Kirk Carapazza

Students who work their tails off and really do outstanding work

get the same grade as students who are smart and know how to BS their way through an essay and do good but not great work.

In a video message, Kornbluth says research funding from private sources is nowhere near enough to make up for the 20% drop in federal support that MIT is dealing with.

As a result, she says university-sponsored research is down 10% compared to this time last year.

Kornbluth says MIT saw a nearly 20% drop in new graduate student enrollment this year and expects the decline to continue next year.

Other research universities have expressed similar concern over mounting funding pressures and immigration and visa policies affecting international students.

For NPR News, I'm Kirk Carrapeza in Boston.

The 80-year-old Catholic school was known for catering to future police officers, firefighters, and athletes with its large sports programs.

But Robert Kelchin, who teaches higher ed policy at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, says that model was no longer viable for the small private school.

Following Hampshire College in Amherst, Anna Maria is at least the 11th four-year private college in Massachusetts to merge or close over the past decade.

For NPR News, I'm Kirk Carapazza in Boston.

The alternative liberal arts school with no grades or majors first opened in 1970.

Hampshire leaders declined an interview request, saying they're focused on supporting the campus community amid news of the shutdown.

Michael Horn is co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute, which has long predicted widespread college closures.

He says declining enrollment shows Hampshire's offbeat profile wasn't selling with potential students.

While they had a unique value proposition, the market was pretty clearly telling them it was a unique value proposition that was not valued.

A new analysis from the Huron Consulting Group says,

It says more than a quarter of private, non-profit four-year colleges are at risk of closing within the next 10 years.

For NPR News, I'm Kirk Carapazza in Boston.

More than 100 Jewish professors have signed an open letter condemning the Trump administration's actions against their university.