When I toured colleges, I picked up each school’s newspaper and flipped through the pages to further my understanding of the life on each campus. As I read more and more, I noticed a common thread: rioting against President Trump’s hostile policies on educational funding. Many of these articles depicted students protesting and school boards rejecting Trump’s funding attacks in order to achieve individual independence from the government. Although the federal government should not have significant control over educational funding, academic institutions must utilize their existing funding from donations and tuition intelligently by prioritizing the financial support of their students and faculty.
Early April, Trump froze billions of dollars in funding from academic institutions such as Cornell University, Harvard University and University of Pennsylvania, among many others, due to recent civil rights investigations into universities. It is important to consider the repercussions of these anti-DEI initiatives and frozen funds on students and faculty, impacting academic quality and research opportunities. Regardless of if these colleges protest against Trump’s frozen fund initiatives, they will likely be forced on schools so it is important that these institutions adjust where they allocate their funding to important areas such as research, financial aid and employee salaries.
Trump’s initiatives to punish universities because of his opposing views on what civil rights are appropriate is a political overreach; it is not Trump’s place to control the diversity approaches of private institutions. According to Quad Education, a team of admissions experts, students applying to the current schools that have had funding frozen have an average unweighted grade point average of between 3.9 and 4.0 and SAT scores over 400 points higher than the nations average. This shows intense dedication to their academics over their high school career, scoring mostly A’s and almost acing their standardized testing. The academically gifted and hard-working students who attend these institutions applied for the highly-regarded education and opportunities that these colleges offer but will not receive the same options because of the recent freezing of funds. Increasing research opportunities for students is a goal among most colleges and universities across the nation and with funding frozen those opportunities will only decline. Impacted colleges should allocate their funding to necessary things such as updated textbooks and technology rather than miscellaneous clubs and events in order to uphold the standard of their education — at least for now.
Most if not all of the professors at these Ivy League colleges have PhDs or an equivalent doctorate. Depending on the area of study, doctoral degrees take four to six years to complete. After all of the effort these professors have put into their education for their careers, they deserve adequate research opportunities and wages. With funding being paused, universities run the risk of needing to limit research in order to support students onfinancial aid and pay faculty salaries. A lot of these professors are dependent on their research possibilities provided by the school to further their careers and knowledge. Also, many students conduct research with their professors, so the lack of funding will not only affect the professors’ opportunities but the education and research experience of their students.
Although the federal government froze funding, donors still send money to educational institutions. Given that donors aren’t going to stop donating, schools should shift their focus to using donor funds to support financial aid students and faculty wages. Before the freeze, the federal government’s funds covered the costs of financial support and salaries and without their grants, there will be little money going into these academic institutions to in support of these goals. But, these schools are not entirely dependent on donors now. These colleges should utilize tuition money and endowment funds and look into possible savings to support the necessities. They should while cut down on unnecessary funding toward smaller campus organizations and speaker events in order to make up for what is lost with the lack of federal funding. Although clubs and speaker events are important for the school community, it is necessary that colleges prioritize the financial stability of their students and employees until the federal college funds unfreeze and are able to support financial assistance and employee wages again.
The decisions made by these college boards can and will affect the school’s students, as these are institutions that students often apply to. In fact, 54 students in the class of 2024 attended the same Ivy League colleges that are getting their funding frozen and 33.8% of students polled said they will be dependent on financial aid as college students. If colleges don’t step up to support students dependent on financial aid, many of the students at Harvard-Westlake can be left with fewer opportunities just because of their financial status. It is important that we recognize how necessary it is for these collegiate institutions to disregard Trump’s decision and support the education and financial stability of their students and staff with the funds they currently have, independent of the federal government.
