When U.S. Colleges Cut Programs in Bulk: What Parents and High School Seniors Should Do Before Applying
The pasta water had just started boiling when Maya stabbed her laptop screen with one fingernail. “It says the audio production major is paused,” she said. “Paused? What does that even mean? Is it there or not?”
I wiped my hands on my jeans and leaned over. She was on the website of a college she had visited in September, the one with the student podcast studio and the equipment closet she had not stopped describing for two days. The program page redirected to a broader media studies page. A small banner said new students were not being accepted into the concentration at this time.
Maya is seventeen. Until that moment, her college list had existed in her mind like a set of fixed streets: choose a school, choose a major, follow four years of numbered courses. Now one of those streets had a barrier across it.
Later that night, I saw the higher-education reports: three U.S. colleges cut 113 programs in ten days this October. Most people still picture cuts happening one program at a time—a small department, a board vote, a year of warnings. But these changes came in bundles. Majors, minors, and concentrations disappeared or were consolidated while applicants were still writing supplemental essays and current students were halfway through the semester.
At breakfast the next morning, Maya tried to reassure herself. “Maybe it’s temporary. Maybe they’ll bring it back.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But we can’t plan around maybe.”
I did not want to give her the usual parent speech about keeping an open mind. She was already doing her best. The problem was not her attitude. The problem was that the information she had been using was no longer reliable.
I thought about a friend’s daughter, Lila, a sophomore at one of the schools making cuts. She had learned about her program’s phaseout in a group chat while sitting in a computer lab. The official email arrived three hours later. The college promised a “teach-out,” meaning students already in the program could finish, but the details were thin. Two required courses were only offered in alternating falls. One professor was leaving. The study-abroad pathway tied to the major was gone.
Lila’s mother kept saying, “They can’t just do this.” But they could, provided they gave notice and offered a path to completion. That path might involve extra advising, summer classes, or a revised major. It might not look like the plan Lila had enrolled for.
This is the shift families are now living with. A college catalog is not a contract. It is a schedule and a marketing document, and parts of it can change between a campus tour and freshman orientation. Applicants rarely receive a personal note that says, “The major you liked last spring is under review.” Current students may receive a PDF, a Zoom meeting link, and an advising appointment they have to schedule themselves.
After dinner that night, Maya and I opened a spreadsheet. I did not tell her to be flexible. I said, “Let’s make the plan easier to change.”
We made columns for the college, intended major, date we checked the program page, backup major, admissions contact, and whether scholarships were tied to the major. We set a timer for thirty minutes because I knew she would shut down if this turned into another all-night college session. Her phone stayed on the counter. Uncertainty becomes much larger when it lives in eighteen open browser tabs.
For each school, she sent a short email. Her script was simple:
“I’m applying for fall 2026 and I’m interested in the audio production program. Is it accepting first-year students? Is it currently under review or likely to be consolidated? If it changes after I enroll, where can I find the plan for students already in the program?”
Some answers were generic. One department chair called her and explained that the major was closed to new students but that she could enter media studies, take production courses, and still complete a related minor. That phone call moved the school from “excited” to “possible, with conditions.”
We also looked for backup majors that shared first-year courses. At one college, audio production, journalism, and media studies had overlapping introductory classes, so Maya could start in media studies without losing much time. At another, the production courses were restricted to majors, which made the backup much less useful. We wrote that down too.
For current students like Lila, the questions were different. Her mother and I made a short list before her advising meeting:
– Can I have a written degree plan showing the courses I still need?
– Which semesters will those courses be offered through my expected graduation date?
– What happens if a required course is canceled or under-enrolled?
– Can I take equivalent courses at a partner school and transfer them back?
– Does my scholarship remain the same if I change majors?
Lila asked these in an email instead of mentioning them after class by the classroom door. When her advisor first said, “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine,” she replied, “Thank you. Could you confirm the fall and spring course offerings and which ones count toward the teach-out requirements?” That created a record without being confrontational.
High school seniors are being asked to make early career and identity decisions while the planning part of the brain is still getting comfortable with last-minute changes. A teenager can spend three weeks researching a major and experience its elimination as proof that nothing is stable. Teachers and counselors can help by treating program verification as a normal skill, not a panic response. A ten-minute class activity could involve pulling up a college catalog, checking whether a program is accepting students, noting the date, and finding two related majors. That is more useful than simply telling students to “keep options open.”
We also changed the environment around college work. Maya’s laptop no longer went to bed with her. Applications and program checks happened at the kitchen table after dinner, in short sessions. If she started refreshing the student newspaper for rumors about more cuts, I would ask whether she wanted to add the question to her notes or close the laptop until Sunday. Sometimes she added the question. Usually she closed it.
She has now applied to two schools as a media studies major with production as a planned minor. Her main essay is still about the podcasts she makes, the interviews she conducts in her closet with a cheap microphone, and the way sound changes what people remember. She also has one affordable option where the program appears stable and a backup plan that starts with general-education courses at a community college.
None of this is settled. Acceptance letters have not arrived. Financial aid packages have not arrived. Another board meeting could change another webpage. Lila is staying at her school for now, switching to communications and trying to hold onto an audio minor; she is frustrated, and she is still keeping transfer syllabi in a folder.
Last night Maya updated the “date checked” column in the spreadsheet and said, “This is weird, but at least I know what to ask now.” Then she closed the laptop and went to finish her laundry.
The spreadsheet is not armor. It will not stop a program from closing or protect anyone from bad budget decisions. It is just a way to keep looking, ask in writing, and make the next choice without starting from zero. For this October, that feels like enough.
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