Crisis in higher education from all sides, but especially from the Trump Administration

The right's hate of higher learning, seen as dominated by progressive politics, is meted out in a multi-pronged campaign under the Trump Administration ("Chris Matthews suggests Trump 'smart' to target Harvard and elite universities," Fox News).  From the AP story, "Trump restricts federal research funding, a lifeblood for colleges":

“It looks like much of the playbook is intimidation, more so than actual substantiated legal findings,” said Michael Pillera, director of educational equity issues at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “I think all of this is designed as an attempt to intimidate all universities, not just the institutions under investigation.”

1.  Universities with students supporting Palestinians over Israel are attacked for being anti-semitic.  This happened after Israel retaliated by attacking the Gaza Strip after Hamas terrorist attacks in October 2023, equating the two acts as equally heinous (which I agree with).  Lack of virulent support of Israel has been attacked, with minimal space accorded to the Palestinian position.

Students protesting against the war in Gaza, and passersby walking through Harvard Yard, are seen at an encampment at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., on April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)

2.  Which is used as an excuse to investigate Universities and cut off their federal funds. Columbia was told to give back $400 million because they claim the university is anti-semitic and they caved ("Columbia University caves to demands to restore $400m from Trump administration," Guardian). 

 

A protest calling on Harvard to fight back ("Amid crackdown on elite universities, Cambridge protesters urge Harvard not to concede to Trump demands," Globe).  Caption: Signs including "Hey Harvard Alums Say Grow A Spine!" and "Hands Off Free Speech" rise above a crowd at a Cambridge Common rally.Erin Clark/Globe Staff

Harvard was attacked too ("Why Harvard Decided to Fight Trump," New York Times) and hasn't capitulated ("Standing up to Trump was ‘a step on the road back for Harvard’," Boston Globe), so Trump retaliated further ("Trump administration freezes more than $2 billion in funding tied to Harvard," Globe), going as far as threatening the university's tax exempt status ("After Harvard rejects US demands, Trump adds new threat," Reuters).  

3.  Students espousing pro-Palestinian (or so called "anti-American") opinions are being denied visas and deported ("14 student visas revoked at UW, Seattle University, and Gonzaga," KUOW/NPR, "Trump administration revokes visas for over 25 students in the St. Louis area," St. Louis NPR, "Why are so many students in Mass. losing their visas? The answer lies in a little-known database," Boston Globe,"Nine people affiliated with MIT have had visas revoked, university president says," Globe) starting with Mahmoud Khalil, a student at Columbia University ("US judge rules Mahmoud Khalil can be deported for his views" and "The case against Mahmoud Khalil is meant to silence American dissent" Guardian).  From the Globe:

At first it was just a handful of students with some connection to pro-Palestinian activity, then dozens more, many of whom had no link to the protest movement. Now the Trump administration has abruptly terminated the legal status of nearly 5,000 international students and scholars across the country, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association, setting off waves of fear on campuses around the country.

4.  If it's not "anti-semitism" its DEI or diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.  Universities and other institutions ("The protectors of Santa Monica Bay are caving to Trump’s dangerous demands," Los Angeles Times) have been told to drop it, or not be grant eligible ("More than 50 universities face federal investigations as part of Trump’s anti-DEI campaign," AP).  Many universities have capitulated including the University of Michigan ("University of Michigan shutters its flagship diversity program," Guardian).  

Related is the plan to eliminate the cabinet agency the Department of Education ("Trump orders a plan to dismantle the Education Department while keeping some core functions," AP).

5.  Separately the Trump Administration is suspending, cutting or threatening to cut grants to universities more generally  ("Trump restricts federal research funding, a lifeblood for colleges," AP).  Northwestern has been told $750 million--almost all of the money they get from the government--is at risk.  

In the interim schools are cutting back programs ("Leading Harvard scientist ordered to halt research in funding freeze," Boston Globe), reducing graduate program enrollments, etc.  From the article:

After decades of partnership with the U.S. government, colleges are facing new doubts about the future of their federal funding. President Donald Trump’s administration has been using the funding spigot to seek compliance with his agenda, cutting off money to schools including Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania. All the while, universities across the country are navigating cuts to grants for research institutions.

The squeeze on higher education underscores how much American colleges depend on the federal government — a provider of grants and contracts that have amounted to close to half the total revenue of some research universities, according to an Associated Press analysis.

It adds up to a crisis for universities, and a problem for the country as a whole, say school administrators and advocates for academic freedom. America’s scientific and medical research capabilities are tightly entwined with its universities as part of a compact that started after World War II to develop national expertise and knowledge.

Also see "These 77 Colleges Have the Most to Lose From Trump’s Cuts," Chronicle of Higher Education. 

To me, (1), (2), (3) and (4) are a violation of the first amendment ("Under Trump, freedom of speech in universities takes on a new meaning," NPR, "Harvard’s challenge to Trump administration could test limits of government power," AP).   Also see "A handful of college presidents emerge as leaders of burgeoning resistance movement against Trump," Globe.

(5) is devastating to research, and by extension the preeminence of US science, and long term economic development.  Some professors are decamping to other countries ("Yale professor who studies fascism fleeing US to work in Canada," Guardian), the same thing that happened with Britain after it left the EU and stopped participating in the Horizon research program.  If you can't get scientific grants they can't work.

Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch puts it like this:

In less than three months, the new Trump regime has gutted spending on scientific research and the humanities, broadly claimed “antisemitism” as a rationale for imposing or threatening massive federal aid cuts to elite universities, and chilled academic freedom with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and canceling student visas for foreigners. This all seems part and parcel with the GOP’s Maoist Cultural Revolution plan for a glorious American future in which the knowledge industry is abandoned for an economy of workers with tiny screwdrivers assembling iPhones.

China is already rapidly gaining on the US in terms of the amount of research, funding, and patents ("‘I think it is actively happening’: Is Boston’s biotech industry doomed?," Boston Globe, "China overtakes the US in scientific research output," Guardian). 

Conclusion.  Since destruction of higher education is the goal, appeasement won't work, they'll always up the ante ("Appeasing Trump Is Not the Answer," Chronicle of Higher Education).  From the article:

These three strategies — to sow dissension, to terrorize the vulnerable, and to suppress disagreement — are meant to work in tandem, to reduce the possibility that Columbia, or any university like it, might serve as a counterweight to the authoritarian, illiberal mode of democracy that the Trump administration is working to bring about, drawing on a playbook developed by Viktor Orbán, Narendra Modi, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

... the authoritarian playbook involves reneging even on provisional compromises to achieve its ultimate goal: eliminating any alternative centers of power. That is why it is no surprise that further funding has been pulled.

If we remain in the business of free inquiry, our activities will offend the government in power. Half-measures seem certain to damage our reputation irreparably without any guarantee of future security.

Also see the journal article "Enacting the “Illiberal Playbook” in Hungary and Poland," Perspective on Politics.

.College aged students aren't reading books.  ("Young people won’t, or can’t, read a book. Now democracy is dying. Coincidence?," Philadelphia Inquirer).

@rosehorowitch tells us about how high school and college education practices have shifted away from full-book reading, leading to a generation of students who lack the concentration to engage in deep reading for more than a few minutes; and @natmalkus talks about the alarming decline in literacy scores among students and adults, and how screens plus education policy shifts have fed a slow-burning crisis in literacy and deep attention

Fewer babies means fewer college students means many colleges will close, affecting the economic well being of many communities, and a shrinking of the knowledge economy ("The reason why dozens of Mass. colleges could close in the next decade," Boston Globe).  From the article:

But there is more at stake than the fates of colleges and universities. Massachusetts has disproportionately depended on its celebrated higher education sector to drive its economy. Education is the state’s third-largest industry, based on the most recent figures from the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development. It also fuels the first and second biggest sectors: health care and professional, scientific, and technical services. As enrollment drops in the years to come, those industries are projected to face shortages of workers. There are expected to be 2,200 fewer graduates per year than are needed in life sciences, for instance, according to the Massachusetts Biotechnology Education Foundation.

... One of Massachusetts’ greatest strengths may be on the cusp of becoming a weakness. “There’s this symbiotic relationship between the universities and the knowledge economy in this state that it could be easy to take for granted and assume it would always be there,” says Mark Melnik, director of economic and public policy research at the Donahue Institute at UMass Amherst. “You don’t realize some of the vulnerabilities until they start presenting themselves.”

WRT the economic development impact, it's more about smaller, regional colleges: 

... The Harvards and MITs of the world “really don’t have much to worry about,” says Brendan Cantwell, a professor at Michigan State University who studies higher education economics. “But there are a ton of private colleges that are smaller and that have regional draw, that do not have big national markets, and that are really reliant on tuition. As the local market shrinks for those campuses, things are already difficult, and they will only become more difficult.”

Some states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have been consolidating and/or closing regional colleges for some time.

But not just local impact:

The economic impact goes beyond those college towns. It means fewer educated workers, in a state that disproportionately relies on them. “Our leading industries are here in large part because of the talented workforce,” says Edward Lambert Jr., executive director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education. “One of the things that have kept them here is the talent pipeline.” If young people stop coming, and learning skills employers need, he says, “That affects not only the future pipeline, but present workers.”

Trump destroying a major US export, foreign students studying at US higher education institutions.  Higher education is/was one of the Countries biggest exports of services ("Trump is killing one of our strongest exports," Washington Post).

President Donald Trump says he wants to reduce our trade deficit. Yet he’s destroying one of our winningest exports: higher education. Colleges and universities are among America’s most competitive international exporters. In dollar terms, last year, the United States sold more educational services to the rest of the world than it sold in natural gas and coal combined.