University president Jonathan Levin ’94 and Provost Jenny Martinez spoke to admitted students and families in a Friday talk, acknowledging a difficult landscape for higher education while dismissing the possibility of “a significant impact” on undergraduates from funding cuts.
Levin and Martinez appeared with Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education James Hamilton, Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) President Diego Villegas Kagurabadza ’25 and ASSU Vice President Divya Ganesan ’25 M.S. ’26 on a panel at Memorial Auditorium. During the discussion, they fielded questions from prospective students and parents about how the Trump administration’s cuts to research funding in higher education would impact their Stanford experience.
Admitted students’ weekend took place just a few weeks after the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in grants for Harvard University. The funding fight escalated when Harvard president and Stanford Medicine professor emeritus Alan Garber M.D. ’83 refused to comply with the administration’s demands, which included eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs and banning masks at campus protests.
President Donald Trump has since suggested that Harvard could lose its tax exempt status, meaning donations to the school would not be tax deductible. Harvard, which received $465 million in tax benefits in 2023, would reportedly reduce financial aid as a result.
One adult audience member asked “What opportunities might go away and how would the books be rebalanced?” in the event of federal funding cuts or an endowment tax
Martinez responded, “As far as the undergraduate experience goes, in most of the scenarios I can foresee I don’t see there being a significant impact.”
She called the political environment “a very difficult landscape for higher education,” and emphasized the importance of showcasing Stanford’s value as a research university. Levin echoed Martinez, declaring that universities need “strong support from many people in the country… and strong understanding about the value that gets created on a campus like this.”
Martinez also acknowledged declining public trust in universities.
“We also have to be a little bit humble about some of the areas in which we have not lived up to our highest aspirations in recent years,” said Martinez, citing freedom of expression as an example. Martinez said she hopes to address criticism of universities for not “promoting an environment of free speech and freedom of expression,” an issue that stems from an “inability to engage in constructive discourse across disagreement.”
Martinez added that the administration is putting the University’s values at the “front and center” of their approach to decision-making.
Echoing Martinez, Levin saw a need to balance the autonomy of the University in decision making with remaining “sufficiently accountable to taxpayers,” as the University “[renegotiates] the contract under which [they] operate.”
“Academic freedom goes back more than one hundred years,” Levin added. He told the story of Edward Ross, a Stanford professor who was fired in 1900 by the founder of the University, Jane Stanford, for publicly expressing controversial and partisan views. Several faculty members quit in protest, which Levin claimed to be the birth of free speech for students and faculty on campus.