University is betting that AI will reel them back from Financial Instability

Photo Credit - University of New Haven

International student enrollment has plummeted at the University of New Haven. The university experienced a 17% loss in revenue between 2024 and 2025. After a year of contentious financial restructuring, the university is going ‘all in’ on Artificial Intelligence, looking to regain student enrollment.

Admission data at the university show a dramatic enrollment decline from 9,000 to 6,000. International students were often attracted by the Pompea College of Business and its competitive degree programs.

The Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence, announced in October 2025, looks to be an interdisciplinary program drawing elements from cybersecurity, engineering, criminal justice and business entrepreneurship.

“There is a huge demand in the job market for AI engineers and AI developers, particularly here in Connecticut,” says Vahid Behzadan, cited alongside Ardiana Sula as the AI program co-director.

“We live in the Age of AI,” says Sula, “and the future will depend on experts who can drive insights, innovation, and transformation across every industry.”

The program claims to be intentionally designed to address ethical issues associated with artificial intelligence, as marketed online on the university webpage. On both the course breakdown and press release are statements emphasizing “ethics and responsibility, preparing students to design AI systems that are reliable, trustworthy, and socially responsible.”

There are no required ethics or sociology courses listed on the MSAI program summary.

Connecticut’s job market does not reflect the promises made in the program description. Data journalism from Hard Reset sheds more light on a widening gap in AI implantation and job growth.

“A Harvard Business Review survey found that 60% of organizations have reduced headcount 'in anticipation of AI’s future impact'—not because AI is actually doing those jobs yet,” writes Jacob Ward, editor-in-chief of Popular Science, “Only 2% of companies said they made large layoffs tied to actual AI implementation.”

The ongoing debate around Artificial Intelligence does not receive direct acknowledgement from university officials. AI has several issues making headlines–the gross water pollution and waste in rural communities, shortages of nearly all computer memory components, rising electricity prices alongside data center usage, mass surveillance of minority groups, just to name a few.

Ethics is often poorly defined in academic curriculums and rarely reviewed for the effectiveness of teaching. Professors are not equipped enough to broadly tackle ethics within Artificial Intelligence, evidenced by ‘Teaching ethics in computing,’ a 2024 literature review published by researchers at the Association for Computing Machinery.

“The majority of the papers did not articulate a conception of “ethics,” and those that did used many different conceptions,” said study authors Noelle Brown, Benjamin Xie & others, “from broadly applicable ethical theories to social impact to specific computing application areas (e.g., data privacy and hacking).”

“Most computing faculty are not experts in philosophical frameworks, law, or broader social contexts that technology operates within,” the ACM literature review found.

As the program is set to be fully developed by Fall 2026, more assessments will need to be done to ensure ethical standards are being met.

Attempts to recover revenue included terminating the employment of 47 staff and faculty. Even higher administrators were not excluded from these workforce reductions. Barbara Lawrence, Vice President for Institutional Equity and Diversity, as well as the Title IX coordinator and the chief diversity officer, had her position eliminated in May of 2025.

“In a way, I was not too-too surprised of all the DEI cuts that have been happening all over,” said Jurea McIntosh, former Assistant Director for Fraternity and Sorority Life & Programming, or FSL.

“I didn't think the university, you know, would make a cut like that,” said McIntosh. “You always think like in your space that nothing can touch you, you know, until it does.”

President Frederiksen has previously declined speaking to students about what he deemed “faculty matters” or “personnel issues.”

The impact of federal immigration policy was predicted as early as March 2025. At the time, the budget division was crafting the funding proposal for the ‘25 to ‘26 fiscal year. Recent reporting from the Hartford Courant suggests Frederiksen does not view these heavy employment reductions as ‘layoffs.’

In a leaked memo titled “Important Update on the State of the University,” addressed to faculty members on Feb. 2 before reaching the Courant, President Frederiksen says:

“The sheer scale and pace of the unanticipated and continuous international decline have necessitated more immediate and comprehensive measures.”

“This reduction is the result of visa limitations,” said President Frederiksen, “that have barred international students from attending U.S. institutions.”

President Frederiksen continued in the email to claim this issue of enrollment was “clearly beyond our control.”

His stance, affirmed by the University of New Haven’s silence on national immigration and customs enforcement invasions, has not tangibly improved the enrollment situation.