2024 was tough for higher education. 2025 will be tougher

Surprisingly, many in the higher education community are still feeling pretty good about future trends. While 2024 was problematic for higher education and research worldwide, 2025 is not looking better at all.

There is an American saying that may apply here: “Whistling past the graveyard”, that is, ignoring reality. At the same time, the right-wing reality higher education is facing is itself full of contradictions between what is said and what is done, making predictions rather complicated.

In its 2024 plan, the right-wing Dutch government mentioned the importance of innovation 85 times, but then cut the budget for higher education and research by €1 billion (US1.03 billion) a year (later reducing this amount to half a billion after pressure from the opposition – and taking that money away from healthcare).

In their biannual meeting in Tirana from 29 to 30 May 2024, the Bologna Declaration ministers of education in Europe adopted the key academic values of autonomy, academic freedom, academic integrity, participation of students and staff in governance and society’s responsibility for higher education, while at the same time these values are being attacked continuously by several of its participating governments.

In a recent interview in Times Higher Education, the Hungarian minister of education called Hungarian universities “normal” institutions when, in fact, the Orbán government has robbed them of their autonomy and academic freedom.

And many in the United States seem to believe that the new Trump administration will behave “normally” while attacks on academic freedom by him and other Republicans became routine in 2024. Vice President-elect JD Vance called professors “the enemy”. These are just a few examples of doing the opposite of what is preached.

Over the past two decades, higher education and research became perceived and treated as crucial for the knowledge economy. Technological innovations, improvements in healthcare (the vaccines against COVID-19 being a clear example) and responses to climate change and other sustainability challenges can all be considered results of global investments in higher education and research.

But geopolitical tensions, economic problems such as inflation, nationalism, conspiracy theories, fake news and anti-immigration and anti-globalisation sentiments and policies have gradually brought about a much more negative opinion about education and science.

In the United States, confidence in higher education fell to 36% in 2023, a 12% decline from 2018. Similar declines can be seen elsewhere, although not as precipitous as in the United States. Early signs of this deterioration of confidence were already present during the first Trump administration and in other countries with right-wing nationalist governments, such as Hungary. But in 2024 these signs also turned into policy in several other countries.

Our view is that global higher education has been facing a very difficult year and that 2025 will be even more difficult. Let us outline a likely global scenario.

R&D investments

Investments in research and development (R&D) will more likely decline than increase.

The case of the Netherlands is exemplary. Already at 2.3%, which is lower than the European Union recommendation of 3% of gross domestic product (GDP), the planned research and innovation budget will suffer cuts that will result in an even lower percentage.

The economic and budgetary crises in countries like Germany, France and the United Kingdom will also likely have a negative impact on their investments in R&D.

It is somewhat unclear how the new Trump administration will treat research funding, but science scepticism, anti-higher education rhetoric and a commitment to cut government spending generally almost guarantees reducing funding for research – and perhaps increased government interference in research projects. US university leaders are assuming a reduction.

China and India, two emerging science superpowers, are also interesting cases. While China’s government committed to a 10% R&D increase in 2024, it is not clear how much of these funds is allocated to universities. Further, China’s continuing economic slowdown will affect research funds from other authorities and industry and perhaps the central government as well.

India, which stressed R&D in its 2020 National Education Policy, has so far allocated only modest funding.

Immigration policies

The shortage of skilled labour will increase globally, but governments, in particular in the Global North, are implementing policies to limit skilled immigration and admissions of international students.

Reflecting on their latest Open Doors statistics, the Institute of International Education pointed out that international student numbers in the United States are up, but their own figures and those of others show that the numbers of newly admitted international students are actually down, and Trump administration plans will make studying in the United States even less attractive.

At the same time, Elon Musk and other Big Tech company leaders are calling for an open H-1B visa policy for graduates from abroad, in conflict with anti-immigration MAGA (Make America Great Again) fanatics.

Governments in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom are working on strongly reducing international student enrolments and are also facing opposition from tech companies and the higher education sector.

Academic collaboration

Academic collaboration is under attack. As Hans de Wit and Chris Glass state in their recent editorial for International Higher Education: “Rising geopolitical tensions have created an environment where international collaborations can inadvertently become conduits for political influence or coercion. Concerns over intellectual property theft are not unfounded, with documented cases of economic espionage and unauthorised technology transfer occurring through academic channels.

“Additionally, there are real risks of ethics dumping, where less stringent ethical standards in some countries could be exploited, and of dual-use research being misappropriated for harmful purposes.”

According to them, there is a clear move away from a socially responsible internationalisation towards a higher education that is more focused on national interests, especially in high-income countries, but also in other countries like China and India.

As Scholars at Risk makes clear in its Free to Think report of 2024, autonomy and academic freedom are under attack everywhere. This is not only the case in countries with authoritarian regimes in the Global South, but also in democracies in high-income countries, such as Hungary, the Netherlands and the United States. And academic integrity is under pressure as well.

While higher education has so far been able to deal with the challenges resulting from technological innovations, the impact of artificial intelligence is concerning in several areas, including teaching and learning. Much has been written about AI, but little action is being taken, and it is fair to say that at this point, the higher education community is entirely unclear about its implications – although everyone agrees that it will have a very significant impact.

Heads in the sand?

Public responsibility for higher education and research is under severe pressure in 2025, and is likely to continue to be so into the future. Society has a fundamental role to play in supporting higher education, especially at a time of growing inequality, an ever-deeper climate crisis and other Sustainable Development Goal challenges.

The global higher education and research community, in particular its leadership, has to be aware of the challenges it faces from the current political shift to the right and needs to act responsibly in addressing them and finding ways to overcome them.

This is in its own interest, but, more than that, it is in the interest of the global society. Burying our heads in the sand is a dangerous stance to adopt, in 2025 and in the years to come.

Hans de Wit is professor emeritus and distinguished fellow and Philip G Altbach is Monan University Professor Emeritus and distinguished fellow, both at the Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, United States. (E-mails: dewitj@bc.edu; altbach@bc.edu).

This article is a commentary. Commentary articles are the opinion of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of University World News.