U.S. colleges and universities are bearing a greater financial impact from the coronavirus pandemic than anticipated, education officials say.

And they are asking for help.

The schools received $2.9 billion in federal support through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act in March, and another $2.9 trillion in assistance is proposed through the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act.

But aid for the educational institutions was already lagging from reduced funding since the 1980s, accounting for tuition and fees tripling in the past four decades. Universities responded by increasing their costs.

“Over the past several decades, there has been a substantial shift in the overall funding of higher education from state assistance, in the forms of grants and subsidies, to increased tuition borne by students,” the U.S. Treasury Department reported in 2012.

When the pandemic hit -- sending students online, shutting down campuses and diminishing enrollments -- university coffers lost more than $120 billion, “especially in areas such as testing, contact tracing, quarantine, treatment and learning technology,” wrote Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council of Education, to the U.S. House of Representatives on Sept. 25.

UConn request

The University of Connecticut (UConn) has used up $35 million it moved from the budgets of its Storrs and regional campuses, according to the school. It is asking for a state allocation of $28 million that, added to $13 million from its current fiscal year, would make up for shortfalls in funding.

“We know that we have already cut substantially over the past several years, and this $28 million additional round of cuts will cause pain at the university,” Scott Jordan, UConn’s chief financial officer and executive vice president for administration, said in a statement published by the university.

The University of Maryland (UMD) has also taken a hard hit as it faces a $292 million budget cut in the next fiscal year. Some employees will see a salary cut, but those who earn less than $150,000 annually will not face reductions, according to The Diamondback, the student newspaper.

School President Darryll Pines described the coronavirus’s impact on UMD’s budget as “by far the largest financial crisis in the history of the university” in a virtual town hall meeting to explain budget shortfalls.

UMD will also face 5% cuts for each academic department, and facility improvement projects will be postponed, Pines wrote in a campuswide email to students and staff. The welfare of the school community, he wrote, matters more than the budget cuts.

“Please know that you have leaders in this institution thinking about members of our entire community who may be the most impacted by even a small change in their paychecks,” he said.

Weighing costs, benefits

Dennis Scanlon, a professor of health policy and administration at Pennsylvania State University, analyzed how universities are handling the pandemic according to several factors: “mortality, morbidity, disruption to operations, and then reputational impact.”

“How severe and serious is it? What are the treatment needs? So, making sure that if you're going to potentially increase the risk in a population of disease spread, which certainly would happen from going from everybody staying kind of sheltered in place to opening up to some degree,” he said in an interview with The American Journal of Managed Care.

Scanlon said that while he believes the health of the university community is important, so is weighing costs and benefits.

“No matter how you slice it, there's uncertainty, and there are costs and benefit trade-offs. That sounds perhaps to some a little bit crass, but really trying to weigh the risk, what level of risk may be worth taking, and what are the costs to mitigate that risk,” he said.

Scanlon told AJMC that universities and colleges are awaiting more support.

“I think a great disappointment from my perspective is sort of the lack of speed of having more guidance, quite frankly, from federal and state level health officials about what to be done, and more specific guidance,” he said.

ACE’s Mitchell said he hopes higher education will receive needed funding to support education for jobs that could help a faster recovery from the pandemic.

“Our schools train the doctors, nurses and other front-line workers needed to address this unprecedented health crisis and perform the research necessary to produce the urgently needed vaccines and treatments. Finally, our schools educate 26 million students, preparing them to compete and succeed in an increasingly difficult economy, and fueling the path towards a recovery,” Mitchell said in a letter to Congress.

The administration of President Donald Trump said on Monday it will review Columbia University's federal contracts and grants over allegations of antisemitism, which it says the educational institution has shown inaction in tackling.

Rights advocates note rising antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias since U.S. ally Israel's devastating military assault on Gaza began after Palestinian Hamas militants' deadly October 2023 attack.

The Justice Department said a month ago it formed a task force to fight antisemitism. The U.S. Departments of Health and Education and the General Services Administration jointly made the review announcement on Monday.

"The Federal Government's Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism is considering Stop Work Orders for $51.4 million in contracts between Columbia University and the Federal Government," the joint statement said.

The agencies said no contracting actions had been taken yet.

"The task force will also conduct a comprehensive review of the more than $5 billion in federal grant commitments to Columbia University."

The agencies did not respond to requests for comment on whether there were similar reviews over allegations of Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias.

Columbia had no immediate comment. It previously said it made efforts to tackle antisemitism.

College protests

Trump has signed an executive order to combat antisemitism and pledged to deport non-citizen college students and others who took part in pro-Palestinian protests.

Columbia was at the center of college protests in which demonstrators demanded an end to U.S. support for Israel due to the humanitarian crisis caused by Israel's assault on Gaza. There were allegations of antisemitism and Islamophobia in protests and counter-protests.

During last summer's demonstrations around the country, classes were canceled, some university administrators resigned and student protesters were suspended and arrested.

While the intensity of protests has decreased in recent months, there were some demonstrations last week in New York after the expulsion of two students at Columbia University-affiliated Barnard College and after New York Governor Kathy Hochul ordered the removal of a Palestinian studies job listing at Hunter College.

A third student at Barnard College has since been expelled, this one related to the occupation of the Hamilton Hall building at Columbia last year.

The Trump administration is opening new investigations into allegations of antisemitism at five U.S. universities including Columbia and the University of California, Berkeley, the Education Department announced Monday.

It's part of President Donald Trump's promise to take a tougher stance against campus antisemitism and deal out harsher penalties than the Biden administration, which settled a flurry of cases with universities in its final weeks. It comes the same day the Justice Department announced a new task force to root out antisemitism on college campuses.

In an order signed last week, Trump called for aggressive action to fight anti-Jewish bias on campuses, including the deportation of foreign students who have participated in pro-Palestinian protests.

Along with Columbia and Berkeley, the department is now investigating the University of Minnesota, Northwestern University and Portland State University. The cases were opened using the department's power to launch its own civil rights reviews, unlike the majority of investigations, which stem from complaints.

Messages seeking comment were left with all five universities.
A statement from the Education Department criticized colleges for tolerating antisemitism after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and a wave of pro-Palestinian protests that followed. It also criticized the Biden administration for negotiating "toothless" resolutions that failed to hold schools accountable.

"Today, the Department is putting universities, colleges, and K-12 schools on notice: this administration will not tolerate continued institutional indifference to the wellbeing of Jewish students on American campuses," said Craig Trainor, the agency's acting assistant secretary for civil rights.

The department didn't provide details about the inquiries or how it decided which schools are being targeted. Presidents of Columbia and Northwestern were among those called to testify on Capitol Hill last year as Republicans sought accountability for allegations of antisemitism. The hearings contributed to the resignation of multiple university presidents, including Columbia's Minouche Shafik.

An October report from House Republicans accused Columbia of failing to punish pro-Palestinian students who took over a campus building, and it called Northwestern's negotiations with student protesters a "stunning capitulation."

House Republicans applauded the new investigations. Representative Tim Walberg, chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, said he was "glad that we finally have an administration who is taking action to protect Jewish students."

Trump's order also calls for a full review of antisemitism complaints filed with the Education Department since Oct. 7, 2023, including pending and resolved cases from the Biden administration. It encourages the Justice Department to take action to enforce civil rights laws.

Last week's order drew backlash from civil rights groups who said it violated First Amendment rights that protect political speech.

The new task force announced Monday includes the Justice and Education departments along with Health and Human Services.

"The Department takes seriously our responsibility to eradicate this hatred wherever it is found," said Leo Terrell, assistant attorney general for civil rights. "The Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism is the first step in giving life to President Trump's renewed commitment to ending anti-Semitism in our schools."

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