Top Trending Higher Education News Headlines of 2024
The re-election of Donald Trump as the U.S. president served as the main higher education news story in 2024, potentially influencing various aspects of university operations. Despite this, numerous other significant developments also transpired within the nation's colleges and universities. Below is a summary of some of these crucial events.
Trump's Education Plan
During his presidential campaign, Trump made several promises concerning higher education. These promises included dismantling the Department of Education, transforming the accreditation process, challenging DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives, considering taxing wealthy universities, and advocating for changes in what Trump and his supporters perceived as liberal brainwashing in college curriculums.
The extent to which these policies would ultimately be implemented remains uncertain. However, it's clear that the following four years would likely be among the most contentious and controversial for college officials in decades.
While it's highly unlikely that the Department of Education would be disbanded completely, budget cuts and delegation of its duties to other departments are possibilities. (Previous attempts to eliminate the Department of Education, led by President Reagan, have failed due to the popularity of its programs among the public.)
Uncertainty surrounds the fate of the department's access and support programs. Will financial aid be vulnerable? Could student loans be privatized? What protections will Title IX maintain? How far will Trump push the department to serve his political objectives? And what impact will Trump's budget suggestions have on federal research funding?
Record-Breaking Philanthropy
2024 once again exemplified the year of "mega gifts," which consist of donations exceeding $100 million from individual or organizational sources. Leading the pack was Michael Bloomberg's $600 million contribution to the endowments of four historically Black medical schools. Howard, Meharry, and Morehouse each received gifts of $175 million, while Charles R. Drew University of Medicine & Science was awarded $75 million.
In addition to these institutions, other universities and colleges that experienced mega-level donations, estate gifts, or commitments include Columbia University ($400 million), Seattle University ($300 million for art works), Depauw University ($200 million), Catawba College ($200 million), Dartmouth College ($150 million for financial aid), Washington and Lee University ($132 million), UCLA ($120 million), Laguardia Community College ($116 million), the California Institute of Technology ($100 million), the College of William & Mary ($100 million), University of Arkansas ($100 million for student scholarships), the University of Chicago ($100 million), Spelman College ($100 million), Purdue University ($100 million), and the United Negro College Fund ($100 million).
The year will also be remembered for a hoax gift, which ultimately amounted to a $237 million sham. An extensive investigation determined that Gregory Gerami's supposed gift to Florida A&M University, which would have been the largest in the institution's history, was fraudulent. Consequently, the university's president acknowledged that it was wrong to accept the gift and resigned from office.
Budget Cuts and Institution Closures
As federal Covid-19 relief funds dried up and inflation continued to rise, coupled with declining enrollments, numerous colleges and universities encountered significant financial challenges. As a result, several renowned institutions were obligated to implement substantial budget cuts, often resulting in both faculty and staff layoffs.
Among the colleges and universities experiencing significant budget cuts and layoffs include Marquette University, Drake University, Penn State University, the Universities of Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Arizona, Brandeis University, Baldwin Wallace University, Drexel University, Buffalo State University, Portland State University, St. Cloud State University, UC Santa Cruz, and St. Louis University.
Financial struggles at other institutions became so severe that they were forced to declare financial exigency or cease operations entirely. Some of these casualties included Fontbonne University in St. Louis, Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama, Vermont's Goddard College, Wells College in New York, USK University in California, and the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
Enrollment Statistics
On the enrollment front, the news was bittersweet. Overall college enrollment growth amounted to 2.9% this fall, as reported by preliminary figures from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The increase was primarily due to a 3% year-over-year rise in undergraduate students and a 2.1% increase in graduate student enrollment.
Despite the positive growth figures, enthusiasm was tempered by a concerning decline in freshman enrollment. This saw a 5% overall decrease compared to the previous fall. This setback represented a dramatic reversal of the growth in freshman enrollment during 2023, with the decline particularly pronounced at public and private nonprofit four-year institutions (-8.5% and -6.5%, respectively).
At four-year colleges with high percentages of undergraduate students receiving Pell Grants, freshman enrollment declined by more than 10%.
The FAFSA Fiasco
Initial attempts to streamline the process of obtaining federal financial aid through the FAFSA ultimately resulted in a protracted fiasco. Effective communication breakdowns and persistent technical glitches made it more difficult for students to complete the FAFSA, potentially exacerbating the decline in freshman enrollment.
During a certain phase of the enrollment process, FAFSA submissions decreased by 40%. Regardless of the efforts from individual states and universities, the drop in applications remained at approximately 9% towards the conclusion of this year's admission process.
According to a survey, nearly three-quarters of private, nonprofit colleges reported that the FAFSA issue affected the makeup of their freshman class in the fall, and around half stated that the FAFSA complications made their incoming class harder to fill.
The Department of Education has revealed its ambition to enhance the FAFSA process for the 2025-2026 enrollment period, and preliminary testing has created anticipation that the modifications and new tools for streamlining the form completion will yield positive results. The troubleshooting procedures were successful enough to allow the form's early launch, ten days ahead of the December 1 deadline.
More States Prohibit Legacy Admissions
The push to abolish legacy admissions, which provides an advantage during the admissions process to family members of a college's alumni or benefactors, gained traction in 2024. In September, California became the fifth state to implement some type of legacy admissions ban. Illinois and Maryland, which enacted such bans in August and April, respectively, followed suit. Colorado was the first state to pass a ban in 2021, and Virginia did so earlier in the year.
The fairness of legacy preferences has been under scrutiny for years, and multiple prestigious colleges have discontinued their use as a factor in their admissions procedure. However, public pressure against the practice has been intensifying following the Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard University and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, which declared race-conscious admissions to be unconstitutional. Expect further states to join the opposition to legacy preferences in the upcoming year.
The Resurgence of Standardized Testing
Following a temporary suspension of requiring students to submit standardized test scores as part of their college applications, a few selective institutions announced their decision to reinstate standardized tests such as the ACT or SAT as a component of their admission criteria.
Dartmouth College was the first Ivy League institution to reintroduce a testing requirement, followed by Yale, Brown, Stanford, Cornell, Harvard, Cal Tech, and Johns Hopkins. Among public universities, the University of Texas at Austin resumed using standardized tests.
However, according to FairTest, around 2,000 colleges and universities remain either test-free or test-optional in their admission policies for 2025 applicants.
Student Loan Debt Relief/For vintage
The Biden administration attempted multiple times throughout the year to provide student loan relief to borrowers, but most of these initiatives were thwarted by court rulings. The inconsistency in extending debt relief was a source of frustration and confusion for borrowers.
Despite these challenges, Biden was able to pardon student loans for one million public service workers, releasing approximately $4.5 billion for over 60,000 student loan borrowers through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which was established by Congress in 2007.
Other initiatives for loan forgiveness proposed by the administration, such as the SAVE program, were halted by court decisions that deemed the Department of Education had gone beyond its legal authority to cancel federal student loan balances through various mechanisms.
It was estimated that the administration had provided a total of about $175 billion in student debt relief for nearly five million borrowers through all its actions during Biden's presidency.
Although these numbers fell short of Biden's campaign promise, the issue remained a subject of intense debate throughout his term, with conservatives consistently contesting his constitutional authority to provide loan forgiveness through executive action.
Now that Republicans have taken control of both Congress and the presidency, they may discover that student debt relief remains popular among certain segments of the public, particularly if it involves an income-based repayment plan focused on helping the neediest students.
Campus Unrest
Higher education leaders grappled with finding the best approach to address the widespread campus protests and demonstrations over the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza. These disturbances occasionally escalated into violence, resulting in the arrest of thousands of students across the nation during the spring and summer.
At some institutions, administrators adopted a stern stance, dismantled the sprawling encampments, and disciplined or even arrested the student protesters who had established and fortified them. At other schools, administrators opted to wait out the protests to avoid further escalation.
A few universities opted for a third course of action – negotiating with student protesters, addressing some of their demands in exchange for the cessation or modification of the demonstrations. All of these strategies left one group or another dissatisfied, leading to ongoing assessments, recriminations, and campus upheaval.
Leadership Turmoil
Between campus protests and financial challenges, college presidents and chancellors encountered a wave of criticism, not only from their own institutions but also from state legislatures and Congress. Votes of no-confidence and censure increased, universities worked to revise their protest and free-speech policies, and several high-profile presidents resigned.
The resignations began in December when Liz Magill, President of the University of Pennsylvania, announced her departure following harsh criticism of her testimony before a Congressional committee regarding the universities' response to campus protests. This was followed by the resignation of Harvard University President Claudine Gay in January, due to harsh criticism of her testimony at the same Congressional hearing and allegations of plagiarism.
In April, Ivy League academic Martha Pollock announced her departure from her role as president of Cornell University. This was followed by Minouche Shafik stepping down as president of Columbia University in August.
Robert Robbins announced his intent to step down from the University of Arizona, following the exposure of a significant budget deficit. The University of Florida's president, Ben Sasse, resigned amid suspicions regarding his financial conduct.
Robert Jones, Chancellor of the University of Illinois, Jonathan Holloway from Rutgers University, and Carol Folt, President of the University of Southern California, all declared their plans to leave office at the end of the current academic year. Two presidents even resigned after facing no-confidence votes from their faculty — Tom Jackson from California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, and Ronald Liebowitz from Brandeis University.
The atmosphere was encapsulated in headlines such as these: “I Wouldn't Take a Million Dollars to Be a College President”, “Getting a Job as a College President: Mission Impossible”, or “The Impossible Job of a College President”, “Campus protests raise the question: Who wants to be a college president?”, and “Many College Presidencies Are Vacant. Anyone Interested?”.
Now, the spotlight shifts to 2025, with many college leaders expressing anxiety due to higher education's persistent encounter with difficult questions. Will the decrease in freshman enrollment recur? Will unrest on campuses resurface? How forceful will state legislatures be in their attempts to regulate public colleges? What is the future of institutional budgets? And, of course, what policy changes can we expect from the federal government in higher education, given the change of administration? Hang on tight. It's shaping up to be a wild ride.
- The policy of challenging DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives in higher education was one of Donald Trump's promises during his presidential campaign.
- In 2024, several universities and colleges, including Seattle University and Columbia University, received mega-level donations or commitments, contributing to a year of "mega gifts" in higher education philanthropy.
- As a result of declining enrollments and budget cuts, some prestigious universities, such as Penn State University and Connecticut University, were forced to implement substantial layoffs and cuts.
- While the Biden administration was not able to provide student loan relief for all borrowers due to court rulings, they were able to pardon loans for one million public service workers, releasing approximately $4.5 billion for over 60,000 borrowers.
