The announcement came in August with the cold efficiency of a budget memo: Bucknell University Press would close by the end of the fiscal year. After 57 years publishing over 1,200 titles and building an international reputation, the press was being shuttered to save $300,000 annually.
For those tracking the fate of academic publishing, Bucknell's decision wasn't shocking. It was expected. Because over the past two years, university presses have been closing at an accelerating rate—and the reasons behind each closure sound increasingly familiar.
The University of Cincinnati. Washington State University. Trinity University in Texas. And now Bucknell. Each closure chips away at an ecosystem that took 150 years to build. Each one makes the next closure easier to justify.
"When a university announces its intention to shutter a press, it's basically saying that it abdicates that responsibility and is perfectly content to be free riders in the system," said Peter Berkery, executive director of the Association of University Presses.
The question isn't whether Bucknell's press deserved to survive. The question is whether any university press can survive what's coming next.
The Pattern That's Forming
Look at the closures over the past few years, and a pattern emerges. It's not about the quality of the scholarship. It's not about the press's reputation. It's about institutions facing financial pressure and making the calculation that scholarly publishing is expendable.
Bucknell's justification is almost identical to others: "focus resources on our student-centered mission." The University of Cincinnati cited budget constraints. Trinity University pointed to financial sustainability. Washington State University invoked strategic priorities.
The specifics vary, but the underlying logic is the same: When money gets tight, university presses are treated as luxuries rather than necessities.
Historically, about one to two university presses closed per year, according to Berkery. But that rate is accelerating. And with universities nationwide bracing for budget cuts driven by demographic decline and political attacks on higher education, the pace is likely to quicken further.
"Those cuts are going to trickle down to every function within a university, including the university press," Berkery said. "If there's a theme emerging, it's that we're OK today, but we've been told by year two or three [of the Trump administration] to expect reductions."
The implication is chilling: What's happening to Bucknell could happen anywhere.
Why Presses Are Vulnerable
To understand why university presses are falling like dominoes, you need to understand why they're easy targets.
Fewer than 3% of universities in the United States and Canada have their own presses. They're rare enough that most students graduate without knowing their university has one. They operate behind the scenes, serving scholarly communities that don't overlap much with undergraduate life.
Most university presses run on shoestring budgets. Bucknell's $300,000 annual budget is typical for smaller presses. Even large university presses rarely generate significant profits—they're mission-driven operations, not revenue centers.
This makes them perfect candidates for elimination when administrators look for cuts. They're small enough to close without massive layoffs. They're specialized enough that most campus constituents won't notice. They're non-revenue-generating, so their value is hard to quantify in ROI terms.
"It would be silly to argue that university presses shouldn't shoulder their equal share of whatever happens to their parent institution as a result of the staggering cuts at the federal level," Berkery acknowledged. But Bucknell's closure, he added, amounts to more than "a press being asked to shoulder its proportionate share."
It's a disproportionate sacrifice. A press costing less than 1% of a university budget shouldn't be first—or even tenth—on the chopping block if cuts are truly proportional.
But proportionality isn't the point. Convenience is.
The Free Rider Problem
Here's the dirty secret about university press closures: They work because most universities don't have presses.
Academic publishing is a collective good. Scholars across all institutions benefit from the system of peer-reviewed university press publications. Faculty use these books for research, cite them in their work, and rely on them for tenure and promotion. Universities without presses depend entirely on other institutions maintaining the infrastructure.
When Bucknell closes its press, Bucknell faculty can still publish with other university presses. They can still build their careers on scholarship published elsewhere. They become free riders, benefiting from a system they no longer support.
"This system has developed over 150 years, and it provides an essential role for vetting and curating humanities and social science scholarship, which universities rely on not only for the scholarly endeavor but for the promotion and tenure process," Berkery explained.
But the system only works if enough institutions maintain presses. As more universities close theirs, the burden falls on fewer institutions. And eventually, those institutions ask themselves: Why should we pay for something that benefits everyone?
It's a classic tragedy of the commons. Each individual closure makes sense from the closing institution's perspective. Collectively, the closures threaten the entire system.
What Makes This Different
Some university presses have faced closure threats before and survived. Stanford University backed down after massive outcry in 2019. The University of Missouri kept its press alive in 2012. The University of Akron reversed course after firing and then rehiring press staff.
These reversals prove that university presses can be saved when institutions face enough pressure. But they also reveal something troubling: The pressure has to be enormous. It takes outcry from scholars worldwide, intervention from academic organizations, and sustained faculty activism to force administrators to reconsider.
Most presses can't generate that level of support. Bucknell's press had advantages in this fight—a 57-year history, an international reputation in 18th-century studies and Latin American literature, and strong backing from prestigious academic societies including the American Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies and the Goethe Society of North America.
If Bucknell's press can't be saved despite those advantages, what chance do less prominent presses have?
The Association of University Presses has offered to help Bucknell find alternative models for sustaining the press. Faculty have submitted motions condemning the closure as a breach of shared governance. Letters have poured in from scholars worldwide.
But the university has already stopped accepting new submissions. The closure timeline proceeds. And that sends a message to every other university facing budget pressure: You can get away with this.
The Perfect Storm
The timing of these closures isn't coincidental. University presses are facing a perfect storm of pressures that make survival increasingly difficult.
The demographic cliff: The population of college-age students is declining, putting enrollment and tuition revenue at risk nationwide. Universities are cutting budgets in anticipation of smaller incoming classes.
Political attacks: The Trump administration and allies in Congress have targeted higher education funding and threatened institutions over academic freedom issues. Universities are bracing for federal funding cuts that could materialize as soon as next year.
ROI obsession: Families are increasingly skeptical of six-figure tuition bills and demanding proof that degrees lead to jobs and earnings. Universities are responding by emphasizing career preparation over scholarly mission—and university presses don't obviously contribute to job placement rates.
Shared governance erosion: Administrators have growing power to make unilateral decisions about academic programs without meaningful faculty input. When shared governance is weak, nothing is sacred.
The humanities crisis: University presses primarily publish in humanities and social sciences—fields already under financial and political pressure. As universities cut humanities programs and shift toward STEM and professional schools, the constituencies that support presses shrink.
Any one of these pressures would challenge university presses. Together, they're potentially existential.
Why This Matters Beyond Academia
The closure of university presses might seem like an inside-baseball issue—a problem for academics and publishers, but irrelevant to everyone else.
That's dangerously wrong.
University presses are gatekeepers of specialized knowledge. They publish books on 18th-century political philosophy that help us understand contemporary democratic crisis. They publish Latin American literature that illuminates immigration and cultural identity. They publish historical research that informs policy debates. They publish scientific monographs that advance human knowledge in fields too specialized for commercial publishers.
This work doesn't generate bestseller revenue, so commercial presses won't touch it. If university presses don't publish it, much of it won't be published at all.
"We're at a moment in history where we need to be in close conversation with the long 18th century in this country. We are watching the American experiment be tested and perhaps even undercut in public policy moves," said Misty G. Anderson, president of the American Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies. "The knowledge about the moment that gave birth to the United States and this great Enlightenment experiment that we've been a part of makes Bucknell's press something we need more than ever."
The irony is staggering. At the exact moment when understanding historical precedents, cultural contexts, and scholarly nuance is most critical, universities are dismantling the infrastructure that produces and disseminates that knowledge.
The Cascading Consequences
When university presses close, the effects ripple outward in ways administrators often don't anticipate.
Faculty recruitment suffers: Scholars want to work at institutions that support research and publication. A university without a press signals that scholarship isn't valued, making it harder to attract top faculty.
Junior scholars are hurt most: Early-career academics depend on book publications for tenure. As presses close, fewer venues exist for their work, and competition intensifies at remaining presses. Some promising scholars will leave academia entirely.
Scholarly conversations disappear: Bucknell's press was one of the premier venues for 18th-century studies. When it closes, scholars in that field lose a crucial platform. Some conversations simply won't happen anymore.
Institutional prestige declines: Bucknell's press made the university internationally recognized in its specialties. Without it, Bucknell becomes less distinctive. That affects everything from student recruitment to donor relations.
The system weakens: Every press closure makes the overall academic publishing ecosystem more fragile. Eventually, the system could collapse entirely.
These consequences aren't hypothetical. They're already unfolding at institutions that have closed presses. And they're what awaits any university that follows Bucknell's path.
Who's Next?
That's the question haunting academic publishing circles. If Bucknell—with its 57-year history, its international reputation, and its passionate defenders—can't save its press, which university press is safe?
The answer, increasingly, seems to be: none of them.
Small presses at regional universities are most vulnerable. They lack the resources and prominence of major university presses, and their parent institutions often face severe financial pressures. When budget cuts come, they'll be easy targets.
But even larger, more established presses aren't immune. Stanford's press faced closure threats despite being at one of the world's wealthiest universities. No press can assume its institution will prioritize scholarly publishing when push comes to shove.
The Community College of Baltimore County launched an in-house press in 2023, proving that new presses can still emerge. But one new press can't compensate for multiple closures. The overall trend is contraction, not expansion.
"This is part of our effort to ensure all institutional structures are directly aligned with Bucknell's undergraduate teaching mission, which remains our core identity," Bucknell spokesperson Mike Ferlazzo said, explaining the closure.
That language—"directly aligned," "core identity," "undergraduate teaching mission"—will be echoed at other universities. It's the justification that makes closing a press sound reasonable rather than destructive. And it's portable to any institution facing budget pressure.
The Fight for Bucknell—And Beyond
Bucknell faculty haven't given up. They're still hoping the university will reverse course, pointing to precedents at Stanford, Missouri, and Akron where outcry forced reconsideration.
Provost Wendy F. Sternberg left the door slightly ajar, noting that "alternative paths forward" might exist and suggesting the press could be "reimagined in a way that supports undergraduate education."
But "reimagined" often means diminished. A press reconfigured around undergraduate education wouldn't maintain the scholarly reputation and international recognition Bucknell's press achieved over decades.
The real test is whether Bucknell's administration will acknowledge what faculty, alumni, and academic organizations have been saying: The press isn't peripheral to the university's mission. It IS the mission—or at least, it's part of what makes a university a university rather than a vocational training program.
"What distinguishes a university from a trade school or a high school is the life-changing education provided by researchers, scholars, and practitioners who are at the forefront of advancing the public good through the production and dissemination of knowledge," faculty wrote in their letter to administrators. "Bucknell University Press is essential to this work."
Whether that argument prevails at Bucknell will set a precedent for every other university facing similar decisions.
The Reckoning Ahead
University presses are facing a reckoning. The financial model that sustained them for 150 years is breaking down. The political and cultural environment is increasingly hostile to the kind of specialized scholarly work they publish. The institutions that house them are prioritizing short-term budget relief over long-term scholarly infrastructure.
Some presses will survive. The largest and best-endowed university presses will likely weather the storm. They have resources, diversified revenue streams, and sufficient prominence that their closure would generate massive blowback.
But smaller presses—the regional presses, the specialized presses, the ones like Bucknell's that serve particular scholarly communities—are in serious danger. Many won't survive the next five years.
When they go, they'll take with them pieces of the scholarly ecosystem that can't be easily rebuilt. Publishers of 18th-century studies. Curators of Latin American literature. Venues for regional history and specialized science. Platforms for junior scholars and marginalized voices.
The knowledge they would have published will still exist, somewhere, in scholars' hard drives and desk drawers. But it won't be vetted, curated, and disseminated. It won't enter the scholarly conversation. It won't influence policy or inform public understanding. It will simply disappear.
Bucknell's press closure is a warning. The question is whether anyone will heed it before the dominoes finish falling.
Bucknell University Press is scheduled to close by the end of the current fiscal year unless the administration reverses course. The press has already stopped accepting new submissions. Faculty and academic organizations continue to advocate for the press's preservation, citing its 57-year history and international reputation.
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