The Crisis of the University Started Long Before Trump

The University of Chicago is in crisis. Under extraordinary financial strain, it has diminished its faculty-student ratio and hired hundreds of “lecturers”: teachers whom it pays little and whom it does not expect to do research. It has deliberately driven down the percentage of undergraduate tuition that it devotes to actually teaching undergraduates. This summer it proposed to “merge” (read: “close”) departments; send some students online—or perhaps put them on buses—to study at other institutions; and teach some languages via ChatGPT. It is freezing budgets, closing academic units, slashing doctoral education, and contemplating the use of restricted endowment payouts to support functions not covered in the gift agreements.