Welcome to the first weekly newsletter from Franklin’s Forum. The newsletter contains two sections. First, in The Key, we will explore and analyze one key issue affecting Penn, why it matters, and what it means for the university’s future. Next, in The Almanac, we’ll highlight recent developments in higher education and at Penn — giving you what matters most, without the noise.
The Key
Last year, 97% of university presidents at the Yale Higher Education Leadership Summit (which Penn presidents attend) agreed they were worried about loss of public confidence in higher education. This came even before this year’s increase in federal scrutiny. Inside Higher Ed’s 2025 Survey found that over 90% of university leaders admitted higher education has been ineffective at addressing that distrust.
Loss of public trust, not just that of the government, is significant. The share of the general American population with little or no confidence in our higher education system more than doubled from 10% in 2015 to 23% in 2025. Coupled with 33% indicating only “some” confidence, and a mere 40% rating the system “fine as it is,” the current state of public opinion in higher education is dire.
The outlook proves even more grim for Penn and its Ivy League peers. About a quarter of the American public agrees that the federal government should defund Ivy League Universities. Nearly 30% consider the Ivies to be the “enemy.”
Why the mistrust?
There are many reasons, but two key challenges rise to the top. Gallup recently found that Americans’ biggest reason for low confidence in higher education is “political agendas,” an issue we will explore in future editions. Another major challenge, however, is affordability.
At Yale’s 2025 Higher Education Summit, 63% of university presidents agreed that the costs of higher education are too high. A staggering 100% concurred that “universities need to do a better job of conveying their value proposition.” The 2025 Inside Higher Ed survey echoed this: the largest share of presidents – about half – pointed to“whether college is worth it” as why there is declining public trust, followed by “lack of affordability.”
The American public agrees. Over half do not think that a high-quality education after high school is affordable, and almost two-thirds identified cost of attendance as the primary deterrent for students completing college.
The battle over college costs comes to Penn
This month, Penn was named in a lawsuit accusing 32 schools of colluding to raise prices through Early Decision. The core argument: although Early Decision is not legally binding, universities and application platforms present it as if it were, discouraging competition and reducing incentives to offer stronger merit or need-based aid. In April, President Jameson also received a letter from Congressional Republicans notifying Penn of the launch of a similar investigation into the Ivy League for anticompetitive practices.
To many Americans, this confirms the belief that elite schools game the system to drive up revenue. Fair or not, the narrative is powerful. People think higher education is too expensive and that schools like Penn are artificially inflating prices to make more money.
The other side of the story
What most people don’t know is that Penn has taken significant steps to increase aid, and it is now affordable for many lower- and middle-class families despite a high sticker price. This year’s revised financial aid policy, the “Quaker Commitment,” guarantees free undergraduate tuition for all families making less than $200,000 yearly and completely covers costs (including tuition, fees, and other expenses) for all those making under $75,000 per year.
These policies make Penn tuition-free for over 85% of American families. Over the past decade, the net cost of college has actually fallen for most students at highly-selective private colleges like Penn.
Source: Brookings
Note: Income levels include inflation-adjusted estimates of the 25th ($40,000), 50th ($80,000), 75th ($135,000), and 90th percentiles ($240,000) for annual income for a family sending a child to college.
For Penn, the deeper crisis is therefore one of awareness: 48% of American adults believe universities charge the same tuition to all families, regardless of income, according to a 2023 survey by the American Association of Universities.
A changing financial landscape
Even as Penn expands aid, new pressures loom. In July, just five months after Penn announced its updated aid policies, Congress passed a new endowment tax projected to cost Penn over $350 million through 2030. With one-third of aid funded annually by the endowment, the tax directly threatens affordability.
Mark Dingfield, the newly appointed executive vice president, noted that the goal of Penn’s endowment is for “a long-term asset that must balance current and future needs.” This means Penn can’t increase financial aid today if doing so would weaken the endowment, limiting financial aid for future students. The administration is already taking proactive steps to curb its cash outflows, freezing staff hiring and reviewing its spending in March.
Future tradeoffs will be real, and they will shape Penn’s ability to deliver on affordability.
The path forward
For Penn, rebuilding public confidence means more than highlighting financial aid. Eroding trust also reflects concerns many hold about campus antisemitism, freedom of thought, political agendas in the classroom, and more. Still, affordability helps to build trust. Trust sustains excellence. And academic excellence is what keeps Penn vital to the nation’s future. That’s what it takes for the university to attract the best students, secure broad support, and focus on pursuing truth and advancing knowledge.
With greater confidence, Penn can concentrate on building its groundbreaking supercomputer, identifying new antibiotics in snake and spider venom, and highlighting Professor Zeke Emanuel’s award-winning chocolate – innovations that benefit the American public and the world.
Penn’s mission has never been under more pressure. Universities are facing unprecedented public, alumni, and government scrutiny and federal oversight. Penn is no exception. However, as Board Chair Ramanan Raghavendran (W ‘89, ENG ‘89, LPS ‘15) put it, “there is plenty of evidence that universities like Penn are central to American greatness. So, what is most on my mind is finding ways to communicate the abiding importance of higher education for American leadership in the world.”
That’s why Franklin’s Forum exists: to keep Penn anchored in its values of academic excellence, pursuit of truth, and self-improvement. Our goal is to build an alumni community that can both celebrate Penn’s strengths and push it to be better, ensuring its story is told with clarity, credibility, and love for the university.
Much has changed in two short years – a new president and Chair of the Board of Trustees, a pilot curriculum for first-year students, and a revised values statement, to name a few. In the coming weeks, we’ll analyze Penn’s finances, governance, and new initiatives. We will also explore how organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) assess its progress on antisemitism and free speech, analyzing the nuances of their methodology.
We hope you’ll join us in this effort. Please share your questions, your concerns, and your hopes for Penn’s future with us. Forward our newsletter to your friends to get your own community involved. By engaging together – candidly and constructively – we can help Penn rebuild trust with the public and its own community, allowing it to live up to Benjamin Franklin’s vision for higher education.
The Almanac
Penn ends alumni admissions conversations, introducing a new mentorship program
Penn is ending admissions conversations through its Alumni Ambassador Program (PAAP), which matched alumni with prospective students for one-time, non-evaluative conversations. Vice Provost and Dean of Admissions Whitney Soule and Senior Associate Vice President for Alumni Relations Hoopes Wampler announced a replacement program focused on longer term, year-round alumni engagement with admitted and current students.
The change follows Penn’s 2023 shift from evaluative interviews to optional, informal “alumni conversations,” citing rising application volume and challenges providing interviewees for all applicants. Undergraduate applications have more than doubled since PAAP began, growing from 31,000 in 2012 to 75,000 during the last admission cycle.
So what? Alumni reactions are mixed. Some participants were already upset when the conversations became non-evaluative, and cancellation felt like a natural next step. Others mourn the loss of a way to feel involved in the admissions process. More still are holding judgement and waiting to see how the new system plays out. Although the logistics may have been challenging, admissions conversations were a way to keep alumni engaged. With this chapter ending, Penn will now need to demonstrate how this new model maintains alumni involvement, buy-in, and community.
Penn Carey Law closes equal opportunity office and pauses scholarship honoring its first black female graduate
The Office of Equal Opportunity and Engagement at the law school is closing as its “ongoing work is integrated into broader, school-wide initiatives.” In a message to the law school community, Dean Sophia Lee reiterated that some of the key resources “remain available, though the website for the toolkit has been taken down.”
The Sadie T.M. Alexander scholarship, a full-tuition award for Penn Law students of any race focusing on racial justice, is no longer accepting applications.
In its statement to The Inquirer, the school did not explain the decision to close the office or pause the program, which was named for the first black woman to graduate from Penn Law.
These moves come as Penn has removed its DEI websites and references to diversity initiatives across the school, in line with federal guidance. These changes, which Penn has made across all 12 of its schools, are meant to ensure compliance with federal guidance for universities, including Penn, receiving federal funding.
So what? As Penn removes mentions of diversity efforts from its websites and communications, the school must grapple with the challenge of balancing competing demands from alumni and community members while complying with federal laws and executive orders. Penn received over $1 billion in federal funding last year, so ensuring all university operations comply with requirements is critical to the school’s ongoing operations.
Supreme Court partially reinstates NIH funding cuts, complicating path to reclaim DEI-linked funding
On Thursday, the Supreme Court issued two 5-4 rulings affecting National Institutes of Health (NIH) research grant cuts tied to DEI efforts.
The rulings stem from American Public Health Association (APHA) et al. v. NIH, a case filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in which the APHA, United Auto Workers, and others challenged the NIH’s mass termination of DEI-related grants as arbitrary and issued without proper notice.
The Court stayed (froze) the Massachusetts district judge’s order blocking the grant cancellations, holding that challenges to individual grant terminations must be brought in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims because it’s the proper venue for monetary claims against the government.
At the same time, the Court left in place the Massachusetts court’s separate finding that the NIH’s underlying guidance was likely unlawful.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett was the only justice in the majority of both rulings; in a concurring opinion, she explained that while policy challenges may proceed in district court, suit over canceled funding must be filed in the Court of Federal Claims.
The decision allows the federal government to resume canceling more than $780 million in NIH grants awarded to universities, nonprofits, and researchers nationwide.
So what? In March, when the NIH cuts first went into effect, 21 Penn research project grants were terminated. Earlier this month, the NIH reinstated funding for three Penn projects following an appeal process and federal court rulings. Now, the university (or related interest groups) may need to go to the Court of Federal Claims to attempt to win back funding for any DEI-related projects (a few of which have been cancelled). This is also not the end of the road, as Thursday’s decision was not a final ruling. Penn can expect more litigation surrounding NIH funding and potentially a long legal battle to reinstate funding.
Federal government issues new requirement for reporting of admitted students’ race, sex, and test scores
Announced this month, the Department of Education now requires colleges with “selective” admissions to report more detailed admissions data to ensure they are complying with the 2023 Supreme Court ban on race-based admissions.
The new Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement (ACTS) requires schools to submit data on race, sex, high school GPA, test scores, application cycle (Early vs. Regular Decision), family income, parental education levels, and other details for undergraduate applicants, admitted students, and the incoming class, with similar criteria for graduate students as well.
Universities have until early October to comment on the notice. Some scholars warn this plan may not be feasible, both for universities gathering data, and for the Department of Education (ED) processing it (considering ED recently cut half of its staff).
So what? There is a suspicion within the federal government that Penn and its peers are not adhering to the 2023 SCOTUS decision. This new check attempts to ensure admissions are following the ruling. However, last year, over 72,000 students applied to Penn undergrad alone. Gathering and processing data on all of these applicants requires time, energy and effort from Penn and its peers. While the school grapples with a new environment, currently on a nonessential staff hiring freeze, it will need to consider how to best allocate resources to match new requirements and current operations.
The fight for federal funding frozen over antisemitism and civil rights allegations continues at Penn’s peers, with UCLA curbing spending this week
This summer, Brown and Columbia have been in the spotlight for their settlements with the federal government related to antisemitism and other civil rights concerns. Public schools have now entered the fray, with the government seeking up to $1 billion from UCLA to restore federal funding and eligibility for future grants.
California Governor Gavin Newsom claims that the UC system will not settle and agree to “political extortion.” He spent the last few weeks criticizing the Ivies for their settlements, saying, “UCLA’s not gonna sell their soul like Harvard or Brown or Penn or Columbia. Shame on all of them.” Meanwhile, UCLA has paused faculty hiring for the upcoming academic year, citing the significant impact to operations of the $584 million of research funding already cut or at risk.
So what? So far, all of the universities that have successfully restored federal funding have done so through settlements, including Penn. Harvard is in ongoing litigation with the federal government, with some speculating the conflict will end with Harvard paying $500 million as part of a settlement. The processes, and outcomes, of both UCLA and Harvard’s negotiations with the federal government will likely set the tone, and legal precedent, for further funding freeze negotiations across higher education.
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