BUZZ
University leaders cite ‘historic funding pressures,’ possibility of new tax on endowment
The University of Chicago is taking steps toward shrinking its humanities and language programs due to what administrators describe as “historic funding pressures,” according to the student newspaper.
At least two other midwestern institutions, Purdue and Indiana University Bloomington, are considering similar cuts this summer.
University of Chicago Provost Katherine Baicker recently set up working groups to make cost-saving recommendations for its Division of the Arts & Humanities, starting in the 2026-2027 school year, The Chicago Maroon reports.
An instruction document for the working groups stated the university is facing “historic funding pressures” and must consider a “new level of fiscal discipline,” according to the report:
According to the divisional structure working group’s charge documents, members were asked to consider if the division’s 15 departments could be reorganized into eight to reduce administrative costs.
Baicker has also communicated, according to multiple sources, that there will be no departments with fewer than 15 tenure-track faculty members once reorganization efforts take effect. The departments for comparative literature, Germanic studies, Slavic languages and literatures, and South Asian languages and civilizations currently have less than this number.
In a June email to faculty, Deborah Nelson, dean of the Division of the Arts & Humanities, said the Trump administration’s education policies and the likelihood of a new tax on the university’s endowment are other reasons why the university is considering the cuts.
Nelson also brought up “volatility in the American economy, the impact of a recession, and its cascading effects on philanthropy.”
“The status quo is not an option,” she wrote, according to the Maroon.
Daisy Delogu, a professor of French literature at the private institution, compared the potential cutbacks to those made by the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, created earlier this year under President Donald Trump.
“Someone said to me they felt like a ‘DOGE’ had come to the University of Chicago,” Delogu told the student newspaper.
In related news, Indiana University Bloomington is cutting its bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD programs in Latin and Greek, according to a June 30 report by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education, The College Fix reported earlier this month.
The same report shows Ball State University’s Latin major also is being cut.
Purdue University also announced in June that its bachelor’s program in classical studies may be cut due to low enrollment and budget requirements. However, school officials told The Fix that nothing has been finalized yet.
This summer, the University of Tulsa also made cuts to its humanities-focused Honors College – a change its former dean lamented recently in a column for the New York Times.
MORE: One college is expanding Latin, Greek majors as other universities cut them
IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: The University of Chicago campus; Jannis Tobias Werner / Shutterstock
