It was never going to be a quiet summer. Between when faculty turned in their final spring grades and when students came back to campus, President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law and higher ed was hit with more funding freezes, new policy demands and fresh attacks no one saw coming.
In July, Columbia agreed to pay $221 million and overhaul its admissions, disciplinary processes and academic programs. In exchange, it will recover $400 million in lost federal funding. The university calls this a reset with the federal government. Others worry it sets a dangerous precedent: Bend to the will of the administration and you’ll get your funding back.
In August, UCLA became the first public institution to see grants frozen—$589 million from the National Science Foundation. The Trump administration is demanding $1 billion to release the funds. UC chancellor JB Milliken at first said the demand would “completely devastate” the UC system, but it has since joined other wealthy institutions in sitting down at the negotiating table with the administration, likely under heavy pressure, to restore its funding. As students file back into classrooms at Harvard, Northwestern, Cornell, Princeton and Duke, lawyers are quietly hammering out deals that could force lasting changes to hiring and disciplinary practices at their institutions.
Meanwhile, state attorneys general spent the summer playing mock trial with the administration. In June, Texas’s AG declined to challenge a federal suit seeking to block colleges from charging in-state tuition to undocumented students. In August, Oklahoma’s AG followed suit. Tennessee went further, suing the federal government over the constitutionality of the Hispanic-serving institutions program. The Department of Justice, shrugging off the fight, said it wouldn’t contest the case. A new tactic to force policy change appears to be emerging: States and the federal government are suing one another and then surrendering.
For undocumented students in Texas and Oklahoma, the effect is immediate—tuition hikes that could price them out of finishing their degrees. Around the country, roughly 600 Hispanic-serving institutions also face deep uncertainty about their federal support. Just yesterday, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said her department would no longer award grants to minority-serving institutions (except HBCUs).
Faculty in Indiana, Ohio and Utah also have reason to be uneasy. Legislators in those states passed laws requiring colleges to eliminate degree programs with low enrollments. And while DEI offices close and staff are cut, institutions are hiring coordinators to enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, amid rising complaints of antisemitism and allegations of other civil rights violations.
As fall approaches and outside forces continue to push change, the question will be, Who is going to rebuild higher ed after it’s dismantled?
Sara Custer is editor in chief at Inside Higher Ed.
