Nearly 60 percent of all college students in the U.S. experience at least one form of basic needs insecurity, lacking stable housing and/or consistent access to food, according to national surveys.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Congress passed in July, creates sweeping changes to higher education—including a new tax rate for university endowments and accountability metrics for student income levels after graduation. It also directly impacts college students, threatening their access to food assistance programs and their ability to pay for college, which experts warn could hamper their persistence and completion.
Policy and higher education leaders convened during an Oct. 28 webinar hosted by the Hope Center for Student Basic Needs at Temple University to discuss how the new legislation threatens student financial wellness and success.
“We are very, very worried that student basic needs insecurity will be increasing dramatically over the next few years,” said Bryce McKibben, senior director of policy and advocacy at the Hope Center.
For current students, experts outlined three major shifts in federal financial supports.
1.Cuts to SNAP Funding
OBBBA includes $186 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides support obtaining food for nearly three million young adults, according to U.S. Census data. The bill places more requirements on SNAP recipients; at present, all funding for SNAP is at risk due to the government shutdown. Some states expect to run out of SNAP dollars as early as Nov. 1.
“[SNAP] is our first line of defense against hunger. It reduces health care–related issues and it bolsters local economies,” said Gina Plata-Nino, interim director of the SNAP, Food Research & Action Center. “It also provides jobs; it provides federal income taxes. And all of this is going to be threatened.”
Under the bill, all adults ages 18 to 64 must demonstrate they work at least 20 hours per week to be eligible for SNAP, Plata-Nino said.
Approximately one in four college students experience food insecurity. SNAP resources are largely underutilized by college students, in part because of complicated enrollment processes. Instead, many rely on campus pantries, which are mostly privately funded by individual donors or campus budgets. Plato-Nino anticipates the changes to SNAP will impact funding and capacity for higher education institutions to provide resources, “because now they have to focus on these issues,” she said.
The federal cuts could cause further damage to an already fragile system.
“We have a threadbare social safety net that really hits students when they can least afford to meet what are pretty acute and deep costs as they’re trying to get through their degree program,” said Mark Huelsman, director of policy and advocacy at the Hope Center.
Many colleges and universities expanded emergency grant funding for students during the COVID-19 pandemic to address sudden expenses that could threaten a student’s ability to remain enrolled. While supplemental funding can help ease this gap, it’s not sufficient, Huelsman said.
“Campuses don’t often have the resources to help students meet what can be an acute financial emergency,” Huelsman said.
An August 2025 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab found that 64 percent of respondents said they didn’t know whether their college provides emergency financial aid, and an additional 4 percent indicated that resource was not available at their institution. Only 12 percent of respondents said they knew how to apply for emergency aid at their college.
2.Changes to Pell Grants
The reconciliation bill also includes a variety of changes to student eligibility for the federal Pell Grant program, which provides financial aid to low-income students.
Over one-third of Student Voice respondents indicated paying for college was a top source of stress while enrolled, second only to balancing family, academic, work and personal responsibilities.
For the academic year 2026–27, those with a student aid index (SAI) over $14,790, as identified by the FAFSA, are no longer eligible for Pell Grants. Similarly, students who receive scholarships that meet the full cost of attendance (including books, housing, food, tuition and fees) are not eligible for Pell, regardless of their SAI.
“We anticipate that this will affect a very small number of students,” said Jessica Thompson, senior vice president at the Institute for College Access and Success. “But this remains to be seen how this takes effect and what it looks like on the ground.”
3.Limits on Graduate and Parent Borrowing
OBBBA caps loans on professional degree programs (which include medical, law, veterinary and dentistry programs, among others) at $200,000, and other graduate programs at $100,000. It also eliminates Grad PLUS loans, which are unsubsidized federal loans with no borrowing limits. Students currently enrolled can borrow from Grad PLUS for three academic years or the remainder of their credential program, whichever is shorter.
While these limits can be beneficial for keeping student borrowing down, there may be unintended consequences regarding who can access the programs, Thompson said. For example, students who enroll at historically Black colleges and universities or minority-serving institutions are more likely to utilize Parent PLUS loans to pay for college.
“This has been a really big lifeline for accessing credit in order to cover college costs for people’s children, and there will be a disproportionate impact on these new caps on those types of institutions,” Thompson said.
Thompson also noted that a lack of federal loan opportunities for graduate and professional students may cause a rise in private loan borrowing, which often has higher interest rates and fewer protections for borrowers.
“We want to keep a really close eye on what it means for the availability of programs in general … but also access and looking at increasingly less diverse pipelines in terms of historically marginalized populations being able to access graduate and professional programs,” Thompson said.
Similar to SNAP cuts, Thompson anticipates the loan caps will add significant financial pressure on colleges and universities due to loss of revenue and enrollment.
The nine universities that were sent the Trump administration’s new deal for higher ed are under increasing pressure to reject the compact.
Multiple major associations representing institutions and faculty have urged them not to sign it. California governor Gavin Newsom has said the University of Southern California and any other university in his state that signs will “instantly” lose billions of state dollars. Faculty groups at the University of Virginia, another institution presented with the compact, overwhelmingly urged university leaders to reject it. A group of progressive student and higher ed worker organizations is circulating a petition that calls on university presidents and boards to “reject the Trump administration’s attempt to cajole universities into compliance through explicit bribery.”
So far, the universities at the center of the fight are remaining mostly mum, saying they’ll review the proposal. Some leaders are hinting they have reservations about signing. But other higher ed leaders and observers say that beyond what those institutions do, the nine-page document represents another escalation in the White House’s precedent-shattering crusade to overhaul postsecondary ed—one that could restrict freedoms at colleges across the nation. They expect the compact will likely serve as a blueprint for the administration’s dealings with other colleges.
“It’s making it really clear that the dominoes are being set up … they’re going to expand this to the rest of higher ed,” said Amy Reid, interim director of PEN America’s Freedom to Learn program.
A White House official told Inside Higher Ed in an email that “other schools have affirmatively reached out and may be given the opportunity to be part of the initial tranche.” The New York Times cited May Mailman, a White House adviser, as saying the compact could be extended to all institutions.
The administration has dangled the compact before universities with promises of extra benefits it hasn’t revealed. It’s an evolution in the White House’s quest to upend higher ed using the blunt instrument of federal funding access. The federal government earlier slashed billions of dollars from Harvard and Columbia Universities and other selective institutions to pressure them to change their internal policies and practices.
But now, the administration has written 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 and to reject foreign applicants “who demonstrate hostility to the United States, its allies, or its values.”
In addition to a murky promise of additional money, the compact can be read as threatening colleges’ current federal funding. Higher ed groups say those that sign are taking a big gamble. The compact says failure to adhere to the terms of the agreement, which are vague, can lead to a loss of all federal funding. But it’s also unclear whether the universities have the freedom to refuse. A line at the end of the compact’s introduction says, “Institutions of higher education are free to develop models and values other than those below, if the institution elects to forego [sic] federal benefits.”
The nine institutions sent the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education aren’t necessarily being asked to sign it. The letter sent to the University of Virginia requested “limited, targeted feedback” on the compact by Oct. 20—before the White House sends invitations to finalize language and sign to universities showing “a strong readiness to champion this effort.”
Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, said many campus leaders worry that, if any institutions do sign the compact, it will start a ripple effect in which other university leaders feel pressured to sign so they don’t lose out on funding.
Joy Connolly—president of the American Council of Learned Societies, a federation of 81 groups including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Historical Association—added that with this compact, the White House “is using nine months of intimidation tests to take its divide-and-conquer strategy to the next level.”
“If one by one institutions give in and sign, hoping to mitigate the damage later, it will set a truly problematic precedent,” Connolly said. “Some of the most powerful and wealthy institutions on the planet will have agreed to subject their faculty and research and teaching to state approval, and academia will be visibly divided into an insider group and an outsider group.”
Unclear Carrots, Clearer Sticks
According to the letter to UVA—signed by Mailman, Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Vincent Haley, director of the White House’s Domestic Policy Council—universities that sign will reap “multiple positive benefits … including allowance for increased overhead payments where feasible, substantial and meaningful federal grants, and other federal partnerships.” The White House didn’t provide Inside Higher Ed further information on how much extra money signatories would be able to receive.
The compact itself makes no mention about the potential financial benefits of signing.
For this unclear gain, a signatory university would risk all of their federal funding: The compact says “all monies advanced by the U.S. government during the year of any violation shall be returned to the U.S. government.”
Asked to clarify whether a university that refuses to sign could lose all federal funding, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson replied in an email simply that “the Administration does not plan to limit federal funding to schools that sign the compact.”
Jackson said universities that do sign “would be given [funding] priority when possible as well as invitations to collaborate with the White House. This is an opportunity for collaboration that all institutions of learning should be excited about.” The White House didn’t grant Inside Higher Ed an interview or answer written requests for more information about the compact’s benefits and how some of its requirements should be interpreted.
Pasquerella, of AAC&U, said the compact is “meant to be vague as a way of fomenting confusion.”
“Part of the strategy, I believe, of this administration is to engage in overly broad, overly vague language that is confusing so it’s not clear when institutions are complying,” Pasquerella said—a form of jawboning that pressures universities to overcomply. She said the compact’s promise of federal funds for signatories and apparent threat of cuts for those who refuse is “not a real choice.”
“It is the continued weaponization of federal funding,” she said. The compact isn’t “reforming higher education but dismantling it and replacing it with institutions that have a conservative ideology.” It disadvantages those institutions that are unwilling to relinquish their academic freedom and other freedoms, such as transgender people’s rights, she said.
Jon Fansmith, senior vice president for government relations at the American Council on Education, expressed concern that institutions that don’t sign could face the same “harassment” Harvard has suffered for refusing the administration’s earlier demands on that university. The administration cut off Harvard’s access to billions of dollars in research funding, placed it on heightened cash monitoring and tried to prevent it from enrolling international students, among other efforts in a growing pressure campaign against the institution.
“Now they’re essentially saying we’re going to create two classes of institutions,” Fansmith said: those “swearing fealty to the administration” and getting extra benefits, and those that are punished.
“That’s a massive step in the wrong direction in the history of American higher education,” he said. He said prioritizing less merit-worthy candidates for federal funding just because they signed the compact is “harmful to the goal of getting the best science performed on behalf of the American people.”
Standing Up
Fansmith noted the compact’s ideas aren’t necessarily new for the administration, but they would add up to “very specific intrusions into institutional policies.” For instance, the compact would mandate that all “undergraduate applicants take a widely-used standardized test … or program-specific measures of accomplishment.” Signatories must also agree that no more than 15 percent of their undergraduates be in the “Student Visa Exchange Program [sic], and no more than 5 percent shall be from any one country.” (The Student and Exchange Visitor Program, not the Student Visa Exchange Program, collects information on international students.)
Reid, of PEN America, said, “The administration has gone from picking off individual schools to selecting a group—a group of well-respected universities, but that for different reasons are seen as perhaps likely to comply—and putting everyone on notice that this is coming for everyone.”
Some of the nine institutions, however, have hinted at reservations about signing. On Friday, Dartmouth College president Sian Leah Beilock noted in a statement that “you have often heard me say that higher education is not perfect and that we can do better. At the same time, we will never compromise our academic freedom and our ability to govern ourselves.”
On Sunday, University of Pennsylvania president J. Larry Jameson said Penn’s “long-standing partnership with the federal government in both education and research has yielded tremendous benefits for our nation,” but also that “Penn seeks no special consideration.” On Monday evening, University of Virginia Board of Visitors chair Rachel Sheridan and interim president Paul Mahoney wrote in a message to the campus community that “it would be difficult for the University to agree to certain provisions in the Compact.”
Reid told Inside Higher Ed that “for those of us who are not at those nine targeted institutions, the question is how do we all respond in a way that bolsters the resolve of any institution to stand up.”
“It is wrong to call this a compact, because there’s nothing mutual about it,” Reid said. “It is a one-sided coercive proposition that has a bow of commonality stuck onto it that it doesn’t deserve. We need to call this what it is, which is an attempt to extort universities, to shut down free expression on campuses, to impose ideological restrictions under another name.”
A law firm representing anti–wind energy groups is demanding that Brown University researchers retract findings linking those groups to the fossil fuel industry, The New York Times reported Monday.
The move comes weeks after Brown reached an agreement with the Trump administration. The government restored $510 million in frozen federal research grants after the university agreed to certain demands, including adopting the Trump administration’s definitions of male and female and turning over admissions data.
The Trump administration has halted or canceled thousands of other research grants across the country, including many focused on climate change.
Marzulla Law LLC characterized the research published by Brown’s Climate and Development Lab as “false and injurious” in an Aug. 11 letter to Brown’s general counsel. It threatened to file complaints with Brown’s public and private funders, including the Energy Department, the National Science Foundation and the Mellon Foundation.
A university spokesperson did not comment specifically on the law firm’s demands but told the Times that it’s committed to maintaining academic freedom.
Brown researchers who authored a case study about Marzulla Law have written that the firm has “a history of advancing anti-environmental lawsuits and significant ties with the fossil fuel industry.” Researchers have also published findings accusing one of the firm’s clients—the nonprofit Green Oceans, which is trying to shut down the construction of a nearly complete $4 billion wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island—of being part of “a fossil-fuel-funded disinformation network.”
On Friday, the Trump administration, which opposes the wind energy industry, halted the wind farm project without citing specific reasons.
Paulina Cossette spent six years getting a doctoral degree with the goal of becoming a university professor. But it wasn’t long before she gave up on that path.
With higher education under political assault, and opportunities as well as job security diminished by enrollment declines, Cossette felt burnt out and disillusioned. So she quit her hard-won job as an assistant professor of American government at a small private college in Maryland and used the skills she’d learned to go into business for herself as a freelance copy editor.
Now Cossette is hearing from other newly minted Ph.D.s and tenured faculty who want out — so many, she’s expanded her business to help them leave academia, as she did.
Seemingly relentless attacks and funding cuts since the start of Donald Trump’s second presidential term have been “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Cossette, who left higher education on the eve of the pandemic, in 2019. “I’m hearing from a lot more people that it’s too much.”
An exodus appears to be under way of Ph.D.s and faculty generally, who are leaving academia in the face of political, financial and enrollment crises. It’s a trend federal data and other sources show began even before Trump returned to the White House.
Nearly 70 percent of people receiving doctorates were already leaving higher education for industry, government and other sectors, not including those without job offers or who opted to continue their studies, according to the most recent available figures from the National Science Foundation — up from fewer than 50 percent decades ago.
As for faculty, more than a third of provosts reported higher-than-usual turnover last year, in a survey by Hanover Research and the industry publication Inside Higher Ed. That was before the turmoil of this late winter and spring.
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“People who can get out will get out,” said L. Maren Wood, director and CEO of the Center for Graduate Career Success, which works with doctoral and other graduate students at 69 colleges and universities to provide career help.
If the spree of general job-switching that followed Covid was dubbed “the Great Resignation,” Wood said, what she’s seeing now in higher education is “the Great Defection.”
Getting a Ph.D. is a traditional pipeline to an academic career. Now some of the brightest candidates — who have spent years doing cutting-edge research in their fields to prepare for faculty jobs — are leaving higher education or signing on with universities abroad, Wood said.
“It’s going to affect the quality of a student’s experience if they don’t get to study with those leading minds, who are going into private industry or to other countries,” she said.
“What’s the joke about those who can’t do, teach? You don’t want to be in a situation where the only people left in your classrooms are the ones who can’t do anything else.”
Parents sending children to college in the fall should know that they’ll be taking classes “with a faculty member who is worried about his or her research funding and who doesn’t have the help of graduate student teaching assistants. And that’s really going to impact the quality of your student’s experience,” said Julia Kent, a vice president at the Council of Graduate Schools, who conducts research about Ph.D. career pathways.
“The quality of undergraduate education is at stake here,” Kent said.
Even Ph.D.s who want to work in academia are being thwarted.
During the Great Recession and the pandemic — two recent periods when there were few available faculty jobs — doctoral candidates could continue their studies until things got better, Wood said. This time, the Trump administration’s cuts to research funding have stripped many of that option.
“This is way worse” than those earlier crises, she said. “Doctoral students are in panic mode.”
The same deep federal cuts mean doctoral candidates in science, technology, engineering, math and other fields can’t complete the research they need to be eligible for what few academic jobs do become available.
“You’re basically knee-capping that younger generation, which undermines the intergenerational dynamism that takes place in higher education. And that trickles down into the classroom,” said Isaac Kamola, an associate professor of political science at Trinity College and head of the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom at the American Association of University Professors, or AAUP.
Doctoral candidates early in their programs are questioning whether they should stay, said Wood. That could reduce the supply of future faculty. So will the fact that some universities have reduced the number of new Ph.D. candidates they will accept or have rescinded admission offers, citing federal budget cuts. Fewer prospective candidates are likely to apply, said Timothy Burke, a professor of history at Swarthmore College who has written about this topic.
“Our graduating students right now are thinking differently about what it means to start a doctorate,” Burke said.
Meanwhile, he said, “all the things that were dismaying to many faculty of long standing just feel worse. People who would have been totally content to stay put, whose prospects were good, who had good positions, who were more or less happy — now they’re thinking hard about whether there’s a future in this.”
That means undergraduates could experience fewer available classroom professors and teaching and graduate assistants or the “only tenuous presence of faculty who are thinking hard about going somewhere else,” he said. “There are going to be programs that are going to be shut. There are going to be departments running on fumes.”
The route to a university faculty job has always been hard. Finishing a doctoral degree takes a median of nearly six years, according to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences — nearly seven in the arts and humanities.
Doctoral students who manage to finish their programs have always had to fight for faculty positions, even before institutions announced cutbacks and hiring freezes.
Universities enroll far more doctoral candidates, to provide cheap labor as teaching and research assistants, than they will ever hire. The number of doctoral degrees awarded rose from 163,827 in 2010 to an estimated 207,000 this year, the National Center for Education Statistics says — a 26 percent increase, during a period in which the number of full-time faculty positions went up at less than half that rate.
With colleges and universities under stress, still more doctoral candidates now face the prospect of spending years “training for a career that isn’t actually available,” said Ashley Ruba, a Ph.D. who left higher education to work at Meta, where she builds virtual reality systems.
“If you told someone going to law school that they couldn’t get a job as a lawyer, I don’t think they’d do it,” said Ruba, who is also the founder of a career-coaching service for fellow Ph.D.s called After Academia.
People already in faculty jobs appear equally on edge. More than 1 in 3 said in a recent survey that they have less academic freedom than in the past; half said they worry about online harassment.And faculty salaries have been stagnant. Pay declined for the three years starting with the pandemic, when adjusted for inflation, the AAUP reports, and has still not recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
People with Ph.D.s can earn more outside academia — an average of 37 percent more, one study found. Employers value skills including active learning, critical thinking, problem-solving and resilience, which is “everything you learn in a doctoral program,” Ruba said.
The proportion of faculty considering leaving their jobs who are looking for work outside of academia has spiked. Before the pandemic, it was between 1 and 8 percent each year. Since then, it has been between 11 and 16 percent, according to R. Todd Benson, executive director and principal investigator at the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, or COACHE. The figure comes from surveys conducted at 54 major universities and colleges.
A Facebook group of dissatisfied academics, called The Professor Is Out, has swelled to nearly 35,000 members. It was started by Karen Kelsky, a former anthropology professor who previously helped people get jobs in academia and now coaches them on how to leave it.
“It’s difficult to overcome the stereotype of a university professor, which is that they’re coddled, they’re overprivileged, they’re arrogant and just enjoying total job security that nobody else has,” said Kelsky, who also wrote “The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your Ph.D. Into a Job,” a second edition of which is due out this fall.
Today, “they are overworked. They’re grossly underpaid. They are being called the enemy. And they’re bailing on academia,” she said.
“Every time I talk to a tenured professor, they tell me how miserable they are and how desperate they are to get out,” said Kelsky. “And there’s no way this isn’t having real-life, tangible impacts on the quality of education students are getting.”
Contact writer Jon Marcus at 212-678-7556, [email protected]orjpm.82 on Signal.
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As the 2026 midterm elections approach, efforts to manipulate congressional district boundaries—under the guise of redistricting—pose a serious threat to representative democracy in the United States. These efforts are not simply a matter of partisan politics; they represent a calculated attack on the principle of one person, one vote, and on the fragile trust working Americans place in democratic institutions.
Across multiple states, redistricting maps are being drawn to favor incumbents and dominant political parties, most often through a practice known as gerrymandering. While both major parties have been guilty of gerrymandering, the recent wave of redistricting efforts has intensified in key battleground states, particularly following the 2020 Census and court rulings that rolled back federal oversight.
Some of the most blatant manipulations are unfolding in Southern and Midwestern states, where legislatures have redrawn districts to dilute the voting power of Black, Latino, and low-income communities. In states like Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Ohio, courts have intervened—only to be ignored, delayed, or overruled by higher courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. The result: districts that favor white conservative voters while silencing diverse urban and working-class voices.
These distortions in representation aren’t merely political—they have real consequences for education policy, healthcare, labor rights, and civil rights. When working families and students find themselves in districts designed to neutralize their votes, their needs are less likely to be met by elected officials. Funding for public education, protections for contingent workers, and relief from student loan debt are often neglected in favor of corporate interests and ideological agendas.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2019 Rucho v. Common Cause decision paved the way for even more aggressive gerrymandering, ruling that federal courts could not adjudicate claims of partisan gerrymandering. That decision effectively gave state legislatures a green light to draw lines with political intent, even when the result undermines basic democratic principles. And with the Voting Rights Act gutted in Shelby County v. Holder (2013), many communities of color no longer have a legal shield against discriminatory maps.
In a just system, redistricting would be handled by independent commissions. In some states, this is happening—California, Michigan, Arizona, and a handful of others have taken steps toward fairer maps. But in most of the country, the party in power controls the process and uses sophisticated data tools—often developed by private firms with little transparency—to fine-tune districts down to the household level. This isn’t democracy. It’s data-driven voter suppression.
For students, low-income voters, and working-class Americans, the implications are profound. A House of Representatives that does not reflect the electorate cannot be expected to act on behalf of its needs. Adjunct professors, student debtors, gig workers, rural teachers, and public librarians already operate on the margins. When their political voices are diluted, they are pushed even further to the periphery.
These redistricting battles also have an educational cost. In states where partisan gerrymandering has secured one-party rule, legislatures have targeted curriculum content, attacked diversity and inclusion programs, cut higher education funding, and undermined faculty tenure—all without meaningful opposition. Political disempowerment leads directly to institutional decay.
The Higher Education Inquirer calls attention to these developments not only because they distort elections, but because they warp the social and economic future of the country. The 2026 House elections may be won or lost not at the ballot box but on a redistricting map drafted behind closed doors in state capitals.
The right to vote is hollow if the outcome is predetermined. The promise of representative government collapses if districts are engineered to deny equal voice. Without public awareness and pressure, these efforts to undermine democracy will go unchecked.
It’s time to speak plainly: Unless there is a national movement to restore fairness to the process, the House of Representatives in 2026 will be even less representative of the people it claims to serve.
Sources:
Brennan Center for Justice. “The Redistricting Landscape, 2023–2026.”
ProPublica. “How Politicians Use Redistricting to Lock in Power.”
NPR. “Supreme Court Ruling Lets Partisan Gerrymandering Stand.”
Southern Coalition for Social Justice. “Voting Maps and Racial Disenfranchisement.”
ACLU. “Gerrymandering: How It Works and Why It Harms Democracy.”
U.S. Census Bureau. “Apportionment and Redistricting Data.”
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Dive Brief:
The U.S. Department of Justice released guidance Wednesday that threatens to strip grant funding from colleges and other federally funded institutionsover what the agency deems unlawful diversity, equity and inclusion practices.
The agency’s memo targets a sweeping set of practices, including offering race-based scholarship programs, allowing transgender women to access bathrooms that correspond with their gender identityand having identity-based lounges or study spaces on campus — even if they are open to all.
But the nine-page memo goes a step further, saying even neutral criteria — such as recruitment strategies targeting certain regions — could be deemed unlawful if the Justice Department determines they are chosen because of their demographic composition.
Dive Insight:
The Justice Department’s memo comes after a federal judge temporarily blocked similar guidance from the U.S. Department of Education that broadly targeted diversity, equity and inclusion programs at federally funded colleges and K-12 schools.The order came in response to a lawsuit that alleged the guidance “radically upends” federal antidiscrimination laws.
The guidance from the Justice Department illustrates the major shift in how the agency under President Donald Trump approaches enforcement of civil rights laws, with officials now targeting programs that were often actually launched to fight systemic discrimination.
Earlier this month, the National Urban League declared a “state of emergency” for antidiscrimination policies, calling the Trump administration’s overhaul of the Justice Department’s enforcement priorities “an existential threat” to civil rights laws, according to The Associated Press.
Like the Education Department’s blocked guidance, the Justice Department’s new memo warns that government officials could pull federal funding from institutions that don’t comply. That threat comes at the same time the agency has ramped up investigations into colleges over their diversity initiatives and their responses to antisemitism on campus.
The DOJ memo contains examples of practices it lists as “unlawful” and says could lead to federal funding being revoked, as well as a list of recommendations, which it says are not mandatory, to avoid “legal pitfalls.”
“This Department of Justice will not stand by while recipients of federal funds engage in illegal discrimination,” U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a Wednesday statement. “This guidance will ensure we are serving the American people and not ideological agendas.”
As examples of unlawful practices, the agency highlighted race-based scholarships or programs, including mentorship programs or leadership initiatives reserved for members of certain racial groups.
The memo could upend admissions. It recommends colleges end programs “designed to achieve discriminatory outcomes” even if they have “facially neutral” criteria, such as targeting scholarships to certain regions to increase enrollment or participation among certain racial groups.
“Instead, use universally applicable criteria, such as academic merit or financial hardship, applied without regard to protected characteristics or demographic goals,” the memo said.
The memo also takes aim at what it describes as “unlawful proxies” for race and sex. As an example, the memo calls out universities that ask job applicants “to demonstrate ‘cultural competence,’ ‘lived experience,’ or ‘cross-cultural skills’ in ways that effectively evaluate candidates’ racial or ethnic backgrounds rather than objective qualifications.”
The Justice Department also flagged diversity statements — which typically ask job or graduate student candidates to explain their experience and commitment to diversity and inclusion initiatives — as potentially unlawful if they advantage “those who discuss experiences intrinsically tied to protected characteristics.” The memo said the same of asking for statements from applicants about “obstacles they have overcome,” a common essay prompt for college applications.
State lawmakers have likewise targeted diversity statements, with many outlawing public colleges from requiring them in job or admission applications.
The memo also said failing to “maintain sex-separated athletic competitions and intimate spaces” could violate federal law. The Justice Department’s examples of those violations include allowing transgender women to use bathrooms, showers, locker rooms and dormitories designated for women, as well as allowing them to compete in women’s athletic events.
And it mentions college lounges or other spaces designated for specific groups, such as a “BIPOC-only study lounge.”
“Even if access is technically open to all, the identity-based focus creates a perception of segregation and may foster a hostile environment,” the memo stated. “This extends to any resource allocation — such as study spaces, computer labs, or event venues — that segregates access based on protected characteristics, even if intended to create ‘safe spaces.’”
It also takes aim at diversity training, giving the example of requiring teachers at K-12 schools to complete a DEI training that includes statements such as “all white people are inherently privileged” or touching on “toxic masculinity.”
The memo says such trainings could violate civil rights laws “if they create a hostile environment or impose penalties for dissent in ways that result in discriminatory treatment.”
Japan needs to admit that long-running efforts to address gender inequality in higher education aren’t working, experts say, with antidiversity sentiment spreading from the U.S. and threatening to gain traction.
Despite government policies spanning nearly two decades, women remain severely underrepresented across Japanese universities, particularly in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.
As of 2022, women made up just 26.7 percent of faculty nationwide and fewer than half of all students, with even starker disparities in senior academic roles and male-dominated disciplines.
Sayaka Oki, a professor at the University of Tokyo, described the situation as “terrible.”
“Gender equality doesn’t really exist here,” she added.
As of 2022, only 11 percent of professors at Oki’s university were female, with particularly low representation in engineering. In undergraduate programs in physics and engineering, women typically make up only about 15 percent of the student population.
“The gender imbalance starts at the student level and gets worse in higher positions,” she said. The university has launched repeated initiatives that have attempted to address the problem and has reported that it has “steadily increased the number of women in faculty positions.”
Since 2006, Japan’s government has implemented a “goal and timetable” policy aimed at increasing women researchers in natural sciences, setting numerical hiring targets every five years.
However, these targets have remained largely unchanged because the proportion of women earning doctoral degrees—the main feeder for research roles—has not significantly increased.
Ginko Kawano, professor of gender equality at Kyushu University, said that, “after nearly two decades, the policy has not produced significant results, and it appears we are now at a turning point in terms of policy design.”
Yet “while this sends a positive message that women are welcome in these disciplines, it is unlikely to serve as a fundamental solution to the underlying issues,” she said.
She also acknowledged strong opposition from students and faculty: “Institutions that choose to introduce this system should clearly explain the reasoning behind it.
“At the same time, it is crucial for university faculty to have access to the information and knowledge necessary to evaluate the merits and drawbacks of such quotas.
“For example, they should be aware of the historical exclusion of women from science, and recognize the persistent bias that suggest[s] women are not suited for STEM fields—biases that continue to shape the choices women feel able to make,” Kawano said.
Adding to the complexity is a political environment increasingly wary of diversity initiatives.
Kawano warned that antidiversity sentiment similar to that in the U.S. could gain traction in Japan, although opposition to gender equality policies has existed independently for years.
Akiyoshi Yonezawa, professor of higher education in the Global Strategy Office at Tohoku University, highlighted demographic pressures pushing universities toward diversity.
“Since around 1990, the number of 18-year-olds has continuously declined and is expected to continue until at least 2040,” he said.
In response, women and international students have been framed as essential for sustaining Japan’s knowledge economy.
Yonezawa criticized how diversity initiatives in Japan are often framed: “DEI initiatives in Japanese universities and society tend to be promoted as a ‘catch-up’ Western mindset rather than intrinsic value formation through daily experience. This makes DEI activities in Japan’s higher education fragile in the long term when faced with controversy.”
Institutional barriers also persist. Oki described how her university’s collegial governance system complicates efforts to implement top-down diversity policies and secure funding, which often comes with centralized control conditions.
“To access the fund, we’re required to adopt a more top-down management style,” she said. “That’s difficult because our university traditionally follows a collegial governance model.”
Oki agreed that there was a risk that international developments had made the situation potentially more difficult—particularly in the U.S., where things like the ban on affirmative action had made colleagues “more cautious about what might happen here.”
June 8, 2025, by Dean Hoke: Intercollegiate athletics occupy a powerful and unique place in American higher education—something unmatched in any other country. From the massive media contracts of Division I football to the community pride surrounding NAIA and NJCAA basketball, college sports are a defining feature of the American academic landscape. Unlike most nations, where elite athletic development happens in clubs or academies, the U.S. integrates competitive sports directly into its college campuses.
This model is more than tradition; it’s an engine of opportunity. For many high school students—especially those from underserved backgrounds—the chance to play college sports shapes where they apply, enroll, and succeed. According to the NCAA, 35% of high school athletes say the ability to participate in athletics is a key factor in their college decision [1]. It’s not just about scholarships; it’s about identity, community, and believing their talents matter.
At smaller colleges and two-year institutions, athletics often serves as a key enrollment driver and differentiator in a crowded marketplace. International students, too, are drawn to the American system for its academic-athletic fusion, contributing tuition revenue and global prestige. Undermining this model through sweeping changes to federal financial aid, without considering the downstream effects, risks more than athletic participation. It threatens a distinctively American approach to education, access, and aspiration.
A New Threshold with Big Impacts
Currently, students taking 12 credit hours per semester are considered full-time and eligible for the maximum Pell Grant, which stands at $7,395 for 2024-25 [2]. The proposed House budget raises this threshold to 15 credit hours per semester. For student-athletes, whose schedules are already packed with training, competition, and travel, this shift could be devastating.
NCAA academic standards require student-athletes to maintain full-time enrollment (typically 12 hours) and make satisfactory academic progress [3]. Adding another three credit hours per term may force many to choose between academic integrity, athletic eligibility, and physical well-being. In sports like basketball, where teams frequently travel for games, or in demanding STEM majors, completing 15 credit hours consistently can be a formidable challenge.
Financial Impact on Student-Athletes
Key Proposed Changes Affecting Student-Athletes:
Pell Grant Reductions: The proposed budget aims to cut the maximum Pell Grant by $1,685, reducing it to $5,710 for the 2026–27 academic year. Additionally, eligibility criteria would become more stringent, requiring students to enroll in at least 15 credit hours per semester to qualify for full-time awards. These changes could result in approximately 700,000 students losing Pell Grant eligibility [4].
Elimination of Subsidized Loans: The budget proposes eliminating subsidized federal student loans, which currently do not accrue interest while a student is in school. This change would force students to rely more on unsubsidized loans or private lending options, potentially increasing their debt burden [5].
Cuts to Work-Study and SEOG Programs: The Federal Work-Study program and Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (SEOG) are slated for significant reductions or elimination. These programs provide essential financial support to low-income students, and their removal could affect over 1.6 million students [6].
Institutional Risk-Sharing: A new provision would require colleges to repay a portion of defaulted student loans, introducing a financial penalty for institutions with high default rates. This could strain budgets, especially at smaller colleges with limited resources [7].
Figure 1: Total student-athletes by national athletic organization (NCAA, NAIA, NJCAA).
While Figure 1 highlights the total number of student-athletes in each organization, Figure 2 illustrates how deeply athletics is embedded in different types of institutions. NAIA colleges have the highest ratio, with student-athletes comprising 39% of undergraduate enrollment. Division III institutions follow at approximately 8.42%, and the NJCAA—serving mostly commuter and low-income students—relies on athletics for 8.58% of its total student base [8].
Even Division I, with its large student populations, includes a meaningful share (2.49%) of student-athletes. These proportions underscore how vital athletics are to institutional identity, especially in small colleges and two-year schools where athletes often make up a significant portion of campus life, retention strategy, and tuition revenue.
Figure 2: Percentage of student-athletes among total undergraduate enrollment by organization (NCAA Divisions I–III, NAIA, NJCAA).
The Pell Grant Profile: Who’s Affected
Pell Grants support students with the greatest financial need. According to a 2018 report, approximately 31.3% of Division I scholarship athletes receive Pell Grants. At individual institutions like Ohio State, the share is even higher: 47% of football players and over 50% of women’s basketball players. In the broader NCAA system, over 48% of athletes received some form of federal need-based aid in recent years [9].
There are approximately 665,000 student-athletes attending college. The NCAA reports that more than 520,000 student-athletes currently participate in championship-level intercollegiate athletics across Divisions I, II, and III [10]. The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) oversees approximately 83,000 student-athletes [11], while the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) supports around 60,000 student-athletes at two-year colleges [12].
The NAIA and NJCAA systems, which serve many first-generation, low-income, and minority students, also have a high reliance on Pell Grant support. However, exact figures are less widely published.
The proposed redefinition of “full-time” means many of these students could lose up to $1,479 per year in aid, based on projections from policy experts [13]. For low-income students, this gap often determines whether they can afford to continue their education.
Fewer Credits, Fewer Dollars: Academic and Athletic Risks
Another major concern is how aid calculations based on “completed” credit hours will penalize students who drop a class mid-semester or fail a course. Even if a student-athlete enrolls in 15 credits, failing or withdrawing from a single 3-credit course could drop their award amount [14]. This adds pressure to persist in academically unsuitable courses, potentially hurting long-term academic outcomes.
Athletic departments, already burdened by compliance and recruitment pressures, may face added strain. Advisors will need to help students navigate increasingly complex eligibility and aid requirements, shifting focus from performance and development to credit-hour management.
Disproportionate Effects on Small Colleges and Non-Revenue Sports
The brunt of these changes will fall hardest on small, tuition-dependent institutions in the NCAA Division II, Division III, NAIA, and NJCAA. These colleges often use intercollegiate athletics as a strategic enrollment tool. At some NAIA schools, student-athletes comprise 40% to 60% of the undergraduate population [8].
Unlike large Division I schools that benefit from lucrative media contracts and booster networks, these institutions rely on a patchwork of tuition, modest athletic scholarships, and federal aid to keep programs running. A reduction in Pell eligibility could drive enrollment declines, lead to cuts in athletic offerings, and even force some colleges to close sports programs or entire campuses.
Already, schools like San Francisco State University, Cleveland State, and Mississippi College have recently announced program eliminations, citing budgetary constraints [15]. NJCAA institutions—the two-year colleges serving over 85,000 student-athletes—also face a precarious future under this proposed budget.
Economic Importance by Division
Division I: Athletics departments generated nearly $17.5 billion in total revenue in 2022, with $11.2 billion self-generated and $6.3 billion subsidized by institutional/government support or student fees [16]. Many Power Five schools are financially resilient, with revenue from TV contracts, merchandise, and ticket sales.
Division II: Median revenue for schools with football was around $6.9 million, but generated athletic revenue averaged only $528,000, leading to significant deficits subsidized by institutional funds [17].
Division III: Division III schools operate on leaner budgets, with no athletic scholarships and total athletics budgets often under $3 million per school. These programs are typically funded like other academic departments [18].
NAIA and NJCAA: These schools rely heavily on student-athlete enrollment to sustain their institutions. Athletics are not profit centers but recruitment and retention tools. Without Pell Grants, many of these athletes cannot afford to enroll [11][12].
Figure 3: Estimated number of NAIA, Division III, and NJCAA programs by state.
Unintended Tradeoffs: Equity and Resource Redistribution
Attempting to offset lost federal aid by reallocating institutional grants could result in aid being shifted away from non-athletes. This risks eroding equity goals, as well as provoking internal tension on campuses where athletes are perceived to receive preferential treatment.
Without new revenue sources, institutions may also raise tuition or increase tuition discounting, potentially compromising their financial stability. In essence, colleges may be forced to choose who gets to stay in school.
The High-Stakes Gamble for Student-Athletes
Figure 4: Estimated impact of Pell Grant changes on student-athletes, including projected dropouts and loan default rates.
For many student-athletes, especially those from low-income backgrounds, the Pell Grant is not just helpful—it’s essential. It makes the dream of attending college, competing in athletics, and earning a degree financially feasible. If the proposed changes to Pell eligibility become law, an estimated 50,000 student-athletes could be forced to drop out, unable to meet the new credit-hour requirements or fill the funding gap [19]. Those who remain may have no choice but to take on additional loans, risking long-term debt for a degree they may never complete. The reality is sobering: Pell recipients already face long-term student loan default rates as high as 27%, and for those who drop out, that figure climbs above 40% [20]. Stripping away vital support will almost certainly drive those numbers higher. The consequences won’t stop with individual students. Colleges—particularly smaller, tuition-dependent institutions where athletes make up a significant share of enrollment—stand to lose not just revenue, but the very programs and communities that give purpose to their campuses.
Colleges, athletic associations, policymakers, and communities must work together to safeguard opportunity. Student-athletes should never be forced to choose between academic success and financial survival. Preserving access to both education and athletics isn’t just about individual futures—it’s about upholding a uniquely American pathway to achievement and equity.
Dean Hoke is Managing Partner of Edu Alliance Group, a higher education consultancy. He formerly served as President/CEO of the American Association of University Administrators (AAUA). With decades of experience in higher education leadership, consulting, and institutional strategy, he brings a wealth of knowledge on small colleges’ challenges and opportunities. Dean is the Executive Producer and co-host for the podcast series Small College America.
Congressional Budget Office. (2025). Reconciliation Recommendations of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Retrieved from https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61412
NJCAA, NAIA, and NCAA. (2023). Student-Athlete Participation Reports.
The recent decision to cancel $400 million in AmeriCorps grants is nothing short of a crisis. With over 1,000 programs affected and 32,000 AmeriCorps and Senior Corps members pulled from their posts, this move will leave communities across the country without critical services.
The cuts will dismantle disaster recovery efforts, disrupt educational support for vulnerable students and undermine a powerful workforce development strategy that provides AmeriCorps members with in-demand skills across sectors including education.
AmeriCorps provides a service-to-workforce pipeline that gives young Americans and returning veterans hands-on training in high-demand industries, such as education, public safety, disaster response and health care. Its nominal front-end investment in human capital fosters economic mobility, enabling those who engage in a national service experience to successfully transition to gainful employment.
As leaders of Teach For America and City Year, two organizations that are part of the AmeriCorps national service network and whose members receive education stipends that go toward certification costs, student loans or future education pursuits, we are alarmed by how this crisis threatens the future of the education and workforce pipelines that power our nation’s progress, and it is deeply personal. We both started our careers as corps members in the programs we now lead.
Aneesh began his journey as a Teach For America corps member teaching high school English in Minnesota. Jim’s path began with City Year, serving at a Head Start program in Boston. We know firsthand that AmeriCorps programs are transformative and empower young people to drive meaningful change — for themselves and their communities.
At Teach For America, AmeriCorps grants are essential to recruiting thousands of new teachers every year to effectively lead high-need classrooms across the country. These teachers, who have a consistent and significant positive impact on students’ learning, rely on the AmeriCorps education awards they earn through their two years of service to pay for their own education and professional development, including new teacher certification fees, costs that in some communities exceed $20,000.
Termination of these grants threatens the pipeline of an estimated 2,500 new teachers preparing to enter classrooms over the summer. At a time when rural and urban communities alike are facing critical teacher shortages, cutting AmeriCorps support risks leaving students without the educators they need and deserve.
City Year, similarly, relies on AmeriCorps to recruit more than 2,200 young adults annually to serve as student success coaches in K-12 schools across 21 states, 29 cities and 60 school districts.
These AmeriCorps members serving as City Year student success coaches provide tutoring and mentoring that support students’ academic progress and interpersonal skill development and growth; they partner closely with teachers to boost student achievement, improve attendance and help keep kids on track to graduate. Research shows that schools partnering with City Year are two times more likely to improve their scores on English assessments, and two to three times more likely to improve their scores on math assessments.
Corps members gain critical workforce skills such as leadership, problem-solving and creative thinking, which align directly with the top skills employers seek; the value of their experience has been reaffirmed through third-party research conducted with our alumni. The City Year experience prepares corps members for success in varied careers, with many going into education.
AmeriCorps-funded programs like Breakthrough Collaborative and Jumpstart further strengthen this national service-to-workforce pathway, expanding the number of trained tutors and teacher trainees while also preparing corps members for careers that make a difference in all of our lives.
Those programs’ trained educators ensure all students gain access to excellent educational opportunities that put them on the path to learn, lead and thrive in communities across the country. And the leaders of both organizations, like us, are AmeriCorps alumni, proof of the lasting effect of national service.
Collectively, our four organizations have hundreds of thousands of alumni whose work as AmeriCorps members has impacted millions of children while shaping their own lives’ work, just as it did ours. Our alumni continue to lead classrooms, schools, districts, communities and organizations in neighborhoods across the country.
The termination of AmeriCorps grants is a direct blow to educators, schools and students. And, at a time when Gen Z is seeking work that aligns with their values and desire for impact, AmeriCorps is an essential on-ramp to public service and civic leadership that benefits not just individuals but entire communities and our country at large.
For every dollar invested in AmeriCorps, $17 in economic value is generated, proving that national service is not only efficient but also a powerhouse for economic growth. Rather than draining resources, AmeriCorps drives real, measurable results that benefit individual communities and the national economy.
Moreover, two-thirds of AmeriCorps funding is distributed by governor-appointed state service commissions to community- and faith-based organizations that leverage that funding to meet local needs. By working directly with state and local partners, AmeriCorps provides a more effective solution than top-down government intervention.
On behalf of the more than 6,500 current AmeriCorps members serving with Teach For America and City Year, and the tens of thousands of alumni who have gone on to become educators, civic leaders and changemakers, we call on Congress to protect AmeriCorps and vital national service opportunities.
Investing in AmeriCorps is an investment in America’s future, empowering communities, strengthening families and revitalizing economies. Let’s preserve the fabric of our national service infrastructure and ensure that the next generation of leaders, educators and community advocates who want to serve our nation have the ability to do so.
Aneesh Sohoni is Teach For America’s new CEO. Previously, he was CEO of One Million Degrees and executive director of Teach For America Greater Chicago-Northwest Indiana. He is a proud alum of Teach For America.
Jim Balfanz, a recognized leader and innovator in the field of education and national service, is CEO and a proud alum of City Year.
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
The Department of Homeland Security canceled $2.7 million in grants going to Harvard University Wednesday night and threatened to terminate its Student and Visitor Exchange Program certification, which would bar the private Massachusetts institution from enrolling international students.
DHS’s threats came shortly after Harvard rebuffed the Trump’s administration’s demands to overhaul governance, admissions, hiring processes and more amid allegations of antisemitism and harassment tied to pro-Palestinian protests last spring. Although the Trump administration has opened a civil rights investigation into antisemitism at Harvard, that inquiry remains in process.
Even so, the federal government has already moved to punish the university.
The Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in research grants after Harvard rejected its initial demands, and the Internal Revenue Service is reportedly taking aim at its tax-exempt status. Now SEVP certification appears to be in the Trump administration’s crosshairs as well.
“Harvard bending the knee to antisemitism—driven by its spineless leadership—fuels a cesspool of extremist riots and threatens our national security,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a Thursday statement. “With anti-American, pro-Hamas ideology poisoning its campus and classrooms, Harvard’s position as a top institution of higher learning is a distant memory. America demands more from universities entrusted with taxpayer dollars.”
DHS demanded the university provide “detailed records on Harvard’s foreign student visa holders’ illegal and violent activities by April 30” or lose SEVP certification. The demand comes as the federal government has revoked visas for international students across the U.S., in some cases for political speech. (Inside Higher Ed has tracked more than 1,450 visa revocations.)
Harvard spokesperson Jason Newton emphasized the need for due process in federal actions.
“Harvard values the rule of law and expects all members of our community to comply with University policies and applicable legal standards,” Newton wrote. “If federal action is taken against a member of our community, we expect it will be based on clear evidence, follow established legal procedures, and respect the constitutional rights afforded to all individuals.”
