Though the Trump administration’s attacks on universities have been front-page news for months now, Association of University Presses executive director Peter Berkery, as well as directors at five presses, told PW Donald Trump’s pressure tactics are not their main concerns, and that they remain committed to publishing works that will build a better society. “We have no intention of retreating,” Berkery says.

After all, the values that are under fire are the very reason these presses exist. “We are here to spark conversation,” says Erich van Rijn, executive director of the University of California Press, the publishing arm for all 10 campuses statewide. “It’s only really by staying true to our values that we will all maintain our footing over the longer term.”

But that doesn’t mean university presses don’t face critical challenges. Chief among them, Berkery says, is the fear that cuts to higher ed funding will have a trickle-down effect on the budget allocations that presses receive from their home institutions. Indeed, the money has already run out for Bucknell University and Trinity University presses, which plan to shutter in 2026.

At the University of Georgia Press, director Lisa Bayer says “the strain and struggle and uncertainty and chaos among the partners we work with” has greatly ratcheted up. Faculty who lose their posts or their research grants can’t write books about their work, she adds. She’s seen crises before, but “this particular state of affairs feels more existential and unpredictable and chaotic and targeted toward education, frankly, which is really troubling.”

Press directors are also paying close attention to AI. Charles Watkinson at the University of Michigan said, "About 60% of our authors are fairly okay with AI training large language models by using their content, as long as they get some credit for that." They are concerned that "there is no kind of credit given, and also there's no provenance for the data being used. It's bad for the AI companies as well because who's going to trust the data?" The AUPresses has a task force underway now addressing its implications for university press publishing and reporting back in May 2026 with recommendations for programs and policies.

Finding qualified people who are willing and able to peer-review scholarly manuscripts is another issue confronting the sector, van Rijn says.

Darrin Pratt, director of the University Press of Colorado and a past president of the AUPresses, agrees. The press—a cooperative of 11 Colorado institutions and imprints for the universities of Alaska, Utah, and Wyoming—is publishing fewer titles this year than the 74 titles it published in 2024. Among the reasons, Pratt says, is that arranging peer reviews right now can push back the pub date by months or even years.

Barbara Kline Pope, executive director of Johns Hopkins University Press, attributes this crunch to a few factors, among them lingering effects of the pandemic, including a reduction in the pool of potential peer reviewers that has “never really recovered.” There’s also the matter of funding: the peer review process costs money, and every press director is scrambling to maximize the dollars they have.

Looking ahead, Pope says UPs need to take calculated risks about what they publish and how they publish it. “We need to be open to new ideas, to varied perspectives, and allow ourselves to manage through being uncomfortable.”