‘It’s Creating Chaos’: College Presidents Weigh Responses to Trump’s Upheavals

Ora Pescovitz was in a hurry. The president of Oakland University, in Michigan, had spent three hours participating in a discussion on the future of higher education and had just a few minutes to get across campus before a webinar on President Donald J. Trump’s plans for higher-education funding. The topic was apt. Days earlier, a wide-ranging freeze on federal funding had sent heads spinning across the sector — and left presidents scrambling to figure out how their campuses might be affected. That was just one in a flurry of Trump’s opening volley of orders that carry implications for colleges.