Two former National Institutes of Health leaders are alleging the agency illegally put them on leave in April for speaking up against research grant cancellations and antivaccine efforts.
Jeanne Marrazzo, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Kathleen Neuzil, former director of the NIH’s Fogarty International Center and former associate director for international research, filed complaints Thursday with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, seeking reinstatement. They allege they faced retaliation for whistleblowing and other protected activity.
Marrazzo “objected to the Administration’s hostility towards vaccines and its abrupt cancellation of grants and clinical trials for political reasons,” according to her complaint. Neuzil further objected to the administration’s “cancellation of grants based on anti–South Africa hostility and its incorrect belief that certain grants advanced ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion,’” her complaint stated.
They both specifically allege that Matthew Memoli—who was NIH’s acting director after Trump returned to power and is now NIH’s principal deputy director—retaliated against them. An NIH spokesperson said in an email Friday that Memoli emphasizes that each vaccine “must be assessed on its own merits.”
The spokesperson also wrote that “assertions that reprioritization, reallocation, or cancellation of certain grants are ‘anti-science’ misrepresent NIH’s progress and often echo the grievances of former staff.”
Debra S. Katz, an attorney representing the complainants, said in a news release that the “Trump administration installed politically motivated leaders—most notably Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr., who immediately acted to stifle scientific inquiry, halt crucial research and retaliate against those, like Drs. Marrazzo and Neuzil, who refused to disavow the overwhelming body of evidence showing that vaccines are safe and effective.”
But Katz said the Office of Special Counsel, which is their only route for legal relief, “has been politically compromised to such an extent that it will most certainly refuse to act against Trump appointees.”
For students and their families, a university education is a massive investment of time and, often, money. To make a wise and informed decision about that investment, prospective students need full and timely financial transparency about that cost. The state of Florida has made that impossible for this year’s new out-of-state students.
As a married academic couple, we were excited for our oldest daughter to begin her college journey. Starting her sophomore year of high school, she carefully analyzed her options along many dimensions, from location and program offerings to student life and academic rigor. After she developed a short list of about 20 universities, we created a spreadsheet that categorized colleges on anything that could be quantified. As offers and acceptance letters began rolling in, yet another spreadsheet carefully tracked tuition, room and board, and scholarships.
After this careful analytic work, 13 on-campus visits and countless hours of conversation, our daughter chose the University of Florida. It was a tough decision; she had offers from other good colleges, including in- and out-of-state options that were more financially competitive. In the end, she valued UF’s high academic rigor and reputation combined with a relatively affordable cost. She made her choice about two weeks before the national May 1 decision deadline, and we began to prepare for her move to Gainesville. Of course, that planning included how we would pay for it. Based on numbers provided publicly on the university’s website, we thought we had that figured out.
Then the state of Florida changed the financial picture.
On June 18, the state of Florida’s Board of Governors permitted public universities to increase out-of-state student fees by 10 percent for the 2025–26 academic year (though called “fees,” this is in effect Florida’s term for the differential tuition costs paid by out-of-staters). And on July 23—more than two months after the national decision deadline, and less than a month before the start of the fall semester—the University of Florida’s Board of Trustees unanimously decided to do just that, hiking the per-credit cost for an out-of-state undergraduate by about $70 per credit, or about $2,000 for a full-time course load for the year. According to The Gainesville Sun, this decision was “in response to a budget shortfall of about $130 million due to a loss in state appropriations.”
Both of us lead university units with tight budgets. Therefore, we have empathy for the tough fiscal decisions that higher education professionals sometimes must make. Perhaps the hardest financial decision university leaders face is when and by how much to increase tuition—in other words, when to pass the financial burden on to the students that we serve. That decision also increases young adults’ student loan debt, a matter of national concern addressed in many higher education articles, books and podcasts.
But because of timing, what the state of Florida has done is different and much worse than a simple tuition/fee increase. If the university had announced the 2025–26 increase in fall 2024, we could have planned for that increase ahead of time. I do not think that would have changed our daughter’s decision, but it might have. Instead, by raising tuition so late in the game, Florida has created a classic example of a bait-and-switch: lure students in with the low cost, then dramatically increase it after their other options are gone.
We remain excited about our daughter’s future at the University of Florida—and, most importantly, our daughter remains excited, too, despite this financial bump in the road. However, this last-minute change in price generated additional stress and uncertainty around her transition to college. When we spoke with one of the university’s financial aid advisers in late July, he was empathetic. He pointed us to the university’s scholarship portal—but of course, those scholarship deadlines passed long ago, serving as further evidence that Florida’s tuition increase came much too late.
We have little doubt that this tuition approach has created stress for other students, too. With widespread concern for student mental health, increasing tuition costs just weeks before classes begin may add to students’ anxiety before they even set foot on campus. Student affairs professionals could see more requests for basic needs assistance, as students make tough choices between paying the higher tuition costs and other bills. University counseling centers are often already running at or above capacity and do not need such additional caseload.
Ultimately, this pricing practice fails the test of scalability. If every university increased tuition well after the decision deadline, it would be chaos. Students and their families would have no way to plan. Particularly given significant public concern about the high cost of higher education and burgeoning student loan debt, this is unacceptable.
Despite much debate within and beyond academia, the financial burden faced by young college students is a problem with no obvious solution in sight. But perhaps we can all agree on this: In order to make a wise financial decision, incoming students need complete and accurate information about the cost of college at least a few weeks ahead of the national decision deadline. Federal policy should preclude universities from making changes to their tuition and fees for the upcoming year after a certain point (say, two weeks prior to the decision deadline). Such a policy would provide transparency for students and fiscal accountability for higher education institutions.
Andrew M. Ledbetter is a professor and chair in the Department of Communication Studies atTexas Christian University.
Jessica L. Ledbetter is assistant dean of students at the University of Texas at Arlington.
The second Trump administration has unleashed a coordinated assault on reality itself—an effort that extends far beyond policy disagreements into the realm of deliberate gaslighting. Agency by agency, Trump’s lieutenants are reshaping facts, science, and language to consolidate power. Many of these figures, despite their populist rhetoric, come from elite universities, corporate boardrooms, or dynastic wealth. Their campaign is not just about dismantling government—it’s about erasing the ground truth that ordinary people rely on.
Department of State → Department of War
One of the starkest shifts has been renaming the State Department the “Department of War.” This rhetorical change signals the administration’s embrace of permanent conflict as strategy. Secretary Pete Hegseth, a Princeton graduate and former hedge fund executive, embodies the contradiction: Ivy League polish combined with cable-news bravado. Under his watch, diplomacy is downgraded, alliances undermined, and propaganda elevated to policy.
Department of Defense
The Pentagon has been retooled into a megaphone for Trump’s narrative that America is perpetually under siege. Despite the promise of “America First,” decisions consistently empower China and Russia by destabilizing traditional alliances. The irony: many of the architects of this policy cut their teeth at elite think tanks funded by the same defense contractors now profiting from chaos.
Department of Education
Trump’s appointees have doubled down on dismantling federal oversight, echoing the administration’s hostility to “woke indoctrination.” Yet the leaders spearheading this push often come from private prep schools and elite universities themselves. They know the value of credentialism for their own children, while stripping protections and opportunities from working families.
Department of Justice
Justice has been weaponized into a tool of disinformation. Elite law school alumni now run campaigns against “deep state” prosecutors, while simultaneously eroding safeguards against corruption. The result is a justice system where truth is malleable, determined not by evidence but by loyalty.
Department of Health and Human Services
Public health has been subsumed into culture war theatrics. Scientific consensus on climate, vaccines, and long-term health research is dismissed as partisan propaganda. Yet many of the leaders driving this narrative hail from institutions like Harvard and Stanford, where they once benefited from cutting-edge science, they now ridicule.
Environmental Protection Agency
The EPA has become the Environmental Pollution Agency, rolling back rules while gaslighting the public with claims of “cleaner air than ever.” Appointees often come directly from corporate law firms representing Big Oil and Big Coal, cloaking extractive capitalism in the language of freedom.
Department of Labor
Workers are told they are winning even as wages stagnate and union protections collapse. The elites orchestrating this rollback frequently hold MBAs from Wharton or Harvard Business School. They speak the language of “opportunity” while overseeing the erosion of worker rights and benefits.
Department of Homeland Security
Reality itself is policed here, where dissent is rebranded as domestic extremism. Elite operatives with ties to intelligence contractors enforce surveillance on ordinary Americans, while elite families enjoy immunity from scrutiny.
The Elite Architecture of Gaslighting
What unites these agencies is not just Trump’s directives, but the pedigree of the people carrying them out. Far from being the populist outsiders they claim to be, many hail from Ivy League schools, white-shoe law firms, or Fortune 500 boardrooms. They weaponize their privilege to convince the public that up is down, war is peace and lies are truth.
The war on reality is not a sideshow—it is the central project of this administration. For elites, it is a way to entrench their power. For the rest of us, it means living in a hall of mirrors where truth is constantly rewritten, and democracy itself hangs in the balance.
Sources
New York Times, Trump’s Cabinet and Their Elite Connections
Washington Post, How Trump Loyalists Are Reshaping Federal Agencies
Politico, The Ivy League Populists of Trump’s Inner Circle
ProPublica, Trump Administration’s Conflicts of Interest
Brookings Institution, Trump’s Assault on the Administrative State
Center for American Progress, Gaslighting the Public: Trump’s War on Facts
Universities have long been bastions of freedom, democracy, and truth. Today, they find themselves operating in a nation where these ideals are increasingly under siege—not by foreign adversaries, but by policies emanating from the highest levels of government.
The Department of War: A Symbolic Shift with Real Consequences
On September 5, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order rebranding the U.S. Department of Defense as the “Department of War,” aiming to restore the title used prior to 1949. This move, while symbolic, reflects a broader ideological shift towards an aggressive, militaristic stance. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, appointed in January 2025, has been a vocal proponent of this change, asserting that the new name conveys a stronger message of readiness and resolve.
Critics argue that this rebranding prioritizes optics over substance, with concerns over potential high costs and effectiveness. Pentagon officials acknowledged the financial burden but have yet to release precise cost estimates.
Economic Instability and Global Alienation
Domestically, the administration’s economic policies have led to rising unemployment, inflation, and slowing job growth. A recent weak jobs report showing a gain of only 22,000 jobs prompted Democrats to criticize President Trump’s handling of the economy, linking these issues to his tariffs and other controversial actions.
Internationally, Trump’s policies have strained relationships with key allies. Countries like Japan, South Korea, and several European nations have expressed concerns over U.S. trade practices and foreign policy decisions, leading to a reevaluation of longstanding alliances.
Authoritarian Alliances and Human Rights Concerns
The administration’s foreign policy has also seen a shift towards aligning with authoritarian leaders. Leaked draft reports indicate plans to eliminate or downplay accounts of prisoner abuse, corruption, and LGBTQ+ discrimination in countries like El Salvador, Israel, and Russia, raising concerns about the U.S.’s commitment to human rights.
Immigration Policies and Humanitarian Impact
On the domestic front, the administration’s immigration policies have led to the deportation of hundreds of thousands of individuals, including those with Temporary Protected Status. Critics argue that these actions undermine the nation’s moral authority and have a devastating impact on affected families.
The Role of Higher Education
In this turbulent landscape, higher education institutions find themselves at a crossroads. Universities are traditionally places where freedom, democracy, and truth are upheld and taught. However, as the nation drifts away from these principles, universities are increasingly tasked with defending them.
Faculty and students are stepping into roles as defenders of civic values, ethical scholarship, and truth-telling. But without robust support from government and society, universities alone cannot sustain the principles of freedom and democracy that once underpinned the nation.
The current moment is a test: Can American higher education continue to serve as a bastion of truth and civic responsibility in an era where the country’s own policies increasingly contradict those ideals? Or will universities be compelled to adapt to a world where freedom, democracy, and truth are optional, not foundational?
This HEPI guest blog was kindly authored by Professor Nigel Savage. Nigel was awarded his PhD in 1980 for research into corporate governance and held several chief executive and non-executive posts in the public and private sectors, including Board membership of HEFCE and non-executive director of Fletchers solicitors.
On Tuesday, HEPI and Cambridge University Press & Assessment will be hosting the UK launch of the OECD’s Education at a Glance. On Wednesday, we will be hosting a webinar on students’ cost of living with TechnologyOne – for more information on booking a free place, see here.
Universities are facing the ‘perfect storm’ of challenges from several areas, not least financial and strategic sustainability, at a time when the government has many more competing priorities for scarce public resources. The situation is going to get much worse in the medium term as financial pressures rightly stimulate calls for greater accountability and a consequent erosion of the sector’s perceived and much-prized autonomy. The only way forward in the short term must therefore be for the sector itself to provoke change by Boards and non-executive directors (NEDs), assuming a more active role in challenging orthodoxy in much the same way as NEDs in the private sector.
The new Chair of the OfS, Edward Peck, has an unenviable in-tray. What the sector needs, alongside his appointment, is a greater degree of external insight to shake up the balance of power within the traditional governance model. I’ve worked for most of my life in higher education and the legal sector and have often been struck by the similarities in terms of management and governance issues. The legal services market has moved on somewhat from when it displayed an inherent resistance to change, a tendency to look to each other for solutions rather than externally and a blind faith that only lawyers operating within the partnership model could manage the business. Universities are still in a time warp typified by the fact that most of the organisations that purport to contribute to change by offering ‘partnerships’, guidance, consultancy or codes of practice are funded from within the sector and unlikely to recommend radical change or depart from sector orthodoxy.
Another lesson that could be learned from the legal services market is the greater use of external know-how and resources. Some thirty years ago, the Practical Law Company achieved considerable success by working with the best lawyers from a range of successful firms to create high-quality authored legal resources and software tools which were licensed to firms. Hitherto, that would have been regarded by the profession as relinquishing control over their crown jewels, eroding professional integrity, not to mention autonomy. The result was that lawyers were able to work more efficiently with enhanced productivity and greater confidence, focusing on providing solutions to clients’ complex problems. There is no reason why that model shouldn’t deliver similar outcomes within the higher education sector. Collaborative know-how would produce research outputs that inform teaching and learning with the added advantage that they are based on practice rather than recycled material from another academic in the form of a textbook. There are now over one hundred law schools in the UK each developing their own teaching and learning materials at a considerable cost and with varying degrees of quality. I see no reason why such a model could not deliver significant cost savings across disciplines and free staff time to focus on the delivery of teaching and learning innovation.
At one level there is no incentive to change, especially given the prevailing veil of protection provided by current interpretations of academic autonomy. I cannot speak for other disciplines, but given the stagnation in leadership of legal education, the legal services market is currently better served by employers than higher education. In part the issue is one of culture typified by the sector’s attitude to AI, as one commentator recently remarked, ‘universities are more concerned about AI, rather than with it …’. There is more debate about students using it as a vehicle for cheating or copyright issues than as a vehicle to enhance teaching and learning and create a seamless transition into the workplace. In general, technology in higher education is not embraced transformatively but defensively.
I was one of the few independent Board members of HEFCE (2002-08) and chaired the Audit and Risk Committee. As part of our engagement, we instigated a series of case study seminars for chairs and members of institutional audit committees with no members of their executive team present. The programme was much appreciated but we were surprised by the relatively low level of awareness of key risks, issues around internal audit and accountability and lack of engagement in terms of quality assurance. It’s interesting that many of the issues on the risk register then are a variation of the same issues that confront universities today. The impact of technology, an increasingly competitive environment, funding especially over-reliance on overseas income, changes in public policy, globalisation and students as consumers of higher education services.
Most of the above are issues that every global business model, regardless of ownership structure, sector, or location, has had to confront over the same timescale, without the level of resources available to higher education. Indeed, some universities have confronted them very well. So why is it that a growing number of universities are manifestly failing to address these issues when they should have been painfully aware of them for years? We are already seeing the likely next generation of entirely predictable risks in the growing number of institutions rushing to set up campuses in London and, worse still, in India and the Middle East at a time when they are barely sustainable. Will such initiatives deliver medium-term revenue growth, or are they merely off-balance-sheet Vice Chancellor vanity projects? And why are they not more aggressively challenged by NEDs?
Governance – culture change
There needs to be something of a culture change in the balance of power as between executive and non-executive roles. It is governance that dictates the rules of the game, especially in the relationship between the CEO (in most cases the Vice-Chancellor or Principal) and Chair. Government and the regulator need to be more prescriptive rather than rely on consultative services provided by those bodies that are part of a self-regulatory model. Anyone who doubts the need for change should read the Scottish Funding Council’s investigative report on Dundee University, which represents a massive failure of management and governance. Cultural issues were not the primary cause of the financial collapse at Dundee, but as observed in the report, ‘aspects of the culture of the institution … , may however have facilitated or been associated with a lack of transparency and of the limited challenge to the prevailing discourse on financial matters’
Action in the following areas would assist in generating such a culture change:
There is significant evidence that smaller boards outperform larger ones. A study by Bain (some years ago) suggests the ideal size of a board should be seven and each additional member beyond that results in a decline in effectiveness. I am not sure where that leaves the higher education sector since most large university boards are approaching the early twenties and can have less to do with governance and become more a matter of crowd control. This issue must also be viewed in the context of the structure below the Board in terms of Senate and Academic Board which has substantial staff and student representation. Large boards are more expensive to service and absorb a greater degree of resource and complexity to manage. Size also creates the impression that the body is consultative rather than at the pinnacle of decision-making. In recent years, changes in management structures may have exacerbated the position with the trend towards the appointment of Presidents, Provosts and COOs with a wide range of reporting lines, all of whom aspire to a seat on the board. This trend has the capacity to blur the lines between the executive and non-executive functions and, worse still, further increase the size of the board. The Vice Chancellor should be the only formal member of the executive on the Board as opposed to attending as an observer. The Dundee review recognised that a University Secretary may have dual reporting lines to the Chair and Vice Chancellor, which can create conflicts of interest, ‘care should be taken to ensure the primary responsibility is always to the Chair’.
Reducing the size of Boards would also mean that resources could be released to remunerate NEDs. Some institutions already embrace this policy in respect of Board chairs and committees. The whole process, including appointments, should be professionalised to ensure that appointees have proven experience as a senior executive or non-executive. It’s not surprising that universities are failing to hold Vice Chancellors to account if membership of the Board is based, at least in part, on the criterion that ‘no previous experience is required’. In recent months it seems to be votes of no confidence from the staff rather than governing bodies which decide the fate of an incompetent Vice Chancellor. The larger institutions now have turnovers of over £1.5 billion plus. Membership of such a Board is not a role for the inexperienced using an appointment as ‘net practice’ to build a NED portfolio or an elder statesperson looking to top off their career with a gong. Should all else fail there is always the standard ultimate requirement to deter cross sector appointments ‘ideally we are looking for a candidate with a background in or closely related to higher education…’.
The increasing use of head-hunters may also be a factor. The appointment of NEDs, particularly a new chair, should be a matter entirely for the Nominations Committee. The Vice Chancellor should be consulted within the process but not be directly involved and the head-hunters should be accountable to the Nominations Committee. One of the fundamental roles of a NED is to contribute to holding the executives ‘feet to the fire’ when necessary. A distinguished Yale commentator observed some years ago ‘I’m always amazed at how common groupthink is in corporate boardrooms. Directors are, almost without exception … comfortable with power. But if you put them into a group that discourages dissent, they nearly always start to conform.’ This is particularly so if they have been recruited under the criteria that they are ‘team players’ which is normally code for they will not ‘rock the boat’
Overseeing internal audit (IA) is a vital part of maintaining the integrity of a seamless governance model. The head of IA must be free from interference in determining the scope, process and communication of outputs. It is still the case that in some universities the head of internal audit reports directly to either the CFO or COO with a notional reporting line to the chair of the audit committee. This represents a classic case of marking your own homework and should no longer be tolerated. There is a real danger of undue influence when IA reports into the finance function, not the chair of audit committee. Unlike the external audit where there is a specified remit, internal audit can look at any area which is felt appropriate as directed by the board, including the prevailing culture and effectiveness of risk management. If the external auditor is satisfied that the IA is appropriately funded, competent and sufficiently objective and quality assured, they can rely on it. I suspect however that this is another area clouded by the mists of institutional autonomy and external auditors will seldom feel sufficiently confident to place reliance on IA data. There would however be an additional cost placed on such reliance attached to the audit fee.
Conclusion
Although the Office for Students (OfS) is beginning to engage more directly with providers given the emerging financial environment, they are theoretically hide-bound by the statutory institutional autonomy that universities enjoy. They ‘will not provide advice to providers on how they should run their organisation. Providers should look to other sources, for example to sector bodies, for such advice and support.’ Surely in such circumstances a regulator should be suggesting that they seek advice from their own Board or externally rather than organisations that are not independent and consist largely of retired senior executives from the sector. I can imagine the outcry if such a model was replicated in the private sector if a board were asleep at the wheel.
Institutions are required to have ‘adequate and effective management and governance arrangements.’ Therein lies the problem. In a culture based on the presumption of autonomy, it’s very difficult to provoke change based on a standard so low as ‘adequacy’ and advice from the sector. There are many interpretations of autonomy, but the concept is too often used as a defensive comfort blanket to resist change or, worse still, justify the executives’ vanity projects.
The current regulatory regime, based in part on a self-regulatory model, is somewhat naïve and reminiscent of that which prevailed many years ago in respect of company regulation in the private sector and contributed to the debate on the ‘unacceptable face of capitalism’. For example, the Committee of University Chairs (CUC) code declares that the code ‘is not compulsory, governing bodies can determine based on the advice of the executive which parts of the code apply to them …’ There is no longer a need for an annual Head of Internal Audit Report and the OfS no longer require submission of the Annual Report of an institution’s Audit Committee. Indeed, there is nothing in the guidance any more compelling registered providers to have an Audit Committee.
Within this benign regulatory environment, the sector has received substantial funding on a headcount basis at a time when they should have been preparing for wholly predictable changes. Boards should be looking much more clearly on value for money issues. They continue to create massive Super Faculties which are unmanageable, stifle innovation and leave staff isolated. Decision-making processes are attenuated, and there is hostility to learning from external sources that are well ahead in confronting and managing change. There has been a proliferation of roles and reporting lines at the top with very little focus on efficient delivery at the coal face but fragmentation in terms of leadership.
Sadly, the position is even worse in Scotland where legislative changes in 2016 made the appointment process and composition of Boards even larger and more cumbersome and much less effective decision makers, hence the Dundee fiasco.
The current governance culture encouraged by the legislation and embraced by the sector and the regulators creates the impression that the sector should be treated differently from any other sector. In my experience, the fundamental role of NEDs is the same irrespective of the corporate status: to appoint and monitor the performance of the executive and to sign off on the strategy and rigorously monitor performance, delivery structures, risk and compliance. Legal status will shape strategy in terms of charitable status or shareholder value in the private sector but that’s no justification to deter NEDs from carrying out the primary role of holding the CEO’s feet to the fire and continuously monitoring and measuring executive performance. The way forward may be to engage them more directly within the structures of the institution, taking care that they don’t cross the line into the executive function.
I operated as a CEO in the sector for twenty years and a NED on both side of the fence. In my NED roles I have always operated by asking questions and seeking clarity on issues that I wouldn’t want raised if I were the CEO!
Nigel Savage
I am grateful to James Aston (BDO) the leading independent authority on HE governance, for a couple of stimulating conversations on some of the issues.
Multiple colleges and universities, including some ultrawealthy ones, have announced plans to cut jobs and academic programs, as well as implement other changes, due to financial challenges driven by a range of factors.
For some institutions, belt-tightening measures are directly tied to the economic forces battering the sector as a whole: declining enrollments, rising operating costs and broad economic uncertainty. For others, financial pressure from the Trump administration, which has frozen federal research funding at multiple institutions, prompted cuts. State lawmakers have also forced program reductions at some public institutions.
Here’s a look at job and program cuts and other cost-cutting efforts announced in August.
University of Chicago
Despite its $10 billion endowment, the private institution is slashing expenses by $100 million, shedding 400 staff jobs and pausing admissions into multiple graduate programs.
Chicago president Paul Alivisatos wrote in a statement to faculty that the university’s financial woes are twofold, tied to a persistent operating deficit, with expenditures outpacing revenues, combined with the “profound federal policy changes of the last eight months [that] have created multiple and significant new uncertainties and strong downward pressure on our finances.”
In recent years, UChicago has been squeezed by debt, which has ballooned to more than $6 billion as leadership continued to invest in building projects, prompting critics to question how well administrators have managed the institution’s finances.
Middlebury College
The private liberal arts college in Vermont is shutting down the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, across the country in California, officials announced last week.
Middlebury president Ian Baucom said the university is winding down graduate programs at the campus over a period of two years. Managing such graduate programs was “no longer feasible,” said Baucom, who added that the decision was made for financial reasons.
Earlier this year, the college announced it was taking action to close a budget deficit that was projected to be as high as $14.1 million. In that announcement, officials said the Middlebury Institute of International Studies was responsible for $8.7 million—more than half—of the shortfall.
Middlebury plans to sunset programs at the California campus by June 2027.
University of New Hampshire
Officials at the public university in Durham last month announced the elimination of 36 jobs, 13 of which were vacant, and 10 employees had their hours reduced, according to The Portsmouth Herald.
The layoffs are part of an effort to cut $17.5 million from UNH’s budget.
University president Elizabeth Chilton also announced other cost-cutting efforts last month, including “scaling back professional development, student employment, building hours, dining hall hours, travel, printing, and other support services.”
Carnegie Mellon University
The private research university in Pittsburgh laid off 18 employees in administrative and academic support roles in early August, WESA reported, and more changes are on the horizon.
Those cuts and other moves are part of an effort to reduce expenses by $33 million, President Farnam Jahanian wrote in a message to campus last month, noting that CMU is not operating at a deficit but is “facing significant constraints and unprecedented uncertainty.” Jahanian pointed to lower-than-expected graduate tuition revenues and federal research funding challenges.
CMU has also paused merit raises and limited hiring. While Carnegie Mellon is undertaking a review of education offerings, Jahanian wrote that “we do not have broad layoffs planned.” Jahanian added that such measures remain “a last resort.”
Bennington College
The private liberal arts college in Vermont announced in mid-August that it was eliminating 15 staff jobs “as part of ongoing efforts to address budget challenges,” VT Digger reported.
In an announcement, President Laura Walker called the cuts “a painful moment” but noted that, like its peer institutions, Bennington is “confronting an uncertain economy and a challenging overall environment for higher education.” She added that no “regular faculty positions” were cut and that the college is providing severance to affected employees.
Utah State University
The public institution laid off seven full-time researchers last month after the federal government terminated grants that supported those jobs, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.
The layoffs precede what will likely be deep cuts across multiple public universities in the state, forced by new laws that require institutions to cut some programs and positions and reinvest in others that lawmakers argue are better aligned with workforce needs. So far eight institutions have proposed axing 271 programs and 412 jobs, though those cuts still await final state approval.
Ohio University
Fallout from the Advance Ohio Higher Education Act, which went into effect in June, continues as Ohio University announced plans to suspend 11 underenrolled programs and merge 18 others.
The new law requires universities to take action on underenrolled programs, though Ohio University officials noted that they have submitted waiver requests to continue offering seven other programs that fall below the required threshold of at least five graduates, on average, across the past three years. The institution is seeking a waiver for undergraduate offerings in economics, dance, music therapy, nutrition science and hospitality management, among other degree programs.
Officials cited state workforce needs or “the unique nature” of the programs in waiver requests.
University of Connecticut
Following a review that began last fall, trustees of the public system approved the closure of seven academic programs with low enrollment—four graduate certificate and three degree programs, CT Insider reported.
Nearly 70 other programs are being monitored for enrollment and completion rates. Officials called the review process “good academic housekeeping.”
Milligan University
Citing the need to “exercise strong fiscal management,” officials at the Christian college in Tennessee announced they are suspending enrollment in six degree programs, WJHL reported.
Milligan will no longer accept students in film, journalism, computer science, cybersecurity, information systems or a graduate coaching and sports management program. University officials pointed to falling enrollment in those programs when they announced the changes.
University of Nebraska
The public university system is offering buyouts to faculty members across all its campuses as part of an effort to address a $20 million budget shortfall, Nebraska Public Media reported.
Tenured faculty members older than 62 with at least 10 years of service at Nebraska are eligible to opt in to the voluntary separation incentive program, which opened this week and closes on Sept. 30. Faculty members that opt in will receive a lump-sum payment amounting to 70 percent of their annual base salary and remain employed through June or August, depending on their contract.
University of California, Los Angeles
One of the wealthiest institutions on this list, UCLA announced last month that it has temporarily paused faculty hiring and is making other belt-tightening moves.
Officials also said UCLA is looking to “streamline services,” starting with information technology.
The public university’s move comes at least partly in response to its standoff with the Trump administration, which froze hundreds of millions in research funding to the university last month as it pressured administrators over alleged antisemitism on campus. (Some funding has been restored by a court order.) The Trump administration has also demanded a $1 billion payout from the university, which California governor Gavin Newsom called “extortion.”
University of Kansas
The public university announced last month that it was implementing a temporary hiring freeze as administrators aim to reduce spending by $32 million, The Lawrence Journal-World reported.
“We are again navigating an uncertain fiscal environment because of external factors, such as disruptions to federal funding, changes in federal law, stagnant state funding, rising costs, changes in international enrollments, and a projected nationwide decline in college enrollment,” KU officials wrote in a message to campus.
Dr. Melody Goodman Melody Goodman, a leading biostatistician and research methodologist, has been named dean of the NYU School of Global Public Health. Goodman has been a member of the School of Global Public Health faculty since 2017 and has served as its interim dean since March 2024. Goodman’s research focuses on improving public health using approaches to engage partners outside of academia and move beyond defining problems to develop solutions. She has published more than 150 peer-reviewed journal articles, with contributions spanning the areas of prevention, treatment, intervention, and policy, and authored two books on biostatistics and research methods.
She is a fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, a member of the American Public Health Association, a fellow of the American Statistical Association, and is the recipient of many awards and honors. Prior to becoming the interim dean at the NYU School of Global Public Health, Goodman served in numerous academic leadership roles, including senior executive vice dean, vice dean for research, associate dean for research, and interim chair of the Department of Biostatistics. She joined NYU from Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine, where she was an assistant professor in the Division of Public Health Sciences in the Department of Surgery, and was previously an assistant professor of preventive medicine at Stony Brook University’s School of Medicine.
Goodman earned her undergraduate degree summa cum laude from Stony Brook University, where she was named a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She earned her master’s degree from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and her PhD from Harvard University.
Other business schools, including University of Michigan’s Ross Business School and Columbia Business School, also enforce set grade distributions.
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Ralf Geithe/iStock/Getty Images
Some faculty members at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business have been instructed to eliminate grade rounding, remove the A-plus grade option and keep average section GPAs between 3.3 and 3.5 for the fall semester.
The grading changes aim to “address grade inflation and promote rigor across our curriculum,” according to an email sent to faculty in the Communication, Professional and Computer Skills (CPS) department from business writing course coordinator Polly Graham, which was obtained by Inside Higher Ed. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, [CPS] grades elevated, and in recent years, grades have remained high. In recent semesters, some instructors have awarded 100% A’s in standard (i.e., non-honors) sections, and others have awarded extraordinary numbers of A+’s and incompletes,” the email said.
The new grading policy was sent to instructors in early August without faculty discussion or approval, according to a faculty member in the CPS department who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. The department, which does not have its own governance or bylaws beyond what governs the business school writ large, is the only one in Kelley that is staffed entirely by lecturers who do not have tenure protections. So far, the new grading policies apply only to courses in the CPS department, the faculty member said.
Instructors of standard, nonhonors courses must make the GPA of each section average between 3.3 and 3.5, and honors course GPA averages must fall within 0.2 points of the “section’s cumulative student GPA,” the email stated. Faculty members should not round up final grades “even if the student’s grade is very close to a higher letter grade,” and each instructor will complete two check-ins with CPS leadership—one before and one after midterms—after which “formative support will be provided to faculty as requested or needed.” It’s unclear what form the support will take, but the faculty member suspects it could be additional assistance from the chair on lesson plans or grading strategies.
It’s not unusual for business schools to enforce a set grade distribution. At the University of Michigan’s Ross Business School, for instance, core class instructors must follow a distribution that allows 40 percent or fewer undergraduates to earn an A-minus or higher, 90 percent or fewer undergraduates to earn a B or higher, and at least 10 percent of undergraduates must earn between a B-minus and an F. Emory University’s Goizueta Business School also enforces a grade distribution, as does Columbia Business School.
The Kelley School will also enforce an attendance policy for CPS classes this fall. Students will be allowed up to three absences without a grade penalty. After the fourth absence, they lose one-third of their final letter grade, and after five absences, they lose a full letter grade. Six absences will result in an automatic “failure due to non-attendance,” the email explained. The school will allow exceptions on a case-by-case basis.
All Kelley students are required to take courses within the CPS department, including a business presentations class, a business writing course and three “Kelley Compass” classes that teach soft business skills such as team building, interviewing and conflict management. Like the lab time that accompanies physical science classes, CPS courses offer skills-based training that encourages mastery, the CPS faculty member told Inside Higher Ed. Faculty are concerned that the new GPA targets put an artificial limit on students’ success.
A spokesperson for the Kelley School did not answer Inside Higher Ed’s questions about the grade recalibration and instead provided the following statement: “At Kelley, faculty design courses to be both rigorous and fair, while supporting student development and career preparation. Our longstanding priority is to ensure that grades reflect the quality of each student’s performance and that grade distribution is fair and consistent, including across multiple sections of the same course.”
The statement language echoes what faculty have been instructed to tell students and parents who ask about the grading changes, according to the CPS faculty member.
Indiana’s Kelley School has become more popular of late, and administrators appear to be tightening admissions standards in response. The school has fielded some 27,000 applications for approximately 2,000 spots in recent years, the faculty member said, though the Kelley spokesperson did not confirm or refute these numbers.
In March, Kelley promoted Patrick E. Hopkins, an accounting professor who has worked at the business school since 1995, to dean. Just over two months later, on June 2, incoming Indiana University prebusiness students were notified that the minimum grade for automatic admission to the Kelley School would be raised from a B to a B-plus, starting with their cohort. Christopher Duff, the father of an incoming Indiana prebusiness student who plans to seek admission to Kelley, said the change was a “bait and switch.”
“To be crystal clear, I have zero issues with the Kelley School of Business changing their admission criteria. I do, however, have a major issue in the timing of this change. We made our decision based on clearly stated information at the time of commitment. We jettisoned all other schools, offers and financial aid to pursue a degree from Indiana-Kelley,” Duff told Inside Higher Ed. “You want to change the criteria? Fine. Do so with the incoming class who will be aware to make an informed decision. We did not get that choice. It was made for us and when we complained—and we all did—we were essentially told to take it or leave it.”
Duff said he met with Kelley’s undergraduate admissions director, Alex Bruce, in June to discuss the change, and in that meeting Bruce told him the school had overadmitted for the incoming class and received commitments from far more students than they anticipated.
“I asked [Bruce] if the admission department was telling the academic departments to grade harder, to weed out even more students than prior years,” Duff said. “He assured me that admissions and academics are separate entities and have no control over each other. I do not believe anything he told me that day.”
The Trump administration has already frozen $500 million in grant funding at UCLA.
The University of California system is warning state lawmakers that federal funding cuts could extend well beyond UCLA as tensions between the Trump administration and American colleges continue to rise.
UC president James B. Milliken wrote a letter to dozens of local elected officials Tuesday explaining that “the stakes are high and the risks are very real.” The system’s 10 institutions could lose billions of dollars in aid, forcing its leaders to make tough calls about staffing, the continuation of certain academic programs and more, he said.
President Trump has already frozen more than $500 million in grants at UCLA, allegedly because the Justice Department accused the university of violating Jewish students’ civil rights. The president demanded the university pay a $1.2 billion fine to unlock the funds,and system officials are worried that more funding cuts are likely. California lawmakers have repeatedly urged the UC system not to capitulate.
In an August letter, State Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat and chair of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, and 33 other lawmakers told Milliken that Trump’s actions were “an extortion attempt and a page out of the authoritarian playbook,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
Milliken wrote in Tuesday’s letter that a loss in funding would “devastate” the system and harm students, among other groups.
“Classes and student services would be reduced, patients would be turned away, tens of thousands of jobs would be lost, and we would see UC’s world-renowned researchers leaving our state for other more seemingly stable opportunities in the US or abroad,” he wrote.
If the UC system loses federal funding, it would need about $4 to $5 billion a year to make up the difference, Milliken added. “That is what fighting for the people of California will take.”
Landscape, a College Board tool for providing colleges with information about the educational environment of an applicant’s high school and neighborhood based on publicly available information, has been discontinued, the organization announced this week.
“As federal and state policy continues to evolve around how institutions use demographic and geographic information in admissions, we are making a change to ensure our work continues to effectively serve students and institutions,” College Board wrote in the short announcement.
Geographic recruitment has come under fire from the Trump administration. Attorney General Pamela Bondi, in a memo declaring various diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives unconstitutional, said that recruiting from specific areas or neighborhoods could be unlawful when it’s being done as a proxy for race. Experts have said that doing so is not a standard practice for universities.
Jon Boeckenstedt, a longtime enrollment manager, criticized the decision to discontinue Landscape in a post on LinkedIn.
“I’m no fan of College Board of course … but I thought Landscape was a good and thoughtful product,” he wrote. “Now, it’s going away. You don’t have to be Wile E. Coyote to figure out why. Someone in DC has suggested it’s too close to ‘race based admissions’ (a thing that does not exist) and ‘it’d be a shame if something happened to your company.’ Or their lawyers rolled over voluntarily.”
Edward Blum, the founder of Students for Fair Admissions, the group that successfully challenged affirmative action at the Supreme Court, lauded the decision.
“Since the 2023 Supreme Court opinion in our Harvard and UNC cases, Students for Fair Admissions raised has concerns that Landscape was little more than a disguised proxy for race in the admissions process. We are gratified that this problematic tool will no longer be used to influence who is and who is not admitted to America’s colleges and universities,” he wrote in a statement. “This decision represents another important step toward ensuring that all students are treated as individuals, not as representatives of a racial or ethnic group.”
