AFT, AAUP Launch Nationwide Campaign, ‘Higher Education: Saving Lives, Building Futures, Powering the Economy’

WASHINGTON-The AFT and the American Association of University Professors, together representing the country's largest and most powerful force of higher education workers, launched a major national campaign Thursday to protect higher education from political and economic attacks.

The campaign, "Higher Education: Saving Lives, Building Futures, Powering the Economy," will run through the 2026 midterm elections not only to defend our institutions from the Trump administration's relentless pursuit of disastrous funding cuts and program eliminations, but to advance a vision of higher education as a democratic, accessible and transformative public good.

The campaign kicked off with a press conference with researchers, advocates and members of Congress; a six-figure digital and TV ad buy; and lobbying on Capitol Hill, where AFT and AAUP members will urge Congress to continue its long-standing bipartisan commitment to funding scientific research that saves and improves lives while giving students unparalleled opportunities to learn and contribute.

Leading up to the midterm elections, the AFT and AAUP will mobilize their more than 400,000 higher education members on campuses, in the streets and at the ballot box to protect our members' vital work and rebuild a higher education system that paves a pathway to opportunity for all students.

AFT President Randi Weingarten said: "Our members teach classes that transform students' lives, and they run labs that result in lifesaving medical research. They create opportunity and strengthen communities. But their crucial work is now under siege. Devastating funding cuts are halting medical discoveries and slashing support for students-all as political retribution from an administration that wants to redefine and limit opportunity and control knowledge. This higher education campaign is aimed at protecting our students, faculty and communities, including those who are suffering from debilitating diseases and businesses in need of a knowledgeable and skilled workforce. The AFT and AAUP's 400,000 members are ready to take this campaign from their campuses to the streets and the ballot boxes. When we fight for colleges and universities, we're fighting for everyone, because higher education is a public good."

President Donald Trump's big, ugly tax law slashes more than $300 billion in student aid, and the president has pursued aggressive cuts to federal science programs and grants. While polling shows 95 percent of voters want the U.S. to lead the world in medical research, grant cancellations and stop-work orders have blocked research to treat heart disease, Alzheimer's, cancer and more.

AAUP President Todd Wolfson said: "The Trump administration's attacks on higher education follow a well-worn authoritarian playbook. Like the courts and the press, public education is often targeted by those seeking to erode the foundations of a free society. We will not allow them to defund our institutions or dismantle the programs that create opportunity and expand access to a better future for all students. Higher education plays a critical role in advancing knowledge, fostering civic engagement, and promoting social and economic mobility-it is essential to a healthy democracy. Together-through advocacy, legal action, organizing and public mobilization-the AAUP and AFT are building collective power, and we are making real progress. We are fully aligned in this campaign: to put students first, protect lifesaving research, safeguard institutional autonomy, and ensure that higher education remains a public good and a cornerstone of democratic society."

The campaign begins by educating the American public and members of Congress on the dire impact of cuts to the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and other science funding as well as the need to protect programs that open up opportunity for students.

AFT and AAUP members will lobby lawmakers on Capitol Hill and in their districts, and through letter-writing campaigns and phone banks. They will urge lawmakers to:

• Boost fiscal 2026 funding for NIH and NSF.
• Continue to prohibit the administration from unilaterally changing the formula for how grant funds are disbursed, which seriously endangers key operations at colleges and universities.
• Strengthen oversight efforts to ensure federal grants are disbursed according to law, based on independent scientific processes and free from political interference.
• Protect access to education by opposing cuts to student aid, including Pell grants, TRIO programs to support first-generation college students, loan programs to support graduate students, and income-based repayment plans that protect college grads against default.

Members will then bring the campaign to campuses and communities, fighting back at the state and local levels against program cuts and layoffs and proactively pushing legislation to protect and enhance higher education, all while continuing to fight in the courts and strengthen our coalitions with student groups, civic organizations, alumni groups and the local business communities.

Along with our coalition partners, the AFT and AAUP will turn our resources and our power toward taking back Congress in 2026. The unions will fight for candidates who will advance a progressive, pro-higher education agenda at the state, local and federal levels.

During the AFT and AAUP news conference, Annelise Mennicke, a researcher at the UNC Charlotte Violence Prevention Center, said she knows violence can be prevented through federally funded research that allows scientists to develop and test innovative solutions, "but now funding uncertainty threatens that work-and opportunities for students."

NIH funding advocate Lauren Kerner said her late brother received the first pediatric neural stem cell transplant ever during a clinical trial at Oregon Health & Science University in 2006. Lessons learned during that trial, made possible by NIH-funded research, have since shaped research into Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injuries and more, she said. "Daniel's story shows what is possible," she said. "It is up to Congress to ensure that possibility turns into cures-for the children and families who cannot wait."

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The AFT represents 1.8 million pre-K through 12th-grade teachers; paraprofessionals and other school-related personnel; higher education faculty and professional staff; federal, state and local government employees; nurses and healthcare workers; and early childhood educators.