Tag: cuts

MSI Cuts Create Barriers for Indigenous Learners (opinion)

As we start the new year, my leadership team, like many others across the country, is confronting the financial fallout from the Department of Education’s decision to end grant programs for certain minority-serving institutions, including ours. The department has framed its September shift of funds away from MSIs and toward historically Black colleges and universities and tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) as an expansion of opportunity. Yet as an Indigenous education scholar and a college president, I see it creating new barriers for Indigenous learners. This decision is complex and requires deeper analysis to understand its lasting impacts.

Federal support for Native education is a part of the federal trust responsibility, codified by at least 150 treaties, as well as various statutes and court decisions. Those treaties provide explicit provisions for various services, including education, that were guaranteed to Tribal Nations and their citizens by the United States government in exchange for land. This trust responsibility follows both Tribal Nations and individual tribal citizens. Ultimately, the federal trust responsibility is both a legal and moral obligation.

In 2008, Congress created Native American–serving nontribal institutions (NASNTIs), a new category of MSI, to ensure federal grant support for institutions educating Native students outside of tribal colleges and universities. Only about 12 percent of Native students attend TCUs. Stripping more than $54 million away from the other institutions that serve large numbers of Native students effectively undermines the federal government’s trust responsibility. Furthermore, this funding, which went not to just NASNTIs, but also but to Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander–serving institutions (AANAPISIs) and Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian–serving institutions (ANNHs)—typically supported programs open to all students at these institutions who qualified, not just Native learners.

This loss is not abstract. At Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colo., where I am president, 37 percent of our students are Native American, representing more than 128 Tribal Nations and Alaska Native villages. We are the only NASNTI in the state. Recent federal cuts will mean a $2.27 million loss in critical grant support—dollars that have historically funded things like our peer educator tutoring, peer mentoring and summer bridge programs, all essential academic supports aimed at increasing student retention and graduation.

In my role, I meet students every week who tell me that the support they received through these programs gave them the academic confidence to formally enroll or stay in school and a community to belong to on campus. For many students, these programs are the difference between continuing on the track toward graduation or leaving higher education altogether. Cutting this funding pulls away the very safety nets that level the playing field.

Funding the institutions that support these students is also critical for boosting graduation rates, preparing a strong workforce and overall Tribal Nation building. Higher education access and success is a long-standing issue for Native communities, where only 42 percent of Native students graduate within six years, compared to 64 percent nationally, and only 17 percent of Native adults hold a bachelor’s degree. At a time when many communities are facing shortages of teachers, health-care providers and public servants, undermining critical pathways to higher education hurts our economy. Investing in these institutions is not only moral but profoundly practical.

Finally, the decision to reallocate funding away from NASNTIs is especially damaging because it frames Native-serving institutions as competitors with TCUs, instead of partners in the shared mission of educating historically underserved students. There is no question that TCUs and HBCUs have both been woefully underfunded for decades. These institutions serve critical historical and present-day roles, providing access to higher education and meeting community and tribal needs. They deserve robust, sustained federal investment. TCUs, in particular, play an essential role in rural areas and tribal communities. That said, needed investments in these institutions should not come at the expense of the NASNTIs and other MSIs that educate vast numbers of Native students.

By shifting this money, the Department of Education forces communities that are deeply aligned in our commitment to serving Native students and communities to fight for scarce resources, all while the department fails to meet its federal trust responsibility. NASNTIs and TCUs do not succeed at the expense of one another; we succeed together when federal policy recognizes the full breadth of our contributions.

The Department of Education has an opportunity to reaffirm, not retreat from, its responsibility to Native students. That means sustaining investment in TCUs and HBCUs and restoring support for the NASNTIs that educate large numbers of Indigenous learners. When we fund the full ecosystem of Native-serving colleges and universities, we strengthen Native communities and the nation as a whole. True recognition of Native heritage lies in a commitment that honors the promises made and ensures that every Native student has the educational resources to thrive.

Heather J. Shotton is president of Fort Lewis College.

Source link

January 20, 2026
Week in review: Federal lawmakers reject drastic cuts to scientific research
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

Most clicked story of the week:

Senate lawmakers have rejected the Trump administration’s proposal to vastly reduce federal funding for scientific research. Instead the Senate advanced proposals last week that would provide $188.3 billion for scientific research — 21.3% more than the Trump administration proposed.

The Senate passed those bipartisan measures Thursday in a 82-15 vote, sending them to President Donald Trump’s desk. The House passed them in a 397-28 vote earlier in the month.

Number of the week: 5.9%

The decline in graduate international students enrolled in U.S. colleges in fall 2025 compared to the year before, according to final figures from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. However, enrollment ticked up 1% overall, thanks to a 1.2% increase in undergraduate students.

The latest on mergers, closures and financial distress:
- The California College of the Arts, a 120-year-old institution, announced that it will close at the end of the 2026-27 academic year and hand over its campus to Nashville-based Vanderbilt University. Despite a major fundraising push, CCA President David Howse said the arts college’s “tuition-driven business model is not sustainable.”
- Oregon’s Higher Education Coordinating Commission recently passed a report that in part advises all of Oregon’s public colleges to collaborate and craft plans for “targeted institutional integration.”. Those plans could range from two colleges sharing programs to fully merging, according to the report.
- Hampshire College, a private nonprofit in Massachusetts that narrowly avoided closing five years ago, is once again in potential financial trouble. According to its latest audit, the institution could shutter if it can’t refinance its debt.
‘A year of catastrophe’ for higher ed:

PEN America, a free expression group, found that 21 bills across 15 states were enacted in 2025 that censor higher education. “For higher education in America, 2025 was a year of catastrophe,” researchers wrote in a report summarizing the findings.

The researchers found the laws were a “result of a relentless, years-old campaign to exert ideological control over college and university campuses.” Although the conservative-led push began before President Donald Trump’s second term, researchers noted the campaign was “greatly exacerbated” by his administration.

Now, over 50% of college students are studying in states with at least one law on the books that censors higher education. “This is a staggering figure that should give us all pause,” they wrote.
Source link
January 19, 2026
Parenting Students Bear the Brunt of Federal Cuts

Student parents are facing the ripple effects of a volatile federal policy landscape.

Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | RichVintage/E+/Getty Images

Cuts to federal funding that supported students of color and undocumented students dominated headlines in the first year of the Trump administration. But advocates for student parents say the administration has gutted benefit programs these students rely on, leaving a fifth of the country’s college students vulnerable to financial hardship or even at risk of stopping out.

Federal funds for programs providing a critical element of support for student parents, childcare, could be frozen or canceled. In a recent example, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services froze billions of dollars in childcare and family assistance funds to five Democrat-led states, citing fraud concerns. About $2.4 billion in Childcare and Development Fund grants and $7.35 billion in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds are on the line.

The Education Department also nixed grants for on-campus childcare at more than a dozen colleges this summer; ED officials claimed the institutions didn’t hire childcare staff based on merit or hired staff who taught gender identity and racial justice to children. Funding for the federal grant program Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) was already uncertain after Trump recommended axing it in his proposed budget for 2026.

Childcare “is a lifeline for parenting college students,” said Nicole Lynn Lewis, a former parenting student and founder and CEO of Generation Hope, a nonprofit that supports student parents. “To have that support significantly reduced, frozen, taken away, attacked, threatened—that is a major blow to families’ ability to excel and to be able to experience economic mobility.”

In their efforts to close the Department of Education, officials also shuffled responsibility for CCAMPIS over to HHS. The move risks adding new layers of confusion and bureaucracy to a program that already only reaches a small fraction of parenting students, Lewis said. Parents make up a fifth of the tens of millions of college students across the country, and CCAMPIS serves about 11,000 of them.

But childcare isn’t the only worry. Advocates say recent cuts to public benefits are also a major concern for parenting students.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act will reduce funding to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, by about $186 billion over 10 years. The legislation also made some of SNAP’s work requirements more restrictive. While parents with dependent children are still exempt from certain work requirements, a dependent is now defined as below age 14, instead of 18, meaning more parents will now need to work 80 hours per month to qualify for benefits long term. OBBBA will also slash $990 billion from Medicaid over the course of a decade and make its requirements more restrictive.

Mark Huelsman, director of policy and advocacy at the Hope Center for Student Basic Needs, emphasized that parenting students are more likely than other students to participate in these public benefit programs because of financial hardship and because parenting young children or participating in TANF helps them gain SNAP eligibility. About 30 percent of parenting students are estimated to be on Medicaid or SNAP. But that also means these students are bound to be disproportionately affected when public benefits take a beating.

“I think the goal of any administration or policymakers that care about student success should be to provide as comprehensive supports as possible for this population,” Huelsman said, noting parents already face barriers to graduating. “I think we’ve seen the exact opposite over the past year.”

State higher education budgets might also take a hit as states try to make up for cuts to Medicaid, leaving institutions with fewer resources to support parenting students, said Carrie Welton, a former parenting student and senior policy strategist at Trellis Strategies, an education consulting firm.

“When states are looking for ways to cut costs, [higher ed] is one of the first things on the chopping block,” Welton said.

She also worries that a general sense of political and economic uncertainty may drive parents to disenroll.

“Even though their economic circumstances may not have changed drastically with the new administration, people feel more uncertain and …less confident about the economy and about their future,” she said. “We’ve seen that affect consumer spending, and I think that’s going to affect people’s perspectives about enrolling and persisting in a college credential program,” Welton said. Especially when they have children to worry about, parents’ instinct might be to “hunker down” and save their money.

The Trump administration’s proposed limits on graduate student borrowing for programs not classified as “professional” could also hurt parenting students’ career aspirations, Lewis, of Generation Hope, said. Of the roughly 200 students with children in her organization’s Hope Scholars program, two-thirds of them are studying in fields that don’t qualify for higher professional loan caps, such as nursing, social work and teaching.

Those students now face an extra barrier to “unlock the earning potential that comes with an advanced degree, unlock the promotion potential that comes with being able to pursue graduate school,” Lewis said.

Former parenting students and advocates say one of the ways colleges can help parenting students is by ensuring they have accurate information about recent policy changes.

Huelsman said parenting students’ confusion around policy changes is understandable given the speed of the change and misinformation online.

“Someone might see a headline that federal childcare funding has been frozen, but it might not apply to their state or their school. They might see that the administration is proposing zeroing out funding for something, but they haven’t done it yet,” Huelsman said. “Outreach is genuinely vital, probably now more than ever.”

Source link

January 9, 2026
UNL faculty blast chancellor’s $1.1M severance payout amid budget cuts
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

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.
Source link
January 7, 2026
December Cuts Close Out Brutal Year for Sector

The last month of 2025 brought more campus job cuts, capping off a tumultuous year for higher education.

While December yielded roughly 300 reported job cuts across the sector, that total reflects only a fraction of the jobs lost in higher education in 2025. Inside Higher Ed tracked more than 9,000 job cuts and buyouts last year—which is undoubtedly an undercount due to unreported personnel actions.

Rising operating costs and an uncertain federal policy environment drove cuts at even the wealthiest institutions last year as universities with multibillion-dollar endowments shed hundreds of jobs after President Donald Trump restricted federal research funds, sought to limit international student enrollment and clashed with multiple universities over alleged civil rights infractions. While many of December’s job cuts were not attributable to Trump, others seemed directly connected, including the loss of hundreds of international students at DePaul University, which undercut tuition revenues, prompting layoffs.

Here’s a look at layoffs, buyouts and program cuts announced in December.

DePaul University

The private Catholic university in Chicago cut 114 staff jobs last month, officials announced.

“These decisions were extraordinarily difficult and leaders across the university did not make them lightly. Each person affected contributed to the life of this university in meaningful ways,” officials wrote in a Dec. 15 message announcing the layoffs and assistance for employees, which included severance packages based on years of service, career counseling and more.

Staffing reductions at DePaul are part of a broader effort to reduce spending by $27.4 million as the university grapples with a budget deficit and aims to achieve a 2.5 percent operating margin. DePaul has also been hit with a staggering loss of international students amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, which has made it harder for some foreign nationals to obtain visas and deterred others. International enrollment at DePaul plunged by 755 students compared to the previous fall, a decline of nearly 62 percent, officials said in September.

University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Regents voted last month to close four programs at the flagship campus following months of consternation over the plan, which will see dozens of faculty positions eliminated.

Programs approved for closure are statistics, earth and atmospheric sciences, educational administration and textiles, merchandising and fashion design. The plan includes cutting 51 jobs, mostly from the faculty ranks, The Nebraska Examiner reported.

Program closures and job cuts are expected to save the university almost $7 million.

The December vote ended a bitter fight over the program cuts that prompted a faculty no-confidence vote in Chancellor Rodney Bennett. Faculty members have questioned the evaluation process and the timeline for the cuts; they also conducted their own financial assessment, which pushed back on the need for instructional cuts amid growing administrative expenses.

Bennett, who championed the program cuts, announced Monday that he plans to resign by Jan. 12. His sudden resignation ends an almost three-year stint as head of the flagship.

Martin University

Indiana’s only predominantly Black institution terminated all employees last month, a sign that points to an almost certain closure, though the Board of Trustees has not yet made it official. The move came shortly after the private university announced it would “pause” operations.

While the number of jobs lost is unclear, Martin—where enrollment has hovered around 200 students in recent years—employed 42 staff and faculty members in fall 2023, according to federal data.

Interim president Felicia Brokaw reportedly told employees the university was laying them off because it could not afford to pay them, according to an audio recording obtained by Mirror Indy. Brokaw also told staff she did not know when they would be paid for work already performed.

Martin officials have encouraged students to transfer elsewhere.

Western Wyoming Community College

Citing a need to balance its budget and avoid dipping into reserves, the community college in Rock Springs axed 33 jobs and reorganized 30 others, The Rocket Miner reported.

Last month’s cuts included eight full-time faculty jobs.

The newspaper reported that more layoffs could be on the horizon depending on what happens in the coming legislative session. State lawmakers are reportedly weighing a plan to cut property taxes by 25 percent (following a similar move last year), which would have a major effect on WWCC, given that its budget heavily relies on state appropriations and local property taxes.

University of Kansas

Nearly three dozen faculty members have opted to take buyouts offered by the public research university.

In all, 34 tenured faculty members applied to participate in an early-retirement incentive program at KU, The Lawrence Journal-World reported. University officials announced the launch of the early-retirement program in October, citing budget challenges. KU is currently seeking $32 million in cost reductions by July 1, when the next fiscal year begins.

Christian Brothers University

The private Catholic university in Memphis, Tenn., is cutting 16 faculty jobs, a move Interim President Chris Englert said was “designed to balance our operating budget and position CBU for transformation as we work to meet the needs of today’s students and today’s workforce.”

Englert announced the layoffs in a message to the campus community last month.

University of Oklahoma

The Oklahoma Board of Regents for Higher Education voted to eliminate 41 degree programs and suspend 21 others across the state system due to underenrollment, NPR affiliate KOSU reported.

The flagship was hit the hardest, with 14 programs eliminated. No other state institution had more than three degree programs cut. Of the 14 at OU, eight were at the undergraduate level and six were graduate degrees. Cuts at OU include a mix of language programs—such as Arabic, Chinese, French and German—alongside geography, plant biology and others.

New Jersey City University

As part of a planned merger with nearby Kean University, the public institution is shedding nine degree programs alongside multiple minors and certifications, The Jersey City Times reported.

Undergraduate programs to be discontinued at NJCU are business information systems, chemistry, philosophy, women’s and gender studies, and a music performance degree. Graduate programs on the chopping block are business information systems, criminal justice, educational psychology and a music performance degree. An internal memo obtained by the newspaper noted that many programs have similar offerings at Kean that will continue unabated.

College of Idaho

The liberal arts college in Caldwell is cutting three majors but adding six new programs, a change that will see 10 employees laid off, including five professors, Idaho Ed News reported.

College officials said the eliminated majors—theater, communication arts and philosophy—were all underenrolled. New programs to be added are biochemistry, finance and criminology, at the undergraduate level, plus master’s degrees in data analytics, exercise science and accountancy.

Boston University

Facing a $30 million budget gap driven by low graduate enrollment numbers and other factors, the private university is offering buyouts to eligible faculty members, The Boston Globe reported.

Buyouts mark the latest effort by the research university to constrain costs. In early 2025, officials announced BU was laying off 120 workers and closing 120 vacant positions.

San Francisco State University

The public university is rolling out an early-retirement program to help close a budget deficit, Golden Gate Express reported.

SFSU officials announced the buyout program last month and reportedly expect between 60 and 75 faculty members to sign on. However, professors in some departments are not eligible, an exclusion officials told the news outlet was partly due to the need “to maintain business continuity.”

Source link

January 6, 2026
Support for student parents at risk due to proposed funding cuts

UCLA Bruin Parenting Scholars (BPS) board at their winter warmth basic needs drive for students with dependents.

Credit: Photo courtesy of Trina Rodriguez

As students across the country wrap up their final exams, academic pressure is front and center. For many, this season is stressful. For student parents, however, the stakes are even higher.

Alongside exams and essay deadlines, student caregivers balance jobs, household responsibilities, and the constant demands of raising children and other family members — often with little institutional support. For them, success in college is not just about grades; it is about securing stability for their families and breaking cycles of economic insecurity.

More than one in four undergraduate students in the United States are raising children, and 54% are doing so without a partner. Despite this widespread need for support, the programs that make higher education possible for student parents are threatened. Chief among them is the federal Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) initiative, the only national program that provides campus-based childcare subsidies for low-income student parents so they can stay enrolled and complete their degrees.

Across the University of California (UC) system, survey data shows nearly 1,000 undergraduate students and 1,500 graduate students are caregivers. These students, often older, first-generation, and low-income, face challenges that traditional student support systems were never designed to meet. Parenting students also experience food and housing insecurity at disproportionately higher rates than their non-parenting peers. Add the cost of childcare, and the financial burden becomes nearly impossible to bear.

Despite this clear need, support is shrinking. Although Congress allocated $75 million for CCAMPIS in fiscal year (FY) 2025, and there have been previous bipartisan proposals to increase funding to $200 million annually, President Trump’s budget request and the House education spending bill for FY 2026 proposed cutting the program entirely.

Eliminating this funding would put thousands of families under severe financial strain, intensifying the challenges for caregivers already facing heightened food or housing insecurity and making it much harder to balance school and parenting responsibilities.

“As a CCAMPIS recipient, I know that without federally supported childcare, I would never have been able to care for my late mother while returning to school, nor would I have completed undergrad with dual degrees,” Schinal Harrington, a masters of social work (MSW) candidate at UCLA, wrote in an email to us. “As a first-generation, system-impacted woman of color, mother, and graduate student, I have spent my academic journey navigating red tape, institutional neglect, and the loss of [fellow] peers whose struggles were shaped by the same barriers student parents face today.”

Harrington chairs Bruin Parenting Scholars (BPS), a UCLA student advocacy organization that provides resources, mentorship, and community for students with dependents. Every day, she sees how childcare access, trauma-informed services, and flexible policies support not just parenting students, but their families.

Trina Rodriguez, another UCLA MSW student and student parent advocate, describes this reality with raw clarity: “My lived experience carries many identities, but the first thing I am when I wake up, before anything else, is ‘Mommy.’ When universities do not acknowledge the existence of this marginalized community through institutional supports — like flexible scheduling, affordable childcare, and family-friendly policies — student parents face systemic barriers to completing their education. Universities are, therefore, perpetuating harm on this community.”

Yet despite systemic gaps, student parents demonstrate extraordinary resilience. UC survey data show that parenting graduate students feel more upbeat about their career prospects and better prepared for the job search than their non-parenting peers. Their determination is evident — even when given modest support.

“As a parenting scholar [myself], I’ve witnessed how student parents embody perseverance, compassion, and leadership, yet must navigate systems that were never built with their lives in mind,” said Sonya Brooks, the 2025-26 UC student regent. “Supporting student parents means recognizing that higher education is not one-size-fits-all: it must evolve to meet the realities of those raising families while pursuing their dreams. The success of student parents ripples across generations, shaping stronger families, communities, and universities.”

Other resources for student parents

BrightLife Kids is a free virtual behavioral health coaching program for families in California with children ages 0–12.

Part of the CalHOPE initiative, BrightLife Kids offers 1:1 video coaching and secure chat services at no cost, with no insurance or referral required, providing caregivers with helpful tools.

When Congress passed a short-term continuing resolution (CR) to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, longer-term funding questions — including CCAMPIS funding for 2026 — remained unresolved. House and Senate appropriators are now deciding whether to follow the president’s proposal or save the program when the continuing resolution expires in January.

Congress must restore full funding for CCAMPIS and reject cuts that threaten the educational futures of thousands of student parents nationwide. Undermining these supports jeopardizes not only individual students but entire families.

Colleges and universities must also do their part by expanding childcare access, adopting family-friendly policies, and offering flexible learning options with integrated advising. Higher education cannot credibly claim to value its students while ignoring the realities faced by the many on campus who are raising dependents.

Parenting students have shown up for their families. Now it is time for our institutions to show up for them.

•••

Duke Dela Rosa is the director, and Amrit Dhillon, Arianna Li, and Sue Jung are associates, of the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC) federal government relations department at UC Berkeley.

The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.

Source link

December 30, 2025
Layoffs, Cuts and Closures Are Coming to LAUSD Schools As District Confronts Budget Shortfalls – The 74
Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

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.

Related

How Can Los Angeles’ Schools Have a Looming $1.6B Deficit With $19B in Revenues?

“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.

Did you use this article in your work?

We’d love to hear how The 74’s reporting is helping educators, researchers, and policymakers. Tell us how
Source link
December 23, 2025
California students with disabilities face ‘terrifying’ special ed cuts after Trump changes – The 74

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

Sleep is a rare commodity at Lindsay Crain’s house. Most nights, she and her husband are up dozens of times, tending to their daughter’s seizures. The 16-year-old flails her arms, thrashes and kicks — sometimes for hours.

But these days, that’s not the only thing keeping Crain awake. The Culver City mother worries about how President Donald Trump’s myriad budget cuts could strip their daughter of services she needs to go to school, live at home and enjoy a degree of independence that would have been impossible a generation ago.

“Every family I know is terrified right now,” Crain said. “We still have to live our everyday lives, which are challenging enough, but now it feels like our kids’ futures are at stake.”

Trump’s budget includes nearly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, which funds a wide swath of services to disabled children, including speech, occupational and physical therapy, wheelchairs, in-home aides and medical care. All children with physical, developmental or cognitive disabilities – in California, nearly 1 million – receive at least some services through Medicaid.

Meanwhile, at the U.S. Department of Education, Trump has gutted the Office of Civil Rights, which is among the agencies that enforce the 50-year-old law granting students with disabilities the right to attend school and receive an education appropriate to their needs. Before that law was enacted, students with disabilities often didn’t attend school at all.

“We have a delicate web of services that, combined, support a whole child, a whole family,” said Kristin Wright, executive director of inclusive practices and systems at the Sacramento County Office of Education and the former California state director of special education. “So when the basic foundational structure is upended, like Medicaid, for example, it’s not just one cut from a knife. It’s multiple.”

Republicans have also suggested moving the office of special education out of the Department of Education altogether and moving it to the Department of Health and Human Services. Disability rights advocates say that would bring a medical – rather than a social – lens to special education, which they described as a major reversal of progress.

Related

Before Special Ed, There Was the School-to-Asylum Pipeline. How One Lawsuit Helped End It

Trump has chipped away at other rights protecting people with disabilities, as well. In September, the U.S. Department of Transportation said it would not enforce a rule that requires airlines to reimburse passengers for damaged or lost wheelchairs. Trump has also repeatedly used the word “retarded,” widely considered a slur, alarming advocates who say it shows a lack of respect and understanding of the historical discrimination against people with disabilities. It’s all left some wondering if the administration plans more cuts to hard-fought rights protecting people with disabilities.

Fewer therapists, less equipment

The Medicaid cuts may have the most immediate effect. People with developmental disabilities typically receive therapy, home visits from aides, equipment and other services through regional centers, a network of 21 mostly government-funded nonprofits in California that coordinate services for people with disabilities. The goal of regional centers is to help people with disabilities live as independently as possible.

More than a third of regional centers’ funding comes from Medicaid, which is facing deep cuts under Trump’s budget. The money runs out at the end of January, and it’s unclear what services will be cut.

Schools also rely on Medicaid to pay for therapists, equipment, vision and hearing tests and other services that benefit all students, not just those with disabilities. In light of state budget uncertainty, it’s not likely the state could backfill the loss of Medicaid funding, and schools would have to pare down their services.

Uncertain futures

For Lelah Coppedge, whose teenage son has cerebral palsy, the worst part is the uncertainty. She knows cuts are coming, but she doesn’t know when or what they’ll include.

“I go down this rabbit hole of worst-case scenarios,” said Coppedge, who lives in the Canoga Park neighborhood in Los Angeles. “Before this happened, I felt there was a clear path for my son. Now that path is going away, and it’s terrifying.”

Coppedge’s son, Jack, is a 16-year-old high school student who excels at algebra and physics. He loves video games and has a wide circle of friends at school. He uses a wheelchair and struggles with speech, communicating mostly through eye movements. He’ll look at his mom’s right hand to indicate “yes,” her left hand for “no.”

Coppedge and her husband rely on a nurse who comes four days a week to help Jack get dressed, get ready for bed and do other basic activities. Medicaid pays for the nurse, as well as other services like physical therapy. Even though Coppedge and her husband both work and have high-quality private health insurance, they could not afford Jack’s care without help from the government.

They also rely on the local regional center, which they assumed would help Jack after he graduates from high school, so he can remain at home, continue to hone his skills and generally live as independently as possible. If that funding vanishes, Coppedage worries Jack will someday end up in a facility where people don’t know him, don’t know how to communicate with him and don’t care about him.

“It feels like we’re going backward,” Coppedge said. “Half the time, I put my head in the sand because I’m just trying to manage the day-to-day. The rest of the time I worry that (the federal government) is looking at people like Jack as medical problems, not as unique people who want to have full, happy lives. It feels like that’s getting lost.”

The current uncertainty is stressful, but it’s even harder for families who are immigrants, Wright said. Those families are less likely to stand up for services they’re entitled to and are facing the extra fear of deportation. English learners, as well as low-income children, are disproportionately represented among students in special education, according to state data.

“That’s the other piece to all this — how it’s affecting immigrant families,” Wright said. “It’s a whole other level of anxiety and fear.”

Decades of progress on the line

Karma Quick-Panwala, an advocate at the nonprofit Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, said she worries about the rollback of decades’ worth of progress that was hard-won by the disability rights community.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the 1975 law that created special education, actually predates the federal Department of Education. In fact, Congress created the department in part to oversee special education. Removing special ed would be a devastating blow to the disability community — not just because services might be curtailed, but philosophically, as well, Quick-Panwala said.

In the Department of Education, special education is under the purview of education experts who promote optimal ways to educate students with disabilities, so they can learn, graduate from high school and ideally go on to productive lives. In the Department of Health and Human Services, special education would no longer be overseen by educators but by those in the medical field, where they’re more likely to “look at disability as something to be cured or segregated and set aside,” Quick-Panwala said.

“The disability rights community has worked so hard and gave so much to make sure people with disabilities had a right to a meaningful education, so they could have gainful employment opportunities and participate in the world,” Quick-Panwala said. “The idea is that they wouldn’t just be present at school, but they would actually learn and thrive.”

For the time being, Wright, Quick-Panwala and other advocates are reminding families that federal funding might be shrinking, but the laws remain unchanged. Students are still entitled under federal law to the services outlined in their individual education plans, regardless of whether there’s money to pay for it. The funding will have to come from somewhere, at least for now, even if that means cutting it from another program. And California is unlikely to roll back its own special education protections, regardless of what happens in Washington, D.C.

An imperfect but successful routine

Those reassurances are scant comfort to Crain, whose daughter Lena will rely on government support her entire life. Born seven weeks prematurely, Lena has cerebral palsy, epilepsy, a cognitive impairment and is on the deaf-blind spectrum. But she has a 100-watt smile and a relentless spirit, Crain said. Even after the whole family has been up all night, Lena insists on going to school and getting the most out of every day.

From left, Jack Deacy, his daughter Lena Deacy, and Lindsay Crain at their home in Culver City on Dec. 1, 2025. The family fears potential Medicaid cuts because Lena, who has cerebral palsy, epilepsy and other medical conditions, relies on Medicaid-funded services for her daily care and well-being. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for CalMatters

Funny and assertive, she has a few close friends and, like many teenagers, plenty of opinions about her parents. She loves her English teacher and spends most of her day in regular classrooms with help from an aide. Her favorite book is about Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani activist who won a Nobel Peace Prize for fighting for girls’ right to an education.

Between school and home visits from aides and after-school therapists, Crain feels the family has pieced together an imperfect but mostly successful routine for Lena.

“Our entire lives are about teaching her self-advocacy, so she can have the most independent life possible,” Crain said. “Just because you need support doesn’t mean you can’t have a say in your life. There’s been so much work around the culture and the laws and the education system to make sure disabled people can make their own choices in life. We’re absolutely terrified of losing that.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Did you use this article in your work?

We’d love to hear how The 74’s reporting is helping educators, researchers, and policymakers. Tell us how

Source link

December 21, 2025
DePaul University cuts nearly 8% of staff
Dive Brief:
- DePaul University on Friday laid off 114 staff members, senior leaders of the Catholic nonprofit said Monday.
- The reductions, representing just under 8% of the Chicago university’s staff, come as DePaul tries to resolve a $12.6 million shortfall in its fiscal 2026 budget, driven in part by declines in international enrollment.
- “Supporting our students and providing an excellent education remain our top priority,” the senior leaders said Monday. “We want to emphasize that university leaders worked to minimize cuts to the student experience, including on-campus employment.”
Dive Insight:

In late September, the same group of leaders — President Robert Manuel, Provost Salma Ghanem and CFO Sherri Sidler — warned the DePaul community that budget cuts loomed.

They described “massive disruptions to our enrollments” that the university had not forecast, including a precipitous 62% year-over-year drop in enrollment of new international graduate students. Officials attributed the decrease to “challenges to the visa system” and “declining desire for international students to study in the U.S.”

The loss came amid nationwide drops in fall 2025 international student enrollment following the Trump administration’s aggressive policies around immigration and foreign students.

On top of the international enrollment collapse, DePaul’s continuing fall undergraduate enrollment declined by about 300 students compared to last year, according to institutional data. Students’ financial need has simultaneously increased, adding roughly $7 million in unexpected institutional aid to the budget.

In October, the officials said that the university was coming up short of its planned budget by nearly $13 million. That gap, plus the 2.5% operating margin the university is targeting in the short term, meant the university would need to cut $27.4 million from its budget, according to the leaders. Long-term, DePaul aims for a 4% margin to maintain financial health and be able to reinvest in the university.

To find savings, DePaul officials froze hiring, trimmed executive pay, reduced retirement contributions for senior administrators and skipped merit pay increases for faculty and staff. But those measures still left a $16 million gap. The senior leaders warned that the remaining shortfall would be filled through “operating expense reductions and staff eliminations.”

For staff let go last week, DePaul is providing them with severance packages based on years of service, as well as career counseling, health insurance subsidies and other resources, the leaders said.

“The last several weeks have been some of the most difficult our community has ever experienced,” the leaders said. “These decisions were extraordinarily difficult, and leaders across the university did not make them lightly.”

DePaul’s enrollment has declined in recent years, though not as significantly as many of its peers in the private nonprofit world. Between 2018 and 2023, fall headcount declined by 4.9% to 21,348 students, according to federal data.
Source link
December 16, 2025
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.”
Source link
December 10, 2025