OP has a legitimate reason to be upset, as does their daughter. I can only imagine how maddening and frustrating it is to have been accepted to a program, put down an enrollment deposit for that program, turn DOWN the other offers you’d received, emotionally get ready for living in NYC to attend NYU for a couple of years…and then boom, the rug is pulled out from under you and suddenly NO…you won’t be attending.
It sucks. It totally totally sucks. NYU should be ashamed of themselves for pausing admissions after the entire admissions cycle is over and done with.
The REASON for the admissions pause is kind of beside the point and, as the more recent posts in this thread have shown, discussing the reasons goes into the political realm and are up for very passionate debate.
Look at the situation from a different point of view:
What if this was your high school senior going through this? Where your HS senior had committed to Big Name University, turned down all of their other college acceptance offers, and AFTER the 5/1 enrollment deadline passes, THEN Big Name University says, “Oops, sorry, we’re not doing that major anymore after all. You can’t enroll for the fall.”
First, government grants are what pays for research un universities. Even private universities cannot simply use their endowments for research or for funding graduate students.
Second, not only are the grants fr research that were promised taken away, but universities are engaged in legal battles to protect their research. Any research program that included a section of broadening participation is under scrutiny. Any research program that MENTIONS past discrimination against women or minorities is under scrutiny. Research projects like the one that that was supposed to fund the OP’s daughter are under scrutiny and the administration is trying to shut them down under the claim that they are illegal.
The federal government is trying to force universities to shut down programs that have been identified as “DEI”, and I am absolutely certain that NYU’s MA in in Art, Education, and Community Practice is under scrutiny, and the administration will likely demand that NYU shut down this and similar programs.
Forget about funding - NYU is likely engaged in a legal battle to keep that program open. They cannot accept students to a program that may not be open in a year.
Alternatively, NYU may be behaving like some other universities and preemptively surrendering their academic freedom. One would have to see whether other MA programs were also affected.
So NYU may be the ones responsible for revoking all MA acceptances to this program, but that wouldn’t be because of lack of willingness to fund the students, but rather lack of willingness (or ability) to protect the programs from the federal government.
There are variants of this all the time though. Kids pick a specific college for a specific major, and shows up and discovers that the major is being downgraded to a “certificate” due to loss of faculty, funding, or whatever. Now you’ve got a kid who needs to either pick a different discipline or transfer- or pick an actual major which could work with a “certificate” (usually 3 or so courses- less than a minor) in a department which may only have two or three fulltime faculty and a bunch of adjuncts.
This is maddening for the OP, but escalating it to a screed about NYU ignores the dozens of colleges which do this every year. Let alone the ones who announce they are closing or being acquired, leaving the current juniors, sophomores and freshman wondering- “What the heck?”
I don’t hear much angst when colleges drop a foreign language major, eliminate entire departments, etc. But I get that NYU makes for a very tempting villain.
NYU easily closed one (or several small) MA programs since very few people would know and they do not think their reputation would suffer. Also program is 1-2 years max. There is no way if program would be eliminated next year they couldn’t let students to graduate. Again sorry, but all arguments abour fight in court etc. do not justify their behavior…
Somehow, I absolutely do not feel sorry for NYU. I feel very sorry for destroyed at least for year a life of the OP’s child.
Maybe not after the deadline, but there have been many reports in the news of acceptances being rescinded. HuffPost isn’t my favorite source, but it quotes from other sources that are paywalled.
Institutions are similar to individuals. Individuals will change their spending habits if they fear a recession, fear a shortage, or fear an increase in prices. It makes sense that universities are retracting in fear of what is to come. The politics of the moment are not in their favor.
I do fault NYU’s failure to give a full and true statement as to why they suspended the program at this point in time. I have seen letters of rescinded acceptances posted online that were very specific, and it was always about the loss of funding.
Just read the program description from NYU (emphasis mine):
Our community of socially engaged artists/designers, educators, and activists works together to create critical art interventions that catalyze social change. This intimate and interdisciplinary program connects art and social justice, grounded in a pedagogy of hope and possibility.
I am now firmly in the camp that argues this is a direct result of the current political climate.
While I sympathize with the plight of @MaineLonghorn 's daughter, she was basically sharing. At this point, there’s nothing to say that hasn not been said. So now the discussion has basically turned political. The flags are numerous, and the time required to edit posts is prohibitive, so I’m closing.
There are threads on the topic in the politics forum that users are welcome to contribute.
My daughter applied to a different grad school program at NYU - they gave her four days to submit the application, and it was a pretty big task. She just found out she was accepted!!! And they gave her a nice scholarship she didn’t receive before! I told her it’s a big compliment that they accepted her this late. It’s amazing they had money for her. The program is “Arts Politics.” She sent a description but I have no idea what it is. I’m not sure she does, either, but apparently she has a lot of leeway as to what classes she takes. What a rollercoaster!
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and at least NYU did something right.