Straws in the Wind - Part 179

From Inside Higher Ed: As Duke University navigates a $108 million federal research funding freeze and multiple investigations by the Trump administration, administrators want faculty to avoid talking to the media about institutional operations, The Chronicle, Duke’s student newspaper reported... According to an August email obtained by The Chronicle, Jenny Edmonds, associate dean of communications and marketing at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy, encouraged faculty to “continue to engage with the media to disseminate [their] research as [they] have always done,” while also cautioning that “media attention to institutions of higher education and discussions about institutional responses to policy changes have become more prominent than ever.”

...At an Academic Council meeting in October, Duke’s president, Vincent Price, and council chair, Mark Anthony Neal, commended faculty members for not speaking to a New York Times reporter; the reporter had visited the campus while working on a story about the Trump administration targeting Duke’s diversity, equity and inclusion program...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2025/11/26/duke-asked-some-faculty-avoid-talking-media.

From Inside Higher Ed: Hackers who attacked Dartmouth College in August stole information concerning more than 35,000 people from multiple states, according to The Record from Recorded Future News. The security breach was part of a larger attack by cybercriminals against Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) software, which Dartmouth and other higher ed institutions use to manage operations. Dartmouth, which confirmed the leak to SecurityWeek last week, discovered in late October that hackers had obtained files that contained individuals’ personal and financial details, including Social Security numbers. College administrators have since notified authorities in California, Maine, New Hampshire and Texas that residents of their states have been impacted...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2025/12/01/dartmouth-latest-college-be-targeted-hackers.

Straws in the Wind - Part 178

From the Columbia Daily Spectator: Columbia is absent from the list of 38 universities facing proposed suspensions from a Department of State federal research partnership program, according to an internal memo... The memo and an attached spreadsheet indicate that the department is looking to suspend institutions from partnering with its Diplomacy Lab program effective Jan. 1, 2026, because they “openly engage in DEI hiring practices.” Diplomacy Lab is an initiative between the federal government and over 60 universities that aims to harness “the expertise and fresh perspectives of students and faculty members to conduct research on key foreign policy topics,” according to an information sheet about the program.

A State Department spokesperson told Spectator that all agency programs are under review to ensure they are aligned with the priorities of President Donald Trump’s administration. The spreadsheet evaluated the hiring practices of 75 universities on a 4-point, color-coded scale... Universities showing “clear DEI hiring policy” were marked red for suspension from the program, whereas institutions showing “merit-based hiring with no evidence of DEI” were marked in green.

...In its July 23 $221 million settlement with the federal government, Columbia pledged not to consider “race, color, sex or national origin” as a factor in its hiring decisions. Columbia has also committed to submitting admissions data to the federal government, beginning with an initial October report...

Full story at https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2025/11/23/columbia-set-to-retain-embattled-state-department-research-partnership-as-other-universities-face-potential-suspensions-over-dei-hiring-practices/.

From The Guardian: More than three dozen universities including Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Duke have their participation in a federal research partnership on the chopping block after the state department proposed to suspend them over their diversity, equity and inclusion hiring practices. Last week, the Guardian obtained an internal memo and spreadsheet showing that the state department is moving to exclude 38 institutions from the Diplomacy Lab program, which pairs university researchers with state department policy offices on foreign policy projects. The suspensions would take effect on 1 January, and because the list is not finalized, the schools have not yet been informed.

The targeted schools include elite universities such as Stanford University, Yale University, Johns Hopkins University, Duke University and the University of Southern California, as well as American University, George Washington University, Syracuse University and several University of California campuses. 

Universities recommended to remain include Columbia University, MIT, the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Virginia and the University of Texas at Austin. Several of these moved to comply with the administration’s anti-DEI demands earlier this year – Columbia agreed in July to pay more than $200m to the federal government and pledged not to use “race, color, sex or national origin” in hiring decisions, while the University of Virginia’s president resigned in June after the justice department demanded he step down over the school’s diversity practices...

Full story at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/25/us-universities-cuts-dei-state-department.

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 174

From the Brown Daily Herald: Brown will face a 4% tax rate on its endowment in the coming year, an increase from its current 1.4% endowment tax rate, according to the University’s annual financial report for fiscal year 2025 released early Thursday morning. The larger tax rate results from a growth in the endowment that has pushed the University’s endowment past the $750,000 per student threshold required to trigger a 4% endowment tax — a new limit established under the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” passed by Congress in July...

In April, the White House announced plans to freeze $510 million of Brown’s federal funding,  pausing reimbursements on existing grants from the National Institutes of Health and halting the awarding of new grants or routine grant renewals... Existing grants from the NIH comprised more than 70% of the University’s federal research funding, and totaled over $50 million in overdue payments by the end of the fiscal year on June 30. Brown is around 10 percentage points more reliant on federal funding than peer institutions, according to the report. Sponsored research is the largest source of research funding for Brown, encompassing grants and contracts from federal agencies, foundations and corporations and accounting for 20.5% of the University’s revenue...

Full story at https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025/11/brown-to-face-increased-4-endowment-tax-next-fiscal-year.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 92

From the Harvard Crimson: The Faculty of Arts and Sciences announced Wednesday that it would reduce the number of Ph.D. admissions slots for the Science division by 50 percent this year, walking back plans for even steeper cuts after faculty responded with frustration to the reductions. The FAS announced in October that Ph.D seats in the Science division would be reduced by 75 percent as part of drastic cuts to Ph.D. admissions across divisions in response to growing financial pressures. But the move prompted backlash among some professors, who said the change would have severe consequences for their teaching and research.

In an email announcing the change, FAS Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra cited the October return of federal funding to Harvard and concerns from Science departments as catalysts for her decision to reverse course...

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/11/19/fas-science-phds/.

Straws in the Wind - Part 165

From The Dartmouth: College President Sian Leah Beilock has travelled to Washington, D.C., eight times since the beginning of the year to meet with members of the federal government, according to senior vice president for communications and government relations Justin Anderson. College leaders are “focused on” protecting the school’s research and financial aid funding as the Trump administration has continued to renegotiate its relationship with higher education, according to Anderson. 

...This is part of a larger College effort. In June, Dartmouth, along with 16 other universities, filed an amicus brief backing Harvard University’s lawsuit against the Trump administration after federal funding cuts. Similarly, in October, the College rejected the Trump administration’s higher education compact, which offered funding benefits in exchange for capping international enrollment...

Full story at https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2025/11/college-advocating-for-research-funding-in-talks-with-trump-administration.

From the Brown Daily Herald: In The Herald’s Fall 2025 Poll, 46% of respondents said they felt uncomfortable expressing their political beliefs at Brown, but this trend is more pronounced among conservative students. Over half of right-leaning students said they have felt uncomfortable sharing their political views in class, compared to about a quarter of liberal students... In The Herald’s most recent poll, 78% of students identified as liberal or progressive, with less than 7% of students identifying as conservative...

Other conservative students reported similar discomfort. About 72% of conservative students said they have felt uncomfortable expressing their political beliefs in a social setting, compared to just 37% of very liberal students, according to The Herald’s poll... Associate Professor of Political Science Alex Gourevitch said multiple students have told him they felt uncomfortable expressing their opinions in class. “In the past, I had students tell me they were afraid to express viewpoints that would offend campus liberals,” he wrote in a message to The Herald. “I have had students tell me more recently that they were afraid to express views about Trump, Israel and American politics generally.” ...

Full story at https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025/11/they-would-be-ostracized-over-45-of-students-have-felt-uncomfortable-expressing-political-beliefs-herald-poll-finds.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 89

From the Harvard Crimson: Harvard laid off 38 information technology workers... in its latest cost-cutting measure as the University faces extended financial uncertainty. Harvard’s chief information officer, Klara Jelinkova, announced the layoffs in a Nov. 4 email to HUIT staff, citing “significant financial challenges” at the University level. Jelinkova added that no further layoffs were anticipated...

The HUIT layoffs are only the latest in a series of labor-related cuts, as Harvard juggles the impacts of a hiked endowment tax and federal funding cuts. Harvard laid off 35 workers at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences last month, and both the Harvard Kennedy School and School of Public Health laid off an undisclosed number of workers earlier this year...

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/11/14/huit-layoffs-financial/.

You Don't Say

From the San Francisco Chronicle: The presence of two words — “equity” and “inclusion” — on page 50 of a 5-year-old grant application just killed a program at UC Berkeley that for half a century helped thousands of East Bay teens recognize that they could go to college and even pay for it. 

The canceled grant is one of 120 that the Trump administration has canceled across the country amid this fall’s college application season, with more likely to come.

...Trump’s Education Department canceled the $836,000 annual grant that supported UC Berkeley’s Educational Talent Search as of Sept. 30. Federal officials alerted program administrators on Sept. 15 — after they had welcomed 1,507 students in the Oakland and West Contra Costa Unified school districts and begun counseling them about the value of college and how to apply.

Educational Talent Search is one of eight nationwide anti-poverty programs that grew out of three originally authorized by Congress in the 1960s and that have long received bipartisan support. Known collectively as TRIO, they include such well-known staples as Upward Bound and Student Support Services...

Full story at https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/uc-berkeley-educational-talent-search-21144252.php.

Straws in the Wind - Part 157

From Inside Higher Ed: Faculty at Williams College approved four motions at a faculty meeting... to remove language about using race in college admissions and hiring decisions from the faculty handbook, the Williams Record reported. The changes are part of a collegewide effort to comply with new federal laws and regulations, a college spokesperson said. In May, Williams officials stopped accepting grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, saying they would not accept new funding until the agencies clarified their ban on college grant recipients promoting diversity, equity and inclusion. 

Two of the approved motions removed references to affirmative action and replaced them with language about “non-discrimination.” Another motion revised the description of the Bolin Fellowship—named for Williams’s first Black graduate, Gaius Charles Bolin—to remove language that restricted the scholarship to underrepresented groups. The fourth motion removed racial provisions from the handbook description of faculty hiring processes. All motions were “widely approved,” the Record reported. Faculty were originally supposed to vote on the motions last month, but the vote was deferred to allow for further discussion...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2025/11/03/williams-removes-race-language-handbook-get-grants-back.

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See also https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2025/07/straws-in-wind-part-41.html; https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2025/06/straws-in-wind-part-12.html.

Cornell Deal

From the Cornell Daily Sun: The University reached a settlement* with the federal government to restore over $250 million in federal funds, according to a statement sent by President Michael Kotlikoff to the University community on Friday. Cornell has agreed to give $30 million to the federal government and invest an additional $30 million into research to strengthen U.S. agriculture over the next three years. The settlement stipulates that all funding to Cornell will be restored for grants that were paused and those that were yet to be funded. Grants that were previously deemed ineligible for funding will also be restored in full. 

The federal government also agreed to close all ongoing Civil Rights Title VI investigations into Cornell. The University does not admit to any wrongdoing and “expressly denies liability with respect to the subject matter of the Investigations,” according to the settlement. Under the agreement, the University must provide the federal government with anonymized undergraduate admissions data, including race, grade point average and standardized test scores broken down by specific colleges on a quarterly basis in compliance with existing regulations. The data will be subjected to a “comprehensive audit by the United States.” However, the information will be “maintained confidentially and exempt from public disclosure,” according to the agreement.

The settlement states that “no provision of this Agreement, individually or taken together, shall be construed as giving the United States authority to dictate the content of academic speech or curricula.” However, Cornell agreed to include the Department of Justice’s “Guidance for Recipients of Federal Funding Regarding Unlawful Discrimination,” released on July 29, as a training resource for all faculty and staff. The memo announcing the guidance says, “The federal government will not stand by while recipients of federal funds engage in discrimination,” noting the “significant legal risk of initiatives” such as diversity, equity and inclusion programs and the allowance of transgender athletes to compete on women’s teams...

Full story at https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2025/11/cornell-reaches-settlement-with-trump-administration-to-restore-federal-funding.

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*https://ia800402.us.archive.org/9/items/2-final-hjaa-report.-the-soil-beneath-the-encampments/Cornell-settlement-agreement%2011-7-2025.pdf.

Angry Judge

From the NY Times: A federal judge on Thursday excoriated the Trump administration’s blitz of hardball tactics against elite universities, warning that the government’s threats and investigations were undermining academic freedom at the University of California. Judge Rita F. Lin, of the Federal District Court in San Francisco, did not immediately order the government to curb its pressure campaign against the university system. But it was only minutes into a hearing on Thursday before Judge Lin, her voice crackling with anger, began depicting the Trump administration’s methods as potentially lawless and deeply detrimental.

...What was emerging, she said, is “a classic, predictable First Amendment injury, and it’s exactly what the administration has said that it intends.” The White House did not immediately comment on Thursday.

...Thursday’s hearing focused on a request for Judge Lin to issue a preliminary injunction. Although the judge, an appointee of former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., said that she did not expect to rule until at least late next week, a barrage of sharp questions suggested that she was immensely skeptical of the government’s approach to schools like the University of California.

...The university system itself did not join [this] case that was before Judge Lin on Thursday. But system leaders have spent months in talks with the government about a possible settlement. The system has said little about those negotiations, and it tried unsuccessfully to keep the Trump administration’s U.C.L.A. settlement proposal out of view, fighting a public records lawsuit all the way to the California Supreme Court...

Full story https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/us/trump-pressure-free-speech-university-of-california-lawsuit.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.

All in 30 Minutes?

The ten Regents who have are dealing with UCLA/UC's conflict with the feds are having a 30-minute meeting on Tuesday. The quick duration is somewhat puzzling.

November 1, 2025

TO THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA:

Because the membership of the Advisory Group on Research and Programs Funding Legal Issues (“Advisory Group”) includes five members of the Regents’ Governance Committee, there exists the potential for having present a quorum of a Regents’ Committee when the advisory committee meets.

This notice of meeting is served in order to comply fully with pertinent open meeting laws. On Tuesday, November 4, 2025, there will be a Closed Session, Special Meeting of the Regents’ Governance Committee concurrent with the Advisory Group to discuss Research and Programs Funding Legal Issues (Closed Session Statute Citation: Litigation [Education Code section 92032(b)(5)].)

The meeting will convene at 4:30 p.m. at 1111 Franklin Street, Oakland and adjourn at approximately 5:00 p.m.

(Advisory Group members: Regents Anguiano, Cohen, Hernandez, Leib, Matosantos, Milliken, Reilly, Robinson, Sarris, and Sures)

Source: https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/nov25/federal_meeting_11.4.2025.pdf.

Straws in the Wind - Part 143

From the Duke Chronicle: Through petitions and committees, faculty members have urged Duke to reinstate their subject librarians after a budget cut of $4 million across Duke University Libraries (DUL) saw the termination of 40 staff positions. The librarians’ departures, as part of Duke’s effort to reduce its total expense base by 10% in response to federal funding shortfalls, caught faculty off guard. Many say they now navigate their teaching and research with uncertainty and lack of support.

The international area studies department (IAS), whose librarians provide research consultation and classroom instructional support related to global languages and cultures, was particularly impacted by the personnel cuts after four of its 10 librarians were offered and accepted voluntary severance packages. The department has since been renamed the global studies department.

...The University’s elimination of the librarian position for the department of Slavic & Eurasian studies (SES) raised alarms among interdisciplinary SES faculty and the SES academic community...In a letter addressed to University leadership, 16 faculty from Trinity College of Arts & Sciences and other graduate schools wrote that the termination of the role would “signal the demise” of SES at Duke... 

Full story at https://dukechronicle.com/article/duke-university-faculty-call-for-librarians-to-be-rehired-cost-cutting-voluntary-severance-package-vsip-20251017.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 79

From the Harvard Crimson: The Trump administration has turned toward federal financial aid as a new pressure point for Harvard — but recent threats have yet to present a significant risk to Harvard’s financial footing or College students’ access to aid. The Education Department slapped a new sanction on Harvard when it placed the University on heightened cash monitoring status on Sept. 19. The classification, often applied to struggling technical and for-profit colleges, is typically used to ensure the federal government isn’t sending aid to schools that are likely to collapse midyear...

Under HCM1 status, the designation Harvard was placed in, there are no changes to the University’s payment method — unlike the more restrictive HCM2 status, which would require Harvard to use its own funds to cover aid for students eligible for federal grants, rather than first drawing down federal funding through the Advance Payment Method. But for Harvard, even that change would be unlikely to make much of a difference: Harvard has always first distributed aid to students and then requested federal reimbursement for financial aid awarded, according to a University spokesperson...

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/10/22/Heightened-Cash-Monitoring/.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 77

From Inside Higher Ed: Harvard University ended fiscal year 2025 with a $113 million operating deficit, according to its annual financial report—the first such loss in more than a decade, Harvard Magazine reported. That follows a $45 million surplus in FY 2024.

The report, published [last] Thursday, showed that revenue and expense growth both slowed in FY 2025, which ended June 30, but expenses still rose twice as fast as revenue—6 percent versus 3 percent. The deficit reflects “some effects of the Trump administration’s unprecedented fiscal and regulatory assault” on Harvard and higher education more broadly, Harvard Magazine noted. While the report itself doesn't mention President Trump by name, it suggests that Harvard is steeling itself for more battles with the government.

TPM at Harvard

“Looking forward, daunting challenges await: the declining trajectory of federal research support, the forthcoming increase in the endowment tax, the still-unfolding challenges to our ability to host international students and scholars and ongoing litigation—all against the backdrop of serious geopolitical and economic pressures and the potential for significant inflation,” Harvard treasurer Timothy Barakett and Ritu Kalra, vice president for finance and chief financial officer, wrote in the report.

“Structural changes and reductions across our Schools and units will be necessary, and they will not be easy. Our work is far from finished.” ...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2025/10/20/harvard-runs-deficit-even-endowment-grows-sharply.

Straws in the Wind - Part 135

From Inside Higher Ed: California State University, Fresno, celebrated the launch of a new program this fall called Finish in Five, which allows students to earn both a bachelor’s and master’s degree within five years. University leaders were eager to offer students at the Central Valley campus—which serves large populations of first-generation and low-income students, many the children of local farmworkers—a streamlined pathway to high-demand STEM fields in an economically distressed region.

But less than a month later, the program’s funding, which came from a Hispanic-serving institution grant, abruptly ended. The Education Department stopped awarding grants for HSIs and many other minority-serving institutions last month, claiming the federal programs amounted to “discrimination.” Officials argued the programs are “unconstitutional” because they require institutions to enroll certain percentages of students from specific racial or ethnic backgrounds, among other criteria.

Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval, president of Fresno State, said he doesn’t know what’s going to happen to the Finish in Five program now that the money is gone. In the past, the campus relied on about $5 million annually in HSI funding, which fueled a wide range of student supports and programs. The university was also expecting to receive $250,000 this fiscal year as an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander–serving institution...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/institutions/minority-serving-institutions/2025/10/14/csu-campuses-reel-blow-hsi-funding.

From the LA Times: The University of Southern California on Thursday rejected the controversial education compact the Trump administration offered it and eight other schools, saying it would undermine “values of free inquiry and academic excellence.” USC interim President Beong-Soo Kim said in a statement that he had sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Education turning down the Trump offer, which would give priority research funding access to universities that agree to follow the president’s mostly conservative vision of higher education. His letter, which USC provided to The Times, was addressed to Education Secretary Linda McMahon and said that the compact “raises a number of issues worthy of further discussion within both higher education and our nation.”

...White House spokesperson Liz Huston said in a statement that universities “funded by American taxpayers should absolutely serve the national interest.” “As long as they are not begging for federal funding, universities are free to implement any lawful policies they would like,” she said. “However, the notion that universities should benefit from taxpayer money without responsibilities in return is terribly misguided.” ...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-10-16/usc-rejects-trump-education-compact.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 76

From the Harvard Crimson: Harvard has now received payments on the majority of funding that it lost since the Trump administration froze its access to federal grants this spring, the University notified faculty this month. Most of Harvard’s federal awards were reinstated in the days after a judge struck down in early September the Trump administration’s roughly $2.7 billion freeze on multiyear grant and contract commitments. But the money itself has been slower to flow back to Harvard’s coffers. It took more than two weeks before Harvard received $46 million in Department of Health and Human Services grants. And it was more than a week later when Harvard informed faculty, in an Oct. 1 email from Vice Provost for Research John H. Shaw and Chief Financial Officer Ritu Kalra, that the majority of frozen funds had hit Harvard accounts.

...Harvard’s research projects receive more than $600 million per year from the federal government — almost none of which flowed during the months that the funding freeze was in place.

...Earlier this year, after [the Harvard School of Public Health] lost nearly all of its direct grants from the federal government this spring, the school laid off employees, exited leases on two buildings, and made cuts to department budgets. Harvard also paused merit-based wage increases for faculty for the 2025-26 fiscal year and announced a University-wide hiring freeze. Other Harvard schools have not pulled back from austerity measures... Harvard Medical School Dean George Q. Daley ’82 warned in a Sept. 18 address that the school would continue to reduce its research spending, and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences announced major staff layoffs last week.

...HHS opened suspension and debarment proceedings into Harvard in September that could cut off its access to federal grants and contracts if the agency determines it is not a responsible recipient of government funds.

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/10/14/majority-federal-funds/.

Straws in the Wind - Part 126

From Science: After months of anticipation, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) today released its instructions for the next round of applicants to its Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). To the dismay of many, the prestigious program, which funds more than 1000 promising STEM graduate students each year, will now exclude a key group of students, as second-year Ph.D. students are no longer eligible. The students who are still able to apply—undergraduates, bachelor’s degree holders, those in joint bachelor’s-master’s programs, and first year Ph.D. students—aren’t in the clear either, as some must decide whether to throw their hats in the ring with an unusually narrow timeframe to apply...

Second-year students who had put in significant work on their applications prior to the solicitation release now feel abandoned. “I had already completed several drafts of my personal statement and research proposal,” says University of Chicago molecular engineering Ph.D. student Ben Broekhuis. After receiving an honorable mention when he applied as an undergraduate, he opted to sit out the application process the first year of his Ph.D. after being advised to wait. “Now, seeing from the solicitation that I’ve been cut out of my opportunity to apply, I’m completely shattered.”

There are no publicly available data on what proportion of GRFP applicants, who typically number more than 13,000 per year, are second-year Ph.D. students. But Susan Brennan, a former GRFP director who now works at Stony Brook University, says in her experience the bulk of applications come from people at that stage. “It's completely unconscionable that NSF is pulling the rug out from under these students.” She adds that for students coming into graduate school from less well-resourced universities, having an extra year to get publications and other research experiences under the belt can be particularly important...

Full story at https://www.science.org/content/article/completely-shattered-changes-nsf-s-graduate-student-fellowship-spur-outcry.

They must be somewhere

We're all looking for that 28-page letter from the Dept. of Justice with various demands for UCLA that the LA Times has seen.

We can now add to that the 10-point memo that has been reported in various news sources (Washington Post, NY Times, Wall St. Journal) from the Dept. of Education to nine universities on conditions for advantageous access to federal funds. No one else seems to have the actual memo. We seem to be in a period where things can be described but not seen.

From Inside Higher Ed:

...The proposal seeks an agreement with nine institutions that are being asked to commit to a 10-point memo referred to as the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.”

Among the various conditions, institutions are reportedly being asked to:

• Ban consideration of race or sex in hiring and admissions processes
• Freeze tuition for a five-year period
• Limit international undergraduate enrollment to 15 percent of the student body
• Commit to institutional neutrality
• Require applicants to take standardized tests, such as the SAT or ACT
• Clamp down on grade inflation
• Ensure a “vibrant marketplace of ideas on campus” 
• Restrict employees from expressing political views on behalf of the institution
• Shut down departments that “punish, belittle” or “spark violence against conservative ideas”
• Anonymously poll students and employees on compact compliance and publish the results

Another requirement mandates that signatories “deploy their endowments to the public good,” such as by not charging tuition to students “pursuing hard science programs (with exceptions, as desired, for families of substantial means)” for universities with more than $2 million per undergraduate student in endowment assets. Universities would also be required to post more details about graduates’ earnings and refund tuition to those who drop out in their first semester...

Institutions reportedly invited to join are: Brown University, Dartmouth College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Arizona, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, University of Texas at Austin, the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/science-research-policy/2025/10/02/white-house-floats-compact-preferential.

And then there's this:

Source: https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/1973848963662172242.

Or direct to https://ia800103.us.archive.org/6/items/united-we-can-yes-on-50-united-we-can-10-3-2025/newsom%2010-3-2025%20universities%20should%20reject%20Trump%20offer.mp4.