The New School in New York has laid off 68 staffers and 19 full-time faculty members, more than half of whom were tenured, as part of a restructuring plan to address a $60 million budget deficit driven by declining enrollment. The cuts follow a merger of the university's four colleges into two—combining Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts with the New School for Social Research, and Parsons School of Design with the College of Performing Arts—and come amid constraints on international students under Trump administration policies, who made up 36% of the student body as of December 2025.
The layoffs have sparked criticism from faculty and student groups, with the university's AAUP chapter noting that many of those laid off were tenured faculty of color, and the Economics Student Union blaming years of financial mismanagement rather than faculty performance. The cuts matter because they affect a major institution that includes the renowned Parsons School of Design, a key pipeline for the visual art and design world, and reflect broader pressures on arts-focused higher education amid enrollment declines and political headwinds.