State universities face potential "domino effect" from attacks on education funding, but so far, no hiring freezes
Many colleges across the U.S. are resorting to hiring freezes in response to Trump's targeting of higher ed, particularly of institutions that do not reflect his ideology
As colleges across the country announce faculty hiring freezes and other cost-cutting measures in response to President Donald J. Trump’s threats to slash federal funding, Mississippi educators are awaiting the fallout for the state’s higher education institutions.
“At the moment, many of our universities here in Mississippi receive funding from the federal government,” said Erica Jones, executive director of the Mississippi Association of Educators. “Many other staff at these institutions are concerned if they have a job in the future. They’re also concerned about enrollment of the students.”
Jones, whose Jackson-based education advocacy organization focuses on improving working conditions for teachers at all levels, said she has spoken with “several colleagues at the higher ed level, and they are really concerned about job security.”
Of particular concern, Jones said, are the state’s historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), which have perennially struggled with funding and enrollment. “So, one thing I’ve heard at the university level from professors there is that they’re concerned if students will be able to keep their scholarships and if financial aid will be provided for the university,” she said.
“Lots of students are worried about what’s going to happen with their scholarships,” Jones said. “I even heard a professor say that he may have to change some of the classes that he’s teaching because he's worried that it might fall under DEI because the class he was teaching was a class that was centered around equity. We are feeling the domino effect of this administration.”
Still, colleges and universities in Mississippi have not yet announced hiring freezes, as numerous institutions in other states have.
“We haven’t heard of any specific hiring freezes,” said John Sewell, the director of communications at the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning, the Jackson-based governing body responsible for policy and financial oversight of Mississippi’s eight public universities. Sewell said that among the threats he has heard raised, most concern DEI initiatives.
Harvard University, which has an endowment exceeding $50 billion, announced a hiring freeze on Monday, while other colleges have paused faculty raises and rescinded student admission offers amid growing financial uncertainty over the federal government’s future role in higher education funding.
Colleges and universities that have undertaken similar measures include North Carolina State University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Washington, Columbia University's medical school, the University of Notre Dame, Emory University, Cornell University, Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University and the University of California, San Diego.
Trump’s efforts to swiftly reshape public education began in January, when the White House issued a temporary freeze on all federal grants, alongside executive orders targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, as well as policies on abortion and gender identity.
Mississippi university officials scrambled to make sense of the January grant suspensions. Though the memo was later withdrawn under court order, Trump said he would revisit the issue, which has led to continuing uncertainty, much as his on-again, off-again tariffs have unsettled Wall Street. Mississippi universities receive hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding, including for research at Mississippi State University and the University of Mississippi.
Although the state's colleges and universities have not been a hotbed of resistance to Trump policies, a small student protest at Ole Miss in May 2024 against Israel’s war in Gaza attracted counterprotesters who hurled water bottles and food at them. As Mississippi Today reported, police quickly disbanded the pro-Palestinian protest after the counterprotesters shouted racist remarks and protesters responded by throwing water bottles back. The confrontation came two weeks after pro-Palestinian protesters set up an encampment at Columbia University that attracted Trump's ire and led to his retaliatory moves against that university.
Last weekend, Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, who is Palestinian and was involved in the protest, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, despite having a green card, and taken to an undisclosed location that turned out to be a Louisiana prison. The retaliation came after the Trump administration stripped $400 million in grants and contracts from Columbia, accusing the Ivy League school of failing to protect Jewish students and faculty from antisemitism.
Trump has targeted 10 institutions that he claims did not do enough to curb anti-Jewish sentiment over the war in Gaza.
The newly created Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, has meanwhile put entire education programs and departments at risk. For example, Trump’s plan to dismantle the Department of Education has raised concerns over the future of student aid and various university grants and programs. Already, federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have paused research and scholarship funding.
The 1890 Scholarship Program, which provides financial support to students at HBCUs, was suspended on Feb. 22, affecting a handful of students at Mississippi’s Alcorn State University. The USDA said that students currently receiving the scholarship would be allowed to complete their studies.
The financial strain comes at a particularly difficult time for many of Mississippi’s higher education institutions, especially HBCUs, which have long faced budgetary shortfalls due to historical underfunding and more recent policy threats.
Alcorn State alone has been underfunded by more than $257 million over the past three decades, limiting resources and infrastructure. A 2002 legal settlement allocated $417 million over 20 years to address funding disparities, but many advocates argue that it was insufficient.
Despite such financial pressures, Mississippi’s HBCUs have had significant economic impacts, contributing $695 million annually to the state’s economy and supporting nearly 7,000 jobs.
But their continued viability is inextricably linked to public funding, as are related jobs and the institutions’ ability to grant students — whatever their ideology or political affiliation — undergraduate and postgraduate degrees.
Image: A pro-Palestinian demonstrator records counter-protesters at the University of Mississippi in May 2024 (Antonella Rescigno / The Daily Mississippian via AP)
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