Tag Archive for: University of Minnesota

Universities Sit On Billion-Dollar Endowments While Jacking Up Tuition

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Several universities are hiking tuition prices and cutting jobs despite sitting on massive endowments.

Universities are largely blaming the Trump administration’s federal funding cuts for the price increases, but many schools have seen steady rises in tuition for decades and overall increased revenue all while nursing their ever-growing endowments. 

Cornell University is raising its tuition rate by over 4%, bringing the cost to $71,266 for out-of-state students and $48,010 for in-state students, while Duke University’s tuition will jump by nearly 5% to $92,042.

Duke’s price hike marks a 123% increase over the past two decades, despite its endowment steadily increasing over time to about $5 billion. The university’s 2023-2024 fiscal year financial report admitted that the school’s “growth in revenue outpaced expenses.”

At the time, Duke was charging students $83,263 in tuition and other fees and collecting a total of approximately $1 billion in gross tuition and fees even after accounting for financial aid deductions, making up 15% of its total revenue.

Duke is also working to reduce its workforce, offering voluntary buyout agreements to employees. The packages include financial incentives and healthcare in exchange for a three-year separation from the university, in which they can reapply after that period.

Duke did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

Weighing similar staffing cuts, Cornell blamed the Trump administration’s federal research grant terminations, saying the university now faces “profound financial challenges.” Cornell announced it was pausing hiring as it reviewed its “programs and headcount.”

As of 2024, Cornell brings in over $900 million from tuition costs and student fees every year, according to its financial records. Cornell’s endowment is valued at approximately $10.7 billion as of 2024, returning about 10% every year.

Cornell did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

Several public universities like the University of Michigan (UM) and the University of Minnesota (UMN) are also raising costs by as much as 7.5% for some students while cutting programs and student services.

UMN is raising its rates by 6.5% for in-state and 7.5% for out-of-state students, also pointing to federal cuts. The school operates on a budget of over $5 billion, with a total systemwide endowment of $6 billion.

UMN did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

Tuition costs at the University of Michigan (UM) will rise by over 3% for in-state students and just under 5% for out-of-state students while sitting on a nearly $18 billion endowment. The university is blaming ” budgetary impacts of federal actions” and “economic and legislative uncertainty,” according to a June announcement.

A UM spokesman directed the DCNF to the university’s public statement.

College tuition costs have been on the rise for decades, with price increases mostly outpacing inflation. Increased federal financial aid to students has been attributed by some studies to the inflated costs.

The Trump administration has cut billions in grants and contracts to universities, targeting programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) topics or universities that allegedly fail to comply with federal civil rights laws.

AUTHOR

Jaryn Crouson

Education Reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: Harvard, MIT Use Law To Limit Legal Payouts While Sitting On Endowments Worth Billions

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All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Tim Walz Suggests ICE Is ‘Trump’s Modern-Day Gestapo’ In Commencement Speech

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Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz compared the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel executing the Trump administration’s immigration agenda to the Gestapo in a Saturday commencement address at the University of Minnesota law school.

President Donald Trump issued several executive orders to address illegal immigration and border security, including designating Mexican drug cartels and South and Central American gangs as foreign terrorist organizations, and the president has also invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to speed up the deportation of gang members. Walz, the failed Democratic nominee for vice president in 2024, suggested during the speech that Trump is using ICE to implement his immigration agenda in similar fashion to how Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler used the Gestapo secret police to target opponents, according to RealClearPolitics.

“Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets,” Walz claimed. “They’re in unmarked vans, wearing masks, being shipped off to foreign torture dungeons—no chance to mount a defense, not even a chance to kiss a loved one goodbye, just grabbed up by masked agents, shoved into those vans, and disappeared.”

WATCH:

“To be clear, there’s no way for us to know whether they were actually criminals or not, because they refused to give them a trial,” Walz continued. “We’re supposed to just take their word for it.”

Democrats initially rallied around Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an adjudicated member of MS-13 deported to El Salvador in March, as a symbol of resistance to Trump’s immigration policies, and several members of Congress — including Democratic Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen — traveled to El Salvador to visit Abrego Garcia. The Trump administration released a 13-page dossier detailing the evidence suggesting that Abrego Garcia is a MS-13 gang member in April, which included rulings from immigration courts that found he was a member of the El Salvadoran prison gang.

Recent polling indicates that 48.3% of Americans approve Trump’s approach to immigration so far, and that 48.9% disapprove, according to RealClearPolling. A White House fact sheet released in late April showed that border crossings, migrant encounters and “gotaways” were all down by 93% or more through the first 100 days of the Trump administration.

Walz also claimed Trump was trying to intimidate members of Congress, referencing a chaotic May 9 incident involving Democratic New Jersey Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman, LaMonica McIver and Rob Menendez Jr. outside an ICE facility in Newark, New Jersey. The Democratic lawmakers denied wrongdoing in a May 11 appearance on CNN.

Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy toured the ICE facility in Newark and describer her observations during a Monday appearance on “Fox and Friends.”

“ICE has nothing to hide,” Campos-Duffy said. “They have nothing to be ashamed of. This facility is so clean. It has, you know, all kind of recreation facilities, outdoor soccer field, weight equipment, domino tables. It has telephones everywhere with signs next to them of how they can, phone numbers to reach their consulate and also legal facilities, computer web cams.”

“There are doors on the bedrooms and they aren’t even locked,” Campos-Duffy continued. “The facility actually looks like a high school.”

Walz is considered a possible Democratic candidate for president in the 2028 election cycle.

AUTHOR

Harold Hutchison

Reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

ICE Arrests Another International Student As State Department Revokes 300 Foreign Student Visas

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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested a University of Minnesota (UMN) graduate student Thursday as the Department of State moved to revoke about 300 foreign student visas.

UMN authorities announced the ICE arrest occurred at an off-campus residence, calling the situation “deeply disturbing.” The Minnesota Daily vaguely identified the graduate student as an international student in the university’s  Carlson School of Management.

“The University had no prior knowledge of this incident and did not share any information with federal authorities before it occurred,” university leadership said. They also offered mental health support to any member of the university distressed by the incident.

“Carlson School staff have been in close contact, monitoring the situation and helping connect the student with resources and support,” Dean Jamie Prenkert wrote, adding that “[i]n the current climate, detentions like these deeply affect our community.”

The arrest occurred as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, while meeting Thursday with Guyanese President Irfaan Ali, told reporters the State Department had revoked an estimated 300 international student visas.

“It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa,” Rubio said.

Prospective international students who intend to join “movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus” will not receive study visas, Rubio added. Should such students receive their visas under false pretenses and then join such movements while in the U.S., they would lose their visas, he said.

“Now, once you’ve lost your visa, you’re no longer legally in the United States, and we have a right, like every country in the world has a right, to remove you from our country. So it’s just that simple,” Rubio told reporters.

ICE arrested Columbia University student and prominent pro-Palestine protester Mahmoud Khalil on March 8. The State Department revoked his green card as prosecutors argued Khalil did not disclose his work with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) while applying to be a U.S. legal permanent resident.

Fellow Columbia student Ranjani Srinivasan fled the U.S. for Canada after her study visa was revoked. In a letter to a France-based group of pro-Palestine academics narrating her experience, she alleged the university cooperated with law enforcement to target her.

Yunseo Chung, another Columbia student and legal permanent resident, became the object of an ICE search and decided to sue the Trump administration, The New York Times reported. U.S. District Court Judge Naomi Buchwald reportedly ruled Tuesday that ICE must stop trying to arrest and deport Chung. 

“After the constant dread in the back of my mind over the past few weeks, [Buchwald’s] decision feels like a million pounds off of my chest. I feel like I could fly,” Chung told The Guardian.

Rumesya Ozturk, a 30-year-old Tufts University student, was also taken off the street Tuesday. U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper issued a temporary restraining order Friday blocking her deportation, The Associated Press reported.

In addition, ICE asked twice-suspended Cornell University international student Momodou Taal to surrender after he preemptively sued the Trump administration.

AUTHOR

John Oyewale

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

University Spent Over $200,000 On ‘Diversity’ Course Teaching Physicians That Healthcare Is Racist

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The University of Minnesota (UMN) paid over $200,000 to develop a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) training program that teaches medical professionals that healthcare is fundamentally racist, according to documents received by the medical watchdog Do No Harm and shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The training, developed by Diversity Science, is intended to educate healthcare professionals on obstetric care for black and indigenous women, which the training dubs “birthing people,” and highlights perceived “structural racism” in healthcare practices. Moreover, UMN’s DEI office blames “white supremacy” for certain disparities in perinatal care, and trains providers to view the development of medicine and the healthcare system as tainted with racism, documents obtained by Do Not Harm reveal.

The hour-long training is intended to address individual biases and racial stereotypes in the healthcare industry, and is in response to a new law requiring certain hospitals to complete an education course on anti-racism and implicit bias, according to the Minnesota Health Department website.

The training video presents a timeline starting from 1619 to today describing medical racism throughout history. Although the program explains the importance of knowing the history before understanding the problems, the timeline provided does not acknowledge the Civil Rights movement or any progress made between 1914 to the present, according to documents provided by Do Not Harm.

Moreover, within the first module, the training quotes the American Medical Association (AMA)’s CEO, and argues that the existence of “structural racism” in healthcare is an incontrovertible fact.

“Structural racism exists in the U.S. and in medicine, genuinely affecting the health of all people, especially people of color and others historically marginalized in society,” AMA CEO James Madara said.

“This is not opinion or conjecture, it [structural racism] is proven in multiple studies, through the science and in the evidence,” the training states.

The university spent $219,633.00 to develop the course, the Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported.

A training video titled “Dignity in Pregnancy & Childbirth: Preventing Racial Bias in Perinatal Care” states that “80% of the deaths of black birthing people are preventable.” However, the CDC states that 84% of pregnancy-related deaths were determined to be preventable, referring to the overall maternal mortality rate among women of all races.

The Diversity Science website states that they are an “evidence-based organization” that provides clients with real-world knowledge and effective programs.

The course is “part of an initiative whose goal is to ensure that Black and Indigenous women and birthing people achieve their full potential for healthy and productive lives,” according to Diversity Science’s website. The project’s goal is “to empower perinatal care providers with the foundational knowledge, insights and skills they need to ensure that Black and Indigenous women and birthing people receive fully equitable patient-centered, respectful, high-quality care free of bias and discrimination.”

The University of Minnesota and the Minnesota Health Department did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

NICOLE LITTLEFIELD

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Minnesota leads the U.S. in Muslims who have tried to join the Islamic State

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“Minnesota leads the nation in would-be ISIL terrorists from U.S., report finds,” by Paul McEnroe and Allison Sherry, Star Tribune, September 29, 2015:

Minnesota leads the nation in the number of people who have left or sought to leave the country to fight with terrorists aligned with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Syria, according to a scathing congressional report that says the U.S. and western countries have failed to disrupt the flow of combatants to the Middle East.

Released Tuesday by the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security, the report specifically cites two Somali-American Minnesotans who joined or tried to join ISIL, highlighting its online recruiting success through peer-to-peer recruiting that relies on social media and sophisticated online messaging techniques.

Young fighters from at least 19 states have tried to join terrorists in Syria since the start of that country’s civil war in 2011. Minnesota recruits made up 26 percent of the sample of 58 cases reviewed by the committee’s bipartisan task force. California and New York had the second most recruits, with each state making up 12 percent, according to findings.

“This report is alarming and it’s really very worrisome,” said Sadik Warfa, deputy director of the Global Somali Diaspora based in Minneapolis.

Sadik-Warfa

Sadik Warfa

And how is it alarming and worrisome to Sadik Warfa? Because he is opposed to jihad terror and ashamed of the role his community has had in it? Nope. Guess again:

“I worry about the stigma and the prospect of our community being marginalized.

Ah, yes. You’re not surprised, are you? Warfa, like virtually every other Muslim leader in the U.S. and Europe when confronted with the reality of jihad activity in his community, is playing the victim. The problem, as far as he is concerned, is not Muslims from Minnesota joining the Islamic State; it’s the “backlash” that is looming, but never quite arrives, against the Muslim community. This is, as always, an attempt to deflect attention away from the jihad activity and, by portraying Muslims as victims, make them the recipients of solicitude, rather than scrutiny, from government and law enforcement.

But in the end, it’s up to us as Somali-Americans to really change our image. And as Minnesotans, we need to be asking what can we do to put these kinds of people into our mainstream here instead of over there.”

Yes, that’s what we need: a large number of Islamic State-aligned jihadis in the American mainstream instead of in the Islamic State. What could possibly go wrong?

More than 250 Americans have attempted or succeeded in reaching Syria and Iraq to fight with terrorist groups, intelligence officials estimate. “We have largely failed to stop Americans from traveling overseas to join jihadists,” the task force declared. “A handful of suspects were stopped in other countries, but it appears the majority — 85 percent — still managed to evade American law enforcement on its way to the conflict zone.”

The task force said it could identify only 28 cases in which federal authorities stopped suspects before they left for the Middle East. Eight of those involved Minnesotans who conspired since March 2014 to leave the U.S. for Syria but who were stopped by FBI agents. Those men, all Somali-Americans, are in custody. Three have pleaded guilty in recent weeks to conspiring to join ISIL….

At least four men with Minnesota roots have been killed fighting for ISIL. Intelligence officials say that overall, more than 20 Americans who joined the group have died.

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of Muslim Student Association President and architecture senior Amer Sassila prays in a secluded area in Rapson Hall University of Minnesota on Tuesday. Photo by Chelsea Gortmaker/Minnesota Daily.