In a new essay featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Jason Owen-Smith, Barger Leadership Institute Professor of Organizational Studies and courtesy professor at the Ford School, analyzes the existential threats facing research universities from Trump Administration's policies and the internal complexities that leave them vulnerable.
Owen-Smith describes how the administration’s aggressive moves—cuts to research funding, regulatory challenges, and pressure to alter core academic missions—jeopardize the essential roles of universities in research, teaching, and public service. He explains that the very decentralization and diversity that foster academic excellence now hinder universities' ability to respond cohesively or quickly, turning traditional strengths into vulnerabilities. These threats span not only grants, but also tuition revenue, medical funding, and endowment returns.
"The things that have made America’s research universities such spectacularly effective contributors to the well-being of the nation and its people are at risk."
Rather than attribute the weak response to cowardice or groupthink, Owen-Smith argues that deeply ingrained structures and competing internal priorities fundamentally impede unified action, a situation further inflamed by political pressure that intensifies discord among university departments.
To prepare, Owen-Smith recommends that "Administrators should be more transparent about the conceptions of risk that frame their decisions and the process by which those decisions are made."
Ultimately, he warns that both government and academia threaten the core value of research universities if reforms become ideological battles rather than genuine compromise. To preserve their essential missions, universities must build coalitions, promote transparency, and remain both accountable and autonomous:
"The nation’s great research institutions cannot remain great if they are nationalized or privatized. To skirt the routes that lead off either cliff, we must build coalitions capable of compromise and reconstruct a research university that is both autonomous and accountable, a transparent steward of public funds for the public good."
