Degrees of Disinvestment

Earlier this month, the semester began, and already it was clear that something was off. I heard around campus that many students were still waiting on their financial aid packages a week in. Others were locked out of course registration or scrambling to cover rent. Hearing their stories was like watching a slow unraveling. It’s not just about paperwork, it’s about how Yale is handling grad students like an afterthought.

Over the summer, we collectively learned while interviewing for jobs that many Teaching Fellow positions at YSOA were either cut or downgraded to lower-paid Course Assistant roles. This was a tough blow, especially for those of us who recall last year’s issues between students and the YSOA administration over academic employment. Many of us came here hoping to learn how to teach, gain experience, and pass on knowledge. The loss of these roles doesn’t just reduce job opportunities and academic training for graduate students; it also affects the quality of education for both undergraduates and graduates.

What makes this even more frustrating is knowing Yale’s enormous endowment is over $40 billion. It’s a fortune that could easily solve these problems. Yet, instead of supporting students, the university tightens its belt on the very people who make this place run. This isn’t new––even before Trump’s administration tightened federal student loan caps and cut aid programs, institutions like Yale have long treated students like cash cows, raking in tuition while cutting back on the teaching roles and financial aid that make education meaningful and accessible. Now, with a significant new federal tax targeting large university endowments like Yale’s, the cost of hoarding that wealth is higher than ever.

I’m reminded of the documentary Ivory Tower, which shows how universities prioritize building shiny new campuses and fattening their endowments over investing in people. We see that here. Teaching roles that used to be chances for mentorship and growth are being eliminated or downgraded, financial aid packages delayed, and the burden of rising costs, reduced aid, and job insecurity is passed directly onto students. As federal funding shrinks and loan caps tighten, Yale’s enormous financial reserves could serve as a bulwark to protect students from these attacks. Instead, the university allows that burden to fall on us, revealing its value system: spectacle over substance.

On that note of spectacle, Yale is moving forward with plans for a new seven-story Dramatic Arts Building, set to house the David Geffen School of Drama, Yale Repertory Theatre, and the Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies departments. Approved by New Haven’s City Plan Commission in December 2024 and expected to be completed by 2029, the scale and ambition of this project indicate a massive financial commitment. While exact budget details haven’t been fully disclosed, public estimates place it in the hundreds of millions.

This semester, it’s become clear that while Yale invests in buildings, it is disinvesting in students and in our labor, our learning, and our voices. The new Dramatic Arts Building, funded in part by a donation from David Geffen, is often defended as a restricted gift. That response only highlights a deeper issue: when universities rely on billionaires to shape their future, they give up the power and the will to invest in students directly. Many of us are fighting just to hold onto teaching opportunities or secure basic funding, while the university pours resources into expansion. The contrast between this institutional ambition and the daily realities of student life is stark. Priorities feel deeply misaligned.

For students trying to push boundaries through their work and research, the tightening of budgets and roles isn’t the only challenge, the federal-level culture of surveillance and control around what we create and say looms over our heads. Even when contentious research topics are approved, they come with the caveat that any repercussions or consequences of the work would be placed on the shoulders of students. It’s exhausting to feel like the very structures that should nurture critical thinking and experimentation are instead being strong-armed to impose limits on our voices not only through austerity but through censorship as well.

It’s hard to watch all this and to realize that we are in school as the ivory towers of institutions are cracking in front of our eyes. Students are left in limbo, unsure if they can afford to stay, unable to freely pursue political projects for fear of censorship, and uncertain about their futures as teachers or scholars. The university’s wealth sits in contrast with our struggles. It’s hard not to think: why do institutions with such massive resources and platforms keep passing the pain and the responsibility of standing up to the war on higher education down to us?

Maybe there’s no simple fix. Maybe in the absence of institutional care, we have to build our own communities. Maybe that means creating our own spaces for learning, for teaching, for support, like the encampments we make to protest atrocities and the studios where we sketch, argue and build together. Maybe that’s the kind of architecture we need right now: not just new buildings on campus, but structures of solidarity and resistance.