The Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan certainly does get around... www.oxfordnorth.com/news-events/...

"The University of Chicago, renowned for producing world-leading research in economics and finance, is selling a prized research centre as it struggles with heavy debt and lacklustre endowment returns" www.ft.com/content/4501... via @financialtimes.com

As Trump Tries to Limit Foreign Workers, China Woos Them. A new visa for science and engineering graduates is part of China’s effort to establish itself as the world leader in science and technology. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/w...

Austria hails 'brain gain' in luring 25 academics away from US after cuts www.reuters.com/world/austri...

Vanderbilt Eyes National Expansion The university plans to build a campus in Florida, has leased a site in New York City and aims to establish a foothold in California in its quest to grow beyond Nashville. www.insidehighered.com/news/busines...

UChicago Reducing, Freezing Ph.D. Admissions for Multiple Humanities [& Public Policy] Programs www.insidehighered.com/news/busines...

National self-harm viewed via one prominent US university: www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...

The Harvard-Trained Lawyer Behind Trump’s Fight Against Top Universities www.nytimes.com/2025/08/11/u...

The Commerce Department threatening to take over Harvard's patents shows the extent to which the federal government is trying to pressure the university into a settlement. They are trying everything possible. (gift link)

New executive order puts all grants under political control arstechnica.com/science/2025...

Fluctuating tariffs exacerbate US science funding woes pubs.aip.org/physicstoday...

A fun reminder that a loss of 60,000 jobs in and around academia is ~50% more than all coal mining jobs in the entire country.

Go, a college student, has a dependent visa (her mother, an Episcopal minister, is here on a religious worker visa), which doesn't expire until Dec. But when she tried to renew it early, ICE nabbed her and sent her halfway across the US to a detention center. www.wthr.com/article/news...

Wisconsin GOP Congressman Tom Tiffany introduced a bill that would eliminate the exception that allows colleges and universities to hire an unlimited number of specialized international workers as part of the H-1B visa program. Tiffany said the practice "hands good-paying jobs to foreign workers..."

Nashville-based Vanderbilt University considering establishing a campus in San Francisco: www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...

Me literally yesterday when NASA employees did this www.splinter.com/catastrophic...

4 Things to Know About In-State Tuition Benefits for Undocumented Students The federal government is suing states that offer in-state tuition to noncitizens. These state laws were once bipartisan efforts. #HigherEd #EDUSky #AcademicSky bit.ly/44E4zrw

Nice. I worked at Duke for more than seven years. Don’t get me started. www.dukechronicle.com/article/2025...

Threats to the Fed go beyond firing Powell https://on.ft.com/4nV9CeF | opinion

University of California fund ditches hedge funds with scathing rebuke www.ft.com/content/1674... via @financialtimes.com

This guy gets it www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/o...

USC signals layoffs as deficit surpasses $200 million amid 'volatile external environment' www.latimes.com/california/s...

"Universities have become increasingly dependent on a proliferation of outsourced services, database providers + info mgmt systems, w/ spiraling costs... Understanding [the uni as an infrastructure stresses] that the tech it chooses to adopt follow a colonial + extractivist model...

As the UK pivots to defence, a shift towards research security and away from open collaboration is “inevitable”, says Nicola Searle, whose report found security lapses in “sensitive economic areas” “Everyone’s going to have to work on it more because of regulations” she told @annamckie.bsky.social

“There is a lot of pressure to essentially leave the country or not pursue research.” scim.ag/3Gz4VWW

New from colleagues @geogdurham.bsky.social @benandersongeog.bsky.social and @ajsecor.bsky.social

Meanwhile the University of Toronto hires a few famous tenured Yale U faculty and hopes for accolades…

As has been often remarked “the Cold War was fought in the Midwest.” Bloomington used to teach 3 years of Romanian and 2 of Hungarian. One of three universities in the country to offer Serbo-Croatian. The biggest library collection of Tibetan materials, etc. Etc.

Platforms, data, and AI are impacting higher education systems and universities internationally. @jkom.bsky.social and I have a short piece on the political economy of digital transformation in HE just out ihe.bc.edu/pub/499eknm0...

Free-to-read opinion: Research security in Europe needs a more coordinated approach, write researchers Andrew James and Kieron Flanagan www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-euro...

New research from MIT found that those who used ChatGPT can’t remember any of the content of their essays. Key takeaway: the product doesn’t suffer, but the process does. And when it comes to essays, the process *is* how they learn. arxiv.org/pdf/2506.088...

Anthro degree…Britain’s MI6 spy agency promotes ‘Q’ to be first female head on.ft.com/4l4Hq6C

Whiplash still = damage www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...

Fulbright Board Resigns Over Political Interference www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

This makes me incredibly sad. I am also proud to hear that the Fulbright board resigned. Integrity matters. Sometimes you just have to say: “not in my name.”

"The dozen board members of the prestigious Fulbright program that promotes international educational exchanges resigned on Wednesday because of what they said was political interference by the Trump administration in their operations..." www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/u...

US has a long history of industrial policy -- hidden in it's high (and low) tech defence spending. ...with strong spatial patterns of support. Classic book on this: Markusen, A. R. (1991). The rise of the gunbelt: The military remapping of industrial America. Oxford University Press.

Interesting visuals here in the research outputs section...and the trend lines re China vs the US are sure to diverge even more... [HT Phil Baty] Source: www.gov.uk/government/p...

"Publicly-funded R&D in the US is massively skewed towards military research" <via @adamtooze.bsky.social> Source: www.bruegel.org/policy-brief...

Last week of blogging and that means it's time for my spring book report! I read loads of higher ed books so you don't have to, so check out the hits and misses.

Perhaps a headline and graph for the UK would be timely, @financialtimes.com, especially because the 'risks' have already materialised for staff in UK universities?

Harvard in talks with universities [including outside of the US] to host students hit by Donald Trump’s visa clampdown www.ft.com/content/65b4... via @financialtimes.com

The Politics of Feeling with @benandersongeog.bsky.social comes out the 1st of July! So excited for readers and grateful for the lovely blurbs from Will Davies, @jemgilbert.bsky.social and @carolynpedwell.bsky.social

President Trump’s FY26 budget for #NSF will slash funding for the agency by 56.9% and funding for Social, Behavioral, and Economic sciences by 67.6% These cuts will end US STEM leadership, weaken national security, and set-back individual prosperity and well-being.

“Making yourself into a pawn for the most anti-intellectual forces in American politics and not even getting the bag is dark comedy even the late David Lodge couldn’t have conceived.” C: @alexusherhesa.bsky.social

ACE and 37 other higher education organizations have written to Secretary of State Marco Rubio to express deep concern over the decision to pause new student visa interviews and reported plans to revoke student visas held by Chinese nationals. www.acenet.edu/News-Room/Pa...

A British university’s technology entanglements with Russia and China | Bethany Allen, Danielle Cave and Adam Ziogas | www.aspistrategist.org.au/a-british-un...

"As democracies, it is critical that our nations continue to support academic freedom, institutional autonomy, the integrity of research, research security, and the responsible conduct of research in support of the public good."