It is a difficult time to be a college.
Spring can be an uncertain time for a university institution in Pennsylvania in the best times. In view of the state legislators who are still on the budget, the universities will make their plans for the coming year, but they do this in the dark. Imagine applying for a mortgage without knowing what your income will look like or whether you can make payments.
There are other concerns in 2025.
The University of Pennsylvania had just 175 million US dollars for various federal projects because the Ivy League School in Philadelphia had a transgender athlete in the women's swimming team in 2022.
Columbia University in New York was threatened with the retention of promised funds of 400 million US dollars in order to force compliance with requirements such as the ban on people from wearing masks on campus, the change in the admission guidelines and to review curricula in some areas of minority study programs.
This is the instructions of the Trump administration on the elimination of diversity, justice and inclusion programs and an intended dissolution of the Ministry of Education. Then there are random reductions from Elon Musks Department of Government Efficiency.
These can leave things like grants, scholarships and research in the balance, which in turn can leave the universities at sea when it comes to applications and acceptance.
In Pennsylvania there is the additional application of the review of some Penn State University campus with a view of closures and mixture of students to other areas.
It brings schools on an uncertain foundation. But most major or private schools have foundations as pillows to absorb some deficits. The Foundation of Carnegie Mellon University is 3.2 billion US dollars. The Foundation of the University of Pittsburgh is 5.5 billion US dollars. Penn State has a foundation of 4.6 billion US dollars.
Smaller schools have a lot of smaller pools that can be used. At Seton Hill University, the foundation is around 50 million US dollars, such as the same as Point Park University.
This does not mean that universities can only ignore potential deficits or the disappearance of subsidy financing.
On the one hand, Pitt's foundation is large, but the operating costs this year are around 3.2 billion US dollars. Penn State's cost 9.9 billion US dollars -and at around $ 1 billion a year in federal research, this would be a large hole.
Then there is the fact that a foundation is not a credit card. It is not even a savings account that is used if necessary to cover every possible invoice.
The foundations are more of a pension investment account. They are a collection of funds that were donated for a variety of purposes. It can also contain money, but also other assets such as real estate or art that can be used by the university to provide capital or use as security depending on the conditions of the gift.
And often the terms are specific. A gift can be given for specific support for a program or for the purpose. Many gifts could be in direct conflict with the anti-dei goals of the Trump government, since donors could give grants to help minorities, low income, female or disabled students receive an apprenticeship.
This comes to the real victims of the university struggle. It is not the universities. They are the people.
It is the people who apply for school. It is the people who have already invested thousands of dollars and have committed tens of thousands of dollars into loans. They are people whose completion depends on research projects that could be canceled.
Pity not to the schools. It's not just a difficult time to be a college. It is a poorer time to be a student, a student, a professor or other people who are connected to a college.