My younger son is a junior in high school, so our family is wading into the college search process and visiting college campuses. Because his favorite subject is AP Research, we’re focusing on colleges and universities where he’d potentially have opportunities to do undergraduate research and work closely with professors. Recently, we toured Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island; Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, Maryland; and William & Mary University, in Williamsburg, Virginia, and we’re planning a visit to Tufts University.

Unfortunately, in the weeks since we looked at these universities, they — and countless others — have been targeted by the Trump administration or become collateral damage in its sweeping political assault on higher education.

In his first 100 days in office, Donald Trump has threatened to withhold billions in federal funding from universities. Last week, his administration announced that it would block $510 million in federal contracts and grants for Brown University, among the latest elite universities at the time of this writing to be targeted by the administration’s repressive crackdown against alleged antisemitism on campuses. Last month, Johns Hopkins lost $800 million in grants and was forced to lay off more than 2,000 workers after the administration shuttered USAID and slashed funding for the National Institutes of Health, while a slew of other institutions announced that they were cutting staff, freezing hiring and/or reducing or rescinding graduate admissions as a result. Since then, many scientists, researchers, and entrepreneurs are understandably looking to leave the U.S., potentially taking medical and technological advances that could fuel U.S. competitiveness, innovation, and job growth with them.

Yet Trump shows no signs of abating. This week, Trump withheld $2 billion from Harvard University and is threatening to revoke their nonprofit status. At the time of this writing, more than 52 universities are under investigation by his administration for the supposed crime of promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion on their campuses and providing scholarships and support to under-represented students, which the White House equates with racial discrimination against white men. And it’s not just elite universities that are being targeted; many regional public universities are feeling the heat, too.

Even more frightening, the administration is undermining free speech and rights to due process on college campuses, as its ICE agents target international students for expressing their political views. Last week, an international student at Tufts University — which my younger son wants to visit — was snatched off the street by masked officers and imprisoned in Louisiana. A slew of international students have also had their visas cancelled recently for unknown reasons — including at the university my elder son attends. His roommate, who hails from India and is here on a student visa, says he worries it may be revoked if he goes back to India this summer to visit family. Sadly, his fears are justified. International students and faculty are now at “such high risk of detainment, deportation, or imprisonment” that universities like Brown are advising their “own to avoid travel outside the country for the foreseeable future,” according to a recent Atlantic article.

Meanwhile, in our home state of Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin recently adopted the Trump administration’s anti-DEI stance and has demonized efforts to promote racial and gender equality and is pushing state colleges to eliminate diversity, equity, & inclusion (DEI) programs and alter their curricula, despite student outrage and objections from 10 Virginia colleges, including William & Mary.

Needless to say, my sons are increasingly concerned about what’s happening, so much so that my younger son is considering expanding his search to universities in Canada, the U.K., and elsewhere. I can’t say I blame him. My heart also goes out to the students and faculty who are already being hurt by Trump’s directives. I fear that this administration’s escalating war on higher education could impact the college enrollment, finances, experiences, and safety of many students, including my sons — the elder of which already has student loans and is a sophomore at a university in the Northeast — to say nothing of their futures.

And I’m not alone.

Many families with college-age kids are rightly alarmed by what’s happening, and there’s growing fear that U.S. colleges, which until a few months ago were the envy of the world, won’t be the same next fall or going forward, especially if colleges lose students, are forced to make deep cuts to programs, staff, and offerings (as many of them surely will be), or kowtow to the administration. I know because this is becoming a regular topic of conversation at gatherings and outings with friends who have college-age kids.

Many of my friends are wondering whether their children should delay college or consider different options; a few say their kids are also thinking of going overseas. Meanwhile, parents like me are also wondering: Will colleges and universities be forced to raise tuition, reduce faculty, or cut programs? Will our children even have access to federal student aid and student loans next year? And, if not, how will they — not to mention the many U.S. students from lower-income backgrounds who rely more heavily on federal student aid and have fewer options than we do — afford college?

Trump assured the public that financial aid would remain unchanged, even as he and billionaire sidekicks Linda McMahon, and Elon Musk gleefully gutted the Department of Education (ED) — which made up a meager 4% of the federal budget — and various other key government agencies under the false guise of cost savings and efficiency. Now he’s intent on moving the federal student loan portfolio to the Small Business Administration, which is losing 40% of its workforce and is ill-equipped to oversee the FAFSA and federal student aid. The Trump administration is also purportedly planning to unleash more cuts on ED, research funding, and Pell grants (which are already facing a shortfall), change student loan forgiveness, and raise taxes on university endowments in the coming days, weeks, and months, so call me skeptical and consider me very anxious.

You should be skeptical and anxious, too, if you have college-age kids, because things could be worse than you think. The Atlantic’s Ian Bogost certainly seems to think so. He warns that “Yes, academic freedom is at stake, along with scientific progress,” free speech, and more, before dropping the bombshell that this could well be the “end of college life” as we know it in America.

I’m afraid he’s right, but let’s hope, for my children’s sake, your children’s sake, and all our sakes that this doesn’t happen.