Tag: cuts

  • DOGE Education Cuts Hit Students with Disabilities, Literacy Research – The 74

    DOGE Education Cuts Hit Students with Disabilities, Literacy Research – The 74


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    When teens and young adults with disabilities in California’s Poway Unified School District heard about a new opportunity to get extra help planning for life after high school, nearly every eligible student signed up.

    The program, known as Charting My Path for Future Success, aimed to fill a major gap in education research about what kinds of support give students nearing graduation the best shot at living independently, finding work, or continuing their studies.

    Students with disabilities finish college at much lower rates than their non-disabled peers, and often struggle to tap into state employment programs for adults with disabilities, said Stacey McCrath-Smith, a director of special education at Poway Unified, which had 135 students participating in the program. So the extra help, which included learning how to track goals on a tool designed for high schoolers with disabilities, was much needed.

    Charting My Path launched earlier this school year in Poway Unified and 12 other school districts. The salaries of 61 school staff nationwide, and the training they received to work with nearly 1,100 high schoolers with disabilities for a year and a half, was paid for by the U.S. Department of Education.

    Jessie Damroth’s 17-year-old son Logan, who has autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and other medical needs, had attended classes and met with his mentor through the program at Newton Public Schools in Massachusetts for a month. For the first time, he was talking excitedly about career options in science and what he might study at college.

    “He was starting to talk about what his path would look like,” Damroth said. “It was exciting to hear him get really excited about these opportunities. … He needed that extra support to really reinforce that he could do this.”

    Then the Trump administration pulled the plug.

    Charting My Path was among more than 200 Education Department contracts and grants terminated over the last two weeks by the Trump administration’s U.S. DOGE Service. DOGE has slashed spending it deemed to be wasteful, fraudulent, or in service of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility goals that President Donald Trump has sought to ban. But in several instances, the decision to cancel contracts affected more than researchers analyzing data in their offices — it affected students.

    Many projects, like Charting My Path, involved training teachers in new methods, testing learning materials in actual classrooms, and helping school systems use data more effectively.

    “Students were going to learn really how to set goals and track progress themselves, rather than having it be done for them,” McCrath-Smith said. “That is the skill that they will need post-high school when there’s not a teacher around.”

    All of that work was abruptly halted — in some cases with nearly finished results that now cannot be distributed.

    Every administration is entitled to set its own priorities, and contracts can be canceled or changed, said Steven Fleischman, an education consultant who for many years ran one of the regional research programs that was terminated. He compared it to a homeowner deciding they no longer want a deck as part of their remodel.

    But the current approach reminds him more of construction projects started and then abandoned during the Great Recession, in some cases leaving giant holes that sat for years.

    “You can walk around and say, ‘Oh, that was a building we never finished because the funds got cut off,’” he said.

    DOGE drives cuts to education research contracts, grants

    The Education Department has been a prime target of DOGE, the chaotic cost-cutting initiative led by billionaire Elon Musk, now a senior adviser to Trump.

    So far, DOGE has halted 89 education projects, many of which were under the purview of the Institute of Education Sciences, the ostensibly independent research arm of the Education Department. The administration said those cuts, which included multi-year contracts, totaled $881 million. In recent years, the federal government has spent just over $800 million on the entire IES budget.

    DOGE has also shut down 10 regional labs that conduct research for states and local schools and shuttered four equity assistance centers that help with teacher training. The Trump administration also cut off funding for nearly 100 teacher training grants and 18 grants for centers that often work to improve instruction for struggling students.

    The total savings is up for debate. The Trump administration said the terminated Education Department contracts and grants were worth $2 billion. But some were near completion with most of the money already spent.

    An NPR analysis of all of DOGE’s reported savings found that it likely was around $2 billion for the entire federal government — though the Education Department is a top contributor.

    On Friday, a federal judge issued an injunction that temporarily blocks the Trump administration from canceling additional contracts and grants that might violate the anti-DEIA executive order. It’s not clear whether the injunction would prevent more contracts from being canceled “for convenience.”

    Mark Schneider, the recent past IES director, said the sweeping cuts represent an opportunity to overhaul a bloated education research establishment. But even many conservative critics have expressed alarm at how wide-ranging and indiscriminate the cuts have been. Congress mandated many of the terminated programs, which also indirectly support state and privately funded research.

    The canceled projects include contracts that support maintenance of the Common Core of Data, a major database used by policymakers, researchers, and journalists, as well as work that supports updates to the What Works Clearinghouse, a huge repository of evidence-based practices available to educators for free.

    And after promising not to make any cuts to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the nation’s report card, the department canceled an upcoming test for 17-year-olds that helps researchers understand long-term trends. On Monday, Peggy Carr, the head of the National Center for Education Statistics, which oversees NAEP, was placed on leave.

    The Education Department did not respond to questions about who decided which programs to cut and what criteria were used. Nor did the department respond to a specific question about why Charting My Path was eliminated. DOGE records estimate the administration saved $22 million by terminating the program early, less than half the $54 million in the original contract.

    The decision has caused mid-year disruptions and uncertainty.

    In Utah, the Canyons School District is trying to reassign the school counselor and three teachers whose salaries were covered by the Charting My Path contract.

    The district, which had 88 high schoolers participating in the program, is hoping to keep using the curriculum to boost its usual services, said Kirsten Stewart, a district spokesperson.

    Officials in Poway Unified, too, hope schools can use the curriculum and tools to keep up a version of the program. But that will take time and work because the program’s four teachers had to be reassigned to other jobs.

    “They dedicated that time and got really important training,” McCrath-Smith said. “We don’t want to see that squandered.”

    For Damroth, the loss of parent support meetings through Charting My Path was especially devastating. Logan has a rare genetic mutation that causes him to fall asleep easily during the day, so Damroth wanted help navigating which colleges might be able to offer extra scheduling support.

    “I have a million questions about this. Instead of just hearing ‘I don’t know’ I was really looking forward to working with Joe and the program,” she said, referring to Logan’s former mentor. “It’s just heartbreaking. I feel like this wasn’t well thought out. … My child wants to do things in life, but he needs to be given the tools to achieve those goals and those dreams that he has.”

    DOGE cuts labs that helped ‘Mississippi Miracle’ in reading

    The dramatic improvement in reading proficiency that Carey Wright oversaw as state superintendent in one the nation’s poorest states became known as the “Mississippi Miracle.”

    Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast, based out of the Florida Center for Reading Research at Florida State University, was a key partner in that work, Wright said.

    When Wright wondered if state-funded instructional coaches were really making a difference, REL Southeast dispatched a team to observe, videotape, and analyze the instruction delivered by hundreds of elementary teachers across the state. Researchers reported that teachers’ instructional practices aligned well with the science of reading and that teachers themselves said they felt far more knowledgeable about teaching reading.

    “That solidified for me that the money that we were putting into professional learning was working,” Wright said.

    The study, she noted, arose from a casual conversation with researchers at REL Southeast: “That’s the kind of give and take that the RELs had with the states.”

    Wright, now Maryland state superintendent, said she was looking forward to partnering with REL Mid-Atlantic on a math initiative and on an overhaul of the school accountability system.

    But this month, termination letters went out to the universities and research organizations that run the 10 Regional Educational Laboratories, which were established by Congress in 1965 to serve states and school districts. The letters said the contracts were being terminated “for convenience.”

    The press release that went to news organizations cited “wasteful and ideologically driven spending” and named a single project in Ohio that involved equity audits as a part of an effort to reduce suspensions. Most of the REL projects on the IES website involve reading, math, career connections, and teacher retention.

    Jannelle Kubinec, CEO of WestEd, an education research organization that held the contracts for REL West and REL Northwest, said she never received a complaint or a request to review the contracts before receiving termination letters. Her team had to abruptly cancel meetings to go over results with school districts. In other cases, reports are nearly finished but cannot be distributed because they haven’t gone through the review process.

    REL West was also working with the Utah State Board of Education to figure out if the legislature’s investment in programs to keep early career teachers from leaving the classroom was making a difference, among several other projects.

    “This is good work and we are trying to think through our options,” she said. “But the cancellation does limit our ability to finish the work.”

    Given enough time, Utah should be able to find a staffer to analyze the data collected by REL West, said Sharon Turner, a spokesperson for the Utah State Board of Education. But the findings are much less likely to be shared with other states.

    The most recent contracts started in 2022 and were set to run through 2027.

    The Trump administration said it planned to enter into new contracts for the RELs to satisfy “statutory requirements” and better serve schools and states, though it’s unclear what that will entail.

    “The states drive the research agendas of the RELs,” said Sara Schapiro, the executive director of the Alliance for Learning Innovation, a coalition that advocates for more effective education research. If the federal government dictates what RELs can do, “it runs counter to the whole argument that they want the states to be leading the way on education.”

    Some terminated federal education research was nearly complete

    Some research efforts were nearly complete when they got shut down, raising questions about how efficient these cuts were.

    The American Institutes for Research, for example, was almost done evaluating the impact of the Comprehensive Literacy State Development program, which aims to improve literacy instruction through investments like new curriculum and teacher training.

    AIR’s research spanned 114 elementary schools across 11 states and involved more than 23,000 third, fourth, and fifth graders and their nearly 900 reading teachers.

    Researchers had collected and analyzed a massive trove of data from the randomized trial and presented their findings to federal education officials just three days before the study was terminated.

    “It was a very exciting meeting,” said Mike Garet, a vice president and institute fellow at AIR who oversaw the study. “People were very enthusiastic about the report.”

    Another AIR study that was nearing completion looked at the use of multi-tiered systems of support for reading among first and second graders. It’s a strategy that helps schools identify and provide support to struggling readers, with the most intensive help going to kids with the highest needs. It’s widely used by schools, but its effectiveness hasn’t been tested on a larger scale.

    The research took place in 106 schools and involved over 1,200 educators and 5,700 children who started first grade in 2021 and 2022. Much of the funding for the study went toward paying for teacher training and coaching to roll out the program over three years. All of the data was collected and nearly done being analyzed when DOGE made its cuts.

    Garet doesn’t think he and his team should simply walk away from unfinished work.

    “If we can’t report results, that would violate our covenant with the districts, the teachers, the parents, and the students who devoted a lot of time in the hope of generating knowledge about what works,” Garet said. “Now that we have the data and have the results, I think we’re duty-bound to report them.”

    This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.


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  • Education Department staff anxiously await sweeping cuts

    Education Department staff anxiously await sweeping cuts

    It’s been a whirlwind week at the Department of Education, and some career staffers are anguished over its bleak, uncertain future.

    On Monday, the Senate confirmed Linda McMahon as the new secretary of education, and shortly afterward, she released a memo laying out department personnel’s “final mission”: “the elimination of bureaucratic bloat here at the Department of Education.”

    The next day, department leaders scheduled a meeting to announce a major reduction in force, which current staffers say is rumored to include layoffs of nearly 50 percent of the workforce—but the meeting was canceled at the last minute, according to a department employee.

    Then, on Wednesday, media outlets, citing sources in the administration, reported that President Trump would sign an executive order to abolish the Education Department as soon as Thursday, sending frenzied staffers scrambling to prepare.

    When White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced Thursday morning on X that Trump wouldn’t be signing the order that day after all, one staffer said it felt like cruel misdirection.

    “It’s definitely feeling like whiplash,” they said. “Folks had steeled themselves for today … Everyone seems ready to rip off the Band-Aid, and the delay feels like a game to torture people.”

    Several current department employees, who spoke with Inside Higher Ed on background and on the condition of anonymity, offered a chaotic picture of upheaval and uncertainty within the department, with staff scrambling to prepare for the dissolution of their offices, even as the administration’s plans and timeline remain unclear.

    One current employee told Inside Higher Ed that McMahon’s memo announcing the administration’s plan to downsize the department was “insulting and antagonizing.”

    “The notion that we should be honored to undertake this ‘final mission’ is absurd,” they said. “It’s basically saying, ‘You should thank us for firing you.’”

    One career staffer who’s been with the department for more than a decade said most employees are anxiously waiting for the other shoe to drop. Over the past few weeks, they said, anger and indignation have turned to heartbreak.

    “Reality is sinking in everywhere … Folks are seriously depressed,” they said. “And yet, working to advance the goals of this administration may actually be worse than not having a job.”

    ‘Slash and Burn’

    Trump has advocated for eliminating the 45-year-old Education Department since the early days of his campaign. When he nominated McMahon as secretary, he said he hoped she would “put herself out of a job.” Still, many department employees were taken aback by the sudden escalation.

    The longtime staffer said that when Trump was inaugurated, they anticipated some serious changes at the department. But the speed and wantonness of the move to abolish it has surprised them.

    “I foolishly believed they’d try to take a studied approach to any changes, consult with seasoned career staffers with institutional knowledge and expertise,” they said. “Instead it’s slash and burn.”

    Last week, the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management directed all federal agencies to prepare for “large-scale reductions in force” and the elimination of “non-statutorily mandated functions,” which could be a precursor to the Trump administration’s plans to heavily reduce the head count at Education Department as much as possible without congressional approval.

    A draft of Trump’s forthcoming executive order, obtained by Inside Higher Ed, includes a two-paragraph guideline for winding down department activity and little else. James Kvaal, who served as under secretary of education under President Joe Biden, said the absence of a plan is revealing and concerning.

    “[The document] reflects a lack of clarity within the Trump administration about what they’re trying to do, or even disagreement among certain elements,” Kvaal said.

    Department staffers are concerned about the administration’s strategy for implementing its ambitious spending cuts. One employee who spoke with Inside Higher Ed was placed on administrative leave last month and said their experience was “chaotic and haphazard.” The staffer said cuts to programs, contracts and personnel have been largely left up to a small group of young Department of Government Efficiency employees, whose approach has been “like throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what they can get away with.”

    They said that if the Trump administration’s approach to cuts at the department so far is any indication how they will handle plans to gut the department, it could exacerbate the impact on students and educational institutions.

    “Nobody is going to know what’s happening, which means zero accountability,” they said. “It’s going to be a mess.”

    DOGE has already canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in department contracts, including some that are essential to the operation of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. And sources within the department say that hundreds of Federal Student Aid staff have either taken a buyout or been placed on leave.

    A current department employee who specializes in higher education said they fear that the department’s closure—or the major cuts that precipitate it—will have a devastating impact on the sector, and on affordability and access in particular.

    “There’s going to be a huge setback in the progress we’ve made even just in terms of who gets to go to college,” they said. “Universities are being put on such a high alert on every front … it’s a wholesale attack on the sector.”

    Kvaal said that even under Biden, the department in general—and the student aid office in particular—were severely understaffed, a problem that he has said contributed to the bungled rollout of the new FAFSA last year. He added that further reductions could hobble agencies’ capacity to perform essential duties like student loan and aid disbursement.

    “The department was thinly staffed even prior to these cuts, and as a result it was difficult to run programs smoothly and deliver benefits that students needed,” he said. “If there are, in fact, hundreds of people leaving FSA, that could put our progress with FAFSA at risk and upend our efforts to prevent student loan defaults. If nothing else, asking senior managers to focus on nudging their staff out the door and preparing for legislation that will never come is a real distraction.”

    Both Kvaal and current employees are concerned that when the Trump administration does release concrete plans for distributing the department’s responsibilities, they will welcome the private sector into administering services like student loans and financial aid.

    “It seems like the longer-term goal here would be to privatize the FSA, like they’re doing with Social Security,” one staffer said. “That’s a mess waiting to happen and would take way longer than four years. In the interim, the damage could be enormous.”

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  • DOGE fails to accurately disclose contract and program cuts

    DOGE fails to accurately disclose contract and program cuts

    As part of his administration’s broad push for government transparency, on Feb. 18 President Donald Trump ordered all federal agencies to publicize “to the maximum extent permitted by law” the complete details of every program, contract or grant they terminated.

    “The American people have seen their tax dollars used to fund the passion projects of unelected bureaucrats rather than to advance the national interest,” Trump wrote in the memo, tilted “Radical Transparency About Wasteful Spending.” “[They] have a right to see how the Federal Government has wasted their hard-earned wages.”

    Immediately after receiving a copy of the order, Inside Higher Ed reached out to the Department of Education and requested a comprehensive list of any and all such cuts, as well as explanations for why each contract was terminated. But two weeks later, the Education Department has yet to respond, and neither the department nor the staff it has partnered with from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have publicly released any more information about the terminated contracts and grants.

    In fact, DOGE—the agency leading the crusade of cuts—has continuously made edits to the “Wall of Receipts,” where it was supposedly outlining the cuts that have been made. Late Sunday night, the group deleted hundreds of contracts it had previously claimed to cancel, The New York Times first reported and Inside Higher Ed confirmed.

    “It’s absolutely hypocrisy,” said Antoinette Flores, director of higher education accountability and quality at New America, a left-leaning think tank. “It feels like we’re all being gaslit. I don’t know why they are saying they want to be transparent without being transparent.”

    For weeks, higher education leaders, policy experts and advocates have raised concerns as the department terminated more than 100 assorted grants and research contracts. Combined, the cuts are purportedly valued at nearly $1.9 billion, according to the department, and will affect a swath of institutions, including the department’s largest research arm as well as regional labs and external nonprofits that collaborated with local officials to improve learner outcomes. Combined, the cuts will dramatically impact the data available to researchers and policymakers focused on improving teaching and learning strategies, experts say.

    Education scholars are worried that the cuts will leave state officials and college administrators with little evidence on which to base their strategies for student success and academic return on investment. One professor went as far as to say that the cuts are “an assault on the U.S.’s education data infrastructure.”

    And though the Trump administration has flaunted its transparency and glorified DOGE’s website as a prime example of their success in providing public records, policy experts on both sides of the political aisle say the collective contract value displayed is an overestimate. Calculating savings is more nuanced than just listing a contract’s maximum potential value, they say—and even if they saved money, some of the terminated programs were congressionally mandated.

    Over all, the sudden nature of the cuts, combined with the questionable accuracy of reported savings and a lack of further transparency, have left higher education advocacy groups deeply concerned.

    “The cuts that happened recently are going to have far-reaching impacts, and those impacts could really be long term unless some rapid action is taken,” said Mamie Voight, president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy, a national nonprofit that campaigns for college access and student success. “This information is useful and essential to help policymakers steward taxpayer dollars responsibly.”

    “To eliminate data, evidence and research is working in opposition to efficiency,” she later added.

    The department did not respond to requests for comment on Voight’s and Flores’s criticisms.

    A Data ‘Mismatch’

    For many in higher ed, the executive actions Trump has taken since January raise questions about executive overreach and government transparency. But Nat Malkus, deputy director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank, said, “It’s not a matter of deception” or even simply a question of transparency.

    Instead, he said, “The question is, what’s the quality of the transparency? And what can we make of it?”

    In a recent analysis, titled “Running Down DOGE’s Department of Education Receipts,” Malkus compared a leaked list of the 89 terminated Institute of Education Sciences contracts, along with detailed data from USASpending.gov, to those DOGE had posted on its website. He said he found major inconsistencies, or a “mismatch” in how they defined the purported contract value.

    He also noted that though the “Wall of Receipts” has two separate tabs, one listing a contract’s value and another listing its savings, it displays the overall contract value first. The agency also declines to explain the difference between value and savings or how it calculates either.

    As is the case with contract values, DOGE has been inconsistent in how it calculates savings. But what the agency most often displays to the public is how much a contract could theoretically cost if all options and add-ons are utilized—known as the potential total—minus the amount the government had currently agreed to spend by the end of the contract, or the total obligation. So in other words, Malkus said, DOGE is sharing how much the government could save if it were to continue the contract and receive the promised deliverables without adding any extra bells and whistles.

    But that’s not what DOGE has done. Instead, it has terminated the contracts, and the Education Department won’t receive the final product it was paying for.

    To best represent savings in that scenario, Malkus said, DOGE would calculate the difference between how much the government had agreed to spend by the end of the contract—the total obligation—and how much the government has already spent, or the total outlay.

    “It’s weird because DOGE is publishing one set of savings that I don’t think actually makes sense to anybody, and they’re ignoring savings that they actually are conceivably getting,” Malkus said. “There are some good reasons that they might choose to do that. But DOGE would do well to explain what these dollars are, because right now, no one can tell.”

    Malkus first spoke with Inside Higher Ed on Friday. But since then, the DOGE database has changed. Malkus said Tuesday that some of the initial trends in the way DOGE appeared to be calculating savings are no longer present and he has yet to find a new, even semiconsistent formula for how DOGE is calculating savings.

    “The pace of change on DOGE’s numbers is dizzying even for someone like me who works at analyzing these receipts,” Malkus said. “Each week there have been changes to the number of contracts and within contracts the values and savings that DOGE is publishing. It’s hard to know if they are trying to get this right, because it’s impossible to find a consistent trail.”

    I don’t attribute it to a desire to falsely advertise transparency and not deliver on it. I just think they need to do a much better job in the execution.”

    —Nat Malkus

    And even if there were a consistent, uniform formula for how DOGE officials are calculating efficiency, in some cases they still choose to highlight overall contract value rather than the direct savings. For example, a DOGE social media post about the Institute of Education Sciences cuts noted the contracts were worth $881 million in total.

    “So are the actual savings equal to that implied? No, they are not,” Malkus said. “They are far, far less than that amount, somewhere around 25 percent of the total.”

    The agency’s website doesn’t detail the team’s methodology or offer any explanation about why the cuts were made. Malkus believes this lack of clarification reflects the Trump administration’s effort to make notable cuts quickly. He added that while he doesn’t agree with every cut made, he understands and supports the “aggressiveness” of Trump and Musk’s approach.

    “If they don’t move quickly, then there’s commissions, and then you have to go to the secretary, and they have interminable meetings and everything gets slowed down,” he said. “So one of their priorities is to move fast, and they don’t mind breaking things in the process.”

    From Malkus’s perspective, the inconsistencies in how each cut is documented, the many edits that have been made to the DOGE database and the lack of explanation for each cut isn’t a matter of “malice or dishonesty,” but rather “mistakes.”

    “I don’t think their savings are a clear estimation of what taxpayers are actually saving. But I don’t attribute it to a desire to falsely advertise transparency and not deliver on it. I just think they need to do a much better job in the execution,” he said.

    A ‘Disregard for the Law’

    Flores from New America conducted similar research and, like Malkus, found that the DOGE data doesn’t add up and exaggerates the savings. However, she had different views on the cause and effects of the agency’s aggressive, mistake-riddled approach.

    “It’s like taking a wrecking ball to important government services,” she said. “If you’re trying to be efficient, you should take into consideration how far along is a contract? How much have we spent on this? Are we getting anything for the investment we’ve made?”

    The Trump administration has broadly explained its cuts as a response to the “liberal ideology” of diversity, equity and inclusion and an effort to increase efficiency. But to Flores, they target anything but “waste, fraud and abuse.”

    “The reason why the Trump administration says it wants to eliminate the Department of Education is because you don’t see improvement in student performance,” she said. “But if you want to improve student performance, you need to understand what is happening on the ground with students and evidence-based research on how to help students improve.”

    And many of the studies affected by the contract cuts were nearly completed, she said. They were projects on which the agency had already spent hundreds of millions of dollars. So by cutting them now, the department loses the data and wastes taxpayer funds.

    It’s absolutely hypocrisy. It feels like we’re all being gaslit.”

    —Antoinette Flores

    “I’ve talked to some researchers who worked at one of the organizations that had their contracts cut, and they said all work has to stop,” she said. “No matter how close it was to being finished, it just has to stop.”

    Flores also noted that some of the studies terminated via contract cuts—particularly the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study—are congressionally mandated, so ending them is unconstitutional.

    “The people making these cuts don’t necessarily understand the math. They don’t necessarily understand the contracts or the purpose of them, and there’s a disregard for the law,” she said.

    Voight from IHEP agreed, describing projects like NPSAS as “core data sets that the field relies upon.”

    “Lawmakers often turn to these types of longitudinal and sample studies to answer questions that they have as they’re trying to build policies. And states turn to this type of information to help them benchmark how they’re faring against national numbers,” she said. “So these studies themselves are a really, really devastating loss.”

    Even some contracts that weren’t cut will suffer consequences, Voight noted. For example, though the Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems grant program has so far been shielded from outright termination, she said, it didn’t come away entirely unscathed. The data systems rely on key information from a program called Common Education Data Standards, which was slashed; without CEDS, the grant program won’t be nearly as effective.

    “The cuts have actually been misunderstanding the interrelationships between many of these different products,” Voight said.

    Over all, she believes the Department of Education, and specifically IES, are not the best places for efficiency cuts. The $807.6 million budget for the Institute of Education Sciences in fiscal year 2024 is just “a drop in the bucket” compared with the amount spent on other research and development groups, like the $4.1 billion given to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency the same year.

    “To think about how to build efficiencies is certainly not a bad question to ask. But IES is already such a lean operation, and the way that they are trying to build evidence is critical,” she said. “So we should really be focusing on investment in our education research infrastructure and taking a strategic approach to any changes that are going to be made.”

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  • Not all campus cuts last month were driven by Trump

    Not all campus cuts last month were driven by Trump

    February was a tumultuous month for higher education as President Donald Trump’s agenda began to take shape. His barrage of executive actions threatened federal funding and created uncertainty for colleges, prompting some to freeze hiring and others to pause graduate school admissions.

    Even wealthy institutions like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University enacted hiring freezes last month, while Northwestern University paused both hiring and compensation increases, in addition to other moves.

    Some institutions were more severely affected by the Trump cuts than others. Federally run tribal colleges like Haskell Indian Nations University and Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute lost multiple staff members as the Office of Personnel Management laid off many probationary employees.

    But the cuts below are not tied to Trump—at least not directly.

    The latest installment of Inside Higher Ed’s monthly roundup of personnel and program cuts at colleges finds those changes largely propelled by financial issues tied to the usual suspects: declining enrollment and rising operational costs.

    Catholic University of America

    Facing a $30 million structural deficit, the Washington, D.C.-based institution has eliminated 16 positions in the Center for Academic and Career Success and is transitioning to a faculty advising model.

    The position of vice president for student affairs was also cut, and CUA has launched a voluntary faculty separation program for full-time faculty with 10 or more years of service, according to an email from President Peter Kilpatrick that was obtained by Inside Higher Ed.

    A reorganization of CUA’s colleges is also planned.

    “While the specific form of these changes continues to evolve through consultation, the need for substantive reorganization and consolidation is certain,” Kilpatrick wrote in an email to campus.

    One former employee, speaking on condition of anonymity, questioned the rationale behind cuts to advising. They told Inside Higher Ed that faculty are already overworked and underpaid and expressed concern about advising responsibilities, which they believe were better left to the ousted advisers.

    CUA confirmed 16 job cuts within the Center for Academic and Career Success to Inside Higher Ed but did not address other personnel reductions.

    Western Washington University

    Officials at the public four-year institution in Bellingham have expanded a plan to lay off employees.

    Initially, the university planned to cut 55 jobs, but that has now grown to 74, Cascadia Daily reported. Three dozen of those 74 positions targeted for elimination are currently vacant.

    The cuts are in response to an $18 million budget deficit. WWU has thus far shaved off $13 million, but the remaining $5 million means that even more cuts could be on the horizon.

    “At this time, we are still working to identify reductions for the remaining $5 million gap. While we are making significant reductions now, our financial position will continue to evolve based on state funding and enrollment trends. More changes may be necessary, and we will provide updates as soon as decisions are made,” officials wrote on a frequently asked questions page.

    Columbia-Greene Community College

    Grappling with financial challenges, the college in Hudson, N.Y., laid off 17 employees late last month as part of a sustainability plan, The Daily Gazette reported.

    Additionally, 11 tenured faculty members accepted retirement incentives.

    A college spokesperson declined to provide specifics, calling the layoffs a human resources matter, but told the newspaper that affected positions include faculty, staff and administrators.

    Spring Hill College

    Six majors and nine faculty members are on the way out at the private, Catholic college in Alabama, which dropped academic programs and cut jobs as part of budget cuts, WKRG reported.

    The TV station reported that enrollment dropped by almost 25 percent in recent years, from 1,200 before the coronavirus pandemic to 920 currently, though numbers are trending up for this fall.

    The majors cut were biochemistry, chemistry, history, philosophy, secondary education and studio art. A studio art minor was also eliminated.

    Tuskegee University

    An unspecified number of employees have been laid off at Tuskegee University, WSFA reported.

    The private, historically Black university in Alabama declined to specify the number of layoffs, but the TV station reported that employees told them the job cuts arrived abruptly—giving them little time to clean out their desks—and affected personnel in the university’s veterinary program.

    “Tuskegee University is always exploring opportunities to provide a stellar academic experience for our students,” university officials said in a statement. “Staffing adjustments are part of that process. These adjustments did not include academic leadership and are minimal in number.”

    Our Lady of the Lake University

    Amid a “realignment” process, the private, Catholic institution in San Antonio plans to cut academic programs and faculty jobs, though specific details have not been released, Texas Public Radio reported.

    “As part of the realignment process, some academic programs will be discontinued and we will modify some academic programs,” university officials wrote on a frequently asked questions page about the coming changes. “We will also reduce some full-time and part-time faculty positions. Some programs have had dwindling interest from students, to the point where they are no longer viable as stand-alone degree plans. Others are trending in that direction.”

    The university cited the need to boost enrollment, following recent declines. Though not mentioned on the FAQ page, OLLU has also faced significant legal expenses in recent years due to a 2022 data breach that affected nearly 42,000 employees and resulted in a settlement.

    Franklin & Marshall College

    Cuts are coming this spring to the private liberal arts college in Pennsylvania, LancasterOnline reported.

    Franklin & Marshall president Barbara Altmann wrote in a message to employees that the move was “one piece of a strategic financial sustainability plan.” She added that the college has already made various efforts to trim expenses, including by eliminating vacant positions.

    Job cuts are expected in April, though an exact number has not been specified publicly.

    “Although the plan is not yet finalized, we are evaluating potential cuts to provide more stability for the entire community going forward. This plan will need to include a reduction in workforce, meaning the strategic elimination of some employee positions, rather than relying on attrition,” Altmann wrote in an email published by LancasterOnline.

    Southern Illinois University–Edwardsville

    Due to a budget deficit of more than $10 million, cuts are expected to both academic programs and jobs at Southern Illinois University–Edwardsville, The St. Louis-Post Dispatch reported.

    In an email to campus, Chancellor James Minor wrote that the university “is not in a financial crisis” but has “long-standing structural imbalances in our budget that must be addressed.”

    That plan will include possible changes to academic programs, early retirement incentives and the “consolidation, reduction or elimination of some positions,” according to Minor’s email. Early retirement incentives will be rolled out this spring.

    Minor did not specify a timeline for job and program cuts or a target number of reductions.

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  • Statement on President Trump’s Truth Social post threatening funding cuts for ‘illegal protests’

    Statement on President Trump’s Truth Social post threatening funding cuts for ‘illegal protests’

    President Trump posted a message on Truth Social this morning that put social media and college campuses on high alert. He wrote:

    Colleges can and should respond to unlawful conduct, but the president does not have unilateral authority to revoke federal funds, even for colleges that allow “illegal” protests. 

    If a college runs afoul of anti-discrimination laws like Title VI or Title IX, the government may ultimately deny the institution federal funding by taking it to federal court, or via notice to Congress and an administrative hearing. It is not simply a discretionary decision that the president can make.  

    President Trump also lacks the authority to expel individual students, who are entitled to due process on public college campuses and, almost universally, on private campuses as well.

    Today’s message will cast an impermissible chill on student protests about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Paired with President Trump’s 2019 executive order adopting an unconstitutional definition of anti-Semitism, and his January order threatening to deport international students for engaging in protected expression, students will rationally fear punishment for wholly protected political speech.

    As FIRE knows too well from our work defending student and faculty rights under the Obama and Biden administrations, threatening schools with the loss of federal funding will result in a crackdown on lawful speech. Schools will censor first and ask questions later. 

    Even the most controversial political speech is protected by the First Amendment. As the  Supreme Court reminds us, in America, we don’t use the law to punish those with whom we disagree. Instead, “[a]s a Nation we have chosen a different course—to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.” 

    Misconduct or criminality — like true threats, vandalism, or discriminatory harassment, properly defined — is not protected by the First Amendment. In fact, discouraging and punishing such behavior is often vital to ensuring that others are able to peacefully make their voices heard. 

    However, students who engage in misconduct must still receive due process — whether through a campus or criminal tribunal. This requires fair, consistent application of existing law or policy, in a manner that respects students’ rights.

    President Trump needs to stand by his past promise to be a champion for free expression. That means doing so for all views — including those his administration dislikes.

     

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  • Q&A: Bill Shorten talks VC pay cuts, student happiness, and giving UC staff hope

    Q&A: Bill Shorten talks VC pay cuts, student happiness, and giving UC staff hope




    By: Erin Morley

    in Features, Top Stories, VC’s corner


    March 3, 2025

    The new vice-chancellor of the University of Canberra (UC) Bill Shorten said universities will never make everybody happy, but they should do their best to try.

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  • Innovative K-12 staffing strategies are feeling the brunt of federal funding cuts

    Innovative K-12 staffing strategies are feeling the brunt of federal funding cuts

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    Many schools and higher education partnerships that support the teacher pipeline are starting to feel the brunt of a $600 million cut in “divisive” teacher training grants announced Feb. 17 by the U.S. Department of Education.

    The cost-cutting measures by the Education Department are part of a broader effort throughout the federal government initiated by the Trump administration. The initiative led by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, reported this week that the Education Department is leading among other federal agencies for the most savings in total funding cuts. 

    Two of the most common federal grant programs impacted so far are the Teacher Quality Partnership Program and the Supporting Effective Educator Development Grant, said Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy, president and CEO of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. AACTE has been surveying its members to gauge the grant slashing effort’s reach.

    Though the Education Department did not specify which teacher training grants programs were being cut, the agency said in its announcement that the reductions are targeting funds to institutions and nonprofits that were using training materials on topics such as critical race theory and diversity, equity and inclusion. The department added that “many of these grants included teacher and staff recruiting strategies implicitly and explicitly based on race.”

    At American University in Washington, D.C., for instance, a Teacher Quality Partnership Program grant allowed the university to help paraprofessionals at Friendship Charter Public Schools earn a master’s degree in early childhood or special education, “which there is a real need for,” said Holcomb-McCoy, who previously served as dean of American University’s School of Education. 

    The multiyear federal grant — which covered the private university’s tuition for about 15 teacher candidates to get credentialed, Holcomb-McCoy said — was written to benefit Friendship Charter Public Schools, as well as to address special educator shortages throughout the city.. That funding was “essentially cut.” 

    “We talk about teacher shortages of special education, teacher shortages in subjects such as science and math and technology,” Holcomb-McCoy said. “Cutting these grants essentially is cutting off the pipeline for many aspiring educators to get into the profession, and it’s not helping us. It’s hurting K-12 districts in many ways.”

    The grant also noted that it’s important to have a diverse representation of special education teachers trained in inclusive practices in Washington, D.C., schools, Holcomb-McCoy said. “The impact that that has on students with special needs is huge, and to stop that pipeline of people who aspire to work in that space is devastating to school districts and to communities and families.”

    AACTE estimates that about 31 Supporting Effective Educator Development grants and as many as 75 Teacher Quality Partnership Program grants were recently canceled nationwide. The association is providing support to its members and plans to help them first appeal their cases to the Education Department. 

    AACTE is also exploring potential litigation options, Holcomb-McCoy said.

    A hit to diversifying the teacher workforce

    Many of the applications for federal grants that were cut were written to align with priorities related to diversity set by former presidential administrations. As a result, Holcomb-McCoy said, a lot of those grant programs intentionally sought to address issues over diversity, equity and inclusion.

    Still, diversity in the teacher workforce has been a longstanding issue, she said. As the student population becomes more diverse, the hope has been to hire and keep teachers who are representative of their students. 

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  • How cuts at U.S. aid agency hinder university research

    How cuts at U.S. aid agency hinder university research

    Peter Goldsmith knows there’s a lot to love about soybeans. Although the crop is perhaps best known in America for its part in the stereotypically bougie soy milk latte, it plays an entirely different role on the global stage. Inexpensive to grow and chock-full of nutrients, it’s considered a potential solution to hunger and malnutrition.

    For the past 12 years, Goldsmith has worked toward that end. In 2013, he founded the Soybean Innovation Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and every day since then, the lab’s scientists have worked to help farmers and businesses solve problems related to soybeans, from how to speed up threshing—the arduous process of separating the bean from the pod—to addressing a lack of available soybean seeds and varieties.

    The SIL, which now encompasses a network of 17 laboratories, has completed work across 31 countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. But now, all that work is on hold, and Goldsmith is preparing to shut down the Soybean Innovation Lab in April, thanks to massive cuts to the federal foreign aid funds that support the labs.

    A week into the current presidential administration, Goldsmith received notice that the Soybean Innovation Lab, which is headquartered at the University of Illinois, had to pause operations, cease external communications and minimize costs, pending a federal government review.

    Goldsmith told his team—about 30 individuals on UIUC’s campus that he described as being like family to one another—that, though they were ordered to stop work, they could continue working on internal projects, like refining their software. But days later, he learned the university could no longer access the lab’s funds in Washington, meaning there was no way to continue paying employees.

    After talking with university administrators, he set a date for the Illinois lab to close: April 15, unless the freeze ended after the government review. But no review materialized; on Feb. 26, the SIL received notice its grant had been terminated, along with about 90 percent of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s programs.

    “The University of Illinois is a very kind, caring sort of culture; [they] wanted to give employees—because it was completely an act of God, out of the blue—give them time to find jobs,” he said. “I mean, up until [Jan. 27], we were full throttle, we were very successful, phones ringing off the hook.”

    The other 16 labs will likely also close, though some are currently scrambling to try to secure other funding.

    Federal funding made up 99 percent of the Illinois lab’s funding, according to Goldsmith. In 2022, the lab received a $10 million grant intended to last through 2027.

    Dismantling an Agency

    The SIL is among the numerous university laboratories impacted by the federal freeze on U.S. Agency for International Development funds—an initial step in what’s become President Donald Trump’s crusade to curtail supposedly wasteful government spending—and the subsequent termination of thousands of grants.

    Trump and Elon Musk, the richest man on Earth and a senior aide to the president, have baselessly claimed that USAID is run by left-wing extremists and say they hope to shutter the agency entirely. USAID’s advocates, meanwhile, have countered that the agency instead is responsible for vital, lifesaving work abroad and that the funding freeze is sure to lead to disease, famine and death.

    A federal judge, Amir H. Ali, seemed to agree, ruling earlier this month that the funding freeze is doing irreparable harm to humanitarian organizations that have had to cut staff and halt projects, NPR and other outlets reported. On Tuesday, Ali reiterated his order that the administration resume funding USAID, giving them until the end of the day Wednesday to do so.

    But the administration appealed the ruling, and the Supreme Court subsequently paused the deadline until the justices can weigh in. Now, officials appear to be moving forward with plans to fire all but a small number of the agency’s employees, directing employees to empty their offices and giving them only 15 minutes each to gather their things.

    About $350 million of the agency’s funds were appropriated to universities, according to the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, including $72 million for the Feed the Future Innovation Labs, which are aimed at researching solutions to end hunger and food insecurity worldwide. (The SIL is funded primarily by Feed the Future.)

    It’s a small amount compared to the funding universities receive from other agencies, like the National Institutes of Health, also the subject of deep cuts by Trump and Musk. But USAID-funded research is a long-standing and important part of the nation’s foreign policy, as well as a resource for the international community, advocates say. The work also has broad, bipartisan support; in fiscal year 2024, Congress increased funding for the Feed the Future Initiative labs by 16 percent, according to Craig Lindwarm, senior vice president for government affairs at the APLU, even in what he characterized as an extremely challenging budgetary environment.

    Potential Long-Term Harms

    Universities “have long been a partner with USAID … to help accomplish foreign policy and diplomatic goals of the United States,” said Lindwarm. “This can often but not exclusively come in the form of extending assistance as it relates to our agricultural institutions, and land-grant institutions have a long history of advancing science in agriculture that boosts yields and productivity in the United States and also partner countries, and we’ve found that this is a great benefit not just to our country, but also partner nations. Stable food systems lead to stable regions and greater market access for producers in the United States and furthers diplomatic objectives in establishing stronger connections with partner countries.”

    Stopping that research has negatively impacted “critical relationships and productivity,” with the potential for long-term harms, Lindwarm said.

    At the SIL, numerous projects have now been canceled, including a planned trip to Africa to beta test a pull-behind combine, a technology that is not commonly used anymore in the U.S.—most combines are now self-propelled rather than pulled by tractor—but that would be useful to farmers in Africa. A U.S. company was slated to license the technology to farmers in Africa, Goldsmith said, but now, “that’s dead. The agribusiness firm, the U.S. firm, won’t be licensing in Africa,” he said. “A good example of market entry just completely shut off.”

    He also noted that the lab closures won’t just impact clients abroad and U.S. companies; they will also be detrimental to UIUC, which did not respond to a request for comment.

    “In our space, we’re well-known. We’re really relevant. It makes the university extremely relevant,” he said. “We’re not an ivory tower. We’re in the dirt, literally, with our partners, with our clients, making a difference, and [that] makes the university an active contributor to solving real problems.”

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  • A surge of DEI cuts hits colleges across the US

    A surge of DEI cuts hits colleges across the US

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    Recent attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion have rocked the higher education sector, with the Trump administration ratcheting up the conservative-led fight against those efforts.

    President Donald Trump has signed multiple executive orders aimed at eliminating DEI across higher education and other sectors.

    More recently, the U.S. Department of Education issued guidance barring colleges from weighing race in any decision-making or promoting diversity efforts. The letter — which used broad language and stirred confusion among colleges — triggered immediate backlash from free speech and faculty groups.

    The department gave colleges until Friday to comply or risk losing their federal funding.

    Higher education groups have challenged the legality of the directives from both the White House and the Education Department. 

    A federal judge temporarily blocked major portions of Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders last week. And the American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest unions in the higher education sector, sued the Education Department over its guidance.

    But with no clear outcome, the following colleges are stripping down their diversity efforts to avoid endangering their funding.

    Ohio State University

    Ohio State University said Thursday it will eliminate its DEI offices and programming effective Friday. The state flagship plans to close its Office of Diversity and Inclusion and discontinue services at its Center for Belonging and Social Change less than 24 hours after announcing the change.

    The move will result in job cuts, though Ohio State did not specify how many.

    “The federal government has signaled its intent to enforce guidance invalidating the use of race in a broad range of educational activities, including by withdrawing federal dollars that are so important to our student, academic and operational success,” Ohio State President Ted Carter wrote in a letter to students and employees.

    In addition to federal forces, the university faces anti-DEI efforts from the Ohio Legislature. The Republican-controlled body is weighing a massive higher education bill that would, among other things, ban the state’s public colleges from having DEI offices or taking positions on “controversial” topics, such as climate or immigration policies, DEI, or abortion.

    “Here in Ohio, a bill barring DEI is also making its way through the legislature, and the Attorney General of Ohio – our statutory counsel – has advised us that his office concurs with the federal government’s position regarding the use of race in educational activities,” Carter said.

    The university’s Office of Academic Affairs will continue to offer the Young Scholars Program and the Morrill Scholarship Program with modified eligibility. The former is currently open to low-income, first generation students, while the latter is open to students “actively engaged in diversity-based leadership, service, and social justice activities,” according to their web pages. 

    The university will also rename its Office of Institutional Equity as the Office of Civil Rights Compliance “to more accurately reflect its work,” according to Carter.

    “Our goal is to ensure that Ohio State continues to be a place where all are welcomed and treated with respect, while following the letter and spirit of the laws and regulations that govern us,” he said.

    Ohio State leaders announced earlier this month they were evaluating the university’s roles and DEI work so they could “make changes if state or federal law requires it or if we decide a different approach is in the university’s best interests.”  

    The cuts to DEI will not reduce current student scholarships or financial aid, Carter said Thursday. Ohio State will offer alternative jobs to affected student employees.

    The University of Cincinnati

    The University of Cincinnati is stuck in limbo — its president announced a complete dissolution of the public institution’s DEI efforts before appearing to walk back the announcement just days later.

    On Feb. 21, President Neville Pinto said the university would eliminate all DEI initiatives to comply with one of Trump’s executive orders and the Education Department’s guidance. 

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  • Jon Stewart Reworks Trump & Elon’s Sweeping DOGE Budget Cuts (The Daily Show)

    Jon Stewart Reworks Trump & Elon’s Sweeping DOGE Budget Cuts (The Daily Show)







    Higher Education Inquirer : Jon Stewart Reworks Trump & Elon’s Sweeping DOGE Budget Cuts (The Daily Show)




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