When you’re about to graduate, every conversation eventually grabs you by the collar, ties your arms behind your back, and waterboards you with the dreaded question: ‘So… what’s next?’ Each time you come up for air it’s more urgent.
But fear not. I’ve trained for this. First breath: ‘A master’s degree’, I gasp. Next dunk. ‘And then?’ they demand. I reply: ‘Starts with a P, ends with a D — and has an H in the middle.’ Usually, that’s enough to end the interrogation.
But the other day, in my usual waterboard position, my torturer — Aunt Susan — upped the stakes. ‘Staying in academia is risky’, she said. And that’s when I cracked. ‘No, Aunt Susan. What I really want is risky. I said ‘academia’ to make the questions stop. Academia is the safety net.’ She just raised an eyebrow. ‘Well’, she said, ‘Your safety net has some holes in it.’
Every few years, academia collectively holds its breath — not over grades or thesis deadlines (though those are terrifying too), but over budget proposals. Like clockwork, the pendulum swings: funding rises, then falls, then someone with bad hair yells about ‘wasteful universities’ and suddenly we’re debating whether society really needs research into cancer cures or climate change. Spoiler: we do.
The pendulum is swinging back again – hard, with the usual rumblings of education cuts. Trump may be the headline, but he’s just the shiny distraction. Behind the scenes are the think tanks, lobbyists, and corporate interests who quietly benefit when education is framed as a cost instead of an investment.
Trump may be the headline, but he’s just the shiny distraction
Everything from physics labs to philosophy departments are on the guillotine. You don’t just defund universities — you defund future cures, innovations, and the people who might’ve invented them if only their lab hadn’t turned into a glorified storage unit.
But maybe not all research deserves funding. Not every thesis is a treasure, and not every chemical is a cure. But the people deciding what counts as ‘worthy’ are often the least qualified to make that call. Politicians, donors, and bureaucrats obsessed with return on investment wouldn’t know a groundbreaking discovery if it bit them in the endowment.
That’s the real danger. When research is judged solely by how fast it turns a profit, we get flashy deliverables instead of deep understanding.
Anyone in academia for more than a day – déjà vu. Panic. Protests. The same pendulum swing — from idealism to austerity. Universities are asked to do more with less, while the ones shaping policy do less with more. It’s always easier to slash a science grant than a defence contract.
So, to answer your question, Aunt Susan: yes, it’s grim. But the pendulum always swings back. The real trick? Make sure it doesn’t knock us out cold on the way through.
CARLA ERASMUS