Tag: USA

  • On Scene at the Turning Points USA Student Action Summit

    On Scene at the Turning Points USA Student Action Summit

    It is already 93 degrees, but temperatures are rising further outside the Tampa Convention Center—especially for the young man dressed in a dinosaur costume. Also sporting a Tom Brady Tampa Bay Buccaneers jersey, he is loudly debating immigration with another young man in a smart suit on the pavement. Across the street, a handful of protesters face off against a growing number of right-wing influencers with cameras.

    Inside the building, political strategist Steve Bannon is denouncing billionaire Elon Musk as “evil” while filming a live TV broadcast. Thousands of young college students cheer when border czar Tom Homan threatens to beat up a heckler in the crowd. And a YouTuber leads the audience in a mass “Trump dance party” to the tune of YMCA.

    Welcome to the Student Action Summit 2025. Organized by youth activist organization Turning Point USA (TPUSA), the three-day annual conference is billed as the premier event for conservative college students to debate ideas, network and hear from top Republicans. They include Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump Jr. and, of course, Charlie Kirk, who founded the movement as an 18-year-old college dropout.

    More than 5,000 people attended this year’s event in Florida, held July 11–13, and Times Higher Education was there to learn what matters to college conservatives today, what issues are dividing this branch of the MAGA movement, and whether this youthful “red wave” can reshape U.S. electoral politics.

    As a countdown clock ticks down to zero, a DJ pumps up the well-dressed young crowd—advised to style themselves after Donald Trump’s permanently besuited youngest son Barron—with Rednex’s Cotton Eye Joe and The Killers’ Mr. Brightside. Along with the big hitters, students also hear from Happy Gilmore actor Rob Schneider, founder of the Dark Web marketplace Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, and fitness trainer Jillian Michaels across an eclectic and often bizarre three days.

    Kirk’s fingerprints are all over the summit. Owing to the slightly chaotic nature of the schedule, he is often timetabled to appear in two places at the same time—particularly tricky given that, as the podcaster Dan Nunn puts it, “Charlie can’t even walk around: he’s like a rock star.”

    He kicks off the summit on the vast East Hall stage by hitting some issues that Republicans of all ages can agree on—namely, religion and immigration. The 31-year-old activist and podcaster praises the audience for helping reverse decades of declining church attendance (many of them attend a service in the Convention Center on Sunday morning) and for helping TPUSA fight the “spiritual sickness throughout the West.” Talks are regularly interrupted by football-style chants of “Christ is King” or “God is great.”

    Kirk also gets loud acclaim when he says that no foreigner should be allowed to own a home or get a job before a U.S. citizen, and draws an even bigger cheer when he mentions President Trump’s plans for mass deportation of illegal migrants. Even legal migration comes under fire over the convention weekend, and Homan, the former chief of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is treated like a rock star, his frequent mentions of buzz phrases such as “send them home” chanted back to him from the floor.

    Abortion is mentioned on stage, as one might expect. Riley Gaines, a former college swimmer who became an activist after finishing tied for fifth in a race with a trans woman, praised Trump as the most pro-life president in modern history. And the issue is brought up repeatedly in interviews with THE—often by young men.

    Many speakers are also very keen to stress the importance of reproduction and “traditional” families. Michael Knowles, a political commentator and YouTuber, calls falling birth rates in the U.S. an “existential crisis.” He welcomes the “trad wife” trend on social media—right-wing women promoting their role as stay-at-home moms—and praises young women for rejecting the corporate rat race, “to the horror of the feminists.” A middle-aged audience member, who gets a massive round of applause when he reveals he has 12 children, wants to help convince the college generation of the “beauty of big families.”

    Kirk also ploughs that furrow. He tells the audience that the real threat to the U.S. is not racism or environmentalism, but low birth rate. And he tells those listening online what they are missing out on by not being there in person. “If you want to find your future husband or wife … you should be here in Tampa, Florida, because there’s a lot of eligible bachelors and bachelorettes here.”

    Equally, however, conservative attitudes to dating and sex are evident. Brandon Tatum, a former college football player, police officer and now online activist, advises against “hooking up with people and doing all this crazy stuff.” Brett Cooper, a child actor turned online activist, warns delegates not to party too much or waste time playing video games. And comedian Russell Brand, currently awaiting trial in the U.K. for rape, sexual assault and indecent assault (he has pleaded not guilty), also praises family values and religion while denouncing pornography and claiming that Jesus was opposed to bad government. During his strange 20-minute speech-cum-rap in front of one of the largest audiences of the weekend, Brand explains how he turned to God following a life of crack and heroin addiction, a “pursuit of carnality” and an “all-you-can-eat buffet” of hedonism.

    Russell Brand at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit 2025Source: Patrick Jack

    Russell Brand (center) at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit 2025

    Away from the main hall lies the exhibition floor. Here, students can take selfies with political consultant Roger Stone—pardoned by Trump in 2020 after being convicted of lying to Congress, obstruction of justice and witness tampering relating to a Congressional inquiry into Russian attempts to boost Trump’s 2016 election campaign. They can also pick up free copies of a book on the “untold story behind the Vatican’s rising influence in America,” challenge their friends to a pull-up contest or play cornhole.

    You can also buy just about anything—provided it has some red, white and blue on it. There’s a stall to “Make Coffee Great Again,” “Trump 2028” hats are on sale for $30 (£23), and there are even cool pads to keep your head cool under them—as well as vibration plates for “advanced whole-body vibration therapy.”

    Attendees can also hear from a wide range of fringe groups. A “Blexit” stall promotes “free thinking and empowerment” at historically black colleges and universities and is dedicated to bringing “traditional American principles to urban communities.” Wilbur Sims, strategic manager of student movement at Blexit, said, “We’re trying to educate people …and get away from a victimhood mentality within the black community.”

    A surprisingly large number of families, many with young children, mingle with the students, as do some retirees. Steve, a 75-year-old lifelong Republican from Florida, hopes that TPUSA can help ensure the Democrats never get back into power. But there are a few signs of a divide between the younger and older generations.

    Guns, which receive very few mentions from the stage, are one. Gun ownership has, for generations, been a mainstay of right-wing identity, but two lonely young men at the National Rifle Association stall express concern that their classmates are not interested in the Second Amendment (the right to bear arms).

    The other dividing line is Israel. The most prominent stall on the exhibition floor is that of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), featuring hundreds of Israeli flags. Some college students nearby pose for pictures with a giant cardboard cut-out of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but when Michele Bachmann, a former member of Congress and board member of the IFCJ, begins to discuss the “unprecedented” amount of antisemitism on college campuses, the hall empties out. And during a debate on day three, Dave Smith, a comedian and regular guest on the popular Joe Rogan podcast, warns of the “tremendous” influence of Israel in U.S. politics. And in the wake of the U.S. attack on Iran during Israel’s recent 12-day assault on the country, Smith elicits cheers when he criticizes “neoconservatives” for starting foreign wars—in contravention of the isolationism typically adopted by “America First” advocates. One young man and woman express their skepticism of the U.S.–Israel alliance and are convinced that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad agent.

    Epstein may have died by suicide in 2019, but his presence is keenly felt at the convention. The event occurs amid the MAGA backlash to attorney general Pam Bondi’s comment that the sex trafficker’s “client list”—which, according to Musk, includes Donald Trump, but which right-wing figures are convinced contains prominent Hollywood stars and Democratic politicians—does not, in fact, exist. Despite saying that homes and jobs are more important, Kirk admits the Epstein issue still matters. And in conversation with him, journalist Megyn Kelly calls it a “scandal of the right’s making.” When she asks the audience how many of them think it is an important story, everyone puts their hand up.

    Hours later, media personality Tucker Carlson devotes almost his entire 30-minute speech to the issue, while Bannon sees it as symptomatic of the problems with the “deep state.” Even former college athletes Gaines and Tatum devote considerable time to talking about Epstein—with vocal prompting from the crowd.

    The TPUSA president at the University of Alabama believes the issue is so important for this crowd because Bondi’s decision not to publish any of the Justice Department’s files on Epstein fits in with their skeptical worldview and their concern that they are being “lied to,” he said.

    That sense also permeates the MAGA view of COVID-19. Bannon is cheered when he claims the pandemic originated from a “Chinese Communist Party bioweapon dropped in Wuhan.” There are frequent references over the weekend to the supposedly nefarious “mask mandates,” cancelled proms and young adults’ lost years—for which Kirk calls for a national apology.

    “Nobody likes being lied to, and [young people] lived through COVID in a way that adults did not,” according to Nunn, host of the America First and the constitutionalist Nunn Report podcast. “They got their social lives shut down, they got their schools shut down, and then they found out it was all bullshit.” Since they blamed the Democrats for that, he believes that universities became less efficient “leftist breeding grounds” when that cohort arrived on campus.

    Chase, a student from Florida, says COVID was a big factor in pushing his generation to the right. “So many people were lied to during that period of time and it definitely brought to light the corruption in the Democratic Party,” he tells THE. TPUSA is important because it helps students learn that they cannot trust mainstream media and must “seek out your own truth.”

    The pandemic is clearly still an issue for Owen, a student in Michigan, where Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer was caught breaking public health protocols at a restaurant in 2021. “I don’t really think that what the left was pushing made rational sense to the youth vote at the time, and it still doesn’t make sense now,” he said. “It’s just the hypocrisy of it all—you’re telling me not to leave my house, yet you’re going out and having parties without wearing masks closer than six feet.” A hat stall at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit 2025Source: Patrick Jack

    A striking omission from the stages of a conference targeted at students is higher education itself—despite the fact that Trump’s crackdown on prominent universities’ funding and autonomy has previously been cheered by many figures on the right. When prompted, however, delegates express universal scorn for universities.

    John Paul Leon, TPUSA chapter president at University of California, Berkeley, tells THE he is becoming increasingly worried by academia’s left-wing consensus and “moral superiority,” particularly around “discriminatory” diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) measures. David Goodwin, president of the Association of Classical Christian Schools and co-author of Battle for the American Mind with defense secretary Pete Hegseth, says higher education is a “mess”; and while institutions should be free to do whatever they want, he believes that they should expect to forgo government funds if they choose to defy the administration’s policies in areas such as DEI or choice of research topics. And Owen, who attends a private college, welcomes Trump’s attacks on universities because they are “indoctrinating students with wrong ideas.” International students, particularly “military-age males,” should be sent home, he adds.

    Carol Swain, a retired professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University and one of the few academics at the event, also welcomes Trump’s fight with Harvard because universities have “lost sight of the original purpose” of the sector, which was to educate minds by exposing individuals to divergent viewpoints. “Now the Ivy League has lost some of its allure, I believe there’s an opportunity for some state colleges and universities and some universities that were considered less prestigious to rise just by doing what the Ivy League hasn’t done, which is educate and create an environment where you have free speech, are following the Constitution, creating opportunities, [and] not practicing discrimination,” she said.

    As for the effects of research funding cuts on the academic strength of the U.S., Swain says most papers in recent decades have been “garbage.” The “people that have pushed the beliefs that minorities have been discriminated against … lowered the standards in certain fields, and the emphasis on lived experience as opposed to research and data … has hurt academic research.”

    But Jennifer Burns, director of academics at Turning Point Education, does not believe universities are solely to blame, claiming that grade schools are failing to prepare students properly: “If you’re building a house and your foundation is sinking and cracking, then the frame of the house is going to be cracked. It’s not the fault of the carpenters who put up the beams, it’s the cement layers. [Students] are not trained in how to think, so they’re going into college at the whim of a radical college professor and they’re soaking that up.”

    TPUSA advocates for a “classical Christian education,” and some attendees propose private, conservative Christian liberal arts colleges such as Hillsdale in Michigan, or New Saint Andrews in Idaho, as exemplars of what higher education should be. Lennox Kalifungwa, digital engagement officer at New Saint Andrews, expresses the view that “the only true education is a Christian education because Christianity has the exclusive when it comes to truth and freedom.”

    “Woke” students and academics, meanwhile, are a reoccurring punching bag on the convention floor—particularly those with a specific hair color. Kirk, who rose to fame through viral videos debating with left-wing students, calls them “purple-haired jihadis,” Homan bemoans “people with purple hair and nose rings,” Tatum deplores “liberal non-binaries” and Trump Jr. condemns “raging libtards.”

    Such critiques are also usually tied up with anti-trans and anti-gay language. Trump Jr., a long-time ally of Kirk, whose daughter, Kai, is a college-level golfer at the University of Miami, proudly boasts of having been anti-trans since 2017 and sees it as being a “losing issue” for the Democrats. One student tells THE that drag queens reading children stories cause “horrible developmental issues” and contribute to rising suicide rates. Knowles celebrates the Trump-imposed end of the “preposterous ideology” of trans people, calling it “deader than disco,” the cancellation of LGBTQ+ pride parades due to lack of attendance and pop musician Jojo Siwa’s announcement that she no longer identifies as a lesbian. “Nature is healing,” he says with a laugh.

    A lone protester who interrupts Homan is called a “loser,” a “moron,” an “asshole” and someone who “sits down when he pees”—to huge chants of “U-S-A.” Homan, who says he “wake[s] up like a kid in a candy shop every day” as border czar, offers to fight the man before his speech is over.

    Outside are a few more dissenters. A handful of middle-aged Floridians, who fear TPUSA is “indoctrinating the youth,” hold a sign that says “MAGA—Movement Against Genuine Academics”—perhaps in reference to Kirk’s creation of the Professor Watchlist, which lists scholars who “discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda.” They are soon joined by a rag-tag group of a few dozen young students, some dressed as characters from the dystopian TV show The Handmaid’s Tale and others wearing the Guy Fawkes masks popularized by the hacker collective Anonymous. Vicky Tong, spokesperson for the Tampa Bay Students for a Democratic Society, says they want to show that not everyone in Florida supports the “sexist, homophobic, anti-trans, anti-immigrant” agenda of TPUSA.

    Back inside the hall, speakers emphasize that while right-wingers are in the majority here, they are “outnumbered” on campus. Many express fear of being accused of sexual harassment or being cancelled for using the wrong pronoun. Kirk calls them “warriors” and praises them for putting up with threats and intimidation. “What they’re doing is one of the hardest things to do in the United States of America. They are deciding to be less popular on campus,” he says.

    Charlie Kirk speaks at Donald Trump's inauguration on 20 January 2025 Source: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

    Charlie Kirk speaks at Donald Trump’s inauguration on 20 January 2025

    Some of the big names can sympathize. Trump Jr. used to attend “every cool person party” in New York before his father became involved in politics and the invites dried up. “These people that I thought were friends for decades, they don’t call any more.” He encourages students to “feed off the hate,” while Kelly urges them not to be “sheep” and follow along with what their left-wing professors say just to get good grades. “Don’t call yourself a feminist because your teacher will give you pats on the head. Stand up for what you really believe in, and that’s how we spread the good word,” she said.

    Fox News host Greg Gutfeld, who has come under fire for attempting to “reclaim” the word “Nazi,” complains that “left-wingers were the cool kids” when he was young. And that sense of not fitting in on campus is clearly a big reason that some of the attendees are here—many of them thanks to a TPUSA stipend (the organization is largely funded by donations). Leon, who studies in the “belly of the [progressive] beast” at Berkeley and went viral for a video where he confronts a liberal student, says he is called a fascist daily, but at TPUSA “you can find life-long friends, your forever friends, or maybe you can find your wife too.” Dylan Seiter, president of TPUSA at Texas A&M University, told students during a breakout session that “the libs want to drag us down to their level and make us seem like we’re some nasty, hateful people, but in reality, we’re not. And it’s our duty and our jobs to prove them wrong.”

    Indeed, some delegates confess that they are only here to hang out and socialize, and nearby bars such as Harpoon Harry’s Crab House are packed with older students before the day’s events are even over. But this social element is not just for fun, it is also for networking. As Kirk puts it: “Marriages will happen this weekend. Lifetime friendships will happen this weekend. Careers will start this weekend.” And as well as selling “I survived college without becoming a liberal” T-shirts, the TPUSA Alumni Association is consciously attempting to replicate the college networks of Ivy League schools to help get MAGA graduates into top jobs. TPUSA also tries to persuade students to work on the “front lines” of the culture war. One recruitment video urges young people not to become doctors or lawyers, but to get a job with “real impact.”

    Many speakers are convinced that they are already having an impact, crediting a “red wave” of students with delivering Trump’s landslide victory in 2024, a “shot heard around the world.” Bannon thanks them for being “the hardest core of the hardcore” and the “tip of the tip of the spear” in “winning” the 2016 and 2020 elections as well.

    “This is the greatest generational realignment since Woodstock,” says Kirk. “We have never seen a generation move so quickly and so fast, and you guys are making all the liberals confused.” Accordingly, Republican Party luminaries show up in force. Michael Whatley, chair of the Republican National Committee, shakes hands on the exhibition floor and multiple members of Trump’s top team—including director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and homeland security secretary Kristi Noem—deliver speeches. However, these politicians generate far less buzz than social media stars such as Gaines and Cooper.

    Still, Kirk warns that Washington is taking right-wing students for granted and “messing up” a once-in-a-generation opportunity to deliver a “death blow” to the Democratic Party by failing to fully deliver on their promises—such as by publishing the Epstein list. And Swain agreed. “If these [elected] officials compromise and they prove themselves to be no different than the politicians they replaced, it’s going to be harder for [young] people to stay enthusiastic,” he said.

    As one attendee puts it, conservative students have been “lurking in the shadows” for decades. Kirk has successfully dragged them out into the sunlight. The challenge he and Trump now face is one that will be familiar to the “radical left”— keeping momentum, holding the various factions together in the face of political realities, and delivering on their promises.

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  • Policy and funding in the USA

    Policy and funding in the USA

    by Rob Cuthbert

    Abolishing the Education Department may be illegal

    It seems that many Education Department functions are codified in federal law, so may need Congressional approval or new legislation before they can be abolished, as Jessica Blake reported for insidehighered.com on 31 March 2025.

    The ignorance of Linda McMahon

    Shaun Harper reported for insidehighered.com on 9 June 2025 on the way US Education Secretary Linda McMahon had been unprepared and unbriefed on so many questions in a US Senate subcommittee hearing in the previous week, probably because of the massive staff cuts she had made in her department.

    Trump promised ‘gold standard science’; Make America Healthy Again uses fake citations

    Shaun Harper (Southern California) blogged for insidehighered.com on 2 June 2025 in disgust and despair about the US Department of Health and Human Services Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) report. And then they did it again with a report on chronic diseases in child health, as Kathryn Palmer reported for insidehighered.com on 2 June 2025. This was the climate change-denying, anti-DEI Executive Order, 23 May 2025.

    Will Columbia get its $400million back?

    Columbia University folded under Trump’s objections to its alleged anti-semitism, and acceded to multiple demands in the face of cuts to $400million of public funding. Discussions started about how to restore the cuts, but in internal discussions interim President Katrina Armstrong seemed to deny that some of the demands would ever be implemented. Now Armstrong has stepped down, replaced by a new interim President, Claire Shipman, the co-chair of Columbia’s board of trustees. Johanna Alonso reported for insidehighered.com on 29 March 2025.

    Steven Mintz (Texas at Austin), a former Columbia academic, blogged for insidehighered.com on 31 March 2025 arguing that the roots of current campus disputes go right to the heart of the university’s mission and purpose:The Gaza-Israel conflict became a flashpoint not simply because of its geopolitics, but because it sits at the crossroads of the deepest fissures in campus life: between liberalism and radicalism, identity and ideology, tradition and transformation.” The story of Columbia University in New York and its alleged failure to resist then depredations of the Trump administration was told by Andrew Gumbel for The Observer on 28 April 2025 in his article “Destroying higher education with the veneer of going after antisemitism”. Max Matza reported for the BBC on 4 June 2025 that: “The Trump administration is looking to strip Columbia University of its accreditation over claims it violated the rights of its Jewish students.” A letter from Linda McMahon, US Education Secretary, told accreditor the Middle States Commission on Higher Education that “Columbia “no longer appears to meet the Commission’s accreditation standards” by its alleged violation of anti-discrimination laws.

    The appeasement strategy didn’t work, then.

    Trump goes after Harvard

    Brock Read reported for The Chronicle of Higher Education on 31 March 2025 that the Trump administration would review $255million of current federal contracts and $8.7billion of multi-year contracts as part of its moveto reprove colleges it portrays as hotbeds of antisemitism.” A Trump official said the 18 April letter making extensive demands of Harvard about hiring, admissions and curriculum had been sent by mistake, according to Michael S Schmidt and Michael C Bender in their report for the New York Times on 18 April 2025. Jessica Blake reported for insidehighered.com on 18 April 2025 that “… Trump has made it clear that he’ll use billions of dollars in federal grants and contracts, primarily for research, as a lever to force colleges and universities to bow to his agenda and increase the representation of conservative ideology on their campuses.”

    US Education Secretary Linda McMahon sent a badly-written Trump-style threatening letter to Harvard, purporting to freeze all future federal grants, as Gram Slattery and Jarrett Renshaw reported for Reuters on 6 May 2025. Nathan M Greenfield wrote for University World News on 9 May 2025: “In a robust statement in response, Harvard University accused the United States government of making “new threats to illegally withhold funding for lifesaving research and innovation in retaliation against Harvard for filing its lawsuit on April 21”.”

    The next round of bullying of Harvard in an effort to make it do what Donald Trump decrees came in the move by the Department of Homeland Security under the notorious Kristi Noem to revoke Harvard’s ability to enrol international students, as Karin Fischer reported for the Chronicle of Higher Education on 22 May 2025.

    Then Trump interfered in Fulbright scholar selection, by vetoing about 20% of Fulbright nominations for 2025-2026 on “clearly political” grounds, ruling out applicants with proposals on diversity or climate change, as Liam Knox reported for insidehighered.com on 29 May 2025. Liam Knox reported for insidehighered.com on 11 June 2025 that 11 of 12 members of the Fulbright Scholarship Board resigned on 11 June 2025 “… in protest of the Trump administration’s intervention in the selection process, which they say was politically motivated and illegal.”

    The Harvard experience: could it happen here? by GR Evans

    On 1 May 2025 The Guardian headline read: ‘Trump administration exploits landmark civil rights act to fight universities’ diversity initiatives‘. What prevents a British King or Prime Minister from attempting to impose sanctions on universities?

    US higher education is exposed both to presidential and to state interference. Government powers to intervene in US HE reside in presidential control of federal funding, which may come with conditions. Trump cannot simply shut down the Department of Education by executive order but it seems he can direct that the Department’s grant- and loan-giving functions are taken on by another government department. … read the full blog here.

    Politicians rule in Florida

    Two weeks after the Florida Board of Governors rejected Santa Ono they approved three new presidents, none having led a university before. On 18 June 2025 they confirmed Jeanette Nuñez as president of Florida International University, Marva Johnson at Florida A&M University, and Manny Diaz Jr at the University of West Florida. Nuñez had been interim President after leaving her job as state lieutenant governor; Diaz is currently Florida commissioner of education; Johnson is a lobbyist whom State Governor Ron DeSantis appointed to the Florida State Board of Education. Josh Moody reported for insidehighered.com on 23 June 2025.

    Indiana wants to take over HE

    JD Vance said in 2021 that “universities are the enemy” and Iris Sentner for Politico said that in March 2025 ” “… the White House declared war against them”. Ryan Quinn reported for insidehighered.com on 30 April 2025 that Indiana’s state budget bill would “… require faculty at public colleges and universities to post their syllabi online and undergo “productivity” reviews … prohibit faculty emeriti from voting in faculty governance organizations, place low-enrolled degree programs at risk of elimination by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education and end alumni elections for three Indiana University Board of Trustees seats by filling them with gubernatorial appointees. In addition, it has a provision that would let [State Governor] Braun remove the currently elected board members before their terms expire. “I think overreach doesn’t begin to describe the actions of the Legislature,” said Russ Skiba, a professor emeritus of education at IU Bloomington. “This is really a sweeping takeover of higher education in Indiana.”

    Why aren’t students protesting against Trump’s university attacks?

    Patrick Jack posed the question for Times Higher Education on 1 May 2025. Why indeed?

    Endowment tax will penalise rich US universities

    A bill which passed the House of Representatives in late May proposes to increase the tax on endowments from 1.4% to 21% for private colleges with an endowment of $2 million or more per student, as Patrick Jack reported for Times Higher Education on 2 June 2025. It would affect only the 35 or so richest institutions in the USA.

    Is college worth it?

    Yes, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (the NY Fed), as reported by Phil Hill of OnEdTech on 3 June 2025.

    A graph showing the return to college remains significant

AI-generated content may be incorrect.

    But not for everyone: Jaison R Abel and Richard Deitz blogged for the NY Fed’s Liberty Street Economics on 16 April 2025: “In our last post, we showed that the economic benefits of a college degree still far outweigh the costs for the typical graduate, with a healthy and consistent return of 12 to 13 percent over the past few decades. But there are many circumstances under which college graduates do not earn such a high return. Some colleges are much more expensive than average, and financial aid is not guaranteed no matter which college a student attends. In addition, the potentially high cost of living on campus was not factored into our estimates. Some students also may take five or six years to finish their degrees, which can significantly increase costs. Further, our calculations were based on median wages over a working life, but half of college graduates earn less than the median. Indeed, even when paying average costs, we find that a college degree does not appear to have paid off for at least a quarter of college graduates in recent decades.”

    Santa Ono not for Florida

    After the embarrassment of Ben Sasse, the not-very-well-known Republican politician with little HE experience but with a large spending habit, the University of Florida seemed to be playing safe by naming Santa Ono as the only preferred candidate to replace Sasse. Ono was President at Michigan and previously headed the universities of British Columbia and Cincinnatti. He might have become the highest paid university leader in the US, as Chris Havergal reported for Times Higher Education on 6 May 2025. One of his current colleagues, Silke-Maria Weineck, thought after his controversial Michigan tenure he might be better suited to red-state (Republican) politics, in her opinion piece on 5 May 2025 for the Chronicle of Higher Education. Ono’s salary would have been $3million a year: he was unanimously approved by the University of Florida Board, but on 3 June 2025 in an anti-DEI move the State University System of Florida Board of Governors voted not to approve his appointment, as David Jesse reported for the Chronicle of Higher Education. There was more detail from Josh Moody of insidehighered.com on 3 June 2025: “That process included a no vote from Paul Renner, a former Republican lawmaker in the state who had previously angled for the UF presidency …”. Patrick Jack reported for Times Higher Education on 9 June 2025 that after the Santa Ono brouhaha many commentators had said the only people willing to lead Florida institutions would be right wing ideologues.

    Rob Cuthbert is editor of SRHE News and the SRHE Blog, Emeritus Professor of Higher Education Management, University of the West of England and Joint Managing Partner, Practical Academics. Email rob.cuthbert@uwe.ac.uk. Twitter/X @RobCuthbert. Bluesky @robcuthbert22.bsky.social.

    Author: SRHE News Blog

    An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

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  • In the USA, universities are under attack on multiple fronts

    In the USA, universities are under attack on multiple fronts

    Last week I was in the US, as part of the CASE Global Leaders Programme, visiting five leading universities – Harvard, Boston, Princeton, Johns Hopkins and Georgetown. I also visited the United Nations, the Washington Post, the British Embassy and US university associations. I met and spoke with over 100 senior staff – mostly under the Chatham House rule – about the severe current challenges facing US universities.

    US universities are under “an unprecedented political attack,” I was told – it is “a very dangerous moment.” The Trump administration has unleashed a “flood the zone” strategy. University leaders are shocked at the rapid speed and breath of the policy and political assault. Universities are reeling from the ferocity of the attacks. The Trump administration “has declared war on colleges.”

    The Trump administration tactics are clear – they are attempting to weaken and undermine major institutions that they see as liberal ballast, a barrier to the MAGA agenda. The playbook should not be a total surprise. It was largely outlined in Project 2025, with a raft of policies to deconstruct the US administrative state. For universities, it is time for a reckoning.

    Shocks and tremors

    The elite research institutions are the primary target. Amongst these, the President’s Office have deliberated targeted a number of specific institutions – pulling $400m (£310m) of federal funding from Columbia University, saying that it failed to fight antisemitism on campus, and suspending $175m (£135m) in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania over the school’s policy regarding transgender athletes. Making an example of these universities – through public humiliation and bullying – is an attempt to strike fear in to other institutions and scare others from speaking out. There has been a notable lack of public figures speaking out in defence of these institutions. The tactics were described to me as “if you cross them, they will come after you.”

    Worryingly, the MAGA attacks have some grounding in public opinion, coming at a time when US public confidence in higher education has been falling for a decade. Public opinion research by the Association of American Universities (AAU) shows that only 29 per cent of the US public agree with the statement that Ivy League universities “make us better off” – whereas 57 per cent believe that they “make us worse off.” Although Republicans are even more critical than Democrats, a large majority of both parties’ supporters think Ivy League universities make people worse off.

    Across US universities there is a sense of crisis, with leaders struggling to cope with the tidal wave of political attacks. Shocks and tremors are being felt across the sector – but there is no agreement on which are the primary challenges. The hierarchy of these concerns varies and the impact is certainly not uniform. I heard about over a dozen current threats:

    • removal of federal funding due to accusations of “woke ideology”
    • major research funding cuts due to cuts to USAID
    • detaining and deporting faculty and students accused of holding views and speaking on controversial topics
    • tightening of visas for international students
    • threats to increase tax on university endowments
    • federal government instruction to withdraw specific research funding
    • increasing levels of disinformation
    • hostile environment leading to loss of faculty to universities overseas
    • falling philanthropic donations, due to reputational damage and economic weather
    • falling investment income from an economic downturn
    • a chilling effect on free speech and academic freedom
    • flight of international students as families overseas view the US as not a welcoming place to send their children
    • the growing possibility of a new cold war with China
    • splits and tensions amongst the alumni and donor communities.

    Despite the huge wealth, resources, influence and global reputation, I witnessed a university sector unprepared for the tsunami of political challenges and unsure about how to respond. It is a “a very destabilising moment, we’re trying to work things out… how do we navigate the challenges, the politics…”

    After the crisis response

    US universities face choices: to fight back, to “lean in” towards the Trump agenda, to hunker down, to uphold their values, to adapt or evolve – though these options are not mutually exclusive.

    For some, it is clear that they will speak out powerfully and fight back to defend universities,

    This brave article by the president of Princeton explains how American universities have given the country prosperity and security, and strikes back against the The Trump administration’s attack on academic freedom.

    For others, there is a recognition that this is “not just about telling a better story, we also need to do things better.” Maybe universities haven’t really listened enough to the dissatisfied and acted on concerns. Perhaps there is some truth in the accusations that some parts of higher education have exasperated or created inequality, protecting the “haves” and ignoring the “have nots”. This Atlantic article How the Ivy League broke America is essential reading in this genre. For some, the answer is a much stronger focus on reaching out across divides, and renewed efforts to increase civic impact – and perhaps the curtailment of some activities.

    For all, there is a sense that this is not simply a crisis response moment, rather that universities need to think long-term, to protect the values of higher education and redouble efforts to demonstrate their impact. There is a need to think about the longer term stewardship of the institutions and “play the long game” rather than simply respond to the immediate shocks.

    The search for something to hold onto

    I also heard many comments that gave me reasons for hope. Public opinion research by the Association of American Universities (AAU) shows that 42 per cent most trust American research universities to find a cure for diseases like cancer whereas only five per cent most trust the government, and only three per cent most trust large US corporations.

    At some universities, alumni donors are coming forward to offer support to help plug the financial gap being created by research funding cuts. Many universities are refusing to back-track on commitments made on DEI issues – citing very strong support from faculty and students – and arguing clearly and consistently that diversity of people (minds, experiences, backgrounds and thought) and plurality of views is vital to support excellence.

    On the day on my visit, Harvard became the latest elite school to announce that families with incomes under $200,000 will not pay tuition as a way to bolster diversity. There is also a view that the combination of the stock market falls, public opinion and the Supreme Court may soon have the impact of curtailing some of the President’s most aggressive actions.

    Overall, my visit to the US has left me with mixed emotions: deep concerns for US universities, the loss of vital research programmes, the negative impact on access to universities, the weakening of international collaboration and the personal threats to faculty and students. I also recognise that many of the political and public views which have contributed to this onslaught do not feel alien to the situation in the UK.

    However, the trip has also given me hope. These are deeply resilient institutions, led by exceptional people, with brilliant faculty, supportive alumni and donors. There is continuing strong demand from students for a higher education – and these students want to experience a plurality of views. By upholding their values, by redoubling efforts to build public support by doing things even better, by demonstrating impact, and by taking the longer-term view I am confident that US universities can ride through this storm.

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