A panel of University of Wisconsin-Madison professors and academic experts discussed the significant challenges facing higher education Wednesday in the wake of the Trump administration’s sweeping budget cuts, emphasizing the critical role of federal funding in public health and scientific advancements.
The event, moderated by Professor Michael Wagner of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, provided students with a platform to ask questions about the future of higher education under the Trump administration. Around 100 students attended the Wednesday panel, where they submitted questions to panelists.
Wagner began by outlining the long-term decline in state funding for the university. Once accounting for over 44% of the UW-Madison budget, state funds now make up just 18%. As state dollars disappeared, universities increasingly relied on tuition and federal research funding.
Federal funding and research grants — which make up about 30% of the university’s revenue — have remained relatively consistent over the past five decades, according to Wagner. Without sustained federal investment, the panelists argued that the United States risks ceding its global leadership in scientific discovery and economic growth.
Dr. Miriam Shelef, associate professor in the Division of Rheumatology at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, described how a hiring freeze has stopped her from bringing in undergraduate researchers this summer and fall.
“Even if a researcher has full funding, they still have to be hired into a specific position,” she said. “With the hiring freeze, we can’t bring anyone in.”
Shelef added that the NIH has stopped sending weekly funding opportunity emails, and graduate schools are slashing student admissions due to shrinking support. Rotations that allow students to explore labs — often key to discovering their research paths — have been canceled. She personally tallied 10 eliminated graduate positions and 14 lost undergraduate opportunities.
The systemic consequences extend even further. Professor Ankur Desai, who studies climate systems, noted that proposed cuts to NASA, NOAA and the Department of Energy range from 50% to 75%.
He emphasized that these cuts would destroy "decades of careful, long studies like the ones I contribute to, such as the 70-year record of global carbon dioxide."
While research also takes place in private sectors, one panelist noted that federal funding plays a uniquely irreplaceable role in driving innovation. In research with broader goals like atmospheric science or public health, companies are often unwilling to invest in research because they cannot capture all the returns.
“There are some really important activities that are only going to happen if it's funded at the societal level, at the level of the federal government. Companies just don't have the incentives to do this work,” said Dr. Mark Copelovitch, a panelist and UW-Madison professor of political science and public affairs.
Federal funding fills that gap, supporting projects that may not be immediately profitable but are essential for society’s advancement. This public investment has a much higher tolerance for failure, which is critical for long-term breakthroughs.
Professor Aireale Rodgers, who studies higher education and racial equity, voiced the historical role of colonial conquest and racial capitalism in shaping university missions.
“We’re all entangled with higher education..but we also need to recognize that higher education hasn’t always defended folks who look like me,” she said.
Rodgers called on students to embrace activism.
“If you study higher education, you’ll know that so much of the progress we’ve made has come from student activism,” she said. “We need to be in partnership with you. When you say, ‘this is what we want,’ it helps us push for change.”
Copelovitch noted that American democracy is beginning to take on some of the characteristics of a “competitive authoritarian regime,” which is a political system that appears democratic on the surface, but, in practice, is heavily tilted in favor of the ruling party.
He pointed to characteristics of standard democratic regimes, such as open and fair elections and the freedom of the press, and contrasted them with the Trump administration’s current executive orders, saying that “foundational elements” of the country’s democracy are being undermined.
“We’re living in unprecedented times in American politics,” Copelovitch said. “Things are happening that have caused lots of us — political scientists — to address the question of what political regime we even live in in the United States. For a long time, we thought this was a settled question.”
Copelovitch said universities have always been targets of the government because they are “independent centers of ideas, and often they are prominent centers of dissent."
As students and universities are subjected to increased scrutiny and censorship by the federal government, including student visas being revoked and university funding being withheld,the scholars argued that the best method of student response is collective action.
“We have seen this movie before in countries that we don't think of as full democracies. Authoritarian regimes don't like large, organized, well-funded institutions standing up against the government,” Copelovitch said, referencing the budget cuts and grants rescinded. “This is something that is unprecedented and unique in American politics.”
The panel emphasized collective action as a critical strategy for universities facing systemic challenges. Copelovitch highlighted the "prisoner's dilemma" of higher education, where individual institutions treat current threats as university-specific problems rather than coordinating a unified response.
But he also noted recent examples of universities banding together to resist the administration’s demands, referencing Harvard University initially refusing to comply with the Trump administration’s requirements, with Yale University, Stanford University and other institutions subsequently joining legal challenges.
“This is not a drill… it is important to be informed, to not necessarily believe everything you read. The excuses that are used sometimes for terminating work are not the underlying reasons that these things are happening,” said J. Michael Collins, a panelist, professor and researcher of public affairs. “Ask, ‘Is this real, or is this just a ploy being used against us?’”
The collective action approach extends beyond legal strategies. The panel suggested that collective action involves students and faculty talking to each other, sharing information, making demands of leadership and creating networks of support.
As Copelovitch noted, universities are stronger when they act together. He presented the Rutgers model of a "Big Ten NATO" approach, in which universities would collectively support each other when facing administrative challenges, as a potential framework for future resistance.
Even in the face of a heavy conversation, the panel had an air of resilience and solidarity.
“It’s finals season on a Wednesday evening, and nearly one hundred people showed up for this,” Wagner told The Daily Cardinal.
Ella Hanley is the college news editor for The Daily Cardinal and former associate news editor. She is a fourth-year journalism and criminal justice student and has written breaking, city, state and campus news. Follow her on Twitter at @ellamhanley.
