Education
How Crises on Colleges Campuses Might Affect Students

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.

Education
N.Y. Budget Deal Includes School Cellphone Ban and Public Safety Changes

Gov. Kathy Hochul on Monday announced the framework of a roughly $254 billion state budget agreement, ending a monthlong stalemate over public safety issues that the governor had insisted on including in the fiscal plan.
The budget deal, which will now go to the Legislature for a full vote, includes changes to make it easier to remove people in psychiatric crisis from public spaces to be evaluated for treatment, and eases so-called discovery requirements for how prosecutors hand over evidence to criminal defendants in the pretrial phase.
Ms. Hochul also successfully pushed for an all-day ban on students having cellphones in schools. But another of the governor’s policy priorities relating to the restriction of the wearing of masks was whittled down by legislators over concerns that it would be selectively enforced and infringe on people’s civil liberties.
“We worked through some really challenging issues,” Ms. Hochul said at a news conference Monday afternoon. “We refused to be drawn into the toxic, divisive politics of the moment.” Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the majority leader, and Carl E. Heastie, the Assembly speaker, were not present at the announcement.
The changes related to criminal justice and mental health were major priorities of Mayor Eric Adams and district attorneys from New York City, who appeared several times with Ms. Hochul to push for the proposals. She made them clear priorities, frustrating lawmakers who were forced to pass several so-called budget extenders to keep the government running after the April 1 deadline passed.
Ms. Hochul did not provide many details on what exactly would be changed and to what degree, saying that her aides would iron out the final details with legislative leaders in the coming days.
Other changes may yet be in store, depending on the severity of the rolling cuts to federally subsidized programs, the specter of which has heightened anxiety among lawmakers. Most concede that a special legislative session may be needed to reckon with the shortfalls once Congress passes its budget. Ms. Hochul and others have been saying for months now that it is essentially impossible to plan until they fully understand the cuts.
“We can only devise a budget based on the information we have at this time,” Ms. Hochul said, adding the state had already been hit with about $1.2 billion in cuts.
“There’s a possibility that we’ll have to come back later this year and update our budget in response to federal actions,” she added.
Still, New York’s budget agreement, which will be fleshed out and voted on next week, dealt only glancingly with the transformed fiscal picture that could be on the horizon a few months from now — a bleak outlook made even more uncertain by President Trump’s tariff-driven global trade war.
State Democratic leaders have stressed that congressional Republicans seem all too willing to cut entitlement programs such as Medicaid and Social Security.
Yet the budget proposal called for New York to spend $17 billion more than last year, made possible in part after state officials disclosed earlier this month that tax revenues and the state’s general fund closed the fiscal year with billions more dollars than expected.
Ms. Hochul, who is keenly aware of voters’ frustrations with rising costs for basic goods like food and housing, is up for re-election next year. Several Democrats are considering primary challenges, and several prominent Republicans, including Representative Elise Stefanik, are also weighing bids.
In effort to boost her flagging political prospects, she stuffed her executive budget proposal in January with populist efforts to “put money back in people’s pockets.” It included a $3 billion tax refund that would have seen New Yorkers receive between $300 and $500 and a generous expansion of the state’s child tax credit program.
The framework agreement with the Legislature included the governor’s proposed child tax credit of up to $1,000 for families with a child under 4, but the refund was scaled back in negotiations, amid pushback over whether that was the best use of so much cash. Now about $2 billion will be devoted to the program, with New Yorkers receiving between $200 and $400, depending on their income.
Similarly Ms. Hochul had promised no increases to state income taxes, although she proposed an extension of an existing tax on residents making more than $1.1 million through tax year 2032, and relief for many middle-class New Yorkers earning up to $323,000 per year as joint filers. The budget agreement reached on Monday maintains the tax cut but includes an increased payroll levy on companies with more than $10 million in revenue.
This largess would help fund the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s $68 billion five-year plan to make systemwide infrastructure upgrades. Smaller companies will see a cut in their payroll tax burden because of the deal. The M.T.A., the state and New York City will each kick in $3 billion to fund the plan. Ms. Hochul also said that $1.2 billion that had been previously allocated for renovating Penn Station will go toward safety improvements and stopping fare evasion.
“It’s a fair plan that asks the most from large employers, but also calls on the city, state and M.T.A. to step up,” said Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, a business group.
Mr. Heastie said the framework agreement included changes to the state’s campaign finance matching system. Donations larger than $250 are currently disqualified from the matching program; the agreement provides for the state to match the first $250 of any donation up to $1,000.
The budget deal also includes a change to the law to allow candidates for governor and lieutenant governor to run together as a ticket, rather than in separate primaries as they do now. The current lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado, recently announced he would not seek another term in the role and is considering challenging Ms. Hochul in next year’s primary.
Stefanos Chen and Jay Root contributed reporting.
Education
Opinion | The Jewish Students Caught Up in Trump’s Antisemitism Crackdown

Given these figures, it’s not surprising that Jews have taken a leading role in the protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza. Eleven days after Oct. 7, 2023, progressive and anti-Zionist Jewish groups, including Jewish Voice for Peace, gathered roughly 400 protesters, many wearing shirts that said “Not in Our Name,” and occupied a congressional building. Later that month, Jewish Voice for Peace and its allies led a takeover of New York’s Grand Central Terminal. At Brown University, the first sit-in demanding divestment from companies affiliated with Israel comprised solely Jewish students.
Jewish students are not generally as vulnerable as their Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, Black and noncitizen counterparts, but it is precisely this assumption of greater safety that may have made them more willing to protest in the first place. And many have paid a price. It’s impossible to know what percentage of the students punished for pro-Palestinian activism have been Jewish, since university disciplinary proceedings are often secret. But anecdotal evidence suggests it is significant. And regardless of one’s views about how universities should treat campus activism, there is something bizarre about repressing it in the name of Jewish safety when a number of the students being repressed are Jews.
Since Oct. 7, at least four universities have temporarily suspended or placed on probation their chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace. In 2023 at BrownU Jews for Ceasefire Now protests, 20 members were arrested. (The charges were dropped.) At a pro-Israel event at Rockland Community College at the State University of New York on Oct. 12, 2023, a Jewish student who briefly shouted “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “Jews for Palestine” was reportedly suspended for the rest of the academic year. In May 2024, a Jewish tenured professor in anthropology at Muhlenberg College said she was fired after she reposted an Instagram post that declared, in part: “Do not cower to Zionists. Shame them. Do not welcome them in your spaces. Do not make them feel comfortable.” In September, Michigan’s attorney general brought felony charges for resisting or obstructing a police officer, as well as misdemeanor trespassing charges, against three Jewish activists — as well as four others — for offenses related to a Gaza solidarity encampment at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. (They all pleaded not guilty).
Even when protest has taken the form of Jewish religious observance, it often has been shut down. Last fall, when Jewish students opposing the war during the holiday of Sukkot built Gaza solidarity sukkahs, temporary boothlike structures in which Jews eat, learn and sleep during the holiday, at least eight universities forcibly dismantled them, or required the students to do so, or canceled approval for their construction. (The universities said that the groups were not allowed to erect structures on campus.)
Despite this, establishment Jewish pro-Israel organizations have applauded universities that have cracked down on pro-Palestinian protest. When Columbia suspended its branch of Jewish Voice for Peace alongside Students for Justice in Palestine, the A.D.L. congratulated the university for fulfilling its “legal & moral obligations to protect Jewish students.” After New Hampshire police broke up Dartmouth’s Gaza solidarity encampment, the A.D.L. thanked the college’s president for “protecting all students’ right to learn in a safe environment.” But the experience was hardly safe for Annelise Orleck, the former chair of the school’s Jewish studies program, who said she was zip-tied, body-slammed and forcibly dragged by police officers when they moved in. After the state attorney general announced that she would bring charges against demonstrators at the University of Michigan’s encampment who had allegedly violated the law, an official at the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor praised her for acting “courageously.” The A.D.L. has since reversed its prior support for the Trump administration’s detention of pro-Palestinian activists. But it still wants universities to impose tough restrictions on campus protest. When I reached out to the organization asking if it had a position on Jewish students getting swept up in campus crackdowns, representatives referred me to Mr. Greenblatt’s recent opinion essays. Each one reiterated the need to fight against what it deems campus antisemitism, but also advocated due process for all those involved.
Education
Trump Administration Opens Civil Rights Inquiry Into a Long Island Mascot Fight

Federal education officials said on Friday that they had opened a civil rights inquiry into whether New York State could withhold state money from a Long Island school district that has refused to follow a state requirement and drop its Native American mascot.
The announcement came shortly after President Trump expressed his support for the district, in Massapequa, N.Y., in its fight against complying with a state Board of Regents requirement that all districts abandon mascots that appropriate Native American culture or risk losing state funding.
The Massapequa district, whose “Chiefs” logo depicts an illustrated side profile of a Native American man in a feathered headdress, is one of several that have resisted making a change.
The name of the town, a middle-class swath of the South Shore where most residents voted for Mr. Trump in the November election, was derived from the Native American word “Marspeag” or “Mashpeag,” which means “great water land.”
In announcing the investigation, Linda McMahon, the education secretary, said that her department would “not stand by as the state of New York attempts to rewrite history and deny the town of Massapequa the right to celebrate its heritage in its schools.”
JP O’Hare, a spokesman for the state Education Department, said in a statement that state education officials had not been contacted by the federal government about the matter.
“However,” he added, “the U.S. Department of Education’s attempt to interfere with a state law concerning school district mascots is inconsistent with Secretary McMahon’s March 20, 2025, statement that she is ‘sending education back to the states, where it so rightly belongs.’”
The policy, introduced in 2022, was adopted amid a national push to change Native American mascot names or iconography through legislation and other moves.
When the ban was adopted, about five dozen New York school districts still used Native American-inspired mascots and logos. Districts were given until the end of June this year to eliminate banned mascots.
Since taking office for his second term, Mr. Trump and his administration have waged a relentless campaign against what they argue are illegal diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and have threatened entities that do not fall in line and eliminate such efforts.
The president has said he would slash funding for low-income students in states that fail to do away with such programs. New York’s Education Department was the first to publicly refuse to comply with the order.
Massapequa school leaders filed a federal lawsuit seeking to keep the “Chiefs” name, but the judge in the case recently moved closer to dismissing it after finding they had failed to provide sufficient evidence for their claims, including that the mascot qualified as protected speech.
In a social media post this week, Mr. Trump criticized New York’s policy and called for Ms. McMahon to intervene.
“Forcing them to change the name, after all of these years, is ridiculous and, in actuality, an affront to our great Indian population,” the president wrote.
In a statement included in the federal Education Department’s announcement, Kerry Watcher, the Massapequa Board of Education president, welcomed the investigation.
“Attempts to erase Native American imagery do not advance learning,” Ms. Watcher said. “They distract from our core mission of providing a high-quality education grounded in respect, history and community values.”
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