It was chicken tenders night at Yale’s chapter of Hillel, the Jewish student group, and the basement dining hall was packed with boisterous, hungry students attracted by overflowing vats of kosher fried chicken and vegan mac and cheese.

Some students kissed the mezuza on the way in. Others were not even Jewish, but came for the food and companionship, a sign of the pluralism that Hillel — the dominant Jewish campus organization in the United States — says it embraces.

Yet under the surface, there were signs of strain, after months of divisive protests on campus over the war in Gaza. A silent question hung in the air, several students said: “Which side are you on?”

Few American organizations have been touched by clashes over the war quite the way Hillel has. The movement, founded in 1923 at the University of Illinois, now has chapters at 850 colleges and universities around the world, from highly selective private schools like Yale to big state universities like Texas A&M. The Hillel movement, including Hillel International and the campus Hillel chapters, had $200 million in revenue in 2023, received from tens of thousands of donors.

Hillel centers are where college students go to cement their sense of Jewish identity, or to discover it. Its slogan is “all kinds of Jewish,” and it aims to be welcoming to all.

But as the conflict in Gaza continues, some Jewish students believe that Hillel is not critical enough of the Israeli government’s conduct of the war, and too defensive in its support of Zionism, a belief in the right of Jews to a Jewish state in their ancestral land of Israel.

Hillel, for its part, is unapologetic. “Hillel as an institution has been and remains committed to the support of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, that fulfills the right of Jewish self-determination in an ancestral homeland,” Adam Lehman, Hillel’s chief executive officer, said in an interview.

The shock of the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, against Israel has moved many Jewish students to explore what it means to be Jewish, fueling significant growth in interest in Hillel on campuses around the world. During the 2023-24 school year, as the conflict in the Middle East escalated, a record 180,000 students participated in Hillel activities at least once, 12,000 more than the year before, according to the organization. There was also an uptick in the number of “super-users,” who visited Hillel at least six times.

Over the last year and half, though, the solidarity that came with that identity has cracked.

The fissures can be felt in public life and in synagogues. And the division among Jews more generally is playing out among Jews on campus, as some complain that Hillel is too aligned with Israel, while others say that it is too open to critics of Israel.

Many students find it hard to divorce themselves from Hillel completely, especially in this time when they may not feel safe expressing their Jewish faith and identity outside their own community.

Some students, like Emanuelle Sippy, a senior at Princeton, look for a middle ground. She still goes to Hillel for prayer services, meals and lectures. But in the search for a more congenial left-wing political environment, she also helped to revive a small rival group, the Alliance of Jewish Progressives, on her campus.

“There is a group of people — very close friends, people I respect and admire — who are fighting battles within these institutions like Hillel,” she said. “They might be showing up to events. Hillel might be counting them. It doesn’t mean they don’t have criticisms.”

This is not the first time that there has been a schism among students at Hillel.

Students at Harvard launched an Open Hillel movement in 2012, in protest against the parent organization’s policy against partnering with anti-Israel groups. In December 2013, students at Swarthmore Hillel declared themselves the first “Open Hillel” chapter in the nation, vowing to promote open inquiry, regardless of ideology.

The current ideological split feels sharper, as campus protests for and against Israel have led to arrests, suspensions and lawsuits. When it comes to the campus Hillel, “a lot of students don’t feel comfortable going in for political reasons,” said Danya Dubrow-Compaine, a senior and a co-founder of Yale Jews for Ceasefire.

There is also a growing generation gap. In a Pew survey conducted in February 2024, 38 percent of adults under 30 years old said Israel’s reasons for fighting Hamas were valid, down from 41 percent two years earlier. That compares with 78 percent of people 65 and older who said the same, up several points from the earlier survey.

Elijah Bacal, a sophomore who is an organizer for Yale Jews for Ceasefire, said the institutional leadership of the Slifka Center, as Yale’s Hillel is known, has been slow to adapt.

“I think there is a real, honestly, just like an out-of-touchness,” Mr. Bacal said.

Hillel is still one of the first places Jewish students go when arriving on campus, to meet others, do homework and enjoy a meal with friends.

“I was looking for a place where my intellectual life wouldn’t be siloed into the classroom, but would spill out to a broader community,” said Medad Lytton, a Yale senior.

After Oct. 7, he said, he “felt a strong sense of peoplehood.” A singing circle at Slifka helped him connect with others to express his grief. “It’s kind of a second home for me,” he said of the center.

Nili Fox, a junior at Washington University in St. Louis, was brought up in a religious Jewish family, and sought out Hillel as soon as she arrived on campus. After Oct. 7, Hillel was her “rock,” she said.

“It has really been helpful to know that whenever I feel uncomfortable I have a place where I was supported and loved, no matter what,” Ms. Fox said.

Other students are dismayed by what they perceive as Hillel’s uncritical view of Israel in the face of a complicated and morally challenging reality.

Some students object to Hillel houses flying the Israeli flag, which they see as a symbol of a nation that has, from Ms. Sippy’s perspective, committed war crimes.

Uri Cohen, the executive director of the Slifka Center at Yale, says the flag represents Hillel’s values.

“There are some who don’t come because it crosses a line for them, and there are many who come,” Mr. Cohen said. “Slifka is very clear. We are a Zionist institution. We are also not checking anybody’s credentials at the door.”

In January, Yale Hillel hosted a talk by Naftali Bennett, a former Israeli army commando, defense minister and prime minister, who was once considered a protégé of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s current prime minister. Many Jewish students objected to Mr. Bennett’s hawkish politics.

(At a later talk at Harvard Business School, Mr. Bennett joked that he would give exploding pagers to people who disagreed with him, according to The Harvard Crimson.)

Mr. Bacal, the organizer with Yale Jews for Ceasefire, helped lead a peaceful protest against Mr. Bennett in the lobby of the Slifka Center. He did not contest Mr. Bennett’s right to speak, Mr. Bacal said, but he did not see why the event had been held in a spiritual place, a chapel where students went to pray and that contained an ark with a Torah in it.

“I think it’s a real shame, because the Jewish community at college should welcome and represent all Jews on campus to the best of its ability, no matter where they are coming from,” he said.

Another student, Netanel Crispe, a senior, said that he objected not to the speaker but to Hillel’s having allowed the protest against him. Mr. Crispe said that Slifka staff stopped him and several others from filming the protest.

He faulted Yale Hillel for trying “to play to both sides in a way that doesn’t reflect core values.”

Mr. Cohen, Slifka’s director, defended the invitation the center extended to Mr. Bennett, noting that his talk drew 300 people to a space that only held 100. “We did it out of our love for Israel and our love for Zionism, and the opportunity of giving access for our students to an influential world leader,” he said.

To illustrate Hillel’s dilemma, Mr. Bacal, the protest leader, recalled how honored he was to lead Shabbat services for the first time. His parents came to town to be there, and friends attended. But it took place around the time of the Naftali Bennett event, and one of his friends stayed away in protest.

She told Mr. Bacal she did not feel comfortable stepping into Slifka that week. “I totally get that,” Mr. Bacal said.

Alain Delaquérière, Susan C. Beachy and Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.

Colleges are expecting what could be the largest freshman class ever this fall at a moment of extraordinary turmoil, as campuses face financial pressures from the federal government and political conflict over diversity and other cultural issues.

Admissions processes, upended by the Supreme Court decision to ban affirmative action, have been revamped. Budget pressures and worries about financial aid and tuition loom for colleges and families alike. Campuses have been grappling with protests and the sanctity of academic freedom.

And that was before President Trump’s return to power.

After he took office in January, his administration almost immediately began a campaign to close the Education Department and stop billions of dollars from flowing to colleges. On campuses, universities are shutting down laboratories and confronting civil rights investigations over antisemitism.

As about 3.9 million students earn their high school diplomas and many of them head to college, the changes could affect their experiences in big and small ways.

Here’s how the commotion might touch students, their parents and anyone else around college campuses this year.

Different schools, different problems

The United States has close to 4,000 degree-granting colleges and universities that offer everything from associate’s degrees in nursing to doctorates in history. But challenges are just about everywhere in higher education right now.

The kind of federal budget cuts that the Trump administration is pursuing could be the most damaging to universities where research is integral to the campus’s culture and structure. That includes places like the University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins University, but also schools like Kansas State University. Some have already announced layoffs or hiring freezes, and may be forced to rework their course offerings.

It is unclear how much belt tightening there will be, and how it might affect undergraduates in the fall.

Regional public universities often receive less attention but are very much the backbone of higher education for millions of people. They have not been as targeted by the Trump administration, but they still face fundamental challenges around state budget fights, increasing day-to-day costs and declining enrollments.

On some campuses, students are finding reduced services and staffing, with fewer professors, diminished academic resources and buildings that are closed more frequently.

Community colleges are generally far cheaper than their four-year counterparts and are still avoiding the biggest political fights around higher education; plenty of politicians, in fact, are pushing to make them free.

But their troubles are deep and stubborn. Although some schools have reported enrollment growth for this semester, community colleges have suffered from slumped interest for years.

Private colleges are a mixed bag. Many remain strong, if susceptible to criticism over their costs and political leanings. But dozens have closed in recent years, leaving students scrambling to find new academic homes.

Is paying for college going to change?

There is proposed change, and then there is actual change.

Mr. Trump’s effort to dismantle the Education Department puts two federal programs in limbo: Pell Grants and student loans.

Linda McMahon, the secretary of education, said during her confirmation hearing that she wanted to expand the Pell Grant program, which is for low-income students. It isn’t clear, however, which agency or entity would administer the grants if the Education Department were to go away.

On Friday, Mr. Trump said that the Small Business Administration would “immediately” take over the federal student loan portfolio. The Student Borrower Protection Center called his idea “illegal, unserious, and a distraction.”

Given the enormity of the loan program, any quick transfer seems highly unlikely. Until Congress or federal courts get involved — and both may happen before long — the application process for financial aid and loans won’t change. The FAFSA, short for Free Application for Federal Student Aid, has been working better so far this application season after a rough redesign of the application. But it’s not clear how recent Education Department layoffs will affect the process.

The biggest wild card may be the colleges themselves and what sorts of grants and scholarships they’ll be giving out. Many schools are suspending hiring to save money and fretting over a possible decline in international students, who may fear coming to the United States right now.

What isn’t clear is whether schools will ask students to pay more than they may have otherwise (because of concerns over budget hits from the loss of federal funding) or pay less (to get them to commit to coming in the first place).

How campus culture is shifting

Diversity, equity and inclusion programs had once seemed like a good idea to many universities, even a necessity, as they sought to increase their enrollments in a competitive landscape. But a backlash has driven state lawmakers to take up legislation to eliminate such programs, and now the Trump administration is also attacking them.

Universities are responding in varying ways.

Sometimes schools have simply renamed their D.E.I. operations. Other universities been more aggressive. In March 2024, the University of Florida fired its 13-member D.E.I. staff in response to a state ban, for example.

On some campuses, students will very likely feel the differences.

The University of Virginia pulled trainings on topics such as D.E.I. and microaggressions from its website. At the University of Houston, the campus newspaper announced that an L.G.B.T.Q. center was being shut after Texas banned diversity programming in colleges and universities. At the University of North Florida, an L.G.B.T.Q. center, a women’s center, an interfaith center and an intercultural center were all shuttered.

At Missouri State University in January, students protested the elimination of an annual diversity conference as well as an “inclusive excellence” gala.

There remain holdouts. In a recent meeting with the faculty Senate at Amherst College in Massachusetts, its president Michael Elliott called Mr. Trump’s orders ambiguous, and said that Amherst would make no cuts.

Schools that have seen major protests over the war in Gaza could face blunt-force pressure from Washington to change discipline and other institutional policies related to protests, and even curriculum related to the Middle East.

Republican efforts to curb diversity programming could extend into the classroom. Long before Mr. Trump began his second term, some states, including Florida, tried to sideline ideas from college curriculums that lawmakers considered left-leaning.

That could lead to more limited course offerings that touch on race and gender. For now, the courses in Florida are still available but not required.

Other efforts are in the works. A bill in Arizona, for example, would slash state funding for all state colleges if any instruction connected “contemporary American society” to ideas like whiteness or systemic racism.

What does the affirmative action ban mean for students?

The Supreme Court’s decision in 2023 to strike down race-conscious admissions has upended nearly 50 years of court precedent and university policies, and the effect on admissions especially at the nation’s most selective institutions may be unclear for years to come.

Statistics are in for the class that entered in the fall, and they broadly show a decrease in the number of Black students enrolled. Some differences were stark, as at Harvard Law School, which enrolled 19 Black first-year students last fall, compared with 43 the year before.

But there are some exceptions to the trend. And given the difficulty of comparing different counting methods across universities, officials have been reluctant to predict how the future will play out.

Schools are trying to maintain diversity by stepping up financial aid and recruitment, particularly in rural areas. Several universities, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard, are offering free tuition for students whose families earn $200,000 and below.

The court also left open the possibility that universities could consider race in the context of life challenges, especially as students presented them in application essays. But critics of affirmative action, like Students for Fair Admissions, which brought the Supreme Court case, are ready to challenge universities if they see any hint of any decisions based on race.

Anti-affirmative action groups will also be scrutinizing measures like SAT scores, if they can get them, to see whether universities are using different standards for different races and ethnicities.

Columbia University agreed on Friday to overhaul its protest policies, security practices and Middle Eastern studies department in a remarkable concession to the Trump administration, which has refused to consider restoring $400 million in federal funds without major changes.

The agreement, which stunned and dismayed many members of the faculty, could signal a new stage in the administration’s escalating clash with elite colleges and universities. Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan and dozens of other schools face federal inquiries and fear similar penalties, and college administrators have said Columbia’s response to the White House’s demands may set a dangerous precedent.

This week, the University of Pennsylvania was also explicitly targeted by the Trump administration, which said it would cancel $175 million in federal funding, at least partly because the university had let a transgender woman participate on a women’s swim team.

Columbia, facing the loss of government grants and contracts over what the administration said was a systemic failure to protect students and faculty members “from antisemitic violence and harassment,” opted to yield to many of the administration’s most substantial demands.

The university said it had agreed to hire a new internal security force of 36 “special officers” who will be empowered to remove people from campus or arrest them. The wearing of face masks on campus will also be banned for the purpose of concealing identity during disruptions, with exceptions for religious and health reasons.

Columbia will also adopt a formal definition of antisemitism, something many universities have shied away from even as they, like Columbia, faced pressure to do so amid protests on their campuses over the war in Gaza. Under the working definition, antisemitism could include “targeting Jews or Israelis for violence or celebrating violence against them” or “certain double standards applied to Israel,” among other issues.

Taken together, the administration’s plan — issued in an unsigned, four-page letter — reflected a stunning level of deference to the Trump administration from a top private research university.

Columbia’s interim president, Katrina A. Armstrong, said in a separate letter that the university’s actions were part of its effort to “make every student, faculty and staff member safe and welcome on our campus.”

“The way Columbia and Columbians have been portrayed is hard to reckon with,” Dr. Armstrong said. “We have challenges, yes, but they do not define us.”

She added: “At all times, we are guided by our values, putting academic freedom, free expression, open inquiry, and respect for all at the fore of every decision we make.”

The Trump administration demanded each of the changes in a letter to Columbia officials on March 13. It was not immediately clear whether the university’s actions would be sufficient to reclaim the $400 million in federal money. A spokeswoman for the Education Department, one of three federal agencies named in the letter, did not immediately respond on Friday to a request for comment, including to questions about the potential restoration of federal funding.

In perhaps the most contentious move, Columbia said it would appoint a senior vice provost to oversee the Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department. The White House had demanded that the department be placed under academic receivership, a rare federal intervention in an internal process that is typically reserved as a last resort in response to extended periods of dysfunction.

Columbia did not refer to the move related to the Middle Eastern studies department as receivership, but several faculty members said that it appeared to resemble that measure.

Legal scholars and advocates for academic freedom expressed alarm on Friday over what they described as Columbia’s dangerous surrender to President Trump at a perilous moment for higher education. Some critics of the university’s response said they feared the White House could target any recipient of federal funds, including K-12 public schools, hospitals, nursing homes and business initiatives.

Sheldon Pollock, a retired former chair of the university’s Middle Eastern studies department, said in a text message that “Columbia faculty are utterly shocked and profoundly disappointed by the trustees’ capitulation to the extortionate behavior of the federal government.”

“This is a shameful day in the history of Columbia,” Dr. Pollock said, adding that it would “endanger academic freedom, faculty governance and the excellence of the American university system.”

The moves by Columbia were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The school’s response to the administration’s demands was the latest turn in a turbulent phase that began 17 months ago, when pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian students organized competing protests in the days after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

Since then, the Manhattan campus has experienced a rare summoning of the police to quell protests, the president’s resignation and the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate, by federal immigration officials.

The extraordinary cancellation of funding for the university escalated the crisis, imperiling research that includes dozens of medical and scientific studies. (The university did not mention the loss of funds in outlining the steps it was taking.)

On social media, Jameel Jaffer, the director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia, called it “a sad day for Columbia and for our democracy.”

Others said that a wholesale overhaul was appropriate in light of the conflict and tension on campus in recent semesters.

Ester R. Fuchs, who co-chairs the university’s antisemitism task force, said that many of the administration’s changes appeared to be issues that the group had previously highlighted.

“What’s fascinating to me is a lot of these are things we needed to get done and were getting done, but now we’ve gotten done more quickly,” said Dr. Fuchs, who is also a professor of international and public affairs and political science.

She added: “We are completely supportive of principles of academic freedom.”

Among other changes, the university also said that the administration would work to adopt a universitywide “position of institutional neutrality.” It said that it would move an independent panel of faculty, students and staff members who handle disciplinary procedures under the provost’s office — and that members would be “restricted to faculty and administrators only.”

The school also agreed to review its admissions policies for potential bias after it “identified a recent downturn in both Jewish and African American enrollment,” and last week announced a range of disciplinary actions against an undisclosed number of students.

Despite the overhaul, the current fraught chapter in Columbia’s 270-year history may not be over. The Trump administration has told the university that meeting its demands was “a precondition for formal negotiations” over a continued financial relationship and that the White House may call for other “immediate and long-term structural reforms.”

Columbia’s changes are notable for their scope and for how quickly they were made. But it is not the only institution to make concessions as the White House indicates that its campaign against elite universities and colleges will not end at the Morningside Heights campus.

Federal money is the lifeblood of major research universities, and some have begun to keep quiet on hot-button issues in hopes of escaping the administration’s ire. Many, including the University of California this week, have retreated from diversity-related efforts.

Many of the changes Columbia agreed to make involve issues that have been points of contention on campus for some time.

Face masks, for example, emerged as a source of conflict last year amid the Gaza protests, with demonstrators saying they should be able to conceal their identities to avoid being doxxed, and others arguing that mask-wearing makes it harder to hold protesters accountable if their actions veer into harassment.

The detainment this month of Mr. Khalil, a prominent figure in the protests who stood out because he chose not to wear a mask, cast a spotlight on the issue.

But putting the Middle Eastern studies department, which has long been in a pitched battle over its scholarship and the employment of professors who describe themselves as anti-Zionist, under outside scrutiny provoked unique outrage.

Columbia said that the senior vice provost would review curriculum and hiring in several programs, including the Center for Palestine Studies and the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies. The university said the move was aimed at “promoting excellence in regional studies.”

But Michael Thaddeus, a Columbia math professor who described reading Dr. Armstrong’s letter with “profound disappointment and alarm,” called it “a giant step down a very dangerous road.”

He worried that the Middle Eastern studies department would effectively be run by “a member of Columbia’s thought police” who could interfere with anything from course offerings to faculty appointments. “It strikes at the heart of academic freedom,” Professor Thaddeus said.

“Of all the bad things,” he continued, “this one is really the worst.”

Katherine Rosman contributed reporting.