\n<\/p>\n
Officials at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are looking to cut $17\u00a0million from the budget.<\/p>\n
Sean Rayford\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
While December capped off a difficult year for higher education with roughly 300 jobs cut and dozens of programs eliminated, colleges made fewer cutbacks to start the year. <\/p>\n
January still saw job cuts, but at a much lower rate than the prior month. Like last year, many institutions continue to be squeezed by a mix of federal and state funding pressures, declining enrollment, rising operating costs, and financial friction at even the wealthiest universities.<\/p>\n
Here is a look at the latest round of job and program cuts to start 2026.<\/p>\n
Facing a persistent budget deficit that has climbed to a projected $16.7\u00a0million, administrators plan to eliminate 70 jobs at the California community college, the Santa Monica Daily Press<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n The announcement comes as officials have warned that the college could deplete its financial reserves due to a long-running budget deficit that they have struggled in recent years to rein in. Declining enrollment and recent changes to state funding also put pressure on the college\u2019s finances.<\/p>\n \u201cThis decision weighs heavily on me,\u201d superintendent and president Kathryn E. Jeffery wrote in a message to the community. \u201cThese are not just positions on a spreadsheet\u2014they represent real people, colleagues who have dedicated themselves to our students and our mission.\u201d<\/p>\n Set to close at the end of 2026\u201327 academic year, the private arts college laid off 28 employees last month, the San Francisco Chronicle<\/em> reported. The move came roughly a week after Vanderbilt University announced it was buying the Bay Area campus.<\/p>\n Of the 28 employees laid off in January, many reportedly worked in areas such as academic affairs, enrollment services, communications, student affairs, and the president\u2019s office.<\/p>\n Vanderbilt bought the campus amid recent financial struggles for CCA and plans to open a San Francisco campus following the closure, continuing its national expansion beyond Nashville.<\/p>\n Trustees at the flagship campus pushed through a surprise resolution last month to shave $17\u00a0million in administrative costs, triggering expectations of layoffs, The News & Observer<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n The newspaper reported that the last-minute resolution, introduced in a committee meeting, didn\u2019t appear on the agenda for the meeting and was not available for public review prior to the meeting. Some members on the board were caught by surprise and they had little time to examine the proposal.<\/p>\n The full board ultimately approved the budget cuts despite process concerns with the vote. Chapel Hill officials have not specified exactly what the cuts approved last month will target, though UNC Chancellor Lee Roberts told the newspaper \u201clayoffs are always a last resort.\u201d<\/p>\n A looming merger between Kean University and New Jersey City University will result in some positions being eliminated, though exact numbers have not been released, the Jersey City Times <\/em>reported.<\/p>\n An official at Kean, which is absorbing the financially challenged NJCU as part of the merger deal, told the newspaper that \u201ca majority of NJCU faculty and staff are expected to be retained post-merger,\u201d but some cuts are needed to \u201caddress a $25\u00a0million to $30\u00a0million budgetary gap.\u201d<\/p>\n Kean also unveiled plans in December to drop nine degree programs and other offerings.<\/p>\n PennWest officials plan to cut dozens of programs amid efforts to recalibrate academic offerings in order to better align with modern learning and workforce needs, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n Officials at the public university plan to axe at least six undergraduate degrees, four graduate programs and 34 minors. Another nine bachelor\u2019s degree programs offered across PennWest\u2019s three campuses are also under consideration and could be cut. However, despite the program cuts, officials told the newspaper that it does not have corresponding plans to lay off faculty and staff members.<\/p>\n Program cuts follow a recent round of furloughs at two PennWest campuses last fall.<\/p>\n Officials at the flagship campus have proposed terminating master\u2019s degree programs in literature and economics and pausing minors in Chinese and Irish studies due to low enrollment, the<\/em> Montana Free Press<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n Faculty Senate and the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education must still review the proposal before the university winds down programs targeted for elimination. Faculty, students and alumni have pushed back on the plan; the Economics Department chair said the master\u2019s degree targeted for elimination has maintained stable enrollment.<\/p>\n Officials declined to say how many employees would be affected by the proposed cuts.<\/p>\n While many program cuts in January were driven by finances, others were political in nature.<\/p>\n Texas A&M officials announced late last month that they were axing the Women\u2019s and Gender Studies program, effective immediately, to comply with a system policy that restricts discussions of \u201crace or gender ideology.\u201d<\/p>\n Beyond the policy, which has also prompted Texas A&M to censor some of Plato\u2019s writings in a philosophy course, officials noted that the program had struggled with low enrollment.<\/p>\n One of the nation\u2019s wealthiest universities is enacting far-reaching budget cuts.<\/p>\n Officials at Penn\u2014which has an endowment recently valued at $24.8\u00a0billion\u2014recently asked units across campus to prepare to scale back expenditures by 4\u00a0percent in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1, the Philadelphia Business Journal <\/em>reported. Officials attributed the campus-wide budget cuts to a moment of \u201cconsiderable uncertainty\u201d for the Ivy League university, which has faced federal pressures from the Trump administration in recent months.<\/p>\n Penn is currently in a standoff with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which accused the university of defying a subpoena in an investigation into alleged antisemitism. The EEOC is seeking information on Jewish students and employees, which Penn has resisted providing due to concerns about the legality of the demand and exposing personal details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Officials at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are looking to cut $17\u00a0million from the budget. Sean Rayford\/Getty Images While December capped off a difficult year for higher education with roughly 300 jobs cut and dozens of programs eliminated, colleges made fewer cutbacks to start the year. January still saw job cuts, but<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[1620,562,16178,779,536],"class_list":{"0":"post-43677","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-brings","9":"tag-cuts","10":"tag-january","11":"tag-job","12":"tag-program"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43677","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=43677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}California College of the Arts<\/h2>\n
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill<\/h2>\n
New Jersey City University<\/h2>\n
Pennsylvania Western University<\/h2>\n
University of Montana<\/h2>\n
Texas A&M University<\/h2>\n
University of Pennsylvania<\/h2>\n