Tuition increases, layoffs are coming to a broad set of universities
Students and employees from coast to coast are poised to feel the squeeze. Although the exact consequences will vary by school, administrators are warning that many students may have to pay more, professors may lose their jobs, programs could vanish, and support services could shrink.
Get Starting Point
A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.
Enter Email
Sign Up
The turmoil is not limited to any one type of university or college, or any one state. A day before Michigan State University trustees opted for tuition increases, a California State University campus minutes from the Pacific Ocean announced that it was trimming its workforce.
Advertisement
'If you're a student or family looking to go to college this year, all of the numbers are going in the wrong direction,' said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, who described the mood among higher education leaders as 'dark but resolved.'
The Trump administration's efforts to reduce research funding are siphoning cash from many campuses, sometimes by hundreds of millions of dollars. But that is just one factor contributing to higher education's financial crunch. Colleges, like businesses and households, are facing greater costs for wages, supplies, utilities, and other expenses.
Advertisement
Their income sources are not always keeping pace. In Nebraska, the state government's contribution to the university system will rise roughly 0.6 percent, far below the 3.5 percent increase that the Board of Regents had sought to account for inflation. But regents saw the increase as a modest victory.
Governor Jim Pillen, a Republican who wanted the state to have 'the courage to say no, and to focus on needs, not wants,' had originally urged a 2 percent reduction.
'We will need to continue to reduce spending and make increasingly difficult choices to ensure fiscal discipline,' Jeffrey P. Gold, the University of Nebraska's president, told regents before a vote Thursday to impose cuts and increase tuition. Students who enroll at the flagship campus in Lincoln are poised to pay about 5 percent more.
In neighboring Kansas, only one of the state's six public universities did not propose a tuition increase for the coming school year. And University of Oklahoma leaders just raised tuition again, too.
The White House rejected accusations from some college administrators that the federal government is partly to blame for tuition increases and other budget moves.
'Any school that scapegoats the administration's policies of cutting waste, fraud and abuse to justify raising already astronomical tuition costs is failing American students in an effort to score political points and fatten its coffers,' Harrison Fields, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement.
He added: 'If these higher education institutions were serious about lowering costs, they would cut the bloated salaries of their faculty and stop wasting money on useless programs that do little to advance education.'
Advertisement
Some schools are more reliant than others on federal money, especially research institutions, and leaders on many of those campuses have cited the administration's tactics as they have reworked their budgets. But public institutions are also sometimes facing significant resistance in statehouses, and recent rises in inflation have put new demands on campus finances.
College leaders across the country have sometimes sought to defend new tuition increases by noting correctly that their prices had stayed relatively steady in recent years. Others point to the number of scholarships and grants they offer, which routinely drive costs well south of the sticker price, and say that many students are ultimately paying less than in the past.
In Minnesota, students are set to pay more for less.
State leaders maintained stable support for the University of Minnesota — a decision that university officials considered an effective budget cut, given inflation. And questions are swirling over how much additional declines in federal money could worsen the university's financial outlook.
Tuition at the Twin Cities campus will rise by at least 6.5 percent. But the university is also pursuing cuts of 7 percent. Academic units have been asked to come up with millions of dollars in 'reallocations' that could lead to program changes and fewer materials in the Law Library, among other things. More than 350 jobs could be eliminated.
'Making these kinds of cuts here is new to us in Minnesota,' Rebecca Cunningham, the university's president, said during a board meeting Wednesday. 'It is unfortunate, but indeed we are not alone.'
They are not. The University System of Maryland's chancellor, Jay A. Perman, bluntly told employees in a video this month that the schools would absorb a 7 percent cut for the coming fiscal year.
Advertisement
'A 7 percent cut simply can't be achieved on every campus in a way that doesn't touch any of our people,' Perman said.
Private universities often say far less about their finances than public institutions, but similar signs of immense strain are emerging.
Duke University is seeking about $350 million in cuts, amounting to roughly 10 percent of its budget.
Harvard University, which has clashed bitterly with the Trump administration, is urgently seeking contributions from donors and has been making cuts, partly because billions of dollars in its endowment have restricted uses. And in a statement Wednesday ominously titled 'a message on financial austerity,' leaders at Cornell, which also has a substantial endowment, described a dire landscape.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
25 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
S.F. ‘emergency protest' condemns ICE raids, U.S. support for Israel
Hundreds of people protested the prospect of a U.S. war with Iran and voiced support for immigrants in the U.S. and Palestinians in Gaza during a rally Friday evening outside the federal building in San Francisco's South of Market. The protest outside the Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Building, which drew about 200 people at its peak, was organized by a coalition of activist groups, including Bay Resistance, the Answer Coalition and the Bay Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The escalating tensions between Israel and Iran were a major focus of Friday's protest. President Trump said Thursday he will decide within two weeks whether the U.S. military will strike back at Tehran. Tensions initially soared last Friday with a surprise wave of Israeli airstrikes targeting Iran's nuclear and military sites, military leaders and nuclear scientists. 'As the U.S. escalates aggression on Iran — backing Israeli strikes and pushing for war — it exposes its imperialist playbook: defend Zionism, crush resistance. From Gaza to Tehran, the U.S. fuels war and genocide to maintain control,' organizers said in promoting the event, billed as an 'emergency protest.' The protest featured several speakers and closed the block around the federal building at Seventh and Mission streets, with many protesters chanting, 'Free, free Palestine.' Bay Area protests against Israel's war with Hamas have cooled in recent months, though activists have found new energy since Trump retook office in January. Last Saturday's No Kings Day protests drew tens of thousands of people to events in dozens of Bay Area cities decrying Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids nationwide. Weeks earlier, demonstrations against Tesla CEO Elon Musk drew huge crowds to the vehicle's showrooms across the Bay Area condemning the onetime Trump ally, whose relationship with the president has cooled in recent weeks. 'At home, the war continues through ICE raids, family separations, and repression of migrants — all part of the same violent system,' the organizers said. 'We reject this imperialist war machine and stand with all people resisting Zionism and U.S. domination.'
Yahoo
37 minutes ago
- Yahoo
WSJ White House Reporter: How Trump Uses ‘Two Weeks' Deadline as a Tactic
President Trump said he will decide within 'two weeks' if the U.S. will get involved in the Israel-Iran conflict. WSJ's Alex Leary explains why the president resorts to the time-frame and how he uses it as a tactic. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Business Insider
an hour ago
- Business Insider
Stock Market News Review: SPY, QQQ Slip as Recession Signal Flashes, Fed Officials Split on Rate Cuts
Both the S&P 500 (SPX) and Nasdaq 100 (NDX) closed the Friday trading session in the red as geopolitical and economic uncertainty continue to persist. Confident Investing Starts Here: The market received a morning boost after President Trump announced on the Juneteenth holiday that the U.S. would hold off from striking Iran's nuclear facilities for two weeks to allow a window for negotiations. However, those gains were quickly erased after The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index (LEI) flashed a recession signal. The LEI has fallen by 2.7% for the six months ended May, with its annualized six-month growth rate dropping below -4.1%, one of the two requirements that trigger a recession warning. The other requirement occurs when the six-month diffusion index reaches or drops below 50, which signals that most of the components within the LEI are falling. The components include manufacturing, labor market, sentiment, and credit statistics, among others. The recession indicator isn't perfect, although it did precede the recessions of 2000 and 2008 while issuing false signals in 2022, 2023, and 2024. Meanwhile, chip and AI stocks took a hit after a Wall Street Journal report that the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) is planning on restricting Samsung, SK Hynix, and Taiwan Semiconductor's (TSM) access to American chip-making technology in their Chinese factories. The three companies currently enjoy a blanket waiver on moving U.S. chip-making equipment to their Chinese facilities, although DOC export controls head Jeffrey Kessler has informed them that the waivers could be cancelled. The policy hasn't been set in stone yet, however. In interest rate news, Fed officials are split on when to cut rates sooner or later. Fed Governor Christopher Waller supports a rate drop as soon as July while Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin doesn't see a rush for lower rates while the labor market and consumer spending remain healthy. 'I don't think the data gives us any rush to cut… I am very conscious that we've not been at our inflation target for four years,' said Barkin in an interview with Reuters.
