Category World News

There is no other way to say it. The American university as the United States has known it since the 1960s is at an end. The spate of college closings and consolidations that began 15 years ago is certain to increase over the next few years.

Overall college enrolments peaked in 2010, but have fallen consistently since then, as the cost of college, the COVID-19 pandemic and other trends have curtailed students from attending higher education institutions. But with the recent crackdowns against protests on college campuses, the anti-DEI climate and the US government’s persecution of foreign students, American universities are truly up against a tsunami. The trickle of institutions closing or on the margins is all but assured to turn into a flood between now and the end of the 2020s.

Sonoma State University (aka, California State Sonoma) is among the latest universities facing budget cuts. Despite a Sonoma County court ruling that has temporarily put the university’s plans on hold, Sonoma State still faces a budget shortfall of $24m. Even if the order holds beyond May 1, Sonoma State can and likely will work in good-faith negotiations with staff, faculty and students to eliminate upwards of 22 majors, six departments, and more than 100 faculty positions. Specifically, the art history, economics, geology, philosophy, theatre/dance, and women and gender studies departments are on Sonoma State’s chopping block, mostly liberal arts and the social sciences.

The most expansive retrenchment in the past decade, though, occurred at West Virginia University in 2023. That August, after a six-year campaign to increase enrolment, West Virginia announced that it incurred a $45m budget deficit, and that enrolment had dropped from roughly 29,000 in 2017 to just under 26,000 in 2023. The austerity plan was to cut 32 majors– including all of their foreign language programmes and its maths doctoral programme – and 169 faculty positions. But after weeks of student protests, the number ended up being 28 majors (nearly one-fifth of its undergraduate majors) and 143 faculty (a 13.5 percent reduction) instead. The sudden shift towards austerity has led to a steady stream of faculty and administrators resigning or taking retirement buyouts to leave West Virginia. Again, the undergraduate liberal arts majors and small academic graduate programmes were the main targets for cuts.

Stories like what is happening at Sonoma State and has already occurred at West Virginia are part of a larger and terrible trend. As college matriculation for women has incrementally increased over the past 50 years, there has been a more drastic decline in men attending college, especially among white men. Since 1970, men have gone from 58 percent of all undergraduate college enrollees to only about 40 percent as of the early 2020s. Fully 71 percent of the decline in college attendance since 2010 coincides with the decline of men as students in higher education. Perhaps sexism disguised as disinterest in higher education in the wake of a women-dominant student body might be at least part of the explanation for this steep fall in enrolment.

But other higher education institutions are worse off: Clarion University of Pennsylvania, California University of Pennsylvania, The College of Saint Rose in New York and Independence University in Utah, for example. These are among the 76 colleges and universities that have either closed their doors or have merged with other higher education institutions in the US, affecting the lives of tens of thousands of students and several thousand faculty members. Nearly all of these institutions have cited budget shortfalls and lower enrolment as reasons for their demise or mergers.

Nationally, the number of students attending US colleges and universities fell from a peak of 18.1 million students in 2010 to 15.4 million in 2021, including a drop of 350,000 students after the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. As of this past fall, enrolment had climbed to 15.9 million students, a 4.5 percent increase, but hardly enough to stem the tide of closures, austerity and consolidations.

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s financial stress test model for American higher education institutions, as many as 80 colleges and universities in the US could permanently close their doors by the end of the 2025-26 school year. They based their findings on “the worst-case scenario predictions com[ing] to pass from the upcoming demographic cliff (or a 15 percent decline in enrolment).” Demographers have also foreseen an imminent drop in the numbers of college enrollees starting this fall, a consequence of the economic distress that began the Great Recession of the late-2000s.

Then there is Trump 2.0 and his administration’s persecution of foreign college students. The recent crackdowns on academic freedom under former President Joe Biden, with pro-Palestinian college faculty and student protesters, and under mostly Republican governors like Greg Abbott in Texas and Ron DeSantis in Florida over Critical Race Theory and DEI, have escalated under President Donald Trump. The Trump administration’s move to revoke the visas of more than 1,700 foreign faculty and students, and kidnap and deport many others, mostly over pro-Palestine activism and other political stances deemed against the interests of the administration, threatens the one area of sustainable growth in higher education. Neither Alireza Doroudi, Rumeysa Ozturk and Mahmoud Khalil, nor any of the hundreds of other victims of this injustice, have committed any crimes under US laws. Unless going to a funeral or writing an op-ed or exercising the First Amendment right to protest is criminal behaviour.

In 2023-24, more than 1.1 million international students attended US colleges and universities at the undergraduate, graduate and professional levels. But with the Trump administration threatening, arresting and deporting foreign students and scholars in their dozens, it is all but certain that international student enrolment from the Middle East and South Asia will drop in the coming year. There will also likely be a drop in students from China as a consequence of the ongoing tariff fight between the two nations. One-quarter of all foreign students in the US are from China.

After decades of universities hiring armies of part-time professors instead of full-time, tenure-stream instructors and researchers, and college presidents running their campuses like for-profit businesses, the implosion of US higher education has been almost inevitable. Despite Harvard recently providing the Trump administration opposition to their repression of colleges and universities, top-down hierarchies and disempowered workforces have rendered higher education’s responses to conservative and far-right movements in the US utterly impotent. Add to this the conservative assumptions of liberal arts fields as “immoral,” “indoctrination,” and “libtards” instead of what they really mean: an expansion of one’s knowledge of people and the world. There has also been a decades-long overemphasis on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). The possibility of Trump’s Project 2025 gurus privatising the federal student loan programme would pretty much be the straw that broke US higher education’s back at this point.

Liberal arts departments especially will continue to consolidate, or university administrators will continue to find reasons to jettison them as a cost-saving measure. Ever larger numbers of senior faculty will take severance pay, early retirement, or will end up sacked. Non-tenured faculty and junior staff will simply be unemployed and, in many cases, unemployable in a shrinking US higher education landscape. Most of all, those students who find themselves at any institutions outside of the top 136 elite universities or the top 50 flagship public colleges and universities may no longer be able to afford college, with tens of thousands unable to complete their degrees. American higher education is not just staring into the abyss – it has already fallen into it.

Harvard University filed a lawsuit against US President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday to stop the institution’s $2.3 billion in federal funding being frozen. The funding freeze came amid US government efforts to crack down on student protesters and pressure universities into dropping diversity, equity and inclusion programmes.

The US Department of Education announced on March 10 that it had warned 60 higher education institutions of “enforcement actions” if they failed to protect Jewish students on campus as required by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, who said “US colleges and universities benefit from enormous public investments that are funded by US taxpayers, is also quoted in the letters.” That support is a privilege and it is contingent on scrupulous adherence to federal anti-discrimination laws”.

The Trump administration began halting funding for some of the nation’s top universities shortly after, putting a strain on academic research that universities believe is essential for scientific and medical advancement.

The Trump administration is specifically targeting schools where students took part in pro-Palestine demonstrations last year, alleging that the students’ demonstrations sparked anti-Semitism on the campus.

A day after Harvard filed its lawsuit, leaders and representatives of more than 200 American universities issued a joint statement accusing the Trump administration of political interference. Presidents and CEOs from some of the nation’s top universities, including Princeton, Brown, Harvard, Columbia, Northwestern University, and Pomona College, signed the statement.

What is happening with US campuses in terms of federal funding, then, and can universities survive these cuts?

Why is Harvard suing the US government over funding?

A letter from the US Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, and General Services Administration was co-signed by Harvard on April 11 claiming that “Harvard has in recent years failed to live up to the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment.”

The letter also demanded that the university stop all forms of discrimination against international students, including “students supporting terrorism or anti-Semitism,” and that the institution end all forms of discrimination against international students. This was a follow-up to a separate letter the government had sent Harvard on April 3, demanding that the university reform any academic departments deemed to be fuelling “antisemitic harassment”. According to the letter, these departments “must be reviewed and necessary adjustments made to address bias, increase viewpoint diversity, and end ideological capture.”

Harvard responded to the demands, claiming that while some demands were intended to combat anti-Semitism, “the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the “intellectual conditions” at Harvard.”

Hours after Harvard rejected the demands, an Education Department task force to tackle anti-Semitism released a statement announcing that &nbsp, $2.3bn in federal funding to the university had been frozen.

The US Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, National Science Foundation, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration leaders have now filed a lawsuit (PDF) in the US District Court in Massachusetts.

We filed a lawsuit to stop the funding freeze because it is unlawful and beyond the government’s control, Garber wrote in a statement on Monday.

The suit says that “the federal Government has launched a broad attack on the critical funding partnerships” which make it possible for Harvard and other American universities to carry out “invaluable research” in the fields of medicine, engineering and artificial intelligence (AI) which is crucial for finding solutions for space travel and for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and cancer, among other things.

The lawsuit also contends that the funding freeze violates First Amendment rights, which guarantee the right to free speech, making it unlawful.

According to the lawsuit, “This case involves the Government’s efforts to take advantage of the withholding of federal funding as leverage.”

The Tuesday joint statement co-signed by hundreds of American university leaders states: “We will always seek effective and fair financial practices, but we must reject the coercive use of public research funding”.

What kind of losses might Harvard and other universities experience?

$2.2 billion in grants and $ 60 million in contracts are among the frozen federal funds for Harvard. However, more money is at stake. The Trump administration announced in March that Harvard’s $9 billion funding would be reviewed.

Additionally, the administration has threatened to revoke Harvard’s ability to enroll foreign students and its tax exempt status. In the Monday statement, Garber also wrote that the Trump administration has considered taking steps to freeze an additional $1bn in grants.

Columbia University, which became the epicenter of pro-Palestine campus protests in 2024, received $ 400 million in funding from the Trump administration in February. The government cited the institution’s “failure to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitic harassment,” according to the government.

On March 19, Trump froze more than $175m in federal funding to his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, citing the allowance of transgender women to play women’s sports.

What other ways are university costs being targeted?

Some universities have reported receiving “stop work” orders that direct universities to halt all work on specific research projects that are funded by the government.

“American universities receive two main funding sources from the federal government. The first is student financial aid, which is provided by thousands of colleges. The University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies’ Robert Kelchen, a professor and department head, told Al Jazeera. “The second is research funding, which is heavily concentrated at about 200 universities.

“The American government has relied on universities to conduct research to benefit the country since World War II, and universities have built an infrastructure around that. During this time, the scope of American research funding was unmatched across the globe, Kelchen said.

According to a statement released by Cornell University President Michael I. Kotlikoff and other university leaders on April 8, the US Department of Defense issued more than 75 “stop work” orders.

The orders sent to Cornell relate to “research into new materials for jet engines, propulsion systems, large-scale information networks, robotics, superconductors, and space and satellite communications, as well as cancer research”, the university said.

The amount of federal funding that the projects that were subject to stop work orders were receiving was not specified in the statement. Additionally, it did not specify the reason for the government’s decision to issue these orders.

Northwestern University has also received stop work orders relating to roughly 100 federal grants, the university’s President Michael Schill and Chair of Board of Trustees Peter Barris wrote in a statement on Northwestern University’s website on April 17.

US media reported earlier in April that the Trump administration had frozen Northwestern University and Cornell University’s funding in addition to more than $1 billion. A White House official, according to CNN and the New York Times, had confirmed these funding freezes. “The money was frozen in connection with several ongoing, credible, and concerning Title VI investigations”, the official was quoted by CNN as saying.

However, both Cornell and Northwestern claim to not have been informed of these funding freezes.

How much do universities have on their own?

Many universities have sizeable endowment funds from which they can draw income each year to support research projects, scholarships and other expenses. A university’s endowment is a collection of funds or assets that are given to ensure the institution’s financial viability in the future. Endowments are incredibly large thanks to charitable contributions from alumni, other donors, and businesses.

Harvard’s endowment was worth approximately $53.2bn in the 2024 fiscal year – the largest of any university. According to the website of Harvard, more than one-third of the university’s research is funded by the institution.

For the fiscal year that ended in June 2024, Columbia’s endowment was $ 14.8%. Cornell’s endowment was about $10.7bn in the fiscal year ending in June 2024. In 2024, the endowment for Northwestern University reached an estimated $ 14.3 billion. In June 2024, the endowment for the University of Pennsylvania was $22.3 billion.

Some universities will be able to fall back on these endowments if federal funding freezes remain in place. According to Kelchen, “universities typically spend about 5% of their endowment, which provides funding for the Harvards of the world to make up for lost federal funding.”

However, endowments have limitations. “Endowment funds are heavily concentrated at a few dozen universities, and roughly three-fourths of all endowment funds are restricted for particular purposes”, Kelchen said, explaining that such purposes include student scholarships in very specific fields.

At Harvard, donors choose which programs, departments, and purposes receive a share of the annual endowment. According to the website of Columbia, the endowment’s annual spending is done in accordance with donor wishes.

Universities have also seen a fall in the value of endowments. According to an October 2024 report from the student-run newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, some donors pulled funding from the university over the pro-Palestine protests and the university’s response to concerns about anti-Semitism on campus. In response, Harvard’s donations dropped by $11 million in 2024.

How will universities respond to threats of funding by the government?

Kelchen said that a few research universities may be able to make it through a period of several years without federal funding.

For instance, Northwestern University’s leadership stated in its statement on April 17 that the university would continue to fund research projects that were subject to government stop-work orders. This funding is intended to keep these initiatives going until the funding landscape is understood.

Most universities will not be able to afford to this. Some, therefore, accept government demands.

Columbia, for instance, accepted these demands on March 13 and implemented new policies on campus after receiving its own list of demands from the government. These new policies require protesting students to present their university identification if asked to do so. Additionally, they forbid wearing face masks to cover up a person’s identity. However, wearing a face covering is still acceptable for religious or medical reasons. Columbia also hired 36 security officers who have special powers to arrest students, and the university continues to rely on New York police for additional security assistance.

According to experts, some universities will try to find alternative funding sources.

“Universities have tried for years to diversify their funding sources. The two most likely sources are increasing enrolment]to get more tuition dollars] and trying to generate more donations”, said Kelchen.

After India announced the day before, Pakistan threatened to suspend all bilateral agreements with India, including the 1972 Simla Agreement. In retaliation, Pakistan threatened to do so on Thursday in retaliation.

The Simla Agreement was a peace accord signed by the two countries a few months after Bangladesh became independent from Pakistan.

Pakistan’s top civil-military decision-making body, Pakistan’s National Security Committee (NSC), issued a warning to India that any disruption to its water supply would be regarded as “an act of war,” adding that it was ready to respond “with full force across the entire spectrum of national power.”

Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister of Pakistan, and other government officials and commanders of its military forces, led the NSC meeting that took place on Thursday in Islamabad.

The NSC statement mirrored actions announced by India on Wednesday, and included the closure of the Wagah Border Post with “immediate effect”, the suspension and cancellation of SAARC visas for Indian nationals (excluding Sikh pilgrims), the designation of Indian defence advisors as personae non grata in Pakistan, a reduction in the staff of the Indian High Commission, the closure of Pakistani airspace to Indian airlines, and the suspension of all trade with India.

The actions come in response to India’s response to Tuesday’s tourist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, which left at least 26 people dead.

The Indian government announced a number of measures following a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, including the suspension of the 65-year-old Indus Waters Treaty, a pact that allows both nations to irrigate their agricultural lands.

In a media conference, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri also announced the closure of the border with Pakistan, slashed the number of Indian diplomatic staff in Pakistan, ordered Pakistani citizens under the SAARC scheme to leave the country within 48 hours, and expelled Pakistani military attaches posted in India. India has been mistakenly attributed this response as blaming Pakistan for the Kashmir attack.

Since 1947, when the two nations gained independence from British rule, each nation has a claim to the Himalayan territory in its entirety. Since independence, the nuclear-armed neighbours have fought four wars, three of them over Kashmir.

Ishaq Dar, the deputy prime minister of Pakistan, called the Indian actions “immature and hasty” in a television interview on Wednesday night.

India has not provided any proof that Pakistan was involved in the attack. They have not shown any maturity in their response. This approach is not at all serious. According to Dar, who also serves as deputy prime minister, “they immediately started creating hype.”

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif also rejected India’s implication of Pakistani involvement in the attack.

India’s claim that Pakistan is responsible for the Pahalgam incident is inappropriate. Asif said, “We strongly condemn terrorism, there should be no ambiguity.”

‘ Ready for Indian misadventure ‘

In line with the 2019 Balakot strikes, commentary in the Indian media and discussions among the political leadership have suggested starting a military assault on Pakistan following the Pahalgam attack.

India launched air strikes in Balakot, northern Pakistan, in February 2019 following an attack in Pulwama, Indian-administered Kashmir, which resulted in the deaths of more than 40 Indian soldiers. It called militant hideouts.

Pakistan said the strikes only hit an uninhabited forest and responded with its own air strikes near Indian military targets, causing no casualties.

Additionally, both sides used fighter jets, and an Indian aircraft was shot down during a dogfight. Abhinandan Varthaman, the airline’s pilot, was captured and released two days later.

Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh also hinted at a” strong response”, reiterating India’s” zero tolerance “policy on terrorism.

We will also reach out to those responsible for this incident. At the Marshal of the Air Force Arjan Singh Memorial Lecture in New Delhi on April 23, he said, “We will also reach out to those who have conspired to commit such nefarious acts on the soil of India.”

Analysts and security officials in Pakistan say they believe that Indian military action&nbsp, could now be possible, but said the country was” ready for any Indian misadventure”.

We are keeping up a high level of vigilance and alertness, but unlike India, we don’t want to spread unnecessary gossip about our readiness, a security source told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, noting that he has not been given permission to speak on the subject.

India is mistaken if it believes there won’t be any tit for tat. However, we are both nuclear-armed countries, and Indian aggression could lead to an irresponsible situation. He continued, “Both of us should act with caution.”

The official also raised the possibility of India’s involvement in the attack, noting that it occurred close to 200 kilometers (124 miles) from the Line of Control, the de facto border between India and Pakistan, and highlighted the presence of more than 500 000 Indian security personnel in the Kashmir valley.

He also pointed to the recent visit to India by United States Vice President JD Vance, who arrived in the country on Monday with his wife and two children for a four-day visit, taking in a meeting with Prime Minister Modi.

How do you believe that JD Vance’s presence will benefit Pakistan in this attack, particularly? He “asked”. Could this attack lead to the liberation of Indian Kashmir? Why won’t Indian authorities take the time to examine the country? Do they ever accept the security issues they face?

‘ Fight-to-finish syndrome ‘

The two countries, which together have a population of more than 1.5 billion, have previously been at odds with one another due to previous conflicts.

Asfandyar Mir, a security analyst with a focus on South Asia, said as a result of the Indus Waters Treaty’s suspension, Pakistan is likely to reserve its military response in the event of an Indian action.

The Indus Basin is a lifeline for the populations of Pakistan and India, who rely on the river water flowing from the Himalayas for irrigation and agriculture.

However, Mir added that “potentially more visible” military action is becoming more and more likely for India, in line with what it might be in 2019.

He cited the outcry over the attack on Tuesday and the Indian media’s call for a swift response, saying: “India’s domestic mood is strongly geared toward a response. That said, India faces a more acute China challenge than in 2019, so it has to carefully factor that into its response and how an escalation may play out, “he told Al Jazeera.

One of Pakistan’s closest allies is China, India’s northern neighbor. In June 2020, China and India engaged in a minor conflict along their border.

On the other hand, Salman Bashir, former Pakistani envoy to New Delhi, told Al Jazeera he believes the decisions made by India’s Cabinet Committee on Security have been based on a” mistaken assumption “about Pakistan’s weakness.

These indicate a “fight-to-the-finish syndrome,” which is based on wishful thinking and naivete. But I anticipate a mature and appropriate response from Pakistan to the challenge posed by India, he added.

Bashir, who also served as Pakistan’s foreign secretary from 2008 to 2012, said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -led Indian government may have considered military action, but the scale of such moves, given the history between the two countries, presents a dilemma.

Pakistan will never accept this as it is, in any case. We need to anticipate more from the future. Options for diplomacy are rather slim. The former diplomat claimed that a back-channel contact might be effective, but he is unsure whether one exists.

‘ No lessons learned ‘

According to Mir, a security analyst for Washington, DC, Pakistan is more stable than in previous years and is more likely to respond violently to army chief Asim Munir, who has accused India of conducting “proxy operations” in Pakistan.

Pakistan has accused India of starting hostilities on its soil, most recently accusing it of being the mastermind of the separatists’ March march attack on the Jaffar Express.

The 36-hour standoff, in which at least 26 passengers were killed, was Pakistan’s first-ever train hijacking.

Mir claimed that the 2019 crisis has taught both sides nothing but constructive lessons.

The former Pakistani Army chief general Bajwa and India choosing to concentrate on their border with China and their goals to become a global power largely contributed to the relative calm we saw after the end of 2019. But careful observers knew the relationship was only deteriorating, “he said.

If Prime Minister Sharif makes an announcement to visit India, Bashir, the former envoy, said Pakistan might do so in a grand way.

“Gests like Shehbaz Sharif’s announcement of a visit to New Delhi are acceptable in situations where Pakistan-Indians are involved.” The pendulum has swung too far. He said, “We must take all necessary actions to control the situation.”

Pakistan has ceased all trade with India and closed its airs and land borders. Following the sanctions that India imposed on it following Tuesday’s attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, which resulted in the death of 26 people.

At least eight people were killed in the biggest airstrike on Kiev this year as a result of Russia’s use of missiles and drones to bomb the city’s capital, Kyiv. According to Ukraine, seven additional regions were also attacked.

Early on Thursday morning, search efforts were still conducting to find bodies hidden beneath the rubble of the overnight attack.

Kiev was the main target of Russia’s missile launches and 145 drone strikes in the Ukraine between late on Wednesday and early Thursday, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.

112 of the 215 projectiles were “confirmed to have been shot down,” according to a statement posted on Telegram.

Rescuers were battling blazes in apartment blocks while they searched through the rubble of destroyed buildings at night.