When I returned to The Chronicle this summer after nearly a decade away, I was touched by the hundreds of notes I received.

Your messages — which described why you love working in this field, what keeps you hopeful, and what you value about The Chronicle — reminded me of what I’ve always loved about this sector: The people in it care deeply, even in the hardest moments.

And 2025 brought a lot of hard moments: shifting federal policies, leadership turmoil and investigations, enrollment and budget pressures, an increasingly skeptical public — higher education found itself at the center of a raucous national conversation.

These challenges tested the sector’s resilience and exposed its fault lines. What follows are the stories that defined this extraordinary year, told as events unfolded.

January

President Trump’s second inauguration brought a blitz of far-reaching executive orders that left colleges scrambling and offered a preview of the unpredictability to come.

February

Higher Education Is Exhausted

We asked more than 4,000 academic professionals what it’s like to work in higher ed. Most employees said they felt respected by colleagues and students, but about half said they’d considered leaving the field in the past year.

March

‘We’re in the Midst of an Authoritarian Takeover’

The Trump administration pulled hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding from Columbia University. Our interview with Lee C. Bollinger, who retired as Columbia’s president in 2023, became one of our most-read stories of the year.

April

The College That Conservatives Took Over

Two years ago, Gov. Ron DeSantis stacked New College of Florida’s Board of Trustees with conservatives. Emma Pettit examined the college’s transformation and what it can teach us now.

May

Opinion | Is AI Enhancing Education or Replacing It?

Clay Shirky has spent the last few years talking with professors about the rise of AI in the classroom. In The Chronicle Review, Shirky made the case that technology should facilitate learning, not substitute for it.

June

Santa Ono Wanted a Presidency. He Became a Pariah.

Santa J. Ono’s botched appointment to the University of Florida’s presidency became an allegory for our perilous political moment. 

July

An Inside Job?

When the Education Department announced it was investigating antisemitism at George Mason University, some faculty members suspected a coordinated effort to oust the university’s president.

August

The (Not So) Quiet Schism Among Academic Leaders

The chancellors of Vanderbilt University and Washington University in St. Louis made waves by insisting that reform, not resistance, will save higher education. In a joint interview with Megan Zahneis, the two leaders defended their vision.

September

A Classroom Clash Over Course Content Goes Viral

Texas A&M University at College Station fired a faculty member and removed two administrators after a course that touched on gender identity drew fierce criticism from Republican lawmakers. The case attracted widespread public attention. 

October

Responses to the Trump Compact

Nine universities were initially offered the chance to sign on to the Trump administration’s proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” We documented official university responses to the document as they were made public.

November