Tag: Jobs

  • Scholars’ Stories of Losing Federal Funding

    Scholars’ Stories of Losing Federal Funding

    Sixteen researchers across a range disciplines from the biomedical sciences and STEM to education and political science share their experiences of losing research grants and what impact the loss of billions of dollars in federal funding will have on science, public health and education in Inside Higher Ed today.

    The Trump administration told researchers Rebecca Fielding-Miller, Nicholas Metheny, Abigail Hatcher and Sarah Peitzmeier that trainings connected to their National Institutes of Health grant focused on the prevention of intimate partner violence against pregnant and perinatal women were “antithetical to the scientific inquiry, do nothing to expand our knowledge of living systems, provide low returns on investment, and ultimately do not enhance health, lengthen life, or reduce illness.”

    “We could not disagree more,” Fielding-Miller, Metheny, Hatcher and Peitzmeier write. “Anyone who has cared for a child or for the person who gave birth to them knows that preventing maternal and infant death and abuse should be a nonpartisan issue. The current administration is intent on making even this issue into ‘us’ versus ‘them.’ When it comes to public health, there is no such thing.”

    Meanwhile, Judith Scott-Clayton writes that the decision to cancel a Department of Education grant funding a first-of-its-kind randomized evaluation of the Federal Work-Study program—four and a half years into a six-year project—will leave policymakers “flying blind.”

    “Since 1964, the FWS program has disbursed more than $95 billion in awards,” Scott-Clayton wrote. “In comparison, our grant was less than three-thousandths of 1 percent of that amount, and the amount remaining to finish our work and share our findings with the public was just a fraction of that.”

    Read all of the scholars’ stories here.

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  • 400 Books Removed From Naval Academy Library

    400 Books Removed From Naval Academy Library

    The U.S. Naval Academy has culled 400 books deemed to promote to diversity, equity and/or inclusion from its library at the insistence of the Trump administration, according to the Associated Press.

    Last week, the Naval Academy, located in Annapolis, Md., identified 900 potential books to review in response to orders from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office to remove books containing DEI-related content, The New York Times reported. That list included The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr., Einstein on Race and Racism, and a biography of Jackie Robinson. A list of the books that were ultimately removed has not been released.

    The nation’s five military academies were also told in February to eliminate admissions “quotas” related to sex, ethnicity or race after President Trump signed an executive order to remove “any preference based on race or sex” from the military. Both the Naval and Air Force Academies have also completed curriculum reviews to remove materials that allegedly promote DEI, and a West Point official also told the AP that it was prepared to review both curriculum and library materials if directed to do so by the Army.

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  • FSA Executive Retires and Acting Under Secretary Takes Over

    FSA Executive Retires and Acting Under Secretary Takes Over

    The responsibilities of acting under secretary James Bergeron doubled as the Department of Education announced Wednesday that he will not only oversee the regulatory duties related to higher ed but manage the entire Office of Federal Student Aid.

    Even in the wake of major layoffs, FSA remains the largest office in the department. It oversees the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, the allocation of Pell Grants and—at least for now—management of the $1.7 trillion student loan portfolio.

    FSA had been led for much of the last year by Denise Carter, who is now retiring after more than 30 years working in the federal government. Carter also served as acting education secretary earlier this year. The department didn’t say in the news release why Carter was retiring now; the agency has offered early retirement offers and buyouts as part of an effort to reduce the workforce.

    Carter said in the release she was grateful for the opportunity to serve her country.

    “As I move on, I hope we as a nation commit to ensuring every student has the support needed to achieve extraordinary educational outcomes,” Carter added. “The economic strength of our nation depends on their success.”

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  • Staff and Funding Cuts at the NEH Loom

    Staff and Funding Cuts at the NEH Loom

    The Department of Government Efficiency has struck higher ed institutions once again—this time through the National Endowment for the Humanities.

    Leaders of the agency—which supports research, innovation and preservation in disciplines related to culture, society and values—told staff members Tuesday that the Trump administration intends to make substantial reductions in staff, slash the agency’s grant programs and rescind grants that have already been awarded.

    Humanities advocates don’t know exactly how large the cuts to NEH’s approximately 180-person staff or $78.25 million grant budget will be, but they note that “patterns at other agencies” provide a solid hint. The impact on colleges and universities, they say, would be crushing.

    “The NEH supports the full range of humanities work that takes place at higher ed institutions, including support for research and teaching, academic publishing and professional development programs for faculty,” said Stephen Kidd, executive director of the National Humanities Alliance. “Cuts would be particularly devastating, because unlike a lot of private funders, the NEH is more prestige-blind. With its mandate to support the humanities across the country, it’s more likely to give grants to people at smaller and public institutions.”

    President Trump has been talking about cutting humanities funding since his first term. Even before whispers about the latest cuts began, humanities scholars expressed concern that new grant-eligibility rules imposed to comply with Trump’s executive order on diversity, equity and inclusion would “undercut NEH’s very mission.”

    The president and his cabinet secretaries have already fired or offered buyouts to tens of thousands of government employees in an attempt to hollow out the federal workforce. Two of the most notable cuts impacted the Department of Education—which supports higher ed through federal student aid programs, data collection and accountability measures—and the Department of Health and Human Services, one of the world’s largest research funding sources for colleges and universities.

    Now Trump is turning his focus from educational infrastructure and sciences to history, literature and philosophy. Paula Krebs, executive director of the Modern Language Association, believes the move is “sending a message.”

    The cut “adds up to a huge net loss for all of higher education” and suggests “it is not worth investing in the study of our culture and the culture of others,” Krebs said. “In the larger context of DOGE cuts, the nation is saying that it’s not worth investing in the study of anything at all.”

    The announcement of looming cuts at NEH comes just three weeks after the agency’s Biden-appointed chair, Shelly Lowe, resigned. A citizen of the Navajo Nation, Lowe was the agency’s first Native American chair. Before that, she served as executive director of the Harvard University Native American Program.

    The agency is now being led by interim director Michael McDonald, who previously served as its general counsel.

    Since Lowe stepped down, DOGE staff members have made several appearances at the office. On Tuesday, they said 70 to 80 percent of the staff would be let go, three staff members told The New York Times. Sources also told the Times that all grants approved by the Biden administration but not yet paid out in full will be canceled.

    Neither NEH nor the White House responded to Inside Higher Ed’s request for comment.

    Founded in 1965, the NEH has allocated more than $6 billion in grants to museums, historical sites, libraries, state humanities councils and higher education institutions to support a variety of programs.

    Kidd, from the Humanities Alliance, said one of the most substantial losses universities could face is funding for curriculum development. In an era when public doubt regarding the value of a college degree is on the rise and skills-based hiring is gaining traction, humanities departments across the country are looking for new ways to mix the classical liberal arts with modern pre-professional training. NEH grants, he said, have been a key source of support for such experimentation.

    “These kinds of curricular innovations can help to ensure that students in the humanities have strong pathways to future careers,” Kidd said. It’s “NEH’s support for curricular innovations that might bring the humanities in conversation with business or with biological and health sciences.”

    He and other humanities association leaders have also expressed concern about cuts to grants intended to help libraries and museums preserve historical documents, art and other materials that are key to humanities research. The cuts to NEH, they say, will only compound the damage that has already been done by Trump’s executive order to disband the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

    “Without funding for preservation, materials will disappear, degrade or not be collected in the first place,” Kidd said. “And once those are lost—they’re lost. The record of human activity is gone.”

    Though its mandate is much broader than the humanities, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities also registered concern about the NEH cuts.

    “NEH-funded research documents American history and culture [and] explores the legal and ethical use of emerging technologies such as AI,” said Craig Lindwarm, the association’s senior vice president of governmental affairs. “While undoubtedly reforms to NEH can be made and efficiencies found, cuts to NEH research would undermine progress in these critical areas and beyond.”

    To Peter Berkey, executive director of the Association of University Presses, the looming endowment cuts are the epicenter of “a disastrous ripple through the entire scholarly ecosystem.”

    “Perhaps most importantly,” he said, “these actions will diminish the very disciplines that drive the development of critical thinking, the understanding of value and the pursuit of justice and democracy among the next generation of scholars and citizens.”

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  • How Trump Is Wreaking Havoc on the Student Visa System

    How Trump Is Wreaking Havoc on the Student Visa System

    Last week, an international student adviser at a small regional college logged on to a private forum for international enrollment and admissions professionals, seeking advice on “something strange” she’d noticed.

    She had run a report on her Student Exchange and Visitor Information System database, where international student records are stored, after seeing troubling reports of foreign student deportations. When she got the results back, she found that a number of her students had had their legal residency status terminated without her knowledge.

    This is the third installment in an Inside Higher Ed series on international students under Trump. Read the first and second here.

    In the days since, nearly 100 other international student service professionals have piled onto the discussion thread to share similar stories: They trawled through SEVIS only to find unexpected visa revocations and had to quickly decide how to notify affected students.

    Inside Higher Ed obtained access to the forum but is keeping it and the identity of the officials posting there anonymous to ensure the privacy of the participants.

    Most of the officials on the forum reported an even more troubling detail: Students weren’t just having their visas revoked; they were losing their student status altogether.

    When international students have their entry visas revoked, they almost always retain their legal residency status in SEVIS, according to immigration lawyers. They can stay in the country as long as they remain enrolled in courses and must reapply for a new visa if they leave. Now, as the Trump administration revokes hundreds of student visas each week, federal immigration officials also seem to be terminating students’ SEVIS status—paving the way for arrest and deportation.

    One forum member asked how it was possible that Immigration and Customs Enforcement could alter SEVIS status on their own; they’d never seen it done before and thought it might be a mistake.

    “I’m just wondering if we have any recourse to request corrections,” they wrote. “Trying to think creatively (and maybe desperately) at this point.”

    University officials and immigration experts who spoke with Inside Higher Ed both on the record and on background echoed the concerns of the forum participants. They said the Trump administration is playing fast and loose with the visa system and that its tactics are severely limiting universities’ options to help students who may be targeted by ICE.

    The officials on the forum said affected students were almost all Middle Eastern—Turkish, Kuwaiti, Saudi, Iranian—or from majority-Muslim countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and Bangladesh. Some said they’d received letters with unusually forceful wording, demanding they turn over student records under threat of federal investigation. Many fretted over how to advise affected students without running afoul of immigration authorities themselves.

    They all worried about how best to protect students while adjusting to a visa system that appeared to be changing overnight into something unrecognizable.

    “Most of us are not practicing immigration attorneys (and haven’t needed to be),” one university official wrote. “We’re in a strange new world where little from past practice seems to apply.”

    ‘Strange New World’

    Some students have had their visas revoked due to criminal records, but many university officials report only minor infractions like traffic violations, some of them adjudicated years ago. Those without a criminal record are having their visas revoked largely under a specific clause in the Immigration and Nationality Act that gives the secretary of state personal power to determine if a student’s continued presence “would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.”

    That 35-year-old clause has almost never been invoked until now. In an amicus brief supporting a lawsuit filed by detained Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil, a group of immigration lawyers says they scoured court records and legal documents for precedents of the foreign policy risk clause being used to revoke student visas. Out of 11.7 million cases, they found it had been used only 15 times before this year and had only resulted in deportation four times.

    In an email to Inside Higher Ed, a State Department spokesperson confirmed that the “revocation of [a] student visa lead[s] to termination of their students status,” and that it’s up to ICE agents whether to notify universities of the change. They added that they don’t provide statistics on visa revocations, but that the “process is ongoing and the number of revocations is dynamic.”

    “The State Department revokes visas every day in order to secure America’s borders and keep our communities safe—and will continue to do so,” the spokesperson wrote.

    Clay Harmon, director of AIRC: The Association of International Enrollment Management, said he’s heard reports of abrupt visa revocations from members across the country, and that it’s disrupting international student service offices tasked with helping manage student visas.

    “Folks in the visa system are already strapped to meet current mandates,” he said. “Adding this arbitrary element into what has always been a very well-regulated system causes an undue and unfair burden on institutions.”

    Visa Vigilance

    Many international student support officials said they’ve recently made a habit of checking SEVIS daily for new terminations, especially after last week’s ramping up in international student deportations blindsided some college officials.

    When Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk was detained by ICE agents last week, not only were university officials unaware that her visa had been revoked, but her file in SEVIS still said she was “in good immigration standing,” according to a court motion filed by the university Wednesday night. Ozturk’s SEVIS file was only updated to reflect a termination of her status at 7:32 p.m., hours after she was abducted from the street outside her residence; university officials did not receive an email from ICE about the change in her status until 10:30 the next evening.

    A spokesperson for Minnesota State University at Mankato, where a student was detained by ICE agents last Friday, told Inside Higher Ed Wednesday that they hadn’t received any communication from immigration officials about the student whatsoever. And at the University of Minnesota’s flagship campus, a computer system did not show that Turkish graduate student Dogukan Gunaydin’s visa was revoked until several hours after he was taken into custody, according to a lawsuit Gunaydin filed Sunday.

    One university international affairs official, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak freely about his experience, said he decided to check SEVIS last week after reading Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s announcement that the department had revoked 300 student visas last month. He was shocked to find that one of his students had not just their visa but also their legal status to remain in the country revoked, on the grounds they might be a foreign policy risk.

    The official, who has been working in the field for more than 40 years, said he’d never seen immigration services revoke a student’s SEVIS status before.

    “We usually check SEVIS once a semester … we don’t usually have to check statuses because we’re the ones who would change them,” the official said. “Now we are making a point to check thoroughly, every day. It’s the only way to protect our students.”

    The student had not been notified of their status termination before the university reached out and “had absolutely no idea” what could have precipitated the decision. They hadn’t participated in any campus protests or written op-eds and were hardly politically active. The only criminal infraction they remembered was running a stoplight.

    Stephen Yale-Loehr, a retired Cornell law professor who specializes in immigration law and student visas, said leaving university officials in the dark about changes to visa status “makes it difficult for colleges to advise their international students.”

    “The system works on communication going both ways between immigration officials and institutions,” he said. “The government doing things in secret makes it hard for both students and universities to know whether they are complying.”

    There’s a lot at stake in compliance for universities: The Trump administration has threatened to use the Student Exchange and Visitor Program, which normally investigates universities for visa fraud, to decertify colleges it believes have been harboring students they determine are threats to national security, according to an Axios report. Decertification would bar colleges from enrolling any international students at all.

    Harmon of AIRC said the political weaponization of SEVP would be unprecedented.

    “Their primary concern has been to verify that institutions are offering bona fide educational services and aren’t just diploma mills,” he said. “I’ve never heard of a fully accredited, reputable institution being subjected to some kind of investigation outside of the standard recertification process.”

    One student adviser wrote on the forum that they received a letter from the Department of Homeland Security demanding a number of international students’ records and threatening to revoke the college’s visa certification “without any chance of appeal” if they did not provide the records within five business days. Another said they’d gotten the same letter, but their deadline was just three business days.

    Some college officials say fear and caution make it hard to do all they can to help students.

    “Having to be so careful around actually protecting the student’s physical safety just feels … not good enough, frankly,” one adviser wrote. “It’s just very painful to have to tread so lightly when there is so much more at stake for them.”

    Scott Pollock, a veteran immigration lawyer who specializes in international educators and student visas, said that’s part of the Trump administration’s strategy.

    “The administration has been sowing terror in the hearts of international students. Now that’s spreading to school officials as well,” he said. “It’s all part of this revenge-driven policy.”

    This past week several international students who received visa revocations decided to leave the country voluntarily. Two Saudi students at North Carolina State University fled this week, as did a student at Temple University and a graduate student at Cornell University who is suing the Trump administration.

    Many more likely did the same without fanfare—including the anonymous university official’s student, who hopes to apply for re-entry as soon as they can.

    “It was not an easy decision for the student, and it was not an easy decision for us to help them make,” the official said. “But they thought it would be the least risky thing to do and give them the greatest opportunity to finish their degree, which was their priority.”

    “I really hope to see them back on campus in the fall.”

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  • Researchers, Higher Ed Union Fight NIH Grant Terminations

    Researchers, Higher Ed Union Fight NIH Grant Terminations

    Brittany Charlton (right), a plaintiff in the lawsuit and founding director of the LGBTQ Health Center of Excellence at Harvard University, has lost multiple NIH grants amid the Trump administration’s ideological overhaul of the agency.

    Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe/Getty Images

    Individual university researchers, a public health advocacy organization and a union representing more than 120,000 higher education workers are suing the National Institutes of Health after the agency terminated more than $2.4 billion in grants it claims support “non-scientific” projects that “no longer” effectuate agency priorities.

    “Plaintiffs and their members are facing the loss of jobs, staff, and income. Patients enrolled in NIH studies led by Plaintiffs face abrupt cancellations of treatment in which they have invested months of time with no explanation or plan for how to mitigate the harm,” according to a complaint of the lawsuit filed Wednesday afternoon. “As a result of Defendants’ Directives scientific advancement will be delayed, treatments will go undiscovered, human health will be compromised, and lives will be lost.”

    It’s the latest in a mounting series of legal challenges against the Trump administration’s blitz of executive actions aimed at rooting out so-called gender ideology; diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives; and alleged waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer funds. Some of those lawsuits have already resulted in federal judges ordering injunctions and restoration of canceled grants.

    But this is one of the first to directly challenge the NIH’s grant cancellations; more legal challenges are expected.

    The lawsuit was filed by the American Public Health Association; the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers and NIH-funded medical researchers from Harvard University; the Universities of Michigan and New Mexico; and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which have all lost their grants. The American Civil Liberties Union is representing the plaintiffs.

    A NIH spokesperson said that the agency doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

    ‘Erosion of Scientific Freedom’

    The plaintiffs want the Massachusetts district court to declare the actions of the NIH “unlawful,” restore funding for at least the plaintiffs’ terminated grants and prevent the agency “from terminating any grants based on allegedly no longer effectuating agency priorities, or withholding review of applications.”

    The majority of the terminated grants focused on topics related to vaccine hesitancy, climate change, diversifying the biomedical research workforce, “countries of concern” (including China and South Africa), and the health of women, racial minorities and members of the LGBTQ+ community, according to the lawsuit.

    One of the plaintiffs, Brittany Charlton, who is the founding director of Harvard University’s LGBTQ Health Center of Excellence, has had five NIH grants terminated since President Donald Trump took office in January and launched a crusade to root out so-called gender ideology and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

    Charlton said in an email to Inside Higher Ed that she’s lost nearly $6 million in NIH grants as a result of the agency’s directives, signifying “a potential end to my academic career.”

    But her motivation for signing on to the lawsuit extends beyond concern for her own livelihood.

    “This isn’t just a fight for my professional survival but a stand against the erosion of scientific freedom,” Charlton said. “[The grant cancellations set] a worrying precedent where scientific inquiry becomes vulnerable to political rhetoric. The concern here is not merely academic; it affects the very foundation of public health policy and the health of vulnerable communities.”

    Another plaintiff, Katie Edwards, a social work professor at the University of Michigan who researches violence prevention in minority communities, has had six NIH grants pulled this year. And a third plaintiff, Nicole Maphis, a first-generation college student and postdoctoral fellow at the University of New Mexico’s School of Medicine who researches the link between alcohol use and Alzheimer’s, is no longer in consideration for an NIH grant designed to help underrepresented researchers become faculty members.

    ‘Arbitrary and Capricious’

    The lawsuit argues that NIH didn’t have the authority to cancel those or any of the other grants the agency claims no longer effectuate agency priorities. That’s because the “no longer effectuates agency priorities” regulatory language the NIH has cited to justify its termination of particular grants won’t go into effect until October.

    Additionally, canceling the grants disregards “Congress’s express mandate that NIH fund research to address health equity and health disparities, include diverse populations in its studies, improve efforts to study the health of gender and sexual minorities, and enhance diversity in the bio-medical research profession,” according to the complaint.

    The lawsuit also says that the government violated numerous aspects of the Administrative Procedure Act—including a provision prohibiting agency action considered “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law”—when it terminated the grants. It further asserts that the agency usurped Congress’s “exclusive power over federal spending” and violated the Fifth Amendment by offering “vague” justifications for terminating grants, including involvement with “transgender issues,” “DEI” or “amorphous equity objectives.”

    “Defendants have failed to develop any guidelines, definitions, or explanations to avoid arbitrary and capricious decision-making in determining the parameters of the agency’s prohibitions against research with some connection to DEI, gender, and other topics that fail Defendants’ ideological conformity screen,” the suit alleges.

    That leaves grantees “unsure, for example, which areas of study they can pursue, which populations they can focus on as study subjects, what they might argue to appeal grant terminations, and what the demographics of study participants must be” and “makes it impossible to determine how to reconfigure future research to stay within the bounds of NIH’s newest ‘priorities.’”

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  • March Brought Another Round of Job and Program Cuts

    March Brought Another Round of Job and Program Cuts

    March brought layoffs, buyouts and the elimination of multiple academic programs as universities sought to plug budget holes wrought by sector challenges and state budget issues.

    While many universities have announced hiring freezes and other moves due to the uncertainty of federal funding under Trump, the cuts below are not directly tied to the administration’s efforts to slash budgets and shrink the government. Instead, they are linked largely to dwindling enrollment or the loss of state funding.

    University of Dayton

    Officials at the private, Catholic research institution in Ohio announced cuts last month that affect 65 employees; 45 faculty members will not have their contracts renewed and 20 staff positions have been eliminated, The Dayton Daily News reported.

    Affected employees will reportedly be offered severance packages.

    Total cuts are projected to save the university $25 million over three years, the newspaper reported. Officials at the university said the moves were “focused on financial sustainability,” noting that while Dayton does not currently have a budget deficit, the change better positions it for the future.

    Wagner College

    The private liberal arts college in New York is looking to phase out as many as 21 programs in an effort to reverse recent enrollment declines, The Staten Island Advance reported.

    The changes reportedly could affect up to 40 full-time faculty members.

    Less popular academic programs—including anthropology, chemistry, English, history, math, modern languages, sociology, philosophy and physics—are among those that may be wound down. Officials told the newspaper that the process will be completed over the next 12 to 18 months.

    Kent State University

    Up to 30 administrative positions and nine majors are being eliminated at the public university in Ohio as part of a phased academic realignment that was approved by the board last month, WKYC reported. Kent State will also shrink the number of academic colleges from 10 to nine.

    The changes are part of a phased plan to be completed in 2028.

    The plans cites two goals: “First to strengthen academic affairs by reorganizing and realigning our academic units so that we are more cost efficient and therefore sustainable, and second, to ensure that we are providing the most in-demand, up-to-date and relevant academic programs and services for our learners,” executive vice president and provost Melody Tankersley said in an announcement last month following approval of the restructuring plan by Kent State’s board.

    Lakeland Community College

    Facing a $2 million budget deficit, the public two-year college in Ohio is laying off 10 faculty members and not replacing 14 professors set to retire, Ideastream Public Media reported.

    Another eight faculty members who will retire next year will also not be replaced.

    Between the cuts and retirements, Lakeland expects to save $2.3 million this year and another $800,000 next year. It will reinvest $225,000 in three faculty positions in manufacturing, welding and electrical engineering as it prioritizes workforce development.

    Lakeland also plans to close an unspecified number of low-enrollment programs.

    St. Norbert College

    The private, Catholic college in Wisconsin announced plans last month to lay off 27 professors and cut more than a dozen programs to address its budget deficit, Wisconsin Public Radio reported.

    Cuts will shave an estimated $5 million off the $12 million budget deficit. Of the 27 affected faculty members, 21 are set to lose their jobs in May, and the remaining six will be let go in 2026.

    Averett University

    Grappling with financial pressures, the small, private institution in Virginia announced plans last month to eliminate 15 jobs as part of cost-cutting measures, The Chatham Star-Tribune reported.

    Additionally, Cardinal News reported this week that Averett listed its equestrian center for sale.

    The university has navigated steep financial issues since last summer, when officials discovered a financial shortfall brought about by unauthorized withdrawals from the endowment by a former employee. While they said there was no evidence of embezzlement or misuse of the funds, the fiscal mismanagement prompted Averett to take a series of ongoing measures to fix its finances.

    Oklahoma State University

    Fallout continues at Oklahoma State, where the university laid off 12 Innovation Foundation employees after a recent audit uncovered financial missteps there, Oklahoma Voice reported.

    Affected staffers will not receive severance but will remain employed through June 1.

    In February, Oklahoma State president Kayse Shrum stepped down abruptly amid a review of improper transfers of legislatively appropriated funds. An audit later found that $41 million in state appropriations “were not properly restricted and in some instances were co-mingled with other funds” in violation of state laws and policies. In one instance, $11.5 million intended for other programs had been directed without board approval to OSU’s Innovation Foundation instead.

    St. Joseph’s University

    Officials offered buyouts to some faculty and staff last month as the private Jesuit university seeks to close a budget deficit following recent mergers, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

    St. Joseph’s absorbed the University of the Sciences in 2022 and added Pennsylvania College of Health Sciences in 2023, which officials told the newspaper left them with a “small deficit.” President Cheryl McConnell did not specify a dollar figure in an interview with the Inquirer.

    She added that there was no specific target number for buyouts, but when asked about potential layoffs, McConnell said it “depends on the nature of voluntary separation plan results.”

    Utah State University

    Voluntary buyouts are on the table and layoffs could be on the horizon at the public university following $17.3 million in budget cuts from the State Legislature, The Cache Valley Daily reported.

    Those cuts were spread across two years, with the university taking a $12.5 million hit this year. However, USU could restore that money through the state’s strategic reinvestment initiative, which allows universities to regain funding if leaders can identify areas for cuts and shift resources toward strategic initiatives favored by the state.

    Weber State University

    Elsewhere in Utah, Weber State is also grappling with budget issues imposed by the state.

    With anticipated budget cuts of $6.7 million due to the same strategic realignment initiative, Weber State is also offering voluntary separation incentives to employees, Deseret News reported. The university also plans to restructure some academic programs, including the College of Education.

    Budget changes in Utah will also affect the other six state institutions, but not all have made their plans public yet.

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  • Innovation, Collaboration During Challenging Times

    Innovation, Collaboration During Challenging Times

    I just returned from the UPCEA annual conference held in Denver. A record attendance of some 1,300 administrators, faculty and staff from member institutions gathered to share policies, practices, innovations and knowledge in advancing the mission of higher education in 2025. It was a thriving and exciting environment of energy and enthusiasm in seeking solutions to challenges that confront us today and into the future.

    Recent policy shifts regarding the federal funding of grants provided by the institutes and foundations that support university research were on the minds of most who attended. These topics provided the undercurrent of discussions in many of the sessions. The spirit was one of supporting each other in advancing their initiatives despite the prospect of cuts in federal support. The confluence of the demographic enrollment cliff of college-bound students due to the drop in births during the previous recession of 2007–09 and additional promised cuts in funding from federal and many state sources created an environment for collaboration on solving shared challenges rivaled only by that of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    A number of the sessions addressed innovations with cost savings, efficiencies and effectiveness gains that can be realized by thoughtfully introducing artificial intelligence into supporting many aspects of the higher education mission. The potential savings are significant if AI can take over duties of positions that become vacant or instances where staff are better utilized by shifting their efforts elsewhere.

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    By fall 2025, readily available AI tools will be able to serve in course development, delivery and assessment:

    • Conceive, design, create online (even self-paced) courses
    • Adapt and update class materials with emerging concepts, societal situations and news context
    • Lead and assess class discussions—stimulate deeper thought and engagement
    • Assess course assignments with personalized recommendations to fill in the gaps in knowledge
    • Provide one-on-one counseling on academic matters and referrals for personal challenges
    • Create a summative assessment of course outcomes and initiate revisions for improvement
    • Generate a deep-thinking report for administrators and committees to consider

    By this fall, readily available AI tools will be able to serve in curriculum development, marketing and student onboarding:

    • Survey specified fields for addition or expansion of degree and certificate programs
    • Recommend detailed curriculum for new programs and suggest tuition/fees
    • Create marketing plans after developing a report on demand and competitors in the program area
    • Develop, track, implement and adapt marketing budget
    • Prepare and support student advising to optimize retention and completion
    • Prepare updated and revised plans for spring 2026

    By fall 2025, develop optimal staff allocation and review process:

    • Assess performance evaluations, recommend additional interviews as appropriate
    • Develop, refine and utilize departmental/college priority list to respond to revenue and enrollment trends for the year
    • Match staff skills with desired outcomes
    • Monitor productivity and accomplishments for each employee
    • Make recommendations for further efficiencies, having AI perform some tasks such as accounting and data analysis previously done by humans
    • Be responsive to employee aspirations and areas of greatest interest
    • Review and prepare updated and revised plans for spring 2026

    These tasks and many more can be accomplished by AI tools that can be acquired at modest costs. Of course, they must be carefully reviewed by human administrators to ensure fairness and accuracy are maintained.

    I learned from a number of those attending the UPCEA conference that, in these relatively early stages of AI implementation, many employees harbor fears of AI. Concerns center around human job security. While there are many tasks that AI can more efficiently and effectively perform than humans, most current jobs include aspects that are best performed by humans. So, in most cases, the use of AI will be in a role of augmentation of human work to make it more expedient and save time for other new tasks the human employees can best perform.

    This presents the need for upskilling to enable human staff to make the efficiencies possible by learning to work best with AI. Interestingly, in most cases experts say this will not require computer coding or other such skills. Rather, this will require personnel to understand the capabilities of AI in order to tap these skills to advance the goals of the unit and university. Positions in which humans and AI are coworkers will require excellent communication skills, organizational skills, critical thinking and creative thinking. AI performs well at analytical, synthetical, predictive and creative tasks, among others. It is adept at taking on leadership and managerial roles that recognize the unit and institutional priorities as well as employee preferences and abilities.

    How then can we best prepare our staff for optimizing their working relations with the new AI coworkers? I believe this begins with personal experience with AI tools. We all should become comfortable with conducting basic searches using a variety of chat bots. Learning to compose a proper prompt is the cornerstone of communicating with AI.

    The next step is to use a handful of the readily available deep-research tools to generate a report on a topic that is relevant to the staff member’s work. Compare and contrast those reports for quality, accuracy and the substance of cited material. Perform the research iteratively to improve or refine results. This Medium post offers a good summary of leading deep-research engines and best applications, although it was released in February and may be dated due to the Gemini version 2.5 Pro released on March 26. This new version by Google is topping many of the current ratings charts.

    In sum, we are facing changes of an unprecedented scale with the disruption of long-standing policies, funding sources and a shrinking incoming student pool. Fortunately, these changes are coming at the same time as AI is maturing into a dependable tool that can take on some of the slack that will come from not filling vacancies. However, to meet that need we must begin to provide training to our current and incoming employees to ensure that they can make the most of AI tools we will provide.

    Together, through the collaborative support of UPCEA and other associations, we in higher education will endure these challenges as we did those posed by the COVID pandemic.

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  • Wellesley Surpasses $100K Sticker Price

    Wellesley Surpasses $100K Sticker Price

    Wellesley College in Massachusetts has become the first U.S. institution to top $100,000 per year.

    Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe/Getty Images

    Wellesley College appears to be the first higher ed institution in the nation to hit the $100,000 annual sticker price.

    The cost to attend the all-women’s college this coming fall will be $100,541, as Boston Business Journal first reported. That includes direct costs of $92,440—which covers undergraduate tuition, housing, fees and meals—plus indirect costs, such as books, personal expenses, travel, transportation, and optional health insurance. Wellesley now appears to be the most expensive college in the country.

    Various other universities have approached the six-figure mark for undergraduate tuition and indirect costs in recent years but managed to remain below it. When Inside Higher Ed explored this issue last year, it appeared that Vanderbilt University might be the first to cross the threshold, with estimated costs for undergraduate students in certain programs, such as engineering, hitting almost $98,000. Others at or over the $90,000 line include the University of Chicago, the University of Southern California, Washington University in St. Louis and Tufts University, and a handful of other highly selective, private institutions.

    Wellesley spokesperson Stacey Schmeidel wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed Tuesday that the college “meets 100% of the calculated need for all students” and is “committed to making a Wellesley education accessible to all.” Additionally, she noted that “loans are eliminated for students with total parent income less than $100,000 and calculated family contribution of less than $28,000. The average indebtedness of our 2023 graduates is $18,500, well below the national average.”

    She added that indirect costs vary by student and “the majority” do not pay sticker price.

    Schmeidel also wrote that more than 50 percent of students decline the optional health insurance, which, at $4,051, is the most expensive item on the list of indirect costs. Of those who do opt in, nearly half receive institutional grants to cover the entire cost, she noted.

    Despite the potential sticker shock, Wellesley’s website plugs an education that is “more affordable than you think.” Wellesley has a financial aid budget of more than $84 million, according to its website.

    That is also the case at many other well-endowed colleges where, regardless of the listed price, most students don’t pay the full amount. Tuition discounting has soared in recent years and remains well over 50 percent across the U.S. A recent study of 325 private nonprofit colleges conducted by the National Association of College and University Business Officers pegged the average tuition discount rate for first-time, full-time students at 56 percent, and 52 percent for all undergraduate students. Both numbers are all-time highs.

    While public concerns about higher education have often focused on college costs, debt and the return on investment, Wellesley and its high-priced peers are outliers in terms of cost. A recent College Board analysis found that in the 2024–25 academic year, the average sticker price was $43,350 for private nonprofit four-year institutions, $30,780 for out-of-state students attending public universities, and $11,610 for in-state students at public universities.

    Bryan Alexander, a senior scholar at Georgetown University who has been writing about college costs nearing the $100,000 mark since 2018, correctly predicted in 2023 that Wellesley would be one of the first institutions to reach six figures by the 2026–27 academic year.

    Asked what he thought about his prediction coming to pass, Alexander responded with multiple questions.

    “Will this pricing make the college more desirable, as a luxury good? Or will it drive away would-be students from sticker shock?” he wrote by email. “How many universities, scared of [the Trump administration], will make such a price hike to raise funds when grants are cut?”

    He also pondered what it might mean for public perception, writing, “Wellesley is a small liberal arts college, but some universities are also playing this pricing game. Will [small liberal arts colleges] become seen as too pricey, or will all of higher ed get tarred with this brush?”

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  • Cornell Student Who Faced Deportation Leaves the Country

    Cornell Student Who Faced Deportation Leaves the Country

    Momodou Taal, the Cornell University graduate student who said his institution effectively tried to deport him in the fall over his pro-Palestine activism, announced Monday he’s leaving the U.S. of his own accord under threat from the Trump administration.

    “I have lost faith I could walk the streets without being abducted,” Taal wrote on X. He added that “we are facing a government that has no respect for the judiciary or for the rule of the law.”

    On March 15, Taal, his professor and another Cornell Ph.D. student sued President Trump, the Department of Homeland Security and Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem, challenging executive orders that empowered immigration officials to deport noncitizens they deem national security threats. Immigration officers have targeted multiple international students suspected of participating in pro-Palestine protests. Taal is a U.K. and Gambian citizen.

    A few days after he sued, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents visited Taal in what Homeland Security acknowledged “was an attempt to detain him,” he said in a court filing. The State Department had revoked Taal’s visa, according to the lawsuit.

    Now his lawyers have dismissed the case. “Trump did not want me to have my day in court and sent ICE agents to my home,” Taal wrote on X.

    In an email to Inside Higher Ed Tuesday, an unnamed “senior” Homeland Security official called it “a privilege to be granted a visa to live and study” in the U.S.

    “When you advocate for violence and terrorism, that privilege should be revoked, and you should not be in this country,” the official said. “We are pleased to confirm that this Cornell University terrorist sympathizer heeded Secretary Noem’s advice to self-deport.”

    When asked for specifics on when Taal sympathized with terrorism, Homeland Security pointed to where Taal referenced in his Monday post the “Zionist genocide,” and wrote, “Long live the student intifada!” In his post, Taal wrote that the “repression of Palestinian solidarity is now being used to wage a wholesale attack on any form of expression that challenges oppressive and exploitative relations in the US.”

    Taal added, “If you have been led to think that your safety is only guaranteed by state kidnap, repression, deportation, the slaughter of children, and the suppression of the global majority, then let Gaza’s shards of glass be your mirror.”

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