\n<\/p>\n
The last month of 2025 brought more campus job cuts, capping off a tumultuous year for higher education.<\/p>\n
While December yielded roughly 300 reported job cuts across the sector, that total reflects only a fraction of the jobs lost in higher education in 2025. Inside Higher Ed<\/em> tracked more than 9,000 job cuts and buyouts last year\u2014which is undoubtedly an undercount due to unreported personnel actions.<\/p>\n Rising operating costs and an uncertain federal policy environment drove cuts at even the wealthiest institutions last year as universities with multibillion-dollar endowments shed hundreds of jobs after President Donald Trump restricted federal research funds, sought to limit international student enrollment and clashed with multiple universities over alleged civil rights infractions. While many of December\u2019s job cuts were not attributable to Trump, others seemed directly connected, including the loss of hundreds of international students at DePaul University, which undercut tuition revenues, prompting layoffs.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a look at layoffs, buyouts and program cuts announced in December.<\/p>\n The private Catholic university in Chicago cut 114 staff jobs last month, officials announced.<\/p>\n \u201cThese decisions were extraordinarily difficult and leaders across the university did not make them lightly. Each person affected contributed to the life of this university in meaningful ways,\u201d officials wrote in a Dec. 15 message announcing the layoffs and assistance for employees, which included severance packages based on years of service, career counseling and more.<\/p>\n Staffing reductions at DePaul are part of a broader effort to reduce spending by $27.4\u00a0million as the university grapples with a budget deficit and aims to achieve a 2.5\u00a0percent operating margin. DePaul has also been hit with a staggering loss of international students amid the Trump administration\u2019s crackdown on immigration, which has made it harder for some foreign nationals to obtain visas and deterred others. International enrollment at DePaul plunged by 755 students compared to the previous fall, a decline of nearly 62\u00a0percent, officials said in September.<\/p>\n Regents voted last month to close four programs at the flagship campus following months of consternation over the plan, which will see dozens of faculty positions eliminated.<\/p>\n Programs approved for closure are statistics, earth and atmospheric sciences, educational administration and textiles, merchandising and fashion design. The plan includes cutting 51 jobs, mostly from the faculty ranks, The Nebraska Examiner<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n Program closures and job cuts are expected to save the university almost $7\u00a0million.<\/p>\n The December vote ended a bitter fight over the program cuts that prompted a faculty no-confidence vote in Chancellor Rodney Bennett. Faculty members have questioned the evaluation process and the timeline for the cuts; they also conducted their own financial assessment, which pushed back on the need for instructional cuts amid growing administrative expenses.<\/p>\n Bennett, who championed the program cuts,\u00a0announced Monday\u00a0that he plans to resign by Jan. 12. His sudden resignation ends an almost three-year stint as head of the flagship.<\/p>\n Indiana\u2019s only predominantly Black institution terminated all employees in mid-December, a move that preceded an official closure announcement on Dec. 31.\u00a0The formal decision to close came shortly after the private university announced it would\u00a0\u201cpause\u201d operations.<\/p>\n While the number of jobs lost is unclear, Martin\u2014where enrollment has hovered around 200 students in recent years\u2014employed 42 staff and faculty members in fall 2023, according to federal data.<\/p>\n Interim president Felicia Brokaw reportedly told employees the university was laying them off because it could not afford to pay them, according to an audio recording obtained by Mirror Indy<\/em>. Brokaw also told staff she did not know when they would be paid for work already performed.<\/p>\n Martin officials have encouraged students to transfer elsewhere.<\/p>\n Citing a need to balance its budget and avoid dipping into reserves, the community college in Rock Springs axed 33 jobs and reorganized 30 others, The Rocket Miner<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n Last month\u2019s cuts included eight full-time faculty jobs.<\/p>\n The newspaper reported that more layoffs could be on the horizon depending on what happens in the coming legislative session. State lawmakers are reportedly weighing a plan to cut property taxes by 25\u00a0percent (following a similar move last year), which would have a major effect on WWCC, given that its budget heavily relies on state appropriations and local property taxes.<\/p>\n Nearly three dozen faculty members have opted to take buyouts offered by the public research university.<\/p>\n In all, 34 tenured faculty members applied to participate in an early-retirement incentive program at KU, The Lawrence Journal-World<\/em> reported. University officials announced the launch of the early-retirement program in October, citing budget challenges. KU is currently seeking $32\u00a0million in cost reductions by July 1, when the next fiscal year begins.<\/p>\n The private Catholic university in Memphis, Tenn., is cutting 16 faculty jobs, a move Interim President Chris Englert said was \u201cdesigned to balance our operating budget and position CBU for transformation as we work to meet the needs of today\u2019s students and today\u2019s workforce.\u201d<\/p>\n Englert announced the layoffs in a message to the campus community last month.<\/p>\n The Oklahoma Board of Regents for Higher Education voted to eliminate 41 degree programs and suspend 21 others across the state system due to underenrollment, NPR affiliate KOSU reported. <\/p>\n The flagship was hit the hardest, with 14 programs eliminated. No other state institution had more than three degree programs cut. Of the 14 at OU, eight were at the undergraduate level and six were graduate degrees. Cuts at OU include a mix of language programs\u2014such as Arabic, Chinese, French and German\u2014alongside geography, plant biology and others.<\/p>\n As part of a planned merger with nearby Kean University, the public institution is shedding nine degree programs alongside multiple minors and certifications, The Jersey City Times<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n Undergraduate programs to be discontinued at NJCU are business information systems, chemistry, philosophy, women\u2019s and gender studies, and a music performance degree. Graduate programs on the chopping block are business information systems, criminal justice, educational psychology and a music performance degree. An internal memo obtained by the newspaper noted that many programs have similar offerings at Kean that will continue unabated.<\/p>\n The liberal arts college in Caldwell is cutting three majors but adding six new programs, a change that will see 10 employees laid off, including five professors, Idaho Ed News<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n College officials said the eliminated majors\u2014theater, communication arts and philosophy\u2014were all underenrolled. New programs to be added are biochemistry, finance and criminology, at the undergraduate level, plus master\u2019s degrees in data analytics, exercise science and accountancy.<\/p>\n Facing a $30\u00a0million budget gap driven by low graduate enrollment numbers and other factors, the private university is offering buyouts to eligible faculty members, The Boston Globe<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n Buyouts mark the latest effort by the research university to constrain costs. In early 2025, officials announced BU was laying off 120 workers and closing 120 vacant positions.<\/p>\n The public university is rolling out an early-retirement program to help close a budget deficit, Golden Gate Express<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n SFSU officials announced the buyout program last month and reportedly expect between 60 and 75 faculty members to sign on. However, professors in some departments are not eligible, an exclusion officials told the news outlet was partly due to the need \u201cto maintain business continuity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The last month of 2025 brought more campus job cuts, capping off a tumultuous year for higher education. While December yielded roughly 300 reported job cuts across the sector, that total reflects only a fraction of the jobs lost in higher education in 2025. Inside Higher Ed tracked more than 9,000 job cuts and buyouts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[2007,1083,562,6685,1534,1569],"class_list":{"0":"post-40509","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-brutal","9":"tag-close","10":"tag-cuts","11":"tag-december","12":"tag-sector","13":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}DePaul University<\/h4>\n
University of Nebraska\u2013Lincoln<\/h4>\n
Martin University<\/h4>\n
Western Wyoming Community College<\/h4>\n
University of Kansas<\/h4>\n
Christian Brothers University<\/h4>\n
University of Oklahoma<\/h4>\n
New Jersey City University<\/h4>\n
College of Idaho<\/h4>\n
Boston University<\/h4>\n
San Francisco State University<\/h4>\n