Straws in the Wind - Part 413

From the Daily Northwestern: [Thirteen] years after its introduction, Northwestern is ending its partnership with the program. The Posse Foundation is a national nonprofit organization that partners with colleges across the country to provide full-tuition scholarships to students from diverse backgrounds who exhibit leadership in their communities. Posse’s mission is to diversify the pool from which top universities recruit young leaders, build welcoming environments at these institutions for students of all backgrounds and ensure that the selected scholars graduate, according to the organization’s website.

For over a decade, NU has partnered with the organization’s Los Angeles site to select 10 Posse Scholars from the greater L.A. area each year to receive full-tuition scholarships. The students become part of a “posse,” a cohort of 10 students paired with a faculty advisor. At NU, the group meets once a week to discuss a variety of topics, including adjusting to college life... Ten classes of Posse Scholars have now graduated from NU, and many alumni told The Daily it changed their lives for the better. But when students and faculty were notified that the University was ending the program, it came as a shock...

Full story at https://dailynorthwestern.com/2026/07/20/top-stories/that-community-is-going-to-be-gone-students-faculty-react-as-nu-ends-posse-scholars-program/.

Scrutiny

From CBS News: Major U.S. universities have received millions of dollars in funding from foreign entities that are on U.S. government watch lists, according to a CBS News review of university funding records submitted to the Department of Education.

...Universities have been required to disclose foreign gifts of $250,000 or more to the Department of Education under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act since 1986. But disclosures sometimes lapsed and there was no government system in place for accountability, according to current and former State and Education Department officials, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and independent analysts who track Section 117 compliance. 

They say no one was cross-referencing the donors against U.S. government watch lists, allowing for institutions directly linked to foreign militaries to fund programs and professorships at R-1 universities. National security and intelligence analysts say the stakes are high, and increased scrutiny on funding from China flowing to programs at top American universities is better late than never...

Among the watch-listed entities putting money into U.S. universities, the majority of which is from China, is Aviation Engine Corporation of China, known as AECC, which develops engines for various Chinese military aircraft, including the J-11 fighter jet and the Z-10 attack helicopter. Given the AECC's direct ties to the People's Liberation Army, the Treasury Department lists it on the Foreign Assets Control List as well as another list of companies tied to the Chinese military-industrial complex. It is considered a "Military End-User Entity" by the Department of Commerce, making it subject to strict export licensing requirements.

AECC's research institutes paid Northwestern University, the University of California, Irvine, and the University of Connecticut a combined $7.8 million, according to the universities' records submitted to the Department of Education. The money was sent in multiple increments over several years. ...UC Irvine received almost $4 million in contracts between 2018 and 2020, according to the records. UC Irvine did not respond to CBS News' requests for comment. 

...UC Berkeley, which manages the Department of Energy's primary high-performance computing facility, has received more than $25 million in contracts dating back to 2016 from China-based entities that are on U.S. government watch lists, according to disclosures to the Department of Education. That includes a grant of $7.6 million from Sun Yat-sen University, host of China's National Supercomputing Center. Sun Yat-sen University also appears on the Department of Defense's "1286 List," a roster of foreign academic and research institutions identified as engaging in "problematic activities," and a Commerce Department list of entities whose legitimacy the U.S. government has been unable to verify. UC Berkeley did not respond to CBS News' request for comment...

Full story at https://www.cbsnews.com/news/universities-foreign-funding-government-watch-lists/.

Is small beautiful in the current higher ed climate?

From Ian Bogost in The Atlantic: In the waning heat of last summer, freshly back in my office at a major research university, I found myself considering the higher-education hellscape that had lately descended upon the nation. I’d spent months reporting on the Trump administration’s attacks on universities for The Atlantic, speaking with dozens of administrators, faculty, and students about the billions of dollars in cuts to public funding for research and the resulting collapse of “college life.”At the same time, I’d been chronicling the spread of AI-powered chatbots that have already changed undergraduates forever...

I texted, emailed, telephoned, and Zoomed with friends in higher-education leadership. Current and former heads of both research universities and liberal-arts colleges confirmed my intuition: Well-resourced and prestigious small colleges are less exposed in almost every way to the crises that higher ed faces...  

I came to Amherst College too late in the autumn to observe peak foliage... At most universities, grad students play a crucial role within the research system: They perform the frontline work of science. Faculty members get federal grants, which are used to pay for doctoral students, who in turn serve as laboratory staff. Professors’ feeling of worth and productivity may be a function of how many doctoral students they advise—because that helps determine how many studies they can carry out, how many papers they can publish, and what sorts of new grants they can win to keep the process going...

A school like Amherst, though, which has no doctoral programs whatsoever, is free of the rat race of research productivity and expenditure. As these colleges like to point out, that’s good for undergrads, because faculty must focus on education. The lack of doctoral research programs also makes the schools more resilient to bullying from Washington. In 2025, the Trump administration made a point of suspending hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants to Columbia, Harvard, Northwestern, and other schools... With so much funding endangered all at once, targeted universities had little choice but to negotiate—which is to say, to accede to some portion of the Trump administration’s demands.

At Amherst, this level of pressure simply couldn’t be applied. In 2024, the college took in around $3 million from all of its federal research grants put together... In truth, the most important scientific and medical discoveries aren’t likely to be made at a place like Amherst or Smith, the nearby women’s college, which tend to pay their own students to work on faculty research. But this need not be a limitation for undergraduates. The conditions that produce landmark discoveries are not necessarily the same ones that produce a serious education...

At a small liberal-arts college, where a cohort may number fewer than 500 people, admissions officers can also take a stronger hand in assembling a group of students who match the institution’s culture and its vibe while also having very different backgrounds. And the fact that almost everyone at a small liberal-arts college tends to live on campus, or very close to it, adds to the sense of intimacy. “It’s just much easier for me to get to know faculty here, much easier for me to get to know students, much easier for me to hear what’s on their minds,” Amherst’s president, Michael Elliott, told me.

One effect of this, he said, is that professors actually show up to faculty meetings to talk about the future of their institution. They participate in budgeting conversations, debate the creation of majors, and approve new courses. This is decidedly not the norm at many larger universities, where professors may not see these meetings as a core part of the job, and where administrators can ignore them altogether...

Perhaps no threat to higher ed is more acute than the recent, rapid spread of generative AI. Davidson prides itself on having an unusually deliberate honor code. (Students I spoke with said this code is taken so seriously that they can leave their belongings anywhere on campus without fear that they will be stolen.) But the seductions of ChatGPT are hard to resist, and... the college has seen an increase in code violations due to AI. That sounded like less of a problem here than elsewhere, though. If the students are availing themselves of the technology, then at least they appear to be doing so with some reservations...

There is the nagging question of practicality. Even if you believe that a liberal-arts college offers the best education, going to school to learn how to think might seem like a luxury today. In the end, you’ll still need to earn some kind of living. If the paths for getting there—which may include postgraduate study in a doctoral program or professional school—are diminishing, then college itself will follow suit.

Still, after spending several weeks on my tour of wealthy, liberal-arts colleges, I grew to think that the pitch they’re making to prospective students and their parents for the fall of 2026 was convincing. All things considered, the form of higher ed that they provide seems poised to be the most resilient in the years to come...

Full story at https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/01/liberal-arts-college-war-higher-ed/685800/.

Straws in the Wind - Part 220

From the Chronicle for Higher Education: ...Soon, Northwestern will have to come up with ways to teach its 9,500 international students about... the norms of free inquiry and open debate. It’s one of several provisions administrators agreed to as part of a November deal with the Trump administration to restore nearly $800 million in frozen federal research funding. International students and their advocates are at odds over whether the unusual ask will help or hurt.

...Under the terms of Northwestern’s agreement, the university must provide the government with detailed admissions data, better enforce its campus demonstration policies, and conduct a campus-climate survey that asks students how they feel the university handles antisemitism. The university will also pay the government $75 million. Northwestern, which has a sizable population of international students hailing from 120 countries, also agreed to ask foreign applicants why they want to study in the United States and, upon request, provide the government with international students’ disciplinary records...

Full story at https://www.chronicle.com/article/in-northwesterns-trump-agreement-international-students-singled-out-for-open-debate-training.

The Northwestern Deal

Yesterday, in our "Straws in the Wind" posting, we noted that a deal between the feds and Northwestern was reportedly near. Now it is official.

From the NY Times: Northwestern agreed to pay $75 million to the federal government in a deal reached on Friday with the Trump administration that restores hundreds of millions in research funding and closes multiple investigations into antisemitism on campus. The deal was the sixth agreement that the Trump administration had reached with an elite university...

Henry S. Bienen, Northwestern’s interim president, said... “We understand how difficult the past seven months have been since our federal research funding was frozen, and that many of you have felt the impacts deeply and personally...”  in a letter to the Northwestern community. 

...Northwestern’s payments will be made to the U.S. Treasury over the next three years, according to the deal. The government agreed to close three federal investigations — by the Education, Health and Human Services and Justice Departments — without any acknowledgment of wrongdoing by the university.

...The Northwestern agreement also requires the university to revise all policies, protocols and public-facing materials on hormonal interventions and transgender surgeries for children at its Feinberg School of Medicine, and “ensure compliance with federal laws.” ...

The deal with the government also requires the university to revoke the so-called Deering Meadow agreement, which it signed in 2024 to end campus encampments in protest of Israel and the war in Gaza. Under the agreement, the university vowed to reverse all policies implemented under the 2024 accord. In the Deering Meadow agreement, named after a large green space on campus where encampments were set up, the university promised to increase transparency into its financial holdings and to provide support for Palestinians, including in the form of two slots for visiting faculty members and full scholarships for five undergraduate students. Some Jewish leaders, including officials from the American Jewish Committee, objected to the terms. The new deal requires Northwestern to survey the school body, asking whether students feel welcome and they feel safe reporting antisemitism, among other questions...

...In April, the Trump administration froze at least $790 million in federal research funding planned for Northwestern. In July, the university announced plans to eliminate about 425 jobs, about half of which were vacant...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/28/us/politics/northwestern-deal-trump-administration.html.

Straws in the Wind - Part 176

From WFIU: Before creating new degrees, Indiana’s public colleges and universities will have to explain to the state how they will promote American values. The new degree proposal form issued by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education asks: “How does the proposed program cultivate civic responsibility and commitment to the core values of American society? For example, how does the curriculum include components that emphasize civic engagement and the duties of citizenship in a free society?”

...It is especially important because the government recently eliminated hundreds of degrees with low numbers of graduates, forcing the creation of many new consolidated programs that will need the Commission’s approval. This announcement also follows President Trump’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” which says universities that sign a compact agreeing to certain policy priorities will get preferential treatment for federal funding. The administration has not sent the compact to any Indiana schools...

Full story at https://www.ipm.org/news/2025-11-21/universities-must-explain-how-new-degrees-promote-american-values.

From the NY Times: Northwestern University and the White House are finalizing a deal that would end the Trump administration’s monthslong pressure campaign against the school, restore hundreds of millions in federal funding and close a potentially onerous federal antisemitism investigation, according to three people briefed on the matter. The terms of the deal have not been publicly announced. But two of the people briefed on the talks said that Northwestern would be assessed a $75 million fine to the federal government as part of the deal. That would be the second highest amount a school facing a pressure campaign from the administration had agreed to pay.

...Northwestern has endured months of pressure from the White House and fellow Republicans in Congress. In the face of that pressure, the university’s president, Michael H. Schill, abruptly announced on Sept. 4 that he would resign after three years in office. Republicans have accused Northwestern of not doing enough to address antisemitism during campus protests over the war in Gaza, and Mr. Schill faced a difficult hearing on Capitol Hill last year over whether the school had adequately protected Jewish students. In April, the Trump administration froze at least $790 million in federal research funding planned for Northwestern. In July, the university announced plans to eliminate about 425 jobs. University officials said nearly half of those jobs were vacant and described the layoffs as “a drastic step” and “the most painful measure we have had to take.”

Mr. Schill was replaced on an interim basis by Henry Bienen, who served in the role from 1995-2009. In October, Mr. Bienen told faculty members that he wanted to strike a deal to restore research funding but would not sign an agreement that “hinders the autonomy of the university.” ...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/us/politics/northwestern-university-trump-deal.html.

Straws in the Wind - Part 150

From the Wall St. Journal: ...Schools that still use legacy preferences are concentrated among private universities, including all eight schools in the Ivy League. That is despite the sharp decline in the practice overall, with about 25% of schools now giving such preferences, down from half in 2015, according to a study by Education Reform Now, which advocates expanding access for underrepresented students on college campuses. Since the 2023 Supreme Court ruling, the number of schools using legacy preferences is down 18%.

Students who claim legacy status and whose families are among the wealthiest 1% of Americans are about five times as likely to be admitted to an Ivy Plus college as nonlegacy peers with comparable grades and test scores whose parents didn’t attend the college, according to research from Harvard University Professor Raj Chetty and his lab, Opportunity Insights. (Ivy Plus schools include the Ivies and other top institutions.)

Some schools say legacy admissions help with fundraising, foster a sense of community and build loyalty. “We think it’s an important part of who we are as an institution that creates a community that persists long after somebody graduates,” Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber wrote recently.

On its website, Princeton says “the legacy preference operates as a ‘tie-breaker’ between equally qualified applicants.”

“The overwhelming majority of alumni children who are admitted—all but about 30 a year—would be accepted without consideration of their legacy status,” the school says.

But more lawmakers and college presidents say they can no longer defend it... In 2024, California, Illinois, Maryland and Virginia joined Colorado in enacting laws that restrict legacy preferences... 

Full story at https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/legacy-college-admissions-preferences-backlash-772c88be.

From Inside Higher Ed: Thanks to a series of settlements and court orders, some universities that had their grants frozen by the Trump administration earlier this year have seen that funding restored. But others are still trying to unfreeze the grants and learn more about why they were suspended in the first place. Since March, the Trump administration has said that it put nearly $6 billion on hold at nine universities. Three universities—Columbia, Penn and Brown—cut deals with the administration to restore the funding, while the University of California, Los Angeles, and Harvard got the money back via court orders. The fate of the remaining four freezes—at Duke, Cornell, Northwestern and Princeton Universities—remains uncertain. Princeton has seen about half of its frozen grants restored, President Christopher Eisgruber told the alumni magazine in late August. Roughly $200 million was put on hold initially...

At Northwestern, the Trump administration reportedly froze about $790 million in early April, though officials said at the time they never received formal notification about why the funds were put on hold. Since then, Northwestern officials have said they are working to restore the grants—a process that apparently hasn’t gone smoothly. Northwestern University interim president Henry Bienen told The Daily Northwestern in an Oct. 17 interview that “a negotiation really requires two parties, at least, and at the present time, there’s not been anybody on the other end of the line.” ...

Cornell University is also in talks with the administration to find a solution to the freeze. However, President Michael Kotlikoff recently shared new information about the impact of the freeze that calls into question the Trump administration’s figures. Trump officials told media outlets in April that they froze more than $1 billion at Cornell. But Kotlikoff said last week in his State of the University address that Cornell is actually facing about $250 million in canceled or unpaid research funds... Kotlikoff added that Cornell has been talking with the federal government for six months “to identify their concerns, provide evidence to address them, and return to a productive partnership.” In August, Bloomberg reported that the White House wanted to reach a $100 million settlement with Cornell...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/politics-elections/2025/10/29/northwestern-cornell-still-working-unfreeze-federal.

Straws in the Wind - Part 82

From the Forward: ...Admissions officers at six universities — including Columbia — are using a new tool to assess how prospective students might navigate this increasingly charged campus political climate. Schoolhouse Dialogues, hosted on the nonprofit tutoring platform Schoolhouse founded by Sal Khan, pairs high schoolers with opposing viewpoints to discuss controversial issues one-on-one and give feedback on each other’s civility. A handful of schools will use that feedback, dubbed “civility transcripts,” in admissions.

The participating schools — several of which are engaged in high-profile disputes with the Trump administration over alleged campus antisemitism — say they are seeking applicants willing to engage in respectful civil discourse across political divides...

Six schools — Columbia University, Colby College, Johns Hopkins University, University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and Washington University in St. Louis — are allowing students to optionally submit Schoolhouse Dialogues portfolios as part of their application for the upcoming admissions cycle. Neither recordings nor transcripts of conversations are sent to admissions officers. Instead, students who choose to submit will send colleges their “dialogues portfolio,” which shows how many sessions the student has attended, what topics they discussed, their self-reflections, and the feedback they received from other students...

Not every institution has embraced the use of Dialogues in admissions. Both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Vanderbilt ultimately decided not to continue after initial trials — with Vanderbilt stating it withdrew from the program “after careful consideration and hearing some concerns.” ...

Full story at https://forward.com/news/762715/columbia-university-antisemitism-schoolhouse-dialogues/.

Straws in the Wind - Part 67

From an article in The Atlantic titled "Every Scientific Empire Comes to an End: America’s run as the premiere techno-superpower may be over": ...On a recent visit to MIT... a scientist there, much celebrated in her field, told me that since Donald Trump’s second inauguration she has watched in horror as his administration has performed a controlled demolition on American science. Like many other researchers in the U.S., she’s not sure that she wants to stick around to dodge falling debris, and so she is starting to think about taking her lab abroad. (She declined to be named in this story so that she could speak openly about her potential plans.)

The very best scientists are like elite basketball players: They come to America from all over the world so that they can spend their prime years working alongside top talent. “It’s very hard to find a leading scientist who has not done at least some research in the U.S. as an undergraduate or graduate student or postdoc or faculty,” Michael Gordin, a historian of science and the dean of Princeton University’s undergraduate academics, told me. That may no longer be the case a generation from now.

Foreign researchers have recently been made to feel unwelcome in the U.S. They have been surveilled and harassed. The Trump administration has made it more difficult for research institutions to enroll them. Top universities have been placed under federal investigation. Their accreditation and tax-exempt status have been threatened. The Trump administration has proposed severe budget cuts at the agencies that fund American science—the NSF, the NIH, and NASA, among others—and laid off staffers in large numbers. Existing research grants have been canceled or suspended en masse. Committees of expert scientists that once advised the government have been disbanded. In May, the president ordered that all federally funded research meet higher standards for rigor and reproducibility—or else be subject to correction by political appointees.

Not since the Red Scare, when researchers at the University of California had to sign loyalty oaths, and those at the University of Washington and MIT were disciplined or fired for being suspected Communists, has American science been so beholden to political ideology. At least during the McCarthy era, scientists could console themselves that despite this interference, federal spending on science was surging. Today, it’s drying up.

Three-fourths of American scientists who responded to a recent poll by the journal Nature said they are considering leaving the country. They don’t lack for suitors. China is aggressively recruiting them, and the European Union has set aside a €500 million slush fund to do the same. National governments in Norway, Denmark, and France—nice places to live, all—have green-lighted spending sprees on disillusioned American scientists. The Max Planck Society, Germany’s elite research organization, recently launched a poaching campaign in the U.S., and last month, France’s Aix-Marseille University held a press conference announcing the arrival of eight American “science refugees.”

The MIT scientist who is thinking about leaving the U.S. told me that the Swiss scientific powerhouse ETH Zurich had already reached out about relocating her lab to its picturesque campus with a view of the Alps. A top Canadian university had also been in touch. These institutions are salivating over American talent, and so are others... 

Full story at https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2025/07/science-empire-america-decline/683711/.

From the Chicago Tribune: Nearly four months have passed since the Donald Trump administration abruptly froze $790 million in federal funding at Northwestern University, and the school’s fragile research infrastructure has been pummeled by cuts. Portions of research and clinical trials have ground to a halt. Labs have been instructed to scrutinize every expense, from equipment to personnel. Some teams are even killing off lab mice because it’s cheaper than feeding them and cleaning cages. With university President Michael Schill set to appear again before a congressional committee..., rumors of a possible deal with the White House have gripped campus. But the situation on-the-ground remains dire, according to faculty and staff.

“Let’s say they unfreeze the funds. The damage is done,” said Guillermo Oliver, a professor in the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension. “Let’s be clear, this is not going to be, ‘OK, back to business.’” Northwestern never received formal notification of the funding freeze in April, which came amid several federal probes into allegations of antisemitism. The Evanston-based university has been spending about $10 million a week to keep research afloat, faculty told the Tribune in June...

Full story at https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/08/04/northwestern-university-federal-funding-cuts/.

Straws in the Wind - Part 66

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...

Full story at https://dailynorthwestern.com/2025/07/29/lateststories/northwestern-to-eliminate-more-than-400-staff-positions-amid-mounting-financial-pressures/.

Straws in the Wind - Part 55

From the Chicago Tribune: The U.S. Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security have requested information on admissions practices and international students at the University of Chicago. The university disclosed the inquiries in bond issuance documents dated July 11. Bloomberg first reported on the documents Friday... A spokesperson for U. of C. declined to comment. The documents provided no additional details on the timeline or subject of potential investigations. The Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment...

International students make up 18% of undergraduates at U. of C., and 32% of the total student body, according to the bond documents... U. of C. is also one of 45 universities under investigation by the Education Department for alleged Title VI violations for a program aimed at increasing the diversity of doctorate students. The university relied on $543 million in federal grant funding in 2024, which accounted for 18% of its revenue, according to the bond documents. Several of the school’s grants have been pulled by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and other organizations, the documents said.

Northwestern University has also been targeted by the Trump administration. More than $790 million in federal research funding has been paused while it faces multiple federal probes for alleged civil rights violations against Jewish students. President Michael Schill is slated to testify for the second time before Congress in August.

Full story at https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/07/18/university-of-chicago-federal-inquiry/.

Straws in the Wind - Part 43

From the Wall St. Journal: ...The University of Michigan’s alumni association... told students it was canceling the Lead Scholars program, a week before the school announced it was closing its DEI offices. The alumni group said it ended the scholarship to comply with the law and with guidance from the federal government. 

More than 800 students have received awards since Lead Scholars began in 2008. It was meant to support minority students after the state of Michigan banned using racial preferences in public-college admissions, and offered at least $5,000 a year as well as community events... 

Other scholarships have dwindled or are on pause. The Justice Department... said that the state of Illinois and six schools—including Northwestern University, Loyola University of Chicago and the University of Chicago—suspended a scholarship for minority graduate students called Diversifying Higher Education Faculty in Illinois after the department threatened a lawsuit over racial discrimination...

The Illinois Board of Higher Education said the program wasn’t suspended, but the state had agreed to evaluate the fellowship—which is enshrined in state law—along with the Illinois General Assembly.

Northwestern withdrew from the program in March, a school spokesman said. Loyola and the University of Chicago didn’t respond to requests for comment. The University of Illinois-Chicago on its website said its participation in the program was paused because of “funding restrictions from sponsor.” ...

Full story at https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/anti-dei-minority-scholarships-a721ba1b.

Straws in the Wind - Part 31

From the Chicago Sun-Times: Northwestern University is planning to reduce staff and make other cuts as it grapples with rising costs and federal funding uncertainties. The plans have angered some staff and faculty who say the university should be consulting with them before making any significant announcements. ...Northwestern University sent an email to staff and faculty announcing it would implement cost-cutting measures, including a hiring freeze and “decreases in the total number of staff positions.” It also said staff would not get bonuses next year, that the university was switching health insurance companies and there would be changes to the tuition benefits program, which provides employees with financial assistance toward the cost of courses.

“Like a number of our peer universities, we have now reached a moment when the university must take a series of cost-cutting measures designed to ensure our institution’s fiscal stability now and into an uncertain future,” the email said. “These are not decisions we come to lightly.”

The university is facing financial pressure due to the federal funding freeze of $790 million implemented by the Trump administration in April... 

Full story at https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2025/06/25/northwestern-university-budget-cuts.

From Detroit News: Three University of Michigan regents confirmed to The Detroit News they have 24-hour security as protests continue on campus and off over the ongoing bloodshed in the Middle East, including Israel's war with Palestinians in Gaza after the militant group Hamas launched the Oct. 7, 2023, attack into Israel that killed mostly civilians. UM regents Jordan Acker, Mark Bernstein and Sarah Hubbard said during separate interviews that the university, on the advice of legal counsel, security experts and local law enforcement, assigned them around-the-clock protection in response to serious, ongoing threats to their personal safety...

In a general statement about the need to protect regents and executives, however, UM public affairs officials cited protests that began Nov. 17, 2023, when hundreds of protesters demanding UM divest from companies that fund military operations in Israel swarmed the university's administration building. The protests have continued on an "unacceptable level," they said. University spokeswoman Colleen Mastony said the Michigan Constitution classifies regents as constitutional officers, which means they must be able to carry out their duties free from intimidation and threats. The same commitment extends to the university’s executive officers, Mastony said...

UM's eight regents, who serve without compensation, are among a rare group of university board members who are elected in partisan, statewide races to eight-year terms. Across the rest of the United States, university board members are appointed...

Full story at https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2025/07/01/um-university-of-michigan-regents-execs-get-24-hour-security-as-threats-harassment-persist/83996314007/.

Straws in the Wind - Part 19

From the Wall St. Journal: ...Through the spring, Northwestern used university money to pay bills previously covered by NIH grants, spending tens of millions of dollars monthly to keep labs and trials running without a break. Researchers and administrators now worry this stopgap can’t last. “The university is totally keeping us on life support,” said Dr. Daniela Matei, a Northwestern oncologist. “The big question is for how long they can do this.”

For decades, Northwestern celebrated—and relied on—its growing pot of government funding. Now it’s a liability. The sudden collapse of the once-symbiotic relationship between the federal government and higher education is torpedoing a half-century-old university business model and upending how science is done.

Since taking office, the Trump administration has cut or frozen billions of dollars in research funding to universities and proposed slashing budgets at government science agencies. Cutting federal funding, which accounts for more than half of university research funds nationwide, has been one of the main tools Trump has used to pressure universities to change their ways. A Trump administration official told the media that $790 million in federal funds to the Illinois university would be frozen... Northwestern is one of 10 schools identified by the Trump administration’s federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism as initial targets. The Midwestern university drew national attention when school leaders last spring cut a deal with pro-Palestinian students to end an on-campus encampment... University leaders acknowledged that campus policies weren’t strong enough in response to antisemitic incidents in the wake of Oct. 7, a Northwestern spokesman said, but they’ve since seen a significant decrease in antisemitism reports after updating their code of conduct and consistently enforcing violations...

Full story at https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/northwestern-funding-freeze-trump-85d49da2.

Straws in the Wind - Part 17

From The Daily Northwestern: Two months after the Trump administration froze $790 million in federal funding for Northwestern, University leadership introduced additional financial changes to address challenges in the wake of the freeze. A faculty and staff hiring freeze and reductions to the permanent administrative and academic budgets are among the measures announced in a Tuesday message to the NU community — adding NU to the growing list of universities cutting spending in a time of uncertainty for higher education. 

In the message, University leadership stated NU has now reached a need to implement a “series of cost-cutting measures” to ensure fiscal stability, citing potential federal changes to increase the endowment tax, decreased international student enrollment and overall reduction in federal research funding. Other changes announced include future “modest” changes to employee tuition benefits, cutting merit salary increases, changes to NU’s health insurance program, reduction in planned investments for buildings and additional non-personnel budget reductions...

Full story at https://dailynorthwestern.com/2025/06/10/lateststories/northwestern-administration-announces-hiring-freeze-academic-permanent-budget-reductions/.

Terrell

From Politico: The head of the federal antisemitism task force that has helmed the controversial crackdown on universities in recent months says his team plans to intensify its actions in the wake of the shooting that left two Israeli Embassy staffers dead in downtown Washington. Leo Terrell, a former Democrat and Fox News contributor-turned Department of Justice senior counsel in the civil rights division, is the little-known figure behind the Trump administration’s efforts to target 10 academic institutions across the country over claims of antisemitism...

Harvard isn’t the only school facing the administration’s ire. Terrell’s task force in February announced a list of 10 institutions that it planned to investigate for allegedly allowing antisemitism on their campuses. In addition to Harvard, the universities include: Columbia; George Washington; Johns Hopkins; New York University; Northwestern; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Minnesota; and the University of Southern California...

Full profile at https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/23/leo-terrell-trump-universities-harvard-00368352.

Similar but different

Columbia - as blog readers will know - got a letter from the feds with various demands and appeared to concede after funds were frozen. So far, however, the funds have not been unfrozen. Columbia's endowment is $14.8 billion, which, as we have noted, is much smaller than Harvard's. Harvard did not concede when it got a letter (which may or may not have been sent by mistake).

Northwestern has an endowment of $14.2 billion, similar to Columbia's. Its total enrollment is around 23,000, compared with around 31,000 for Columbia. So it is more similar to Columbia than it is to Harvard.

Northwestern has received "stop orders" from the feds on various grants. But it hasn't received a letter of demands. In response, it announced it would backstop the funding for the grants with stop orders using its own resources. 

...In a letter to the university community, Board of Trustees Chairman Peter Barris and President Michael Schill said... the university will step in to fund the research subject to those stop-work orders as well as research threatened by the federal funding freeze. Barris and Schill said the move intends to keep the projects going until they "have a better understanding of the funding landscape." ...

Full story from CBS News-Chicago at:

https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/northwestern-research-grants-trump-federal-funding-freeze/.

In short, Harvard said it would not comply with the letter and would take legal action. It did not say it would backstop funding for frozen grants. Northwestern said it would for now backstop funding. But it hasn't said what it would do if it got a letter similar to those received by Columbia and Harvard.

UC Admissions

A report from Inside Higher Ed indicates that the feds plan to challenge higher ed admissions practices. UC has argued that because of Prop 209, UC already complies with the Supreme Court's recent decision ending affirmative action. But there are some vulnerabilities in that argument. The first is that the Regents campaigned to repeal 209 only a few years ago. The second is that when they dropped use of the SAT and ACT for admissions, they ignored a report from the Academic Senate that said that the way UC used the tests in admissions decisions actually contributed to diversity. All of this makes for a messy, ambiguous, and contradictory record. 

...In March the Department of Justice launched investigations into admissions practices at Stanford University and three University of California campuses, accusing them of defying the Supreme Court’s decision banning affirmative action in June 2023’s Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. Exactly what the Trump administration believes is going on behind closed doors in highly selective college admissions offices remains unclear. The University of California system has been prohibited from considering race in admissions since the state outlawed the practice in 1996, and both Harvard and Columbia have publicly documented changes to their admissions policies post-SFFA, including barring admissions officers from accessing the applicant pool’s demographic data.

Regardless, given the DOJ investigations and demands of Columbia and Harvard—not to mention potential demands at newly targeted institutions like Princeton, Northwestern and Brown—the federal government appears set to launch a crusade against admissions offices...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/admissions/traditional-age/2025/04/14/admissions-offices-brace-federal-scrutiny.

All of this will play out in the courts. It seems unlikely that the Regents will want to make a Columbia-type deal. But UC might want to reconsider its SAT/ACT decisions before that process occurs.

More Cuts

From the NY Times: The Trump Administration’s abrupt withdrawal of $400 million in federal funding from Columbia University cast a pall over at least nine other campuses worried they could be next. The schools, a mix that includes both public universities and Ivy League institutions, have been placed on an official administration list of schools the Department of Justice said may have failed to protect Jewish students and faculty...

Harvard University, whose former president Claudine Gay resigned last year following a bruising appearance before a House committee, is also on the list. So are George Washington University; Johns Hopkins University; New York University; Northwestern University; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Minnesota; and the University of Southern California...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/08/us/columbia-trump-colleges-antisemitism.html.

The Visit

From a DOJ news release of 2/28/25:

The Federal Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announced that it will be visiting 10 university campuses that have experienced antisemitic incidents since October 2023. Created pursuant to President Trump’s Executive Order on Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism, the Task Force set as its first priority to eradicate antisemitic harassment in schools and on college campuses...

The 10 universities identified by the Task Force are: Columbia University; George Washington University; Harvard University; Johns Hopkins University; New York University; Northwestern University; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Minnesota; and the University of Southern California...

Full release at https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-task-force-combat-antisemitism-announces-visits-10-college-campuses-experienced.