Latest news with #universityFunding
France 24
02-08-2025
- Politics
- France 24
Academics warn Columbia University deal sets dangerous precedent
Academics from Columbia and beyond have expressed concerns that the deal -- which makes broad-ranging concessions and increases government oversight -- will become the blueprint for how Trump brings other universities to heel. The New York institution was the first to be targeted in Trump's war against elite universities, for what the US president claimed was its failure to tackle anti-Semitism on campus in the wake of pro-Palestinian protests. It was stripped of hundreds of millions of dollars of federal funding and lost its ability to apply for new research grants. Labs saw vital funding frozen, and dozens of researchers were laid off. But Columbia last week agreed to pay the government $200 million, and an additional $21 million to settle an investigation into anti-Semitism. According to Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, the lack of due process -- with the government slashing funding before carrying out a formal investigation -- left Columbia in an "untenable position." Columbia law professor David Pozen agreed, saying the "manner in which the deal was constructed has been unlawful and coercive from the start" and slamming the agreement as giving "legal form to an extortion scheme." Federal oversight The deal goes beyond addressing anti-Semitism and makes concessions on international student admissions, race and ethnicity considerations in admissions and single-sex spaces on campus, among other issues. Columbia also agreed to appoint an independent monitor to implement the deal, share ethnicity admissions data with the government and crack down on campus protests. Many of the provisions "represent significant incursions onto Columbia's autonomy," said Pozen. "What's happened at Columbia is part of a broader authoritarian attack on civil society," he said, pointing to similar pressures on law firms and media organizations to fall in line. According to the law professor, the deal "signals the emergence of a new regulatory regime in which the Trump administration will periodically and unpredictably shake down other schools and demand concessions from them." In the coming weeks, Pozen said he expected the "administration will put a lot of pressure on Harvard and other schools to follow suit." Harvard University has pushed back against the government, filing a lawsuit in a bid to reverse sweeping funding cuts. But Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard, said that "in terms of academic freedom and in terms of democracy, the (Columbia) precedent is devastating." - 'First round' - Education Secretary Linda McMahon said she hoped the Columbia deal would be a "template for other universities around the country." On Wednesday, McMahon announced a deal with Brown University to restore some federal funding and end ongoing investigations after the Ivy League school agreed to end race considerations in admissions and adopt a biological definition of gender. Brown President Christina Paxson admitted "there are other aspects of the agreement that were not part of previous federal reviews of Brown policies" but were "priorities of the federal administration." Harvard is reportedly considering forking out $500 million to settle, according to the New York Times. Others have made smaller concessions to appease the government, with Trump's alma mater the University of Pennsylvania banning transgender women from competing in women's sports, and the University of Virginia's head resigning after scrutiny over its diversity programs. Brendan Cantwell, a professor at Michigan State University who researches the history and governance of higher education, said government interference in universities "has not happened at scale like this, probably ever in American history." While some university staff see striking an agreement as the quickest way to reopen the federal funding spigot, Cantwell warned that concessions such as sharing ethnicity data from admissions could be "weaponized" and provide fodder for future probes. Levitsky agreed, saying: "Extortionists don't stop at the first concession. Extortionists come back for more." "There's a very high likelihood that this is just the first round," he said. Pozen noted that it will be harder for "major research universities to hold the line" compared to smaller colleges which are less reliant on federal funding. But Levitsky still urged Harvard to stand its ground and "fight back," including in the courts. "Fighting an authoritarian regime is costly, but that's what we have to do," he said. "This is an unprecedented assault, and universities need to work together."
Bloomberg
10-06-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
McMahon Says Top Universities Could See Grants Restored
Linda McMahon, US Secretary of Education, joins Bloomberg's Akayla Gardner to talk the negotiations around university funding and the status of visas for foreign students. (Source: Bloomberg)
RNZ News
02-06-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
Universities will be weakened by Budget focus on STEM and science
A university lecture hall. Photo: AFP Universities warn next year's funding boost for science courses and other STEM subjects won't drive up enrolments in those fields. They also calculate that the government's decision to increase funding for STEM subjects but not for most other fields next year is a net zero. That's because the Budget allowed an emergency two-year four percent funding boost to lapse. Craig Marshall, an associate professor in Otago University's School of Biomedical Sciences and member of the Tertiary Education Union's council, told RNZ without a serious funding increase, universities would increasingly struggle to offer the research-informed teaching that defined them. Marshall said the ongoing decline in university funding compared to inflation could prove fatal. "I think it'll be incremental," he said. "You'll just see small losses here and there and everywhere else and at the end of it all it's very difficult to predict what that leads to but perhaps the loss of a university." Marshall said the latest decisions meant universities would struggle to offer some humanities courses and students would start to vote with their feet. "What we're starting to see is students instead of coming to universities in New Zealand from school, they'll go to universities overseas. They see that as a better outcome," he said. "Increasingly, students opt now for postgrad graduate training outside of New Zealand, rather than in New Zealand. Some of the universities will be weakened, some may be fatally weakened." Marshall agreed the government was unlikely to let a university to go under, but one or more could lose the ability to provide the research-informed teaching that fostered critical thought - in which case it would cease to be a university in all but name. Universities New Zealand chief executive Chris Whelan said the long-term trend for university funding was poor, but none of the eight institutions was close to failing. "It's becoming challenging to basically retain our position internationally. We shouldn't care about things like international rankings, but the reality is they do send quite important signals to academic staff, to people that want to do research collaborations with New Zealand researchers and to international students," he said, referring to league tables in which New Zealand universities had been falling. "There is a tipping point where if funding got so low we were not able to maintain that quality, we would have a problem. But I don't think we're anywhere near that." However, Whelan said the net effect of the Budget was no increase to total university funding next year. He said that was about as good as the sector could have expected under the circumstances. But he said the government's decision to favour STEM subjects over humanities was mistaken. "It's an unfortunate message. There seems to be a belief that somehow universities, if they're given more funding for science, technology, engineering, maths-type subjects, can persuade students to drop doing the liberal arts or social sciences and shift across. The reality is that's just not the case," he said. Whelan said all fields of university study contributed to the skilled workforce the government said it wanted. Universities are not heading towards failure, the minister says. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone Universities minister Shane Reti told RNZ that was correct but STEM subjects were more closely linked to productivity. "The message we're sending is that we're particularly investing and funding those courses that clearly have a pathway to productivity and economic gain and these are generally the science and the STEM subjects," he said. Reti said enrolments in those subjects had been increasing and the funding decision should encourage universities to increase the breadth and depth of their STEM programmes. He said universities were not sliding toward failure. "Across the sector, there are some who are doing well and some who are struggling and indeed have been struggling for some period of time and and are receiving extra attention support and monitoring from TEC," he said. "But if we look at the big picture, there's a significant increase in student numbers this year... It's quite a change in trend from over the previous few years where student numbers have been falling away." Reti said the government had allocated $111m over the next two years to cover growing university enrolments. He confirmed that the government had allocated enough funding to cover 99 percent of expected enrolments next year and the Tertiary Education Commission would be expected to cover the remainder from its reserves. Education Ministry figures show the sciences have lost ground against other subjects in terms of enrolments in Bachelors degrees in the past 10 years. Considered by predominant field of study, the percentage of students enrolled in the "natural and physical sciences" dropped from 14 to 13 percent between 2024 and 2015. Health enrolments rose from 17 to 20 percent while education, management and commerce, and the creative arts all dropped slightly. Predominant field of study for 120,995 domestic students enrolled in Bachelors degree programmes in 2024 and 127,705 in 2015. Subject 2015 2024 Sciences 14 percent 13 percent IT 6 percent 7 percent Engineering 3 percent 3 percent Arch and building 2 percent 3 percent Ag, envmnt 2 percent 2 percent Health 17 percent 20 percent Education 8 percent 7 percent Mngmnt, commerce 20 percent 18 percent Society and culture 33 percent 33 percent Creative arts 11 percent 10 percent
BBC News
22-05-2025
- Business
- BBC News
University of Suffolk proposes staff redundancies
A university has proposed to cut some of its workforce as it looks to make £3.5m in University of Suffolk said like other universities it was "under considerable financial pressure" due to reasons including rising costs and the tightening of visa rules around overseas students.A spokesperson said a consultation had begun on proposals to restructure its academic schools and the way administrative support was comes after the site in Ipswich was awarded University of the Year in the 2025 Whatuni Student Choice Awards on Wednesday. The university said it was considering "the non-replacement of a number of vacant posts", as well as a "potential net reduction of around 35 occupied posts".The initial consultation process would run until late June."Like most universities, the University of Suffolk is under considerable financial pressure due to the real-terms fall in the value of the UK student tuition fee, the tightening of overseas visa rules and rising costs, including the recent National Insurance increase," the spokesperson said."We also face an increasingly competitive student recruitment environment. "While we have an ongoing programme to maximise efficiency savings and digital transformation, we still need to take immediate action to reduce our costs by £3.5 million."The university is proposing to make structural and workforce changes both to reduce costs and to create a scalable and sustainable organisation that can thrive for the future."The spokesperson added that the university remained "committed to providing a high quality and maintaining our positive student experience". 'Secure and stable vision' The University and College Union's regional support official, Michael Kyriacou, said the announcement left it "disappointed"."As a union we stand against any measures that negatively impact on our working conditions and student learning conditions," he said. "We expect management to work with us to take compulsory redundancies off the table and produce a secure and stable vision for the future for the university that protects our members and students."The university's Students' Union echoed its concerns."It is very disappointing to hear that the sector-wide financial issues are now being felt locally," a spokesperson said. "In the Students' Union we will continue to make sure that the student voice is heard by the university, and that any impact on the student experience here is minimised." Follow Suffolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
