Giving Compass' Take:
- Marina Villeneuve reports on the impacts on college students and faculty as more than half of U.S. higher education institutions show signs of struggling financially.
- How can donors and funders play a role in filling some of the gaps in access to higher education?
- Ask a custom question to find other nonprofits focused on higher education.
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Nalia Mutz started her freshman year at the University of Lynchburg in 2022 knowing exactly where she wanted to be four years later: right on track toward her dream of becoming a doctor.
When the university eliminated a dozen majors in 2024, the resulting layoffs left fewer professors to teach the science courses she needed to graduate. She began to fear earning her biomedicine degree the way she’d planned could take two extra years.
“It was just a lot of cuts all around, and then they just didn’t have enough staff,” Mutz, 21, said.
Higher education has faced fiscal headwinds in recent years as hundreds of institutions grapple with declining enrollment because of demographic trends and growing public skepticism about the value of a college degree. Trump policies targeting international students and cutting federal research funding made the financial situation more dire, as have new caps to graduate student loan borrowing and threats to block undergraduate programs from accepting federal financial aid unless alumni earn more than a typical high school graduate.
As colleges tighten their belts, millions of students like Mutz feel the consequences. Small, private nonprofit institutions that rely heavily on tuition — like the University of Lynchburg — are likely to be hit hardest.
While just a small fraction of colleges will end up closing, those that survive may resort to cutting programs and staff, a move that could balance the books but leave students adrift. Experts and students themselves say it’s time to pay more attention to the impact of college downsizing.
“The academic literature draws a straight line from student-faculty ratios and advising supports to what that means for students’ likelihood to persist and complete their college degree,” said Justin Ortagus, professor of higher education and public policy at the University of Texas at Austin. “It has a real impact on their ability to graduate.”
Read the full article about more than half of colleges showing signs of financial instability by Marina Villeneuve at The Hechinger Report.