As the new school year starts, the ongoing battles between colleges and the Trump administration have only intensified. In March 2025, the White House began targeting various universities — primarily for allegations of mishandling antisemitism on campus, but also for various policies on DEI, transgender athletes, and admissions — by taking legal actions including the freezing hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and contracts.
In late July, Columbia University — one of the most publicly-targeted schools (it lost $400 million in grants and contracts) — reached an agreement with the Trump administration and made major concessions both inside and outside the classroom, including paying a $200 million fine, no longer considering race, sex, and national origin in admissions, and amending its anti-discrimination policies to define antisemitism. In return, the university got its frozen funding restored. A week later, Brown University announced it had come to its own agreement with the Trump administration, agreeing to adopt the government’s definition of male and female, removing race consideration from admissions, and paying $50 million to various workforce development organizations over a 10-year period. After that, the University of Pennsylvania reached an agreement in July, unfreezing $175 million in exchange for blocking transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports. As of mid-September, the fate of funding at many other schools, including Harvard, Northwestern, Princeton, and Cornell, remains up in the air.
From the country’s officials to academic leaders, many have been outspoken about the government’s increased involvement in higher education. Some believe it’s necessary for the White House to step in, while others decidedly do not. But it seems like those who are actually living with the consequences of these decisions — the students at the targeted schools, as well as college students in general who wonder if their university could be next — are being left out of the conversation.
So, how do students feel about their university’s relationship with the government? And what do they hope for in the coming year? Her Campus spoke with students across the country to get their perspectives as they navigate a campus climate with politics at the center of the classroom.
Some Students’ Academic Careers Are Directly Impacted.
For some students, the political targeting hit them at the core of their academic pursuits. Micol Bez, a Ph.D. student at Northwestern, says every researcher at her school has been affected by the administration’s targeting. In April, it was announced that the university had $790 million in federal grants and aid frozen due to accusations of antisemitism stemming from the on-campus protests that took place the previous year. From gender studies all the way to theoretical mathematics, Bez says no one is immune to the federal funding freeze. “There is virtually no part of the university and no kind of research that would be immune from the effects of what Trump is threatening,” Bez says.
Considering its effect on students, Bez is frustrated with her university’s lack of transparency throughout the process. “There’s a lot of indeterminacy about what Northwestern is doing as a response to Trump,” Bez says. “It’s been very difficult to get clear answers from them on this.”
Like many students who are critical of the White House’s interference with higher education, Bez believes that universities should be a “space for the critique of society and for the free exchange of ideas,” and that the effects of these battles will lead to students losing “the meaning of what education should be providing.”
Some Students Want More Say In The Process & Outcomes.
Even some students who support government efforts to effect change in higher education feel excluded from the conversation. At Columbia, where reports of on-campus antisemitism have been rampant, graduate student Noa Fay believes that the White House’s aforementioned actions against her school were “100%, spot on” to protect Columbia’s Jewish student population. But while Fay says she was “thrilled” to see the government stepping in to protect Jewish students, she was frustrated that Columbia did not have to admit wrongdoing as part of its settlement.
“The whole point of these talks between the federal government and Columbia is to inspire and achieve accountability,” Fay says. “If Columbia won’t actually admit that they failed to protect Jewish students and enforce anti-discrimination rules and practices on campus, though, one can’t reasonably say that they have taken accountability; they’ve simply settled with the government.”
Fay also felt uneasy about some of Columbia’s research grants being frozen as part of the legal battle. She says that while can’t speak on behalf of other students, she feels that funding for subjects like science should stay untouched — even if the end result did bring about changes she feels are necessary.
Some Students Feel Like They’re In The Dark.
While some students have been monitoring this situation closely, others weren’t paying attention until it was their turn. Cecelia Barr, who graduated from Northwestern in June, says the situation felt far away — until her own school came under attack. “I knew vaguely about [the lawsuits at] other schools, but not a lot of details,” Barr says. “It became very real how much it was happening to other schools when I saw it happening to Northwestern.”
After Northwestern became a Trump administration target, Barr began to learn more about what it could mean for her university. “I read some articles myself because I was confused at first,” she says. As the situation has developed, though, she’s started to form her own opinions about what’s been happening, and she worries how this wave of demands from the Trump administration will affect diversity on college campuses in light of other DEI rollbacks from the administration. Now, it’s something she plans to keep a much closer eye on.
Many Hope Their School Isn’t Next — But Are All Too Aware That It Could Be.
At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, student body president Adolfo Alvarez says his school is making the right call by flying under the radar. “You don’t want to pick up a fight with the Trump administration if you don’t have to,” Alvarez says. This may ring especially true to Alvarez and other Tar Heels, since UNC is a public school. “[The government] knows that public universities are a lot more vulnerable than private universities,” Alvarez says. “They oftentimes don’t have that big endowment that comes with a private status and all the revenue that comes in.”
That said, Alvarez worries about what will happen at his school and others if schools continue to fall in line with Trump’s demands. “My hope is that universities stay resilient and continue to stay true to their values,” Alvarez says. “It’s really powerful to do that across the country.”
As students return to life on campus, they’re left bracing for what comes next — because the battles over funding, academic freedom, and campus safety are far from over. And no matter how each individual student feels about the particular decisions being made, they all have one thing in common: Whether they like it or not, they’re caught in the middle.