Australia’s leading science and research agency will cut hundreds of jobs across the nation as rising costs outpace funding.
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350 jobs go at CSIRO – Campus Review
The CSIRO building in Battery Point, Tasmania. Picture: Linda Higginson.
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More Work-Life Balance in Academe Would Help Reduce the Fear of Retirement
To the editor:
I’m not quite sure why you felt the need to publish the self-indulgent “Teaching as a Sacred Life” by Joe P. Dunn (Nov. 19, 2025).
It’s great that Joe is inspired by his teaching and is so passionate about it. Of course, most faculty who chose teaching are (or were) so inspired. So what merits the article? I guess that Joe is still teaching at age 80.
Yes, some people view retirement as a goal because they don’t like their jobs. But many faculty view their profession as a vocation, so why would they retire? One reason is because of diminished effectiveness. Ossified approaches, diminished cognitive capacity and so on are the unhappy, but inevitable, results of aging. The person experiencing these declines is generally not the best at noticing them, as they creep in so slowly that they’re most visible to outsiders or when accurately comparing to yourself from long ago. (A septuagenarian Galileo, when completing Two New Sciences, his seminal 1638 work in mechanics, was disheartened to find that it was hard for him to follow his own notes and thoughts from several decades earlier.)
Another reason to retire is to give the next generation a chance. Joe talks about the plentiful faculty jobs when he was young. There are many reasons why they’re no longer plentiful, but one of them is that there is no longer a mandatory retirement age. It was legal until 1993 for there to be a mandatory retirement age for tenured faculty (later than the general 1986 ban on mandatory retirement because lawmakers felt there were several valid arguments for a mandatory retirement age for tenured professors).
Many academics pour so much into their work that they don’t develop a strong identity outside of their job. They end up like Joe, not sure what they would even do in retirement. A broader push for a better work-life balance in higher education could go a long way toward helping people develop their complete selves, and would reduce the fear of retirement among academics. Plus, there are always positions emeriti that allow you to keep your hand in the intellectual world of higher ed without continuing to draw a paycheck that you no longer need and someone else does.
Speaking of viewing teaching as sacred, clergy retire. Heck, we’ve even had a pope retire. Faculty can figure it out too.
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Notes on the Complete College America Conference
Having returned to the community college world after a two-year sojourn, I wasn’t sure what to expect at my first large-scale higher ed–themed conference. That was especially true given that the conference in question, Complete College America’s Next, was new to me and included both two-year and four-year schools. It was in Baltimore, so it wasn’t a rough drive.
It was gratifying to see that I hadn’t been entirely forgotten. Thanks to everyone who took a moment to yell “Matt!” from behind as I wandered the hallways. I needed that.
I attended as part of a delegation from Westmoreland, which is in its second year with CCA. In that role, I tried to glean whatever insights I could to bring back to campus. Some highlights:
- At a panel on using course scheduling as a retention tool, I came away with one insight, one statistic and one phrase. The insight was that schedule optimization works best at scale; the smaller the scale, the less room to move. That’s especially true at multicampus or multilocation institutions. As the rep from Ad Astra put it, “It’s not helpful to offer things partway.”
That’s a real challenge when you’re trying to be within driving distance of a lot of people in a sparsely populated area. The statistic was that the major jump in retention occurs among students who take at least 18 credits per year. Lower than that and retention drops precipitously; higher than that and the gains are incremental. Eighteen seems to be the magic number. Finally, someone (my notes fail me) termed some students whose courses were at inaccessible times or locations “unintentionally part-time.” I think the same could be said of many workers; there’s something there.
- A panel on the impact of academic policies on student retention brought home to me how much context matters. The presenters, Daphne Holland and Debbie Connor, were both from Coastal Carolina University. As they tell it, CCU is a four-year public institution that’s mostly residential, rapidly growing and chock-full of full-time, out-of-state students. I stayed anyway, on the theory that students are students and the struggles are largely the same everywhere.
And that seemed true at first; they mentioned that the most common reason for students leaving is finances. From there, they outlined changes to their academic probation policy, including an intermediate status called “academic advisory” for students who are passing, but not by much. (Students on advisory are required to check in with success coaches a few times per semester.) When I asked how changes to an academic policy would affect finances, they responded that the finances in question were HOPE scholarships that would be lost below a certain GPA. Alas, though interesting, it wasn’t as relevant to my world as I had hoped.
- Naturally, I attended the panel on higher ed reporters. That one was more of a personal interest. It was great to finally meet Scott Carlson from The Chronicle and Johanna Alonso from IHE. I hadn’t known of Kirk Carapezza, who hosts the College Uncovered podcast, but immediately added it to my podcast feed.
- Chike Aguh gave the afternoon keynote, focusing on higher ed and the future of work. The talk was largely about AI and the need to prepare students for the world as it’s taking shape. (The theme of “AI is changing everything, get over it” pervaded the conference—AI skepticism was regarded as passé, if not self-indulgent.)
He noted that in America, “we treat college like marriage,” acting as if the initial choice is irrevocable and life-determining. That’s not true in the community college world, but I have seen 17-year-olds look at a college decision that way. Instead, he proposed a “war college of technology,” in which professionals would take an education break every five years or so to get up to speed on the latest technology. Politically, I suspect that’s dead on arrival, but a version of that could be a useful way to package continuing ed.
- I was much more engaged by the panel on Scalable Student Success Strategies in a Shifting Political Landscape. Carrie Hodge, from CCA, and Julia Raufman, from the Community College Research Center, led a delicate but necessary discussion on ways to improve student success when certain words, resources and tactics have been ruled out of bounds by the current political climate. I’ll respect the sensitivity of the discussion by leaving it at that, other than to thank Hodge and Raufman for a badly needed conversation.
- Finally, the panel on workforce pathways in Texas had a similar alternate-universe feel to the earlier CCU panel. In the case of Texas, Daniel Perez and Shawnda Floyd reported that the performance funding system to which community colleges are subjected is not zero-sum. In other words, if everybody does better, everybody gets more funding. The colleges aren’t competing with each other, so they don’t have to divert resources to competing with each other.
You could hear gasps in the room, including my own. Floyd, from Dallas College, reported that they use philanthropic funding to cover the cost of tests for industry certifications for both students and instructors, which struck me as an excellent idea. In response to a question about reducing the benefits of higher education to income, Perez agreed that they go far beyond that but cautioned against “going down the rabbit hole of positive externalities” with legislators. In the short term, he’s obviously right about that, but it’s still disheartening.
Of course, as with many conferences, many of the highlights came from hallway conversations. Reconnecting with old friends and former colleagues is good for the soul.
Even when my immediate reaction to hearing about programs in some places was a variation on “must be nice …” it’s still useful to be reminded that some of the dilemmas we face aren’t inevitable. If 2025 has taught us anything, it’s that the old adage about change happening first slowly and then all at once is true. The key is to push the change in the right direction. Kudos to CCA for doing exactly that.
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Advice to a Younger Scientist (opinion)
“For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.” —Plato
In the first week of my postdoctoral fellowship, David B. Sacks, my lifelong mentor and senior investigator in the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the National Institutes of Health, handed me a book by Peter Medawar, who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1960, and encouraged me to read it attentively. The book, Advice to a Young Scientist, carried a weight beyond its physical form. I chose the title of this piece as a tribute to that book. Although I am still not far along in my career, I believe I have gathered insights worth sharing with the next generation of scientists.
Practical Strategies for Scientific Growth
From the very first year of your graduate studies, I encourage you to maintain a list of grants and scholarships for which you can apply. If you are an international scholar, gather concrete information on your eligibility. This list should evolve alongside your career, marking opportunities with specific eligibility timelines: those available one to three years into graduate school, one to three years postgraduation, less than five years postdegree and early-career grants (within 10 years). Knowing the deadlines and criteria early on ensures that you do not miss crucial opportunities. Many international scholars, myself included, discover too late that they are ineligible for certain grants. By tracking these opportunities, you can plan more effectively and maximize your chances.
Learn to pitch your ideas early. Selling your ideas—convincing others of their importance in clear, communicative language—is a skill that spans all facets of life and career. Begin developing this muscle from the outset.
Dedicate part of your routine to familiarizing yourself with new technologies and scientific resources. Record the tools and platforms you encounter, such as, in my field, antibody databases, protein-protein interaction networks and pathway analysis tools. Regularly updating and reviewing this resource library ensures you stay at the cutting edge of scientific advancements. However, not every technique or technology that is new and more complex is necessarily better. Do not disregard a technique solely based on the fact that it is older. Often, established methods are more robust, reproducible and cost-effective, making them invaluable in various contexts.
Documentation is a cornerstone of scientific work. A western blot from 10 years ago may suddenly become relevant to a new project, fitting perfectly into an emerging story. Therefore, write detailed protocols and notes as if someone decades from now might need to understand and replicate your data. Keep records not just for your immediate understanding, but instead in a universal, comprehensive format that anyone can follow.
Every published paper should be accompanied by a thesis-style archive containing all primary raw data and complete supplementary materials. Raw data includes, as applicable, unprocessed high-resolution images, instrument output files, original spreadsheets, code/notebooks, protocols and metadata. Organize this material with a table of contents and clear instructions. You should inventory every reagent you use, noting lot numbers, storage conditions and supplier details. While modern online platforms facilitate some of this, it is vital to maintain meticulous personal records. Seek feedback, observe best practices from others and refine your documentation habits over time.
The Power of Waiting
I understand the pressure many of you feel to advance your career quickly, secure your next position swiftly and carefully plan the path ahead. As an immigrant scientist, I am keenly aware that the range of choices often narrows and sometimes the options available are dictated more by circumstance than by preference. For those who are supporting families, the urgency intensifies, as the stipend of a graduate student or postdoc scarcely permits long periods of indecision.
Given the unpredictable nature of an academic career, fostering a diverse network and developing a wide-ranging skill set early on can create opportunities and provide stability over time. I recall a piece of wisdom shared by Mehdi Nematbakhsh, a professor at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, where I earned my M.D. degree. He often said, “One should place oneself in a position to have several choices; that is the way of the wise to choose.”
This advice resonated deeply with me. The ability to choose from multiple paths reflects the time and energy invested in cultivating possibilities aligned with your ultimate goal. It is akin to planting a couple of dozen seeds in the hope that a handful will sprout into flourishing leaves.
Resilience in the Face of Uncertainty
Scientific inquiry is inherently unpredictable. There are days when experiments yield no results, hypotheses crumble and the seemingly linear path forward transforms into a maze of uncertainties. For younger scientists, this unpredictability can breed frustration or self-doubt. It is crucial to remember that every failed experiment is not a step backward but an essential part of the learning process.
My mentor David B. Sacks often reminded me that even the most accomplished scientists navigate failure more frequently than success. What distinguishes them is resilience—the readiness to rise, recalibrate and move forward. This is the mark of a scientist who is not only committed to their craft but also grounded in the understanding that discovery rarely follows a predictable timeline.
Enduring the Marathon
Life as a scientist is not a series of discrete tasks with periods of relief in between; it is more akin to running a lifelong marathon. Achievements like earning a Ph.D. or securing a promotion are milestones, but they mark the beginning of broader journeys rather than the end of a certain task. Similar to the life of a clinician, the life of a scientist requires a sustained commitment over time. It does not necessarily get easier, though confidence grows with experience.
This journey requires developing lifelong habits: reading to update your reservoir of knowledge, maintaining daily discipline and nurturing sustainable practices that align with our core values—for instance, if you value rigor, keep complete lab notebooks and version-controlled code; if you value openness, share data and protocols; if you value mentorship, hold regular one-on-ones and set clear authorship expectations. If you approach science as a long-distance run, the importance of building sustainable habits becomes clear. Like the slow but steady turtle in the old story, consistent, sustainable effort over time is key to long-term success and fulfillment.
Working With Time
We are confined in time and space; maturity reflects itself in learning how to navigate within those limits. Over the long run, excess stress narrows vision and compels shallow decisions, while excess ease invites drift and missed chances. As the Tao Te Ching counsels, be like water: Progress comes from steady pressure and well-timed yielding—press when the channel narrows, eddy when the current runs muddy.
The aim is pacing, not grinding; let stress sharpen, not scald; let rest restore, not stall. Inspired by Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks, treat time management as a humane practice rather than a perfectionist project. Plan enough to choose your moments, but do not let schedules become a source of anxiety. Flow through time, steer deliberately and let attention—not urgency—set the rhythm of your work.
The Art of Carrying the Unknown
Being able to face and carry the unknown with you is an essential skill. Contemplating what is not known or what is surprisingly different from what we predict is a critical process. Enduring this state allows the time needed for the unknown to unveil itself.
If this capacity is not developed, and we rush or force to overcome it, we risk introducing biases or even the seeds of misconduct. This does not mean avoiding action to better understand the phenomenon; rather, it means cultivating an internal acceptance of the state of “we do not know” and leaving it there when no concrete light is visible. Balancing what we know and hypothesize with detachment from these ideas leaves room for the unknown to unfold, a balance critical to genuine scientific discovery.
The Art of Extracting the Essence
A crucial yet often overlooked skill in science is the ability to extract the essence from information—whether it is a paper, a talk or experimental data. This deep insight enables you to find the key piece of information that holds the essence of the knowledge presented. It takes time to develop the discipline required to avoid distraction from extraneous details and focus on what truly matters.
Make this focus a regular practice with everything you encounter, and apply it rigorously when designing experiments. An experiment crafted with the essence of your research question in mind will bring you closer to the answers you seek.
Mentorship and Building Networks
No scientist reaches their destination alone. The mentors we encounter along the way shape not only our scientific trajectory but also our professional character. My mentors’ influence extended far beyond technical guidance; they imparted values of integrity, perseverance and humility. I urge younger scientists to seek mentors who inspire not just technical proficiency but personal growth. A true mentor will spend time guiding you beyond formal settings, offering valuable advice after journal clubs or during informal conversations.
High-quality mentors are rare. You should seek at least two mentors. The first should be a junior mentor who is at the stage you aspire to reach in four to five years. Science evolves rapidly, and a junior mentor can provide practical, up-to-date advice for navigating your field. The other should be a senior mentor, someone you wish to emulate in 20 years. These mentors serve as guiding stars, offering long-term vision and perspective that may differ from your current viewpoint. Their guidance can help keep you aligned with your broader goals. A small deviation in your path may seem inconsequential in a few months, but it could lead to significant divergence over decades.
In addition to finding mentors, dedicate time to cultivating long-lasting networks. These connections will evolve as your career progresses. Nurture personal relationships with colleagues beyond the confines of science. At times, this involves writing at least 50 personalized New Year emails. These relationships become the threads that weave a strong scientific community, enriching personal and professional lives.
Conclusion and Closing Reflections
Science is neither a solitary pursuit nor a race to an arbitrary finish line. It is a journey marked by moments of doubt, resilience and occasional triumph. To the younger scientists reading this, I encourage you to embrace the uncertainties, cultivate patience, and trust in the seeds you plant today. The landscape of science is ever-evolving, and your contributions, no matter how incremental they may seem, hold the potential to shape the future.
As Medawar reminds us, the young scientist’s best ally is time, but time must not be wasted. Choose your path with care, but do not fear the unknown. The waiting, the failures and the quiet moments of reflection are as much a part of the scientific endeavor as the discoveries themselves.
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Communicate How Your Campus Connects Education to Careers
Higher ed, government and workforce leaders are discussing employability skills and work-based learning more than they ever have (at least, in my lifetime). So are students. Recent research shines a light on where and how students contemplate the connection between college and careers (particularly the increasingly influential role of social media) and what they expect. Marketers can leverage these consumer insights to influence both product and positioning to develop, implement and communicate work-integrated learning experience to meet student and workforce needs.
Students Get Career, College and Life Advice From Social Media
Seventy percent of young adults use social media to learn about careers, and it’s the top tool young adults use for self-discovery, despite a lack of encouragement from most adults and career navigators/counselors. Students talk about workforce skills when they talk to each other online about going to college—about 20 percent of these posts are about skills needed for jobs. They believe transferable skills are valuable to keep their career options open, particularly for those who don’t know what they want to do in their future careers. Specifically, they talk about:
- Relationship-building skills like networking, persuasive speaking and small group leadership
- Basic math and writing skills
- Study skills
- Interview skills
Forums are advice-seeking and experience-sharing platforms, and when students talk about needing workforce skills, they receive encouraging advice. Suggestions include using extra courses, academic services and resources to gain employability skills to help them find a job after graduation. Students are also encouraged to develop practical critical thinking and social skills because, in the words of those giving advice, “a degree doesn’t guarantee success.”
When students think about preparing for a job, they prioritize internships. In an analysis of over 600,000 forum conversations about college admissions Campus Sonar conducted to inform Jeff Selingo’s book Dream School: Finding The College That’s Right for You, internships were the most common form of workforce training discussed. When students make their college decision, they consider whether a campus provides them greater access to internship opportunities. Sometimes students interpret a rural campus as one without internship opportunities (which isn’t exactly true), and students consider if the campus gives them access to a connected network to find future internships and jobs. Another consideration is the value of an institution’s reputation with employers or intern hiring managers.
However, these conversations revealed that students don’t really know what happens in an internship or how to get one. So they use online forums to seek advice on obtaining an internship, leveraging it, securing a job after graduation and exploring alternative careers outside their major.
This is a storytelling opportunity for campuses. Specifically, to bridge the gap between current or recent interns and prospective and first-year students. Students who completed internships don’t have the chance to tell the students coming behind them what it’s like or how it helped them. This transition point is an excellent chance to engage recent interns to share their experiences directly with students or prospects to provide motivation and guidance in the peer-to-peer form students want. Using social media—the place where young people are seeking this advice—is crucial.
Students Need to Understand the Connection Between Curriculum, Skill Building and Careers
When considering college, students are already thinking about what comes next. Over 10 years of social listening research examining how students talk about college admissions, 62 percent of conversations focused on the postgraduation path. But when the connections between a college’s curriculum, employability skills and careers aren’t clear, students think the burden is on them to build the skills and chart their path.
This was particularly clear in Campus Sonar’s 2024 Rebuilding Public Trust in Higher Education social intelligence study, which found that 45 percent of peer-to-peer conversations about the value of college included cautionary advice that students may be on their own to make crucial connections between curriculum, skill building and careers.
Many colleges struggle to communicate these connections effectively. Here are two doing an excellent job.
- Kettering University in Flint, Mich. For 100 years, Kettering has focused on work-integrated learning with a curriculum that rotates students between the classroom and co-op work placements in 12-week intervals. Ninety-eight percent of their students are employed after graduation, and the ongoing integration of students in the workforce produces valuable student feedback, enabling curriculum shifts to keep up with ever-changing employer needs.
Kettering is historically focused on STEM, but the university recently launched the School of Foundational Studies, traditionally known as liberal arts. The core curriculum emphasizes a connected, human-centered approach and integrates a STEM focus with early professional development and ethical decision-making, preparing students to navigate complexity with intellectual agility. We know the liberal arts prepares students for the workforce, but Kettering is shifting the narrative and dropping the misunderstood phrase to put relevance and impact like ethical decision-making and intellectual agility front and center.
- Moravian University is another example. The medium-size, private, religiously affiliated institution created Elevate as part of its undergraduate experience. It’s a career readiness digital badging system to help students clearly see the pathways for developing and demonstrating skills in communication, critical thinking leadership and more. Elevate is part of Moravian’s distinctive and branded undergraduate student experience, which is a four-year pathway to a “successful future and a career you love.” The Elevate experience goes year by year and explains how students scaffold their experiences, learnings and badges and the support they get along the way.
Career navigation is a prevailing concept in this space right now and is critical in empowering students to truly navigate their own careers rather than expect the university to take them from A to B. Students need to become their own career navigator and be confident upon graduation that they have the navigation skills. Integrated curricula like those I’ve highlighted here achieve that outcome.
Not all campuses are equipped to develop a work-integrated curriculum independently, meaning the product offered to students may not yet be at the place where it can be positioned in a way that meets the current needs. An ecosystem of partners has developed over the last decade to help and is highlighted at workforce-focused higher ed events such as the Horizons Summit, SXSW EDU and ASU+GSV Summit.
For example, Riipen connects educators, learners and employers (particularly small businesses) to integrate short-term, paid projects into coursework—including remote work opportunities. Education at Work connects students to résumé-building, paying jobs at top national employers like Intuit and Discover to build durable skills and unlock career pathways within the organization. A strong relationship with your provost or career services office will ensure the marketing team is aware of the “product features” that are evolving on your campus to connect classroom to career.
Take Action
- Tell as many individual stories as you can to help students see themselves in your graduates, develop a sense of belonging and trust outcomes achieved by a peer. Tell the types of stories (or empower students/alumni to tell their own) that would be offered as positive anecdotes in social media (e.g., TikTok, Reddit). Recognizing that resources are finite and stories from “someone like me” are nearly always more influential than polished marketing content, social listening bridges the gap to identify and amplify stories students and alumni already share.
- Include program-level excellence in your brand narrative to more specifically connect curriculum and programming to careers. Support your claims with data (e.g., job placement, salaries, top employers), but don’t rely solely on statistics—always connect the data to stories.
- Emphasize support structures and peer-to-peer connections such as experiential learning programs, career services opportunities, paid internship support, peer internship mentoring, etc., so students don’t feel like they’re on their own to navigate their career path.
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DEI Orthodoxy Doesn’t Belong in NACE Competencies (opinion)
If you’re not a supporter of the progressive DEI agenda, you’re not career ready. That’s one of the messages that the National Association of Colleges and Employers, America’s leading professional association for career placement, is sending to students.
First established in 1956, NACE boasts a current membership of more than 17,000 dues-paying career services and recruitment professionals. Career counselors and others in higher education often cite NACE’s eight career readiness competencies to help students prepare for the job market and workplace.
I was planning to use the NACE competencies this semester in a class on how liberal arts education equips students for the professional world and was dismayed to find that partisan criteria had crept into this valuable resource. The list includes—alongside things like teamwork, effective communication and technological proficiency—a competency called Equity & Inclusion. According to NACE, this means that a prospective professional will “engage in anti-oppressive practices that actively challenge the systems, structures, and policies of racism and inequity.”
If you’re fully career ready, the group says, you will not merely “keep an open mind to diverse ideas and new ways of thinking.” You will also “advocate for inclusion, equitable practices, justice, and empowerment for historically marginalized communities” and will “address systems of privilege that limit opportunities” for members of those communities. In other words, you will subscribe to the view that American society is characterized by systemic racism and will work to break down America’s allegedly racist structure.
NACE defines “equity” in this light: “Whereas equality means providing the same to all, equity means recognizing that we do not all start from the same place and must acknowledge and make adjustments to imbalances.”
While these beliefs and attitudes might make someone a good fit at one of a diminishing number of “woke” corporations, they have little to do with career readiness in the ordinary sense of the term. Rather, the language NACE employs in its official materials implies a commitment to an ideological agenda that the organization has mixed into its definition of professional competence. NACE could be teaching students how to navigate the political diversity that characterizes most workplaces. Instead, through its influence in the college career counseling world, it is teaching them that acceptance of progressive orthodoxy on disputed questions of racial justice is a prerequisite for professional employment.
NACE also does a disservice to students by signaling that workplace political engagement is universally valued by employers. In fact, many companies discourage it, and with good reason. In most work environments, political advocacy is more likely to cause tension and division than it is to foster cooperation and trust.
As a college teacher and administrator, I’m especially troubled by the fact that NACE is conveying to students that their education should lead them to adopt a certain viewpoint on some of the most contentious political issues. The relationship between equity and equality, for example, is something that should be studied, discussed and debated in college, not taught as authoritative moral and political dogma.
More generally, the way NACE talks about diversity, equity and inclusion ignores—or perhaps disdains—the political disagreement that is a normal and natural part of life in a democratic society, including the workplace. The organization undermines its professed commitment to open-mindedness when it implies that all open-minded people must be capital-P Progressives on issues such as systemic racism and equitable hiring practices. Like many institutions in recent years, NACE appears to have given in to pressure from activist members and embraced the “antiracist” worldview, sidelining the principles of openness and neutrality that are, or ought to be, hallmarks of professionalism.
Notably, NACE indicates on its website that its equity and inclusion standard is under review. The organization cites recent “federal Executive Orders and subsequent guidance, as well as court decisions and regulatory changes, [that] may create legal risks that either preclude or discourage campuses and employers from using it.” This is encouraging. Better still would be for NACE to free itself from the ideological commitments that make its materials legally and politically risky in the first place. Let’s hope this venerable organization will get out of the business of DEI advocacy and focus on its core purposes of connecting students with employers and preparing students for professional life.
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Total NSF, NIH Funding Didn’t Plunge in Fiscal 2025
An analysis found that NSF grant funding remained about level in the recently ended fiscal year.
The National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health doled out about as much total grant funding in the recently ended fiscal year as they did the year before, despite the Trump administration’s “unprecedented” earlier slowdown of federal science funding, Science reported Wednesday.
According to the journal’s analysis, “NSF committed approximately $8.17 billion to grants, fellowships, and other funding mechanisms in the 2025 fiscal year”—which ended Sept. 30—“about the same as in 2024.” It found that NIH spending also remained level.
But both federal research funding agencies still reduced the number of new grants they awarded, Science reported. It wrote that NSF funded about 8,800 new research project grants, down from 11,000 in 2024, adding that an anonymous NSF staffer said this “was one of several changes designed to reduce the agency’s future financial obligations, in case Trump’s proposed budget cut is realized.” The analysis also found that the agency reduced from 2,600 to 1,100 “the number of new continuing grants, and ‘forward funded’ a number of existing continuing grants.”
NSF declined to confirm or deny Science’s figures. NIH spokespeople didn’t return Inside Higher Ed’s requests for comment Thursday.
Congress has yet to decide how much to fund NSF in the current fiscal year; most of the federal government is currently funded by a continuing resolution that expires Jan. 30, and the government could shut down again if lawmakers don’t pass appropriations bills by then. But Republicans from both chambers have indicated they don’t plan to cut $5 billion from NSF, as Trump has requested; in July, Senate appropriators put forth a cut of only $16 million, while the suggestion in the House was to slash the NSF budget by $2 billion.
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St. Augustine’s Offers to Help Shape Trump’s Compact
The HBCU has seen its enrollment drop significantly and faced other challenges as it aims to stay open.
Saint Augustine’s University
Saint Augustine’s University, a historically Black college in North Carolina, has expressed interest in signing the Trump administration’s higher ed compact, Fox News reported, joining New College of Florida and Valley Forge Military College.
However, Verjanis Peoples, the interim president of Saint Augustine’s University, and board chair Sophie Gibson wrote in a letter to the Education Department that several provisions of the proposed compact are not “compatible with the statutory mission and federal mandate under which HBCUs operate.” Those include restrictions on the use of race in admissions or for financial support.
“As noted in our institutional analysis, such provisions would unintentionally force HBCUs to choose between compliance and survival, a position that is neither feasible nor consistent with congressional intent,” wrote Peoples and Gibson in a letter posted by Fox News.
Other requirements that raise concerns include a cap on international students and a five-year tuition freeze. “Without mission-sensitive accommodations, these sections risk unintended consequences that would impede our ability to serve students effectively,” they added.
Saint Augustine’s has struggled in recent years amid declining enrollment and financial challenges. The university had 175 students as of October 2024; more recent enrollment figures aren’t available. Late last year, Saint Augustine’s lost its accreditation, though a federal court overturned that decision. Classes were held online this fall.
The 158-year-old university is the first HBCU to show interest in the compact, which would require colleges to make a number of changes to their policies and practices in exchange for potential benefits such as an edge in federal grant competitions. The Trump administration first invited nine universities to give feedback on the document, and none in the group decided to sign on. Since the proposal was made public in early October, several universities have rejected it, arguing the federal funding should be based on merit—not adherence to a president’s priorities.
The administration has initially aimed to finalize the compact by Nov. 21, but that deadline has reportedly been extended.
Peoples and Gibson wrote that they support the compact’s goal to strengthen academic excellence, accountability and transparency in higher ed, and they see alignment between Saint Augustine’s historic mission and the administration’s proposal.
Despite their other reservations, “Saint Augustine’s University remains eager to participate as a constructive partner and early-engagement institution,” they wrote. They asked the department to work with HBCUs to shape a final agreement that upholds “both the letter and spirit of the Compact while safeguarding our statutory purpose.”
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Public Universities Don’t Want to Discuss the Compact
As the stated deadline to sign the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” arrived Friday, multiple universities have already rejected the deal while only a few institutions have expressed interest.
But among the public universities that were either formally invited to sign the compact or that participated in a call with the White House to provide feedback on higher education issues, none are willing to discuss their deliberations about the proposal or interactions with federal officials.
Last month, Inside Higher Ed sent public records requests to Arizona State University, the University of Arizona, the University of Kansas, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Virginia, seeking emails, text messages, internal presentations and other documents related to how presidents, trustees and other officials discussed the compact.
As of Friday, none had provided those records. Only the University of Kansas indicated a willingness to do so, but it requested an up-front $100 fee for staff time to conduct the search. However, officials said they could not guarantee the requested records would be provided.
Texas, meanwhile, has appealed to the state attorney general to avoid releasing the requested records. Now uncertainty abounds about what UT Austin will do on the day of the initial deadline, though conservative media has reported the Trump administration could push that date back (which officials did not confirm Thursday) as it struggles to find signatories.
Texas
Some public universities, such as Arizona and Virginia, have rejected the compact outright, but others, like Arizona State, have noted they never received a formal invitation to join and therefore they have nothing to decline. But UT Austin has remained silent about whether it will sign the compact.
Although University of Texas system Board of Regents chairman Kevin P. Eltife issued an early statement saying that he welcomed the “the new opportunity presented to us and we look forward to working with the Trump Administration on it,” officials have said little since then.
In response to an Oct. 22 public records request from Inside Higher Ed, UT Austin shared only the initial emails exchanged by federal and university officials inviting the university to consider the compact, a copy of the proposal itself, and Eltife’s statement. The rest it wants to keep private.
UT system officials argued in a letter sent Tuesday to the attorney general’s office that the requested records are protected by attorney-client privilege and should not be disclosed.
“In the information at issue, University and UT System attorneys are providing legal counsel, gathering information in order to provide legal counsel, or their clients are seeking legal advice from the attorneys and include the necessary background information so that counsel will be able to render an opinion on a given situation,” UT system attorney Jennifer Burnett wrote in the letter. “From the text of the communications, it is evident that the University and UT System attorneys for were [sic] involved in providing legal counsel to employees of the University.”
Now the attorney general’s office has 10 business days to make a determination on the request.
Gunita Singh, a staff attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told Inside Higher Ed by email that the university “is within its rights to argue that the records are privileged but they need to make a particularized showing that that is the case,” proving the requested documents “pertain to the provision of legal advice” and have been confidential at all times.
Virginia
The University of Virginia has yet to provide documents requested Oct. 22 in what appears to be a pattern of delayed responses, according to others who sought records from the public university in recent months.
UVA’s student newspaper, The Cavalier Daily, reported that it has submitted 25 public records requests to the university, but UVA officials have reportedly not provided records since July 1. Other journalists across the commonwealth have taken to social media to note that they have struggled to get information on athletic staffing and internal communications.
State Senator Creigh Deeds, a Democrat who has represented the Charlottesville area for more than two decades, also struggled to get public records out of the university related to the resignation of former UVA president Jim Ryan, who stepped down in June under federal pressure. Deeds initially reached out to the university Aug. 1 seeking information, which he only obtained after submitting a public records request and paying $4,500 for the documents.
Chris Seaman, a law professor at Washington and Lee University, requested public records related to costs for outside legal counsel on July 2. But Seaman still has not “received a substantive response from UVA regarding my FOIA request,” he told Inside Higher Ed by email. In an August email exchange shared by Seaman, a UVA official noted a delay in processing his request and wrote that “in the last few weeks, our office has received an unusually large volume of requests with limited staff to process them.” They also promised to “expedite handling” of his request, but more than three months later, Seaman said, he is still awaiting those documents.
UVA spokesperson Brian Coy did not address the pattern of delays in a response to Inside Higher Ed, writing that the university “has received this request and is processing it in accordance with Virginia law” and is “preparing an estimate of anticipated costs” for review.
Arizona and Arizona State
Public records requests at Arizona State and the University of Arizona also remain unfulfilled after 30 days.
Arizona State spokesperson Jerry Gonzalez said that he would check on the state of the request but noted that ASU was not invited to sign the compact, and so “there is nothing for the university to accept, reject, or negotiate.” (However, President Michael Crow has said he’s had discussions with Education Secretary Linda McMahon and other officials about higher education issues.)
University of Arizona spokesperson Mitch Zak said that Inside Higher Ed’s public records request “remains in process” and “response time varies.” He noted that factors such as “the specificity of the request, the volume of requests received, and the time required to locate, review, and redact materials subject to disclosure” all shape public records response times.
Arizona law does not specify how long public entities have to hand over documents but instructs that they do so “promptly.” Singh, the RCFP attorney, pointed to past legal cases in which Arizona courts found that 24 business days “satisfied the promptness standard” but that “a delay of 49 days, or 34 working days, did not meet the promptness standard” outlined in state law.
Currently, she said, Arizona and Arizona State are “inching toward noncompliance territory.”
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Nearby ICE Raids Stoke Fear on North Carolina Campuses
North Carolina campus leaders are urging international students and staff to take precautions and promising to protect student privacy amid a surge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in the Raleigh, Durham and Charlotte areas. But some students and employees fear campuses aren’t doing enough to protect them after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security boasted upwards of 250 arrests in and around Charlotte on Wednesday.
North Carolina State University’s executive vice chancellor and provost, Warwick Arden, sent a memo to deans and department heads on Tuesday, offering guidance on how to handle any brushes with federal and state agents in Raleigh.
He stressed that the university follows all federal laws—including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, so administrators shouldn’t release information about students or staff without consulting the Office of General Counsel. He also advised all international students, faculty and staff to “carry evidence of their immigration status with them at all times,” including their passports if they leave the Raleigh area.
“I want to assure you that we are closely monitoring developments that may impact our community,” Arden wrote in the memo.
Duke University administrators sent a similar message to students and staff on Wednesday, recommending that international students and employees carry travel documents “at all times” and promising to safeguard student privacy in accordance with federal law. They also told employees to call Duke police if federal agents requested information or sought to enter nonpublic areas.
Sharon L. Gaber, chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, released a memo on Monday, which was updated Thursday, reminding students and employees of the university’s protocols if they encounter anyone who identifies themselves as federal law enforcement. She urged them to call campus police, who “will work with the Office of Legal Affairs to review and verify any subpoenas or warrants that may be presented.”
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s interim executive vice chancellor and provost, James W. Dean Jr., also put out a message to students and staff on Tuesday, acknowledging “anxiety” caused by the presence of ICE officials and encouraging students and employees “to learn more about their rights and available resources.”
Dean emphasized that the university “complies with all federal and state laws and guidance”; ICE has the right to approach individuals in public spaces, he said, but they need a warrant to access classrooms, offices or dorms.
He also said that while FERPA prevents the university from sharing a student’s class schedule and immigration status, their name, address and phone number are public information unless a student previously told the registrar not to share such details. He directed concerned students to the dean of students for “individual supports and services.”
Fears and Concerns
Nearby raids have heightened fear and anxiety among students.
Rumors have been swirling on social media about U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents and vehicles sighted near North Carolina State and UNC Charlotte, with students and nearby residents alerting each other about unrecognized cars near campus. Ojo Obrero, an ICE activity tracker created by the Latino and immigrant advocacy organization Siembra NC, showed several sightings of CBP agents and vehicles reported within two miles of UNC Charlotte.
“The University has been monitoring available information since Customs and Border Protection arrived in Charlotte and had no confirmed reports of CBP on campus; however, they have been in the area,” Christy Jackson, deputy chief communications officer at UNC Charlotte, said in a statement to Inside Higher Ed.
North Carolina State Police have likewise found “no credible sightings of federal agents on campus” at North Carolina State, Mick Kulikowski, the university’s director of strategic communications and media relations, wrote to Inside Higher Ed.
Despite memos and reassurances, students and staff expressed frustration that campus leaders’ statements didn’t make a stronger commitment to resisting federal immigration enforcement efforts.
A joint statement from the American Association of University Professors chapter at UNC Chapel Hill, UE Local 150 and the student organization transparUNCy slammed their administration’s response as “tepid” and “inadequate to meet the moment of fear and uncertainty.” The groups called on university leaders to “do all in their power to deny CBP access to our community,” because “example after example has shown that CBP is acting above the law.”
Administrators have “instead taken the cowardly approach of saying they’re just going to follow the law,” said Michael Palm, president of the UNC Chapel Hill AAUP chapter. “Everyone that I know who works or studies at UNC understands that we have to protect ourselves, because no one in the administration will help with that.”
Palm said he and other faculty members are allowing fearful students to attend class remotely after some of his colleagues found them “afraid to come to class, afraid to leave home, if they’re on campus, afraid to leave their dorms.”
“There has been a real network effort of mutual care to make sure that those students are not just not punished for missing class or excluded from class but also to make sure that they’re getting food, medicine and other supplies,” he said, “and human contact and support so they don’t feel even more isolated and afraid than they already, understandably, do.”