FROM INSIDE HIGHER EDUCATION: “Academic freedom has deteriorated in 50 countries over the past decade while improving in just nine, according to a report that also warns that the decline in university autonomy in the United States has been faster than in places such as Hungary, India, and Turkey. The findings were published in the latest edition of the Academic Freedom Index, an annual benchmarking report compiled by researchers at Germany’s University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. In the U.S., institutional autonomy has deteriorated 50 percent since 2015 and is now rated only “moderate” by country experts. The report says the decline in the U.S. began in 2020, driven mostly by state-level actions by officials aligned with the Make America Great Again movement, which then accelerated sharply in 2025 under the second Trump administration.”