Compiled by SUSAN JONES

The news coming out of three Pittsburgh universities showed growth in programming and innovation:

Duquesne: The Pittsburgh Planning Commission on Jan. 27 unanimously approved plans for a new, $68 million health sciences building for Duquesne University, the Tribune-Review reported. The new building, which will replace an existing school of health sciences building that Duquesne has outgrown at the corner of Forbes Avenue and Magee Street, will house the John G. Rangos Sr. School of Health Sciences and include classrooms, labs, office space and clinics on the ground floor. The five-floor, 80,000-square-foot building is expected to open in fall 2028.

Point Park: Downtown’s Point Park University is launching the Creative Direction Credential Program in partnership with the entrepreneur incubator HXOUSE —  a Canadian nonprofit founded by singer Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye and his creative director La Mar Taylor.

Carnegie Mellon: With a $55 million investment by the Gates Foundation, CMU is launching Learnvia, a free, AI-enabled learning resource for college students across the country, the Post-Gazette reported. Learnvia wraps lessons, homework, activities and an AI tutor “into a single digital environment built to complement in-person instruction and empower faculty with real-time student insights,” the university announced Jan. 29.

On a less positive note, Pennsylvania Western University is dealing with possible academic cuts. Interim Provost James Fisher told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that PennWest does not plan to lay off any faculty and staff members if the potential sunsetting of dozens of majors, minors and certificates comes to fruition. Faculty union presidents at the California, Edinboro and Clarion campuses of PennWest called upon the state school’s Council of Trustees to make sure future decisions they make regarding programming at PennWest are transparent, include faculty involvement and maintain the university’s academic integrity.

JAN. 29:

Florida’s public university system’s Board of Governors preliminarily voted Jan. 29 to freeze public university H-1B visa hirings for a year. The board’s action was formally a notice of intent, meaning the policy isn’t up for approval until the board’s next meeting, on Feb. 23. On Jan. 27, Texas governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, ordered all state colleges and universities to freeze their applications for new H-1B visas, The Texas Tribune reported. The pause will last until May 31, 2027, though some institutions may be able to proceed if granted written permission by the Texas Workforce Commission.

JAN. 27:

• Yale University said it plans to offer free tuition to U.S. households with annual incomes of less than $200,000 starting this upcoming academic year. The Ivy League school, based in New Haven, Conn., said it would eliminate all costs for families making up to $100,000 and offer enough financial aid to meet or exceed tuition costs for households that earn up to $200,000. Yale also announced earlier in the month that it will be admitting fewer graduate students in response to the looming federal endowment tax hike that university officials warn is creating a major budget shortfall, according to CT Insider.
• A new national coalition, the Alliance for Higher Education, announced its launch, promising to defend higher education from government interference. The nonprofit’s mission is to protect higher ed’s role in fostering democracy by ensuring that colleges and universities have academic freedom, autonomy and opportunity for all students to learn and succeed, said Mike Gavin, the organization’s inaugural president and CEO. Read more about it at Inside Higher Education.

JAN. 26:

• The U.S. Department of Education announced its intent to establish a negotiated rulemaking committee that would fundamentally reshape the nation's higher education accreditation system, including eliminating diversity standards and making it easier for new accreditors to gain federal recognition. The Accreditation, Innovation, and Modernization (AIM) committee will convene for two five-day sessions in April and May to develop proposed regulations implementing President Donald Trump's vision for accreditation reform, according to a notice published in the Federal Register.

• George Washington University is pausing admissions to five Ph.D. programs for fall 2026, citing financial hardships.According to social media posts, applicants to the programs received emails last week alerting them that the programs “will not be reviewing applications for the 2026–2027 academic year.” The Ph.D. programs affected are in clinical psychology, anthropology, human paleobiology, political science and mathematics.

JAN. 25

The person who replaced Joan Gabel as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Madison when Gabel came to Pitt in 2022 has now been named the next president of Columbia University. Jennifer Mnookin, who previously was dean of the UCLA School of Law, will be the fourth leader in three years at Columbia.

JAN. 22

• Cornell University announced the largest gift in its history — $371.5 million —  from the founder of PeopleSoft, David Duffield. The recent pledge comes on top of $100 million that the Cornell alum gave last year. Duffield’s latest donation will create a $250 million Duffield Legacy Fund to help Cornell’s engineering college pursue “strategic opportunities” and a separate $50 million fund to support college priorities under “educational excellence.” The university’s engineering college will be renamed after Duffield.

• Roughly six months after the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill set a goal of cutting $70 million from its budget, trustees passed an unexpected resolution directing leaders to cut an additional $16.5 million from administrative spending, according to The Assembly. The resolution cited “material uncertainty” in the university’s revenue as a result of the General Assembly’s delay in approving a full state budget.

• The University of Michigan will partly finance faculty research projects amid cuts to federal research funding, the Detroit News reported. The research funding program will begin this month and support projects across all three UM campuses — Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint, according to the announcement in the University Record, a university-run faculty-staff news source.

JAN. 21

• Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said he would veto a bill that bars transgender college students in Wisconsin from participating in women’s sports, calling it a “non-starter” for him, in an interview with UW-Madison’s Daily Cardinal.

• California State University has reached a settlement with the faculty union that represents 25,000 faculty members across the 22-campus system, which sued over the disclosure of personal information to the Trump administration during a systemwide federal probe into antisemitism. Under the settlement agreement, CSU must provide notice to employees as soon as reasonably practicable before complying with any subpoena for employees’ personal information unless notice would be prohibited by law or regulation, according to a statement from the California Faculty Association.

JAN. 20

• Congressional lawmakers this week released a fiscal 2026 education budget proposal that rejects the Trump administration’s call to dramatically decrease funding for the U.S. Department of Education and to cut major financial aid programs, according to Higher Ed Dive. The Senate and House Appropriations committees jointly proposed allocating $79 billion in discretionary funding to the Education Department, up slightly from the $78.7 billion it received for the 2025 fiscal year. The Trump administration had proposed cutting the agency’s funding by 15.3%, to $66.7 billion.

• Seven in 10 senior higher education leaders say they are concerned about government interference in academic freedom and institutional autonomy, and nearly all report that the current federal policy environment has introduced uncertainty into institutional planning, according to American Council on Education’s latest Pulse Point survey. The survey found that 98 percent of senior leaders reported at least some level of uncertainty stemming from federal policy actions, with nearly three-quarters describing that uncertainty as moderate or extreme.

JAN. 17

Shortly after being sworn in, new Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger appointed members to the Boards of Visitors for George Mason University, the University of Virginia, and Virginia Military Institute, according to the Virginia Mercury. She also ordered a review of the higher-ed board confirmation process, which was the center of contention between lawmakers and the previous gubernatorial administration last year.

JAN. 16

• The Department of Education has now all but given up on cracking down on colleges that mishandled cases of sexual assault and harassment, a new report from the Associated Press shows. In the past, the department’s Office for Civil Rights would take on dozens of new cases each year, AP said, but since Trump took office a year ago, it has opened fewer than 10. Meanwhile, it’s accumulated a backlog of more than 25,000 cases. The same trend is playing out when it comes to resolved cases. For example, during President Trump’s first term in 2018, the OCR reached voluntary agreements with 58 schools and colleges. This time around, there have been none.

• The Department of Education announced that it will indefinitely delay involuntary collections on federal student loans, reversing earlier plans to restart wage garnishments this month and providing relief to millions of borrowers in default. The collections have been on hold since the pandemic-era pause on student loan payments began in March 2020. The department said the delay will enable implementation of major repayment reforms mandated by the Working Families Tax Cuts Act, which simplifies repayment options and provides additional pathways for borrowers to rehabilitate defaulted loans. The new income-driven repayment plan is scheduled to launch July 1, 2026.

• Some canceled TRIO programs will get a second look after a federal judge ordered the Education Department Friday to reconsider grants that were either denied or discontinued last year. More than 100 grants were canceled because the department said they either didn’t follow nondiscrimination requirements or align with the Trump administration’s anti-DEI agenda.

Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.

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