Compiled by SUSAN JONES

Institutional members of six higher education associations — including the Association of American Universities, of which Pitt is a member —  will now have until April 24 to submit extensive applicant and admissions data broken down by race and sex to the U.S. Department of Education, a federal judge ruled. 

The judge also allowed each of those groups and colleges to join a legal challenge to the Education Department’s new survey for colleges. Seventeen Democratic attorneys general, but not Pennsylvania’s, have sued the Education Department over the data collection, arguing that the agency has disregarded the “onerous burden” it places on colleges and didn’t follow the proper steps when rolling it out. 

APRIL 16

Kentucky’s Republican-controlled General Assembly overrode Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto this week to pass legislation that could make it easier for the state’s public colleges to fire faculty members over financial concerns. Under HB 490, public colleges will be able to terminate faculty members for “bona fide financial reasons,” which include financial exigency, low enrollment in academic offerings, or a mismatch between costs and revenues in a department, program or major. 

Texas Tech University’s plans to phase out and eventually close all programs “centered on” sexual orientation and gender identity also prohibit students from creating “degree-culminating” research or theses on such topics, according to a recent memo from university leadership.

APRIL 15

The Trump administration called on the First Circuit to reinstate its roughly $2.7 billion freeze on Harvard’s research funding, arguing that it acted within its authority when it terminated the University’s grants, the Harvard Crimson reported. In a 160-page brief, federal lawyers laid out their most comprehensive defense yet of the funding cuts, contending that agencies can revoke support based on shifting “agency priorities” — including concerns about antisemitism — even outside the formal enforcement process required under Title VI. The filing asks the court to overturn a September ruling by U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs, who found the administration’s actions unconstitutional and ordered the funding restored.

American colleges and universities bear significant responsibility for plunging public trust in higher education, a Yale University committee suggested in a report. High costs, murky admissions practices, uneven academic standards and fears about free speech on campuses, the committee said, are among the reasons for widening discontent over higher education’s worthiness. Yale is considering major changes to its admissions, cost, grading and other areas in a sweeping effort to combat the stark erosion of trust in higher education. Maurie McInnis, the school’s president, told the campus community that the university would ensure people can take intellectual risks at Yale, confront grade inflation and redirect more money to teaching and research, among other changes.

Sonny Perdue announced his intention to retire and step down after four years as leader of the University System of Georgia. USG’s board said it will launch a national search for Perdue’s replacement with support from former state higher ed leaders and an executive search firm. Perdue will stay on as chancellor until his successor is named.

Close to 90 degree programs at Ohio’s public universities are being cut as a result of Senate Bill 1, which requires universities to scrap any undergraduate degree programs with fewer than five graduates per year for three straight years, the Ohio Capital Journal reports. Kent State University had the highest number of programs being cut: 19, the newspaper reported.

Kent Syverud, who was slated to become president of the University of Michigan in May, has announced he will no longer take the job following a diagnosis of brain cancer. Syverud, an alumnus and former faculty member, will serve as a special advisor to the Board of Regents and a professor of law while he undergoes treatment. The Board of Regents must now restart the search for a permanent leader; UM has been without a seated president for nearly a year following the departure of Santa Ono.

APRIL 14

The University of Pennsylvania has formally appealed a federal judge’s March 31 ruling enforcing a subpoena from the EEOC, which seek information about Jewish faculty and staff as part of its investigation of allegations of antisemitism on college campuses. Penn also has asked the district court to pause enforcement of that order during the appeal.

Hampshire College announced that following “years of sustained effort to secure the college’s financial future,” the Massachusetts institution announced that it will shut down permanently in December, when its fall 2026 semester ends. The private liberal arts college will not bring in any new students this fall and will refund deposits for those who were already admitted. But it will teach courses and provide services for current students through the fall term. 

Gifts to U.S. colleges rose to an estimated $78.8 billion in fiscal 2025, a 4% year-over-year increase, according to the latest annual study from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Although the increase was “just enough to keep up with inflation,” the growth reflects “continued trust that donors place in educational institutions,” CASE said in its report. 

APRIL 13

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed legislation that would allow the removal of tenured faculty and limit the authority of faculty-led governing bodies, effective October, 1819News.com reported.

Harvard University filed a motion claiming the Trump administration’s recent antisemitism lawsuit is a rehashing of a case the university already won. In the memorandum, Harvard’s attorneys asked the Massachusetts District Court to transfer the suit from federal judge Richard Stearns to federal judge Allison Burroughs. Burroughs presided over Harvard v. HHS, a similar case brought by Harvard to challenge the Trump administration’s freezing of federal funding over antisemitism concerns. Court rules dictate the related cases be assigned to the same judge.

APRIL 11

A report from Shorelight, an international education firm, on F-1 visa refusals showed that denials reached a decade high of 35 percent worldwide in 2025, exceeding the previous peak in 2020. Those refusals were mainly concentrated in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. 

APRIL 10

Syracuse University is offering about 175 faculty members early retirement packages, according to a message last week to faculty from Provost Lois Agnew. The buyout program is for faculty who have worked at Syracuse for at least 35 years or who teach in programs slated for closure or that have low enrollment. Eligible faculty will have until mid-May to opt in, and those who do would retire in August. 

APRIL 9

The Texas Tech University System plans to close all academic programs focused on sexual orientation and gender identity, according to a memo from Chancellor Brandon Creighton to the system’s five institutional leaders. Creighton’s memo establishes a course policy that requires “recognition of only two human sexes and strictly prohibits the endorsement of a gender spectrum or fluid gender identities as empirical biological science.” 

Iowa State University leaders are looking to shut down 10 degree programs under a state-mandated review of low-enrollment programs. University officials also recommended consolidating or merging another 13 degrees with other programs. Fifteen others received two-year extensions so university leaders can assess workforce and student demand before reviewing them again. 

APRIL 8

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly signed legislation that will prohibit the state’s public colleges from requiring students to take “DEI-CRT” courses, a move that critics warn could censor classroom instruction.  The legislation is part of a wave of bills targeting college classroom instruction related to diversity, equity and inclusion and critical race theory, a decades-old academic framework that in part teaches that racism is systemic.  While the legislation leaves “DEI-CRT” courses undefined, it mandates the Kansas Board of Regents to adopt a definition by the end of July

APRIL 7

The Universities of Wisconsin board of regents voted unanimously to fire the president of the 25-campus system, Jay Rothman, at the end of a half-hour meeting. Rothman, who has led the system for almost four years, has been under pressure to resign, but he refused to do so and went public last week with the board’s campaign to get rid of him — saying he had been given no reason and that the board had threatened to fire him if he did not step down.

More than 2,000 mathematicians have signed a petition calling on the International Mathematics Union to move its quadrennial conference — scheduled to take place in Philadelphia in July — outside the United States, Inside Higher Education reported. The signatories cite a number of concerns, including the United States’ ongoing war on Iran and the risk that foreign scholars may be profiled and detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement if they travel to the conference.

Tribal college advocates expressed concern after the U.S. Department of Interior proposed nixing more than $150 million for tribal colleges, universities and postsecondary programs as part of President Donald Trump’s fiscal year 2027 budget request. The department recommended a similar cut to the funds last year, but Congress didn’t agree to do so.

APRIL 6

The Department of Education announced that it has formally terminated several Obama and Biden-era resolution agreements designed to ensure transgender students had equal access to facilities and protections against discrimination, The EDU Ledger reported. The administration has explicitly moved to rescind the interpretation that Title IX’s prohibition of “discrimination on the basis of sex” includes gender identity. In a significant shift, the Education Department stated that the federal government will now recognize only two biological sexes — male and female — and characterized previous protections as a “radical transgender agenda.” The department also announced that the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) will no longer monitor or enforce existing transgender-inclusive settlements.

The U.S. Department of Education released draft regulations  to overhaul the accreditation system, including by easing the pathway for new accreditors to form and requiring agencies to have standards requiring intellectual diversity among faculty. The draft was released ahead of negotiated rulemaking, a process that brings together groups in the higher education sector to hash out policy changes, which began this week.

Boston University announced it will temporarily stop removing signs and Pride flags from campus buildings following a growing community backlash, WGBH reported. In an email to Boston University community members, President Melissa Gilliam apologized for the practice saying it disproportionately affected people in the LGBTQIA+ community. “I am deeply sorry,’’ she wrote in the email. “Issues of speech can be complicated, but our institutional values are not. Let me be unequivocal: LGBTQIA+ students, faculty, and staff are an essential part of Boston University. You belong here and are needed here.”

APRIL 2

Rutgers University is the subject of a class-action lawsuit by an alumnus and former judge, who argues that the university “has squandered tens of millions in taxpayer funding” through “wasteful spending, lack of oversight, and other gross negligence” in supporting its athletics program, NJ.com reported. Hector Rodriguez alleges in his suit that Rutgers has incurred a $516-million debt since it joined the Big Ten in 2014, which “constitutes a systemic misuse of public resources undertaken without meaningful oversight, without legislative authorization, and without a credible plan for fiscal sustainability.” 

APRIL 1

Indiana’s public colleges are shedding or consolidating about 580 academic programs following a review by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education under a 2025 state law aiming to cull offerings that graduate low numbers of students. Of those, roughly 370 programs are being merged or consolidated, while the remaining 210 are being suspended or eliminated. The programs represent roughly a quarter of all academic offerings across Indiana’s public colleges. 

Penn State faculty began voting April 1 on whether to unionize. If approved, Penn State Faculty Alliance (PSFA), affiliated with SEIU Local 668, would cover around 5,600 faculty. This includes tenure-stream, non-tenure-stream and part-time faculty — excluding the College of Medicine and the Applied Research Laboratory — at the State College and Commonwealth campuses. The results of the election will be announced in May.

MARCH

Administrators at Vermont State University are under fire for cutting faculty and staff positions in the name of “restructuring” while at the same time expanding the number of administrators and giving them hefty raises. A March 2026 letter from faculty and staff union leaders notes that while their full-time staff positions have decreased by 26 percent (115 positions) and unionized faculty positions have decreased by 30 percent (70 positions), non-union, full-time upper-level administrative positions have grown by 41 percent (38 positions), according to EDU Ledger.

Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.

 

Have a story idea or news to share? Share it with the University Times.

Follow the University Times on Facebook.