On June 1, The New School in New York City issued layoff notices to 19 full time faculty, 10 of them tenured, and 68 staff members. The cuts are part of a restructuring that will consolidate the university's four colleges into two, discontinue 23 majors and 16 minors, and pause doctoral admissions across nearly all PhD programs for the 2026 27 academic year, including sociology, philosophy, economics, and politics. The restructuring addresses a projected USD 48 million deficit for fiscal 2026, following three consecutive years of structural shortfalls exceeding USD 30 million. Enrollment has dropped from a peak of 10,469 students in 2021 to approximately 8,900, a 20% decline concentrated in liberal arts. With 85% of revenue dependent on tuition, dining, and residence, each cohort of 500 fewer students costs roughly USD 15 million. The doctoral programs alone ran an estimated USD 17 million annual deficit. Under the plan, Parsons School of Design and the College of Performing Arts will merge into one college, and Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts and the New School for Social Research will merge into another, effective this fall. Combined with a prior round of voluntary buyouts that reduced the workforce by 9%, the total headcount reduction reaches 15%. The university will employ 65 fewer full time faculty in fall 2026 than the year before. President Joel Towers has set a target of a balanced budget by fiscal year 2028 and an operating surplus by 2030. The AAUP issued a statement condemning what it called a "corporate takeover of the university," attributing the deficit to "years of corporate consultant overreach, poor executive decision making, real estate debacles, and ever bloating executive salary costs." The local AAUP chapter alleged that several layoffs appeared "politically motivated and retaliatory", targeting faculty who had been the most prominent critics of the restructuring. In March, over 100 faculty, students, and staff marched down West 12th Street and hand delivered a 10 foot long letter and a petition signed by 1,650 people to Towers's office. On May Day, academic unions from across New York rallied outside the university's center. The New School is not alone in firing tenured faculty. New Jersey City University laid off 33 faculty including 24 with tenure ahead of a merger with Kean University. Portland State entered formal retrenchment for a USD 35 million deficit. Idaho State eliminated 45 positions. Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences is restructuring to close a USD 365 million deficit that could result in up to 25% staff cuts, driven in part by the endowment tax increase from 1.4% to 8%. Across US higher education, an estimated 27,000 students have been displaced and roughly 13,000 jobs lost in the current wave of cuts. What makes The New School's case distinctive is the institution it claims to be. Founded in 1919 as a refuge for scholars fleeing political persecution, it later became the University in Exile during World War II. Its identity has been built on intellectual dissent, interdisciplinary inquiry, and the humanities. The restructuring eliminates much of what remains of that mission. The doctoral programs being paused are the direct descendants of the programs that once sheltered Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss. Towers has framed the restructuring as a response to a "rapidly changing world" and promised "innovation in doctoral studies" through new practice based and industry facing programs. The AAUP's counter narrative is that the crisis is the product of administrative choices, not market forces, and that the layoffs are designed to silence the faculty most likely to say so. Whether the restructured New School retains enough of its original character to justify the name is a question the Board of Trustees has chosen not to answer.