Such as the opportunity to take business classes,
computer courses, pursue master’s degree programs, engage in college
sports — and even swim in a pool.”
Financial problems also played a role: “Cornish declared it was undergoing a financial emergency in 2020, and this year, Seattle University paused hiring as it faces a $7.5 million deficit.”
The Universidad Andres Bello (Universidad Andrés Bello; private, Chile) purchased Post University (for-profit, Connecticut).
Campuses cutting programs and jobs
In this series I’ve largely focused on the United States for the
usual reasons: the sheer size and complexity of the sector; limited
time. But in my other writing I’ve noted the epochal crisis hitting
Canadian higher education, as the nation’s decision to cut international
enrollment has struck institutional finances. Tony Bates offers a good backgrounder. Alex Usher’s team set up an excellent website tracking the resulting retrenchment.
British higher education is also suffering, partly for the reasons
that nation’s economy is hurting: negative effects of Brexit, energy
problems stemming from the Ukraine war, and political fecklessness. For
one example I find the University of Hull (public research) which is combining 17 schools into 11 and ending its chemistry program, all for financial reasons. Cardiff University (Prifysgol Caerdydd; public research) cut 400 full time jobs, also for financial reasons:
Vice-Chancellor Professor
Wendy Larner defended the decision to cut jobs, saying the university
would have become “untenable” without drastic reforms.
The job role cuts are only a
proposal, she said, but insisted the university needed to “take
difficult decisions” due to the declining international student
applications and increasing cost pressures.
Prof Larner said the
university is not alone in its financial struggles, with most UK
universities grappling with the “broken” funding system.
Back in the United States, Sonoma State University (public university, part of California State University system) announced a massive series of cuts.
“approximately 46 university faculty – both tenured and
adjunct – will receive notice that their contracts will not be renewed
for 2025-26. Additional lecturers will receive notice that no work will
be available in fall 2025… Four management positions and 12 staff
positions also will be eliminated.”
The university will shut down a group of departments: “Art History,
Economics; Geology; Philosophy; Theater and Dance; and Women and Gender
Studies.”
(These are the kind of cuts I’ve referred to as “queen sacrifices,”
desperate moves to cut a school’s way to survival. The term comes from
chess, where a player can give up their most powerful piece, the queen.
In my analogy tenured faculty represent that level of relative power.)
There will be some consolidation (“The college also plans to merge
the Ethnic Studies departments (American Multicultural Studies, Chicano
and Latino Studies, and Native American Studies) into one department
with one major”) along with ending a raft of programs:
Administrative Services Credential in ELSE; Art
History BA; Art Studio BFA; Dance BA; Earth and Environmental Sciences
BA; Economics BA; Education Leadership MA; English MA; French BA;
Geology BS; German Minor; Global Studies BA; History MA;
Interdisciplinary Studies BA; Interdisciplinary Studies MA; Philosophy
BA; Physical Science BA; Physics BA; Physics BS; Public Administration
MPA; Spanish MA; Theatre Arts BA; Women and Gender Studies BA.
Additionally, and unusually, SSU is also ending student athletics:
“The University will be removing NCAA Division II athletics entirely,
involving some 11 teams in total.”
What lies behind these cuts? My readers will not be surprised to learn that enrollment decline plays a role, but might be shocked by the decline’s size: “SSU has experienced a 38% decrease in enrollment.”
More cuts: St. Norbert College (Catholic, liberal arts, Wisconsin) is planning to cut faculty and its theology department. (I posted about an earlier round of cuts there in 2024.) Columbia College Chicago (private, arts) will terminate faculty and academic programs. Portland State University (Oregon) ended contracts for a group of non-tenure-track faculty.
The University of New Orleans (public research) will cut $2.2 million of administration and staff.
The University of Connecticut (public, land grant) is working on closing roughly two dozen academic programs. According to one account, they include:
master’s degrees in international studies, medieval
studies, survey research and educational technology; graduate
certificates in adult learning, literacy supports, digital media and
design, dementia care, life story practice, addiction science and survey
research; a sixth-year certificate in educational technology, and a
doctoral degree in medieval studies.
It’s not clear if those terminations will lead to faculty and staff reductions.
Budget crises, programs cut, not laying off people yet
There are also stories of campuses facing financial pressures which
haven’t resulted in cuts, mergers, or closures so far, but could lead to
those. Saint Augustine’s University (historically black, South Carolina) is struggling to get approval for a campus leasing deal, while moving classes online “to take care of deferred maintenance issues.” SAU has been facing controversies and financial challenges for nearly a generation.
The president of another HBCU, Tennessee State University, stated that they would run out of money by this spring. That Higher Ed Dive article notes:
TSU’s financial troubles are steep and immediate. An FAQ page on
the university’s website acknowledges that the financial condition has
reached crisis levels stemming from missed enrollment targets and
operating deficits. This fall, the university posted a projected deficit of $46 million by the end of the fiscal year.
The Middle States Commission on Higher Education agreed to hear an accreditation appeal from Keystone College (private, Pennsylvania), while that campus struggles:
From the top of Keystone’s web page right now.
The board of William Jewell University (private liberal arts, Missouri) declared financial exigency.
This gives them emergency powers to act. As the official statement put
it, the move “enables reallocation of resources, restructuring of
academic programs and scholarships and significant reductions in force.”
Brown University (private research university, Rhode Island) is grappling
with a $46 million deficit “that would grow to more than $90 million,”
according to provost Francis J. Doyle III and Executive Vice President
for Finance and Administration Sarah Latham. No cuts are in the offing,
although restraining growth is the order of the day. In addition,
there’s a plan to increase one sort of program for revenue:
the university will work to “continue to grow master’s
[program] revenue, ultimately doubling the number of residential
master’s students and increasing online learners to 2,000 in five
years.”
KQED reports
that other California State University campuses are facing financial
stresses, notably Cal State East Bay and San Francisco State
University. The entire CSU system and the University of California
system each face massive cuts from the state’s governor.
Reflections
Nearly all of this is occurring before the second Trump
administration began its work. Clearly parts of the American
post-secondary ecosystem are suffering financially and in terms of
enrollment.
It’s important to bear in mind that each school’s trajectory is
distinct from the others in key ways. Each has its history, its
conditions, its competing strategies, resources, micropolitics, and so
on. Each one deserves more exploration than I have time for in this
post.
At the same time I think we can make the case that broader national
trends are also at work. Operating costs rise for a clutch of reasons
(consumer inflation, American health care’s shambles, deferred
maintenance being a popular practice, some high compensation practices,
etc) and push hard on some budgets. Enrollment continues to be a
challenge (I will return to this topic in a future post). The Trump
administration does not seem likely to ameliorate those concerns.
Note, too, that many of the institutions I’ve touched on here are not
first tier campuses. The existence of some may be news to some readers.
As a result, they tend not to get much media attention nor to attract
resources. It is important, though, to point them out if we want to
think beyond academia’s deep hierarchical structures.
Last note: this post has focused on statistics and bureaucracy, but
these are all stories about real human beings. The lives of students,
faculty, staff and those in surrounding communities are all impacted.
Don’t lose sight of that fact or of these people.
(Seattle University photo by Michael & Sherry Martin; thanks to Karen B on Bluesky, Karen Bellnier otherwise, Mo Pelzel, Peter Shea, and Siva Vaidhyanathan for links; thanks to IHE for doing a solid job of covering these stories)