The New School, a New York university, has laid off approximately 15 percent of its staff and faculty, including 19 full-time faculty members (10 of whom were tenured), as part of a major restructuring to address a $48 million annual deficit. The school is consolidating from four colleges to two, discontinuing over a dozen academic programs (including its master's in Arts Management and Entrepreneurship), pausing most doctoral admissions, and offering early retirement or buyout packages. The layoffs were first reported by the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the New School chapter of the American Association of University Professors has called them a "major gutting" and alleged some were politically motivated, a claim denied by Provost Richard Kessler.
This matters because the New School is a prominent institution whose alumni include major figures in the visual arts, fashion, and literature, and its financial struggles reflect broader challenges facing U.S. universities—declining enrollment, threats to international student visas under the Trump administration, and mounting deficits. The cuts, which Kessler says are necessary for long-term survival, raise concerns about the erosion of arts and liberal arts programs, the impact on tenured faculty, and the future of arts education at a time when such programs are increasingly vulnerable.