An auditor said that staffing vacancies at Texas Southern University had contributed to financial mismanagement.
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Texas governor Greg Abbott and lieutenant governor Dan Patrick have ordered an investigation of Texas Southern University, a historically Black institution in Houston, after a state audit found evidence of financial mismanagement and bookkeeping inconsistencies, The Texas Tribune reported. Patrick also said he would look into freezing state funding to the institution.
The audit found 700 invoices, totaling $280 million, linked to contracts that were listed as expired in the institution’s database. Another 800 invoices, worth $160 million, were dated before the purchases were approved, the Tribune reported. TSU was also months late in turning in financial statements for the past two fiscal years.
The auditor attributed the errors to staffing vacancies, poor asset oversight and weak contracting processes.
TSU officials said they had already fixed some of the issues outlined in the audit.
“Texas Southern University has cooperated with the state auditor in evaluating our processes,” officials said in a statement. “The University enacted corrective measures prior to the release of the interim report, including a new procurement system. We look forward to gaining clarity and continuing to work with the state auditor to ensure transparency for all taxpayers of Texas.”
Professor Paul Mazerolle has been appointed vice-chancellor of the University of Southern Queensland. Picture: Newswire
International crime expert Professor Paul Mazerolle has been appointed to lead the University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ), replacing acting vice-chancellor Karen Nelson.
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Four of the nine universities initially asked to sign have rejected the document.
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Jumping Rocks/Universal Images Group/Getty Images | Mario Tama/Getty Images
The Universities of Pennsylvania and Southern California have now refused to sign the Trump administration’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” making them the third and fourth of the nine initial institutions that were presented the deal to publicly turn it down. No institution has agreed to sign so far.
Both announcements came Thursday, a few days before the Oct. 20 deadline to provide feedback on the proposal. Beong-Soo Kim, interim president of the University of Southern California, shared his message to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, which outlined how USC already seems to adhere to the compact.
“Notwithstanding these areas of alignment, we are concerned that even though the Compact would be voluntary, tying research benefits to it would, over time, undermine the same values of free inquiry and academic excellence that the Compact seeks to promote,” Kim wrote. “Other countries whose governments lack America’s commitment to freedom and democracy have shown how academic excellence can suffer when shifting external priorities tilt the research playing field away from free, meritocratic competition.”
Kim added that the compact does raise issues “worthy of a broader national conversation to which USC would be eager to contribute its insights and expertise.”
California governor Gavin Newsom, a possible Democratic presidential contender in 2028, had threatened that any university in his state that signed the compact would “instantly” lose billions of state dollars.
Over at Penn, President J. Larry Jameson wrote in a message to his community Thursday that his university “respectfully declines to sign the proposed Compact.” He added that his university did provide feedback to the department on the proposal.
Penn spokespeople didn’t say Thursday whether the university would sign any possible amended version of the compact that addressed the university’s concerns, nor did they provide Inside Higher Ed a copy of the feedback provided to the Trump administration. (Penn is the only university of the four that didn’t provide its response to McMahon.)
The White House also didn’t provide a copy of Penn’s feedback, but it emailed a statement apparently threatening funding cuts for universities that don’t sign the compact.
“Merit should be the primary criteria for federal grant funding. Yet too many universities have abandoned academic excellence in favor of divisive and destructive efforts such as ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion,’” spokesperson Liz Huston said in the statement. “The Compact for Academic Excellence embraces universities that reform their institutions to elevate common sense once again, ushering a new era of American innovation. Any higher education institution unwilling to assume accountability and confront these overdue and necessary reforms will find itself without future government and taxpayers support.”
Brown University announced it had rejected the compact Wednesday, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology did the same last Friday. Following MIT’s rejection, the Trump administration said the compact was open to all colleges and universities that want to sign it.
The compact is a boilerplate contract asking colleges to voluntarily agree to overhaul or abolish departments “that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas,” without further defining what those terms mean. It also asks universities to, among other things, commit to not considering transgender women to be women, to reject foreign applicants “who demonstrate hostility to the United States, its allies, or its values” and to freeze “effective tuition rates charged to American students for the next five years.”
In exchange for these agreements, the White House has said signatories would “be given [funding] priority when possible as well as invitations to collaborate with the White House.” But the White House hasn’t revealed how much extra funding universities would be eligible for, and the nine-page compact doesn’t detail the potential benefits. The compact, and the Thursday statement from the White House, can also be read as threatening colleges’ current federal funding if they don’t sign. Multiple higher ed organizations have allied in calling on universities to reject the compact.
Jameson said in his statement that “at Penn, we are committed to merit-based achievement and accountability.”
Earlier this year, the Trump administration said that Penn violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 when it allowed a transgender woman to swim on the women’s team in 2022, and officials issued several demands to the university. Penn ultimately conceded to those demands over the summer, a decision that the administration said restored about $175 million in frozen federal funds.
Marc Rowan, a Penn graduate with two degrees from its Wharton School of Business who’s now chief executive officer and board chair for Apollo Global Management, wrote in The New York Times that he “played a part in the compact’s initial formulation, working alongside an administration working group.” Rowan argued that the compact doesn’t threaten free speech or academic freedom.
Apollo has funded the online, for-profit University of Phoenix. AP VIII Queso Holdings LP—the previous name for majority owner of the University of Phoenix—was the successor of Apollo Education Group, which went private in 2017 in a $1.1 billion deal backed by Apollo Global Management Inc. and the Vistria Group.
AP VIII Queso Holdings LP was recently renamed Phoenix Education Partners as part of a new deal to take the company public once again. Phoenix Education Partners, now owner of the University of Phoenix and backed by both Apollo and Vistria, started trading on the stock market last week and was valued at about $1.35 billion after the first day.
Four of the nine universities initially asked to sign have rejected the document.
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Jumping Rocks/Universal Images Group/Getty Images | Mario Tama/Getty Images
The Universities of Pennsylvania and Southern California have now refused to sign the Trump administration’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” making them the third and fourth of the nine initial institutions that were presented the deal to publicly turn it down. No institution has agreed to sign so far.
Both announcements came Thursday, a few days before the Oct. 20 deadline to provide feedback on the proposal. Beong-Soo Kim, interim president of the University of Southern California, shared his message to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, which outlined how USC already seems to adhere to the compact.
“Notwithstanding these areas of alignment, we are concerned that even though the Compact would be voluntary, tying research benefits to it would, over time, undermine the same values of free inquiry and academic excellence that the Compact seeks to promote,” Kim wrote. “Other countries whose governments lack America’s commitment to freedom and democracy have shown how academic excellence can suffer when shifting external priorities tilt the research playing field away from free, meritocratic competition.”
Kim added that the compact does raise issues “worthy of a broader national conversation to which USC would be eager to contribute its insights and expertise.”
California governor Gavin Newsom, a possible Democratic presidential contender in 2028, had threatened that any university in his state that signed the compact would “instantly” lose billions of state dollars.
Over at Penn, President J. Larry Jameson wrote in a message to his community Thursday that his university “respectfully declines to sign the proposed Compact.” He added that his university did provide feedback to the department on the proposal.
Penn spokespeople didn’t say Thursday whether the university would sign any possible amended version of the compact that addressed the university’s concerns, nor did they provide Inside Higher Ed a copy of the feedback provided to the Trump administration. (Penn is the only university of the four that didn’t provide its response to McMahon.)
The White House also didn’t provide a copy of Penn’s feedback, but it emailed a statement apparently threatening funding cuts for universities that don’t sign the compact.
“Merit should be the primary criteria for federal grant funding. Yet too many universities have abandoned academic excellence in favor of divisive and destructive efforts such as ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion,’” spokesperson Liz Huston said in the statement. “The Compact for Academic Excellence embraces universities that reform their institutions to elevate common sense once again, ushering a new era of American innovation. Any higher education institution unwilling to assume accountability and confront these overdue and necessary reforms will find itself without future government and taxpayers support.”
Brown University announced it had rejected the compact Wednesday, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology did the same last Friday. Following MIT’s rejection, the Trump administration said the compact was open to all colleges and universities that want to sign it.
The compact is a boilerplate contract asking colleges to voluntarily agree to overhaul or abolish departments “that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas,” without further defining what those terms mean. It also asks universities to, among other things, commit to not considering transgender women to be women, to reject foreign applicants “who demonstrate hostility to the United States, its allies, or its values” and to freeze “effective tuition rates charged to American students for the next five years.”
In exchange for these agreements, the White House has said signatories would “be given [funding] priority when possible as well as invitations to collaborate with the White House.” But the White House hasn’t revealed how much extra funding universities would be eligible for, and the nine-page compact doesn’t detail the potential benefits. The compact, and the Thursday statement from the White House, can also be read as threatening colleges’ current federal funding if they don’t sign. Multiple higher ed organizations have allied in calling on universities to reject the compact.
Jameson said in his statement that “at Penn, we are committed to merit-based achievement and accountability.”
Earlier this year, the Trump administration said that Penn violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 when it allowed a transgender woman to swim on the women’s team in 2022, and officials issued several demands to the university. Penn ultimately conceded to those demands over the summer, a decision that the administration said restored about $175 million in frozen federal funds.
Marc Rowan, a Penn graduate with two degrees from its Wharton School of Business who’s now chief executive officer and board chair for Apollo Global Management, wrote in The New York Times that he “played a part in the compact’s initial formulation, working alongside an administration working group.” Rowan argued that the compact doesn’t threaten free speech or academic freedom.
Apollo has funded the online, for-profit University of Phoenix. AP VIII Queso Holdings LP—the previous name for majority owner of the University of Phoenix—was the successor of Apollo Education Group, which went private in 2017 in a $1.1 billion deal backed by Apollo Global Management Inc. and the Vistria Group.
AP VIII Queso Holdings LP was recently renamed Phoenix Education Partners as part of a new deal to take the company public once again. Phoenix Education Partners, now owner of the University of Phoenix and backed by both Apollo and Vistria, started trading on the stock market last week and was valued at about $1.35 billion after the first day.
T Caleb Jayden Wilson he parents of Caleb Jayden Wilson have filed a comprehensive civil lawsuit seeking accountability from multiple parties they allege are responsible for their son’s death following a fraternity hazing incident at Southern University.
Urania Brown Wilson and Corey Wilson, Sr., filed the wrongful death and survival damages petition Friday in the 19th Judicial District Court in East Baton Rouge Parish, seven months after losing their 20-year-old son. The junior mechanical engineering student and member of Southern’s renowned “Human Jukebox” marching band died in February following what authorities describe as a brutal hazing ritual.
The lawsuit casts a wide net of accountability, naming as defendants Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc., its local Beta Sigma and Lambda Alpha chapters, the State of Louisiana through the Board of Supervisors of Southern University and A&M College, and 12 individual fraternity members.
Among the individual defendants are Caleb M. McCray, Kyle M. Thurman, and Isaiah E. Smith—all previously arrested by Baton Rouge police in connection with Wilson’s death. McCray faces the most serious charges, including manslaughter and felony criminal hazing.
The petition alleges multiple levels of negligence, from gross misconduct by individuals to institutional failures by the university and fraternity organizations. According to the filing, Wilson died as a direct result of being repeatedly punched in the chest during an unsanctioned, off-campus ritual at a local warehouse on February 27.
The lawsuit particularly criticizes the response following Wilson’s collapse, alleging that fraternity members delayed calling emergency services and instead transported him to a local hospital where they provided false information about his injuries before abandoning him.
Following an internal investigation that found the Beta Sigma chapter violated the student code of conduct, Southern University expelled the chapter and implemented a temporary moratorium on new member intake activities for all Greek organizations.
The civil action seeks to leverage Louisiana’s strengthened anti-hazing laws, including the Max Gruver Act, which criminalized certain forms of hazing following another high-profile fraternity death. The legislation was named after Louisiana State University student Maxwell Gruver, who died in a 2017 fraternity hazing incident.
The case highlights ongoing concerns about hazing culture in higher education and the challenges institutions face in monitoring and preventing dangerous initiation practices, particularly those occurring off-campus and outside official oversight.
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Dive Brief:
Southern Oregon Universitywill eliminate 10 bachelor’s degrees, 12 minors and one graduate program in the face of long-term structural budget deficits after a vote by the institution’s board.
The public university will also lay off 18 employees and cut roughly three dozen other jobs through retirements, the elimination of vacant positions and other methods. SOU will shift 17 jobs off its payroll by funding them through alternative sources, such as the SOU Foundation, a nonprofit affiliated with the university.
The cuts are intended to stabilize SOU following years “marked by unprecedented fiscal crises,” according to the plan approved by trustees last week in a 7-2 vote.
Dive Insight:
SOU has faced a quartet of problems plaguing other higher education institutions — declining enrollment, flat state funding, rising costs and a shifting federal policy landscape.
The university’s full-time equivalent enrollment fell almost 22% from 4,108 students in 2015 to 3,209 in 2024, according to state data.
“It is also highly likely that the federal government’s intent to dismantle support systems for low-income students also will have a devastating impact,” the plan noted.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration sought to reduce funding to certain need-based student aid programs and eliminate others altogether, such as theFederal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant program. Since then, both chambers of Congress have rejected some of those overtures in their own budget proposals for fiscal year 2026, though House lawmakers likewise pitched eliminating FSEOG.
At the state level, Oregon’s fiscal 2025-27 budget raised funding for its public universities slightly. But SOU argued that the bump fails to cover increasing costs outside of its control, such as retirement and medical benefits.
In June, SOU’s board of trustees directed the university to find $5 million in savings by the end of fiscal 2026.
In response, University President Rick Bailey planned more significant cuts to set SOU up for longer-term stability. He declared financial exigency at the beginning of August, paving the way for a dramatic restructuring at the institution.
The plan pitched to SOU’s board Friday will cut more than $10 million from the university’s annual educational and general budget over the next four years, bringing it down to approximately $60 million total.
Academically, the proposal will sunset “low-enrolled or less regionally relevant programs” to focuson “what SOU does best for the majority of students,” it said.
Following the reduction, the university will offer a total of 30 majors and 19 minors meant to lead students toward interdisciplinary programs “aligned with regional workforce demands.”
“SOU is no longer a comprehensive university,” the plan said. “We cannot continue to provide all the programs and supports as we have in the past.”
Bachelor’s degrees slated for elimination include international studies, chemistry, Spanish and multiple mathematics programs. It will also cut a graduate leadership degree focused on outdoor expeditions.
Some programs originally considered for elimination — such as creative writing and economics — will go on with restructured curricula and face additional review in coming years.
The plan will also restructure SOU’s honors college and eliminate direct funding for its annual creativity conference.
During Friday’s meeting, board member Debra Fee Jing Lee supported the cuts, arguing SOU‘s strength moving forward will be based on its ability “to be lean and agile and entrepreneurial.”
Board member Elizabeth Shelby similarly voted for the proposal.
“It’s incumbent upon us to plan as we must for the next several years, even if that requires additional cuts,” she said.
But Hala Schepmann, a board member and chair of SOU’s chemistry and physics department, opposed the plan, calling it “the nuclear option.”
“Do we need to make immediate cuts? Yes,” she said. “But taking away key foundational components of our institution will make it harder for us to make progress.”
Schepmann also took issue with deciding on the plan amid “significant fluctuations” in the university’s projected budget.
This summer, SOU lowered projections for its expected revenue by $1.9 million after an internal analysis found “a multi-decade issue”of double-counting some online education tuition revenue.
The workforce reduction comes just two years after SOUeliminated nearly 82 full-time positions through a combination of layoffs, unfilled vacancies, voluntary reductions and retirements.
That wave of cuts left the remaining employees “feeling as though they were asked to do more with less,” according to the proposal.It argued that the new round of cuts will address this issue by paring down programs in tandem with shrinking the workforce.
Southern University’s Department of Mass Communication will begin operating its own radio station, WSUB 106.1 LPFM “The Bluff,” following a cooperative agreement with the Louisiana Community Development Capital Fund.
The low-powered FM station will be operated entirely by the Department of Mass Communication, with faculty, staff and students leading daily programming and operations. WSUB replaces WTQT, a long-running 24-hour gospel station that previously broadcast on the frequency.
“The Department of Mass Communication is so proud to lead the way in operating the university’s FCC regulated radio station,” said Dr. Yolanda Campbell, interim chair of the Department of Mass Communication. “I’m especially excited to see our students demonstrate how this hands-on training will prepare them for their careers in the industry.”
The station will serve as a practical training facility for students pursuing careers in radio, podcasting and audio production. Programming will reflect Southern University’s community spirit by promoting cultural awareness, supporting local talent and delivering educational content.
WSUB’s musical format will blend gospel, hip-hop, R&B and pop music. The 24-hour station aims to help students strengthen their broadcasting skills, engage audiences and prepare for media industry careers.
Campbell will serve as station manager. Nicolette Gordon, a Southern University alumna and experienced radio professional, has been named operations manager. Jammin Jacque Griffin, longtime program director at WTQT, will continue in the same role at WSUB.
“Radio has always been about community, and there’s no one more prepared than Southern to seize this amazing opportunity to be a voice for the Baton Rouge community in music and content creation,” Campbell said.
Louisiana Governor Jeff LandryLouisiana Governor Jeff Landry announced that his state will join six other Southern university systems in creating an alternative accrediting body, marking a significant departure from established higher education standards. Through an executive order, Louisiana becomes the seventh state to participate in the Commission for Public Higher Education, which launched in June with university systems from Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
The new commission is currently seeking expedited approval from the U.S. Department of Education to serve as an official accreditor responsible for maintaining quality standards at colleges and universities. This development represents a direct challenge to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, the traditional accrediting body that currently evaluates institutions across Louisiana and ten other Southern states including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
The formation of this alternative accrediting body stems from growing tensions between conservative politicians and established accreditors. These conflicts have centered on traditional accreditors’ standards related to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, as well as their requirements for safeguards designed to limit external political influence in public higher education governance.
Landry’s executive order establishes a Task Force on Public Higher Education Reform charged with developing recommendations for implementing the new commission. The task force will specifically focus on creating a pilot program for dual accreditation, allowing Louisiana schools to maintain authorization from both the new commission and the Southern Association simultaneously.
The governor highlighted the ideological motivations behind the move in his announcement.
“This task force will ensure Louisiana’s public universities move away from DEI-driven mandates and toward a system rooted in merit-based achievement,” Landry said.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who helped launch the original commission, articulated similar sentiments when announcing the new accreditor in June.
“[The Commission for Public Higher Education] will upend the monopoly of the woke accreditation cartels, and it will provide institutions with an alternative that focuses on student achievement, rather than the ideological fads that have so permeated those accrediting bodies over the years,” DeSantis declared.
The practical implementation of this new accrediting system faces a significant hurdle, as U.S. Department of Education approval is mandatory before any institution accredited solely by the new commission can receive federal financial aid. This requirement could potentially affect students’ access to federal funding programs if the transition is not handled carefully.
The composition of Louisiana’s new task force reflects the governor’s significant influence over the state’s higher education leadership structure. With the exception of Commissioner of Higher Education Kim Hunter Reed, every task force member has been directly appointed by Landry or his conservative legislative allies. The task force includes Board of Regents Chairwoman Misti Cordell, University of Louisiana System Board Chairman Mark Romero, LSU System Board Chairman Scott Ballard, Southern University System Board Chairman Tony Clayton, Louisiana Community and Technical College Systems Chairman Tim Hardy, Senate Education Committee Chairman Sen. Rick Edmonds, and House Education Committee Chairwoman Rep. Laurie Schlegel.
Additionally, Landry has appointed his executive counsel Angelique Freel and Commissioner of Administration Taylor Barras to the task force, with the option for them to send designees in their place. The governor retains the authority to select three additional task force members, further consolidating his influence over the group’s composition and direction.
This level of gubernatorial control over higher education governance represents a recent shift in Louisiana’s political landscape. Last year, Landry successfully advocated for legislative changes that granted him direct appointment power over the chairs of the state’s five higher education boards, positions that were previously elected from within the boards’ memberships. An earlier version of this legislation would have extended Landry’s authority to include direct hiring of university system presidents, but this provision was ultimately removed due to concerns that such concentration of political power could jeopardize existing accreditation status.
The task force operates under a compressed timeline that reflects the urgency Landry places on this initiative. The group must convene its inaugural meeting no later than August 31 and maintain a regular schedule with meetings occurring at least once every two months. The task force faces a deadline of January 30, 2026, to submit its comprehensive recommendations for implementing the new accrediting system in Louisiana.
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Dive Brief:
The University of Southern California plans to use layoffs and other budget austerity measures to tackle a $200 million operating deficit and gird against a massive blow to federal funding, Interim President Beong-Soo Kim said in a community message on Monday.
On top of USC’s growing budget shortfall, which ballooned from $158 million in fiscal year 2024, officials are now grappling with federal headwinds affecting the outlook for research support, student financial aid and international enrollment, Kim said.
Lower federal research funding could cost the highly selective private university $300 million — or more — each year, Kim said. “To deal decisively with our financial challenges, we need to transform our operating model, and that will require layoffs,” he said.
Dive Insight:
Kim pointed out that USC isn’t alone in making painful budget decisions — but said that didn’t make the news any easier to hear. Indeed, many other well-known research universities have also been tightening their budgets and signaling layoffs amid the Trump administration’s widespread federal grant terminations.
That includes Stanford University, a fellow California college, and Brown University, in Rhode Island, which have both signaled potential staff reductions as they contend with federal funding shifts. Boston University, another private nonprofit, recently cut 120 employees and eliminated an equal number of vacant positions to deal with those challenges.
Kim did not disclose how many employees the university plans to lay off, and a USC spokesperson did not provide more details in response to questions Tuesday. But Kim said in his message to faculty and staff that USC has also taken other measures to shore up its budget.
The university will forego merit raises for the 2026 fiscal year, has ended certain services from third parties, and tightened discretionary and travel spending. It’s also planning to sell unused properties, streamline operations and adjust pay for the most highly compensated employees.
Kim, however, said it wasn’t feasible to bank on increased tuition revenue, drawing down more on the university’s endowment or taking out additional debt.
“Each of these ‘solutions’ would simply shift our problem onto the backs of future generations of Trojans,” Kim said, referring to the university’s mascot and student body nickname.
He also noted that the university could not likely count on federal funding returning to prior norms. “While we will continue to advocate for the vital importance of research and our academic mission, we cannot rely on the hope that federal support will revert to historical levels,” he said.
Kim’s message comes just two weeks into his tenure as the college’s interim leader, making it one of his first acts.
USC depends heavily on federal research funding. In fiscal 2024, the university received $569 million for federally funded research, according to a recent FAQ posted to its website. Overall, the university brought in nearly $7.5 billion in operating revenue that year and had $7.6 billion in operating expenses.
Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), long hailed as a leader in online education and a symbol of institutional reinvention, laid off approximately 60 employees on June 27, 2025. The move came without warning to staff, according to an anonymous source close to the situation.
Employees reportedly received a generic email from Lisa Marsh Ryerson, SNHU’s newly installed president, delivering the news of their termination. There was no video call, no face-to-face meeting, and no meaningful explanation beyond the cold language of corporate HR.
“There was no sincerity,” the source said. “No real communication. Just a robotic email. No opportunity for questions, no acknowledgment of people’s service.”
The layoffs have sent shockwaves through the university’s workforce—many of whom had believed that SNHU’s image as a student-centered and employee-friendly institution translated into job security. That assumption, it appears, was misplaced.
SNHU, which once garnered praise from the Obama administration for its innovative online learning model, has undergone significant changes in recent years. Under the leadership of former president Paul LeBlanc, the university expanded its online programs rapidly and became one of the largest nonprofit providers of online degrees in the United States. But as the market for online education becomes increasingly competitive and enrollment pressures mount across the country, even big players like SNHU appear to be tightening their belts.
What’s striking about this latest round of cuts is not just the numbers—but the tone. At a university that prides itself on personalization and student engagement, employees describe the layoff process as abrupt, impersonal, and dehumanizing.
“They preach empathy to students,” the source noted. “But when it came to their own staff, there was none.”
It’s unclear which departments or roles were affected. SNHU has yet to issue a public statement, and no mention of the layoffs could be found on the university’s website or social media accounts at the time of publication.
The layoffs at SNHU follow broader trends in the higher education sector, where institutions—both public and private—are increasingly resorting to staff reductions amid enrollment declines, demographic shifts, and uncertain funding landscapes. But even in this context, the lack of transparency and empathy stands out.
The Higher Education Inquirer will continue to monitor developments at Southern New Hampshire University and invites current and former employees to share their experiences confidentially.
