Why Colleges Are Cutting More Programs at Once — and How Parents Can Help Teens Plan
The kitchen timer beeped at 8:40, and neither of us moved. My daughter Maya had five college tabs open, a half-empty mug of tea, and a spreadsheet where every school was color-coded green, yellow, or red. I was sorting through the mail, trying to look calmer than I felt.
“Three U.S. colleges cut 113 programs in 10 days,” she said. “This October. Not one major here and one major there. A hundred and thirteen.”
She turned her laptop toward me. The headline was real, even if the number felt too large to absorb. I started to say the kind of thing parents say when they want the evening to feel smaller: That probably won’t happen to your schools. But I stopped, because I didn’t know that anymore.
Like a lot of parents, I still pictured program cuts as slow, isolated events. A small department loses enrollment. A committee meets. There are appeals, public comments, maybe a reprieve. By the time anyone hears about it, the decision has been discussed for months. Maya was looking at a different pattern: colleges eliminating clusters of majors, minors, certificates, and graduate tracks in a single budget decision, sometimes before applicants even finish their applications.
The number itself needs translating. “Programs” does not mean 113 identical four-year majors. It can include bachelor’s degrees, master’s tracks, concentrations, certificates, and minors. But that distinction does not make the news less unsettling for a 17-year-old who has just found a college that finally feels like a fit.
Maya wants to study marine science. The coastal school she liked had a research vessel, an internship program, and exactly the kind of small classes she wanted. She pushed her laptop away and said, “What if I apply, get in, and they delete the major before I even start?”
That question is not just practical. It is developmental. Teenagers are trying on identities, and a major can feel less like an academic choice and more like an answer to Who am I allowed to become? When programs disappear in batches, the usual reassurance — pick a school, follow the plan, graduate in four years — sounds less reliable. I did not want to tell Maya not to worry. I wanted to give her something to check.
We started by separating the admissions website from the academic catalog. The admissions page is marketing: bright photos, sample careers, encouraging language. The catalog is where a college usually lists which programs are active, suspended, or under review. Maya and I looked up her target major, then checked whether the required upper-level courses were actually scheduled for the next two semesters. If a specialized program depends on one professor, one lab, or courses offered every other year, it is more fragile than its polished webpage suggests.
Then I helped her write an email to admissions. Teens often assume they are bothering people, but colleges expect these questions. Her note said:
“Is the marine science program currently accepting new first-year students for fall 2025? Is it under any program review that could lead to suspension or elimination? If the program changes before I enroll, what options are available to admitted students?”
A written answer matters more than an enthusiastic conversation at a college fair. It may not guarantee anything, but it creates a record and gives a clearer answer than a screenshot from a student forum.
We also changed how Maya built her list. Instead of asking, “Does this college have my major?” she began asking, “Does this college have at least two reasonable paths if my first major changes?” For marine science, her backups included biology, environmental science, and sustainability. Some of those paths overlap heavily in the first two years, which makes switching less costly.
That last word — costly — matters. A program cut can push students into extra semesters, summer courses, or a transfer where not every credit moves. Maya and I looked at net-price calculators and compared each school’s estimated graduation rate with its internship and transfer options. A dream program is less useful if disappearing means paying for a fifth year.
I learned this from a friend whose son was in an arts management program that was cut during his sophomore year. The college offered a “teach-out,” meaning current students were supposed to have a way to finish. But several required classes vanished, advising became inconsistent, and he eventually transferred. He liked his new school, but he lost credits and had to rebuild his social life. Most families know about teach-outs only after they need one.
For current students, the practical steps are similar but more urgent: save the catalog edition from the year they entered, meet an adviser in writing, map remaining courses each semester, and ask exactly which classes will be available if the program closes. For high school applicants, the goal is not certainty. It is avoiding a plan with only one door.
At school, Maya’s college counselor spent twenty minutes in homeroom showing students how to search a college website for “program review,” “academic prioritization,” and “student consumer information.” That small lesson changed the tone in the room. Students stopped scrolling through headlines and started asking better questions. One boy said, “So I shouldn’t apply somewhere just because they have a cool YouTube video about the major.” The counselor laughed and said, “Apply because the courses are there.”
At home, we also had to manage the way the news was feeding Maya’s anxiety. College talk had spread from homework time into dinner, bedtime, and the quiet minutes before school. We set a simple rule: college planning happens at the kitchen table, after dinner, for thirty minutes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If Maya sees an alarming headline at 11 p.m., she puts it in a note on her phone and brings it to the next planning session. Her phone now charges in the kitchen overnight, not beside her bed.
This is not about ignoring the problem. It is about containing it. Adolescents can handle real uncertainty better than adults sometimes assume, but they need boundaries around it. A headline in bed becomes proof that everything is unstable. A printed spreadsheet at the table becomes a set of questions.
Last weekend, Maya moved the coastal school from her “dream” column to “possible, with backup.” She still loves the research vessel and the nearby estuaries. She also found three other schools where she could start in biology and move toward coastal research without betting her entire first year on one program. She has not crossed the school off her list, but she is no longer treating its course catalog as a promise.
We still do not know which programs will exist next fall, or which colleges will announce larger cuts in the spring. Maya’s spreadsheet will probably change again. What seems to work is smaller than a guarantee: checking the catalog, asking direct questions, keeping two paths open, and closing the laptop at a reasonable hour. The future is less neat than the color-coded chart, but at least she is reading the fine print now.
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