The crash is beginning in academia. - ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

faineg.bsky.social • 23 hours ago

The crash is beginning in academia.

Reposted from WESA

The University of Pittsburgh confirmed Friday that there would be no new Ph.D. offers of admission while Pitt works to understand how reduced federal aid could impact the institution.

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starshine.bsky.social•23 hours ago

Yeaaa

antoinelavoisier.bsky.social•18 hours ago

If we are lucky, The timing will shake out that the first spicy moments of resistance will take place in the coming weeks on campuses. DOE’s DEI purge looks set to provoke many Universities into obeying-in-advance in weird, protest-provoking ways. NIH, NSF grant fuckery may even rustle faculty.

adamboyle.bsky.social•23 hours ago

Trump is making sure GDP growth is structurally harmed for many many years. Enjoy your North Korean hermit kingdom

merveille.bsky.social•23 hours ago

... No grad students will fucking wreck academia in a way it a little bit needs but not like this

jim.chat•15 hours ago

This is the way.

Why educate humans when you can’t then control their vote. Train your AI instead and you have total control.

flounder22.bsky.social•23 hours ago

It’s always so frustrating to watch institutions of higher learning just crumble under pressure. Capitalism kills everything it touches.

jenebbeler.bsky.social•21 hours ago

This isn’t quite capitalism so much as throwing in our lot with federal funding. Since the 1950s, it was a decent model. Full of problems, labor exploitation, etc. But it funded especially public R1s. The catch was the dependence, forced by state defunding.

flounder22.bsky.social•9 hours ago

It’s difficult for me not to see fights about money for what should be fully funded education in a democracy by the government as a product of capitalism.

jenebbeler.bsky.social•9 hours ago

It all is ultimately, in that it’s about allocation of money. But it’s also so much about ideology and a desire to control how universities do education.

flounder22.bsky.social•8 hours ago

Capitalism is an economic ideology which is based on private property and self interest without government interference. Not trying to be reductionist but just connecting the dots.

jenebbeler.bsky.social•8 hours ago

Yes, I get it. But without “government interference” we have no modern universities anyway. I’m of the opinion that government interference doesn’t have to be bad by definition. It wasn’t especially bad for nearly 80 years.

janetdonavan.bsky.social•19 hours ago

Yeah, everyone at my institution is in complete denial.

sarahdarerlittman.bsky.social•8 hours ago

https://www.thedp.com/article/2025/02/penn-graduate-student-class-size-cut-trump-funding

deputydale.bsky.social•23 hours ago

The destabilization of this glacial ice shelf started decades ago

sju08.bsky.social•8 hours ago

U.S. News & World Report will have a lot of work ahead, redoing the ranking of the best colleges in the United States. University of Pittsburgh is currently ranked 70.

michaelhendricks.bsky.social•21 hours ago

And feckless leadership still thinks capitulation will save them.

mobyhick.bsky.social•21 hours ago

Yeah, if it could start more than ten minutes from my house, that would be great.

lohman.bsky.social•20 hours ago

What a terrible decision.

angryparakeet.bsky.social•20 hours ago

I was considering a PhD after this masters is done.

Hahaha. FML.

Not now.

rozone74.bsky.social•8 hours ago

Interesting reaction from a University. Not all PhD studies are dependent on grants for research. Seems an over-reaction unless it's really all part of the plan. Are research grants being impacted if the money is going to Merck, Glaxo, Pfizer, Moderna, or Bill Gates' foundation?

gaybitterskeets.bsky.social•23 hours ago

It's gonna take decades to undo the damage, if America even gets the chance any time soon.

bookofoak.bsky.social•22 hours ago

My place is relatively sheltered right now but I’m sure that could change quickly.

niais.bsky.social•22 hours ago

we have been having these conversations... there is a little bit of margin but.... I truly have *no* idea what September looks like.

shademar.bsky.social•13 hours ago

We aren’t even taking a possible govt shutdown into consideration. Institutional capacity to prepare and recover has been gutted…

jenebbeler.bsky.social•21 hours ago

This is my question we can get through the academic year but not after September/new budget year.

johno5.bsky.social•23 hours ago

Seems a good place to remind people that over 600,000 international students come to the US each year, many for PhD study. They bring over $200 billion in revenue to universities & to the cities & neighborhoods where they live. Losing $200 billion yearly revenue is not good for the US economy

iceblueaccent.bsky.social•14 hours ago

Canada will happily take them 😁

rozone74.bsky.social•8 hours ago

I doubt those people will be banned. They will even be allowed to stay, just as some of the more well-known members of Congress who came to the US that way. Heck, even Musk fits that path to citizenship.

johno5.bsky.social•8 hours ago

They won’t come here, and won’t bring their money here, if universities don’t have support for research, or if universities stop accepting PhD students, or if universities don’t exist anymore.

rozone74.bsky.social•8 hours ago

True. I have yet to figure out just what Musk & Trump are really up to with their snap decisions. When they try to justify what they are doing it's just garble. Musk wants to import the well-educated. Will Trump fund foreign Universities? Tech imports foreign educated talent.

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