From the Boston Globe: In an era of higher education marked by cost-cutting and layoffs, some Massachusetts colleges are taking a dramatic step: Eliminating entire academic programs. Berklee College of Music earlier this month said it will phase out its contemporary theater degree. Clark University is discontinuing majors in Ancient Civilization and Studio Art. Boston University will shutter satellite master’s programs in social work in Bedford, Fall River, and Cape Cod. And Lesley University in Cambridge has stopped enrolling students in its once-acclaimed creative writing master’s program.
It’s a sign of struggle at colleges when everything from federal funding to international student enrollment is up in the air. Administrators are more pessimistic about their schools’ financial outlooks, and lending agencies have soured on higher education at large. That’s on top of a recently increased tax on university endowments, changes to federal financial aid for students, and a downturn in the population of college-aged young adults in the coming years.
...In November, Boston University said it will not accept new PhD students in a dozen humanities and social sciences programs. Then in July, BU announced it will close three satellite social work programs that offer evening and weekend classes to 35 students with other full-time jobs and childcare responsibilities...
Most of the affected programs and humanities courses are small and graduate a fraction of the students they did just a decade ago. Rhode Island College in Providence suspended 20 degrees, all in programs such as gender studies and modern languages, that project to graduate six or fewer students each year.
...Some colleges are explicitly divesting from liberal arts courses in favor of programs that they say offer more immediate job prospects. In designing a “career-focused” curriculum “driven by employer needs,” officials at Champlain College in Vermont stopped accepting students in seven majors, including pre-law, accounting, and data analytics. The University of Maine Board of Trustees in July voted to create five new adult education offerings while closing seven low-enrollment degrees. But most degree closures are tied to financial woes.
A consolidation of four academic degrees at Clark University in Worcester is part of a larger plan to streamline the budget that includes an indefinite hiring freeze and dozens of faculty layoffs. And Berklee College of Music announced it would not enroll new students into its contemporary theater program as a result of a review that considered enrollment trends and revenues, a spokesperson said.
Hanging over schools is the potential for a decline in international enrollment as the Trump administration clamps down on student visas from some countries and scrutinizes applicants’ social media accounts. Around 2,700 foreign students, or 32 percent of the Berklee student body, attend the college...
Full story at https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/07/30/business/universities-financial-struggle-majors/.
From the Daily Northwestern: Northwestern is set to eliminate more than 400 staff positions as it continues to grapple with a $790 million federal funding freeze in place from the Trump administration, multiple people familiar with discussions told The Daily. Staff from several schools across the University, including the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and the McCormick School of Engineering, told The Daily that administrators had informed them of plans of staff layoffs hitting. ...Administrators confirmed it will begin the process of eliminating about 425 positions across the University, with half currently vacant, and reduce the University’s budget “attributable to staff” by about 5%. Notices about these position eliminations should occur in the next 48 hours, administrators said.
Administrators said NU currently faces a “significant budget gap” that cannot be bridged without cutting personnel costs. Those costs account for 56% of the University’s total annual expenditures...
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