Chaos on campuses as schools warn Trump cuts could harm US ‘for decades’

Students, researchers, faculty and leadership at universities and colleges across the US are grappling with drastic short- and long-term impacts “for decades to come” caused by funding freezes, cuts and executive orders from the Trump administration.

“It’s sowing a lot of chaos on campuses,” said Sarah Spreitzer, vice-president and chief of staff of government relations at the American Council for Education, a non-profit representing more than 1,600 colleges, universities and related associations.

“This is going to have long-term impacts on the American public and post-secondary education that I don’t think we can really even start to understand.”

Research grants across the US have been frozen or cut, scholarships funded by the federal government have been halted and the push to reduce the administrative costs for National Institutes of Health (NIH) research funding to 15% has institutions trying to figure out how to cover those costs of doing research, Spreitzer explained.

Donald Trump’s federal congressional budget is also proposing billions of dollars in cuts in federal funding for research and institutions across higher education. Cuts to research tied to foreign aid, such as the US Agency for International Development, have resulted in lab closures. Trump has also threatened to pull federal funding from universities that allow “illegal” protests.

The changes and threats have incited hiring freezes, layoffs and furloughs, cuts in graduate admissions, rescissions of job offers, and institutions scaling back the amount of research they conduct.

“Institutions are scrambling to figure out how they are going to support those students because they’re unable to access the federal funding, or are they just going to end the programs,” added Spreitzer. “Changing the indirect cost rate doesn’t suddenly make research cheaper to do. Someone is going to have to bear that cost.”

Higher education institutions have already begun scaling back or are bracing for cuts. University of Pennsylvania has cut graduate admissions at its medical schools for fall 2025 by 35%. Graduate students across the US have reported admissions acceptances being rescinded.

MIT, Stanford and numerous other institutions have enacted hiring freezes.

This week Brown and Johns Hopkins warned of potential layoffs amid threats to federal funding revenues.

“Our admissions have been paused for a number of big grad departments,” said Levin Kim, a graduate worker; chair of Higher Education Labor United, a coalition of labor unions representing more than 200,000 academic workers; and president of UAW Local 4121 representing academic workers at the University of Washington, which is one of the largest public recipients of federal research funding. “We’re seeing a lot of uncertainty. Careers are being curtailed right now. It’s not like once things are funded, it can just pick right back up. It’s wreaking havoc throughout the whole pipeline.”

Kim argued Trump’s actions have had a “big chilling effect” on anything to do with research funding, despite ongoing legal battles to prevent research funding freezes and cuts.

“The attacks on research being carried out right now are attacks on workers as well as American public health infrastructure that will have impacts for decades to come,” said Kim. “Clinical trials have been paused. Research has been paused on things like Alzheimer’s research and cancer, things that effect everyone. There is a government takeover right now to sign away Americans’ health in order to line the pockets of a few billionaires.”

Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors, expressed similar concerns facing faculty at institutions across higher education and the vast impacts it will have on its future, including work that has stopped or is being scaled back in response to Trump’s anti-diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts.

“Billions of dollars in research has been frozen, and that’s research on things that every American depends on,” Wolfson said. “Members of mine having to lay people off, having to close their labs, having to ask for special circumstances to be able to keep rare supplies, like animals, alive. It’s been a complete, utter, destruction of the United States research infrastructure.”

Wolfson explained that since the second world war, the federal government has partnered with higher education institutions to develop and maintain global leadership in research and development.

“Institutions are retrenching, and they’re going to retrench at pretty quick rates. They’re going to lay people off. Tuition is going to skyrocket and they’re going to cut back on graduate programs. We’re going to train fewer doctors and fewer engineers, and this is going to have a very bad effect on broader American society,” concluded Wolfson. “The Trump administration, at the same time that they’re saying that they’re trying to create a great country, are destroying the sector that’s one of the most critical in having a great, profitable and healthy democratic country.”