(25 Aug 2025) I apologize for being so far behind on my current Ruth’s Rankings article on Impact, but every morning’s news brings more discouraging postings from my government on its involvement in education and research. It makes rankings seem trivial and it makes my colleagues and I feel helpless.
By the time I finished reading a variety of repetitive articles from multiple sources, I am too discouraged to get back to rankings. I realized I needed to find one trusted source that would summarize the situation from the higher education perspective. The Chronicle for Higher Education is the primary U.S. source for higher education news. It is offering a series of monthly updates on Trump and higher education. I will listen to the webinars each month and share the latest news with Ruth’s Ranking readers. It also has the advantage of being the only webinar at a time when I am awake!
The first issue addressed this month is one that has been puzzling me. Why are the universities not working together? According to the Chronicle, even Ivy League universities such as Columbia or Harvard have different issues and needs. Trump, and I do assume the decisions are his, is now going after UCLA (University of California Los Angeles), the first public institution, and part of the large California state system, to have funds frozen. Instead of the government sending money to the universities, universities are being pressured to send money to the government. Some universities may get money back through refunding projects the government has frozen but it is not clear where most of the money is going.
Research funding is the other major issue. Decisions on what is being funded are not being made by the scientists but Trump appointees. This has world-wide implications. Non-U.S. research institutes and scientists participate in multi-country research. Over the past 10 years, 20 percent of U.S. articles had co-authors from China, England, Canada, and Germany with co-authors from over 100 locations (Data from Web of Science, 8/21/25).
For a focus on international implications see Inside Higher Education’s global news . https://www.insidehighered.com/news/global. It is owned by Times Higher Ed but located in Washington D.C.. Located in the UK is University World News, https://www.universityworldnews.com/page.php?page=UW_Main
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