Kansas universities must cram for an existential upcoming exam

Posted August 15, 2025

Students gather in a lecture hall at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.

Students gather in a lecture hall at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. (Eric Thomas for Kansas Reflector)

As students arrive on campus this week and classes start next week, Kansas universities and colleges still tremble under challenges they have faced during my decade-plus on campus, particularly the racial justice protests during 2020 and COVID-19 lockdowns around the same time. 

This academic year, however, feels even bigger.

When someone asks how morale is on campus, my chest tightens as I recite this list:

The federal withdrawal of university research funding.

  • February’s news seemed wonky when it broke. How much could a changed formula for federal medical research funding affect universities? The answer from universities: This funding means everything, especially when those funding cuts were followed by more. Longstanding research funds — revenue that fuels universities — disappeared. For decades, the marriage between universities and the federal government had been good for both sides, economics writer Binyamin Appelbaum said last week: “The universities grow and prosper … and the government derives huge benefits from the research that they’re doing.”
  • At KU, the top two sources for federally funded research in 2024 were the Department of Health and Human Services (including NIH) at No. 1 and the National Science Foundation at No. 2. During fiscal year 2024, those entities poured more than $181 million into KU.

Distrust of the value of college, particularly the value of student loans.

  • Ten years ago, a healthy majority of Americans reported having a “Great deal/Quite a lot” of confidence in higher education. By last year, that number slid to a low of 36 percent. (It rebounded slightly this year.) This shaken confidence has many causes. In particular, Americans might be reacting to journalism showing that graduates with student loans are particularly imperiled when compared to people who elect to not attend college. 

A falloff in the number of potential college students.

  • Educators obsess about birth rates because they predict future enrollment. When birth rates fell during the financial crisis beginning in 2008, schools knew a disruption was coming. Many news reports call this birth rate drop a “demographic cliff.” But this undersells the crisis. A cliff has a floor. This demographic trend doesn’t show signs of stopping: Birth rates keep falling, making schools increasingly worried about tuition-paying students in the future.

International students leaving American universities.

  • One projection last month estimates that Kansas will lose more than $37 million in revenue this year as international students steer away from enrolling in American schools. The Trump administration earns the blame here, as its policies have blocked students from admission to Ivy League universities — and international students have considered that as their cue to avoid college in the United States altogether. Losses nationwide could reach almost $7 trillion. 

The roiling political atmosphere on many campuses.

In a public announcement and university email last week, campus leaders summed it up: “We are again navigating an uncertain fiscal environment because of external factors, such as disruptions to federal funding, changes in federal law, stagnant state funding, rising costs, changes in international enrollments, and a projected nationwide decline in college enrollment.”

The email continues, saying that in fiscal year 2027, KU “must reduce annual spending at KU Lawrence and Edwards by $32 million dollars.”

Some observers claim that the chickens have come home to roost: Postsecondary education, they will say, has ignored the values of the American middle class and political center and right for too long.

Defenders of universities say that many of these forces are beyond the control of a university president, let alone an adjunct professor.

Regardless, this academic year will be an inflection point. Ten years from now, educational historians will look back on the 2025-2026 academic year as the moment when universities rose to the challenge, the year they revitalized — or the year they caved.

On Tuesday, I will teach my first classes of the semester on campus, standing in front of more than 400 students in KU’s Budig Hall. I considered teaching the class as I have done six semesters before: an overview of the course, an opportunity for student questions and some pictures of my dog.

This year demands something different.

So, we will talk about what it’s like to express yourself on campus these days. About the number of students who feel scared to voice their convictions. About the current academic constipation that bores many students.

It’s a lesson that I normally save until later in the semester, but I don’t think it can wait. The start of school this year just feels too urgent to delay.

Most college students know the feeling of realizing too late in the semester that their grade has sunk too far to rescue. How can I earn an A? How can I manage a B-? Or, How can I pass?

Let’s hope that we in higher education — researchers, administrators, instructors, staff and professors — haven’t waited too long to pass this year’s vital test.

Because the final exam is coming.

Eric Thomas teaches visual journalism and photojournalism at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

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