If you work in higher education, the state of your institution’s finances is very likely deteriorating. To watch that play out in real time, look no further than The Chronicle’s Finance Live Updates tracker. Clinton College, a private historically Black institution in South Carolina, appears to be having trouble making payroll. The University of Akron is selling off its property to raise revenue. Louisiana State University recently laid off 25 people, including the flagship’s chief financial officer. Even elite institutions are not escaping unscathed: Moody’s recently downgraded its financial outlook for Brown University.
This year’s bad news has myriad causes: the beginning of a long decline in the number of high-school graduates, suppressed international-student enrollment, the Trump administration’s barriers to federal student aid and research funding, and tight state budgets resulting partially from federal policy shifts, to name just a few.
But to understand how we got to this point — where layoffs and program closures feel routine, and institutional closures have also ticked upward — we must look back at the decade that brought us to President Trump’s second term.
