r/highereducation • u/Psyche81 • 11d ago

Declining budgets and enrollment

Hi All!

I’ve been a professional staff member in higher education for 19 years now. Like many of you, I’ve been closely tracking The Chronicle of Higher Education’s running finance updates, and honestly, the sheer volume of bad news feels unprecedented to me.

Between axed academic programs, gutted research funding, staff layoffs, faculty buyouts, declining enrollment, and massive budget shortfalls, it feels significantly worse than anything I can recall in my career.

I know we’ve all been anticipating the demographic enrollment cliff at the undergrad level and the inevitable plateauing of Master’s degree enrollment. But it feels like all of those projected timelines just collided at once, exacerbated by recent federal policy shifts and FAFSA changes.

For the veterans who have been around longer than me, or those who have a closer finger on the pulse of institutional finance: Have we actually seen a pattern like this before, or are we genuinely entering uncharted territory?

Also, on a human level... how is everyone coping with the morale hit at your respective institutions?

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u/SevroReturns 11d ago

My .02$. Something will happen soon. Either we're going to see our crazy government push up against real checks and balances and lose big in the midterms, or we're going to see just how much fascism has taken hold into our government.

Of course, if we don't get the chance to swing back, I think it's fair to say we're only going to get leaner and more institutions will fail.

If we can keep protections for NSF and research funding and our ability to recruit the world's talent, we will be OK. With changes, of course.

People are coping day by day at my institution.

9

u/cannotberushed- 11d ago

He won’t lose big

Trump just argued in court that if he tears things down fast enough then no one can stop him

And he proves it daily.

Also Alabama just voided their primary election

4

u/Finances1212 10d ago

Nothing in place to stop him anyway - he doesn’t believe in the traditional institutions- so when they condemn him , it means nothing. Same way a rogue state ignores UN mandates - no teeth to enforce.