Commentary: The End of the University as We Know It

Megan O'Rourke March 16, 2025 1 min read

Megan O'Rourke
New York Times

Excerpt: The rumors had been building for months: The Trump administration was coming for the universities. In the weeks after the president issued his first executive orders in January, the effects rippled through my academic world: A Rutgers conference on H.B.C.U.s was canceled; graduate students on visas asked a professor I know if it was safe for them to travel; a colleague at a public university texted about an undergraduate crying in his office, worried about the job landscape. 

Conservatives have been trying to reshape the American university since the federal government began funding it in earnest in the mid-20th century. But now the Trump administration appears prepared to destroy it.

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