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When Israel launched a sudden and unilateral military offensive against Iran on 13 June ¨C amid ongoing Iran¨CUS negotiations ¨C it triggered not just a military crisis, but a deep rupture across Iranian society. Among the hardest-hit institutions were the country¡¯s universities, where a wave of fear and disruption swept through campuses, upending student life and leaving young people stranded and psychologically scarred.

The strikes, including those in Tehran, damaged infrastructure near or directly linked to educational institutions. the international dormitory of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, which sustained damage from falling debris after a drone was intercepted. Four or five students were injured and taken to hospital.

While officials were quick to downplay the physical damage, they acknowledged the psychological toll. The head of student affairs at the Ministry of Health local media that students were ¡°extremely anxious¡± and that universities had been instructed to deploy counsellors, psychologists and social workers on site, while also offering remote support for those who had returned home. Senior university administrators were advised to be physically present in dormitories to help calm fears.

Student leaders like Alireza Dehghani, secretary of the student council at Tehran University of Medical Sciences, that the affected dormitory had been evacuated and that injured students had been treated. Yet he expressed ongoing concern about safety, pointing out that not all dormitories were equipped with bomb shelters and even when they were, the capacity was limited.

As the war escalated, so did the disruptions. Universities across the country ¨C from Sharif University in Tehran to institutions in Mashhad, Sanandaj and Ahvaz ¨C initially postponed exams by up to three weeks. But as the conflict dragged on, the response became more drastic.

In a live television appearance, Iran¡¯s minister of science, research and technology that all final exams ¨C across both public and private universities ¨C would be delayed by two months and held in early September. Crucially, he insisted that no virtual exams would be permitted: all tests must be conducted in person. The sweeping decision, which affected all public, non-profit, and Payam Noor universities, was widely seen as a sign that authorities were bracing for a prolonged conflict.

In the meantime, universities entered emergency mode. Tehran¡¯s Sharif University of Technology declared a formal state of emergency on 16 June, . Thesis defences were suspended or moved online. Students at the all-female Al-Zahra University were in a particularly , as the university and its affiliated dormitories were located in an area of the city to whose residents Israel issued an unprecedented and urgent evacuation warning. The University of Tehran around the clock to allow for rapid evacuation.

The stress, in some cases, boiled over. By the beginning of the war, at the University of Sistan and Baluchestan, nearly 1,000 miles south-east of Tehran on the Pakistan border, dozens of students held a , holding handwritten signs and demanding the cancellation of exams and better protection. One chant ¨C ¡°My life is in danger, exams are meaningless¡± ¨C captured the acute sense of crisis.

A disturbing aspect of this conflict was the erasure of clear lines between battlefield and campus. Any academic institution even loosely connected to nuclear energy or military research could be treated as a ¡°legitimate target¡± by Israel. . Moreover, some sources strikes on facilities at Shahid Beheshti University, 12 miles or so across the city.

Perhaps most chilling of all was the targeted assassination of academics and nuclear scientists ¨C sometimes in their homes and often using advanced, possibly AI-powered drone technology. Victims included Fereydoon Abbasi, a nuclear physicist at Shahid Beheshti, who had previously survived an assassination attempt; Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, a nuclear physicist and former president of Islamic Azad University; Abdulhamid Minouchehr and Ahmadreza Zolfaghari, both editors of the Nuclear Technology and Energy journal; Seyed Amirhossein Faghihi, head of the Nuclear Science and Technology Research Institute; and Isar Tabatabaei Qomsheh, a professor of nuclear technology at Sharif University. Their deaths sent shockwaves through Iran¡¯s academic community, deepening the sense that scholars have become targets of geopolitical violence.

University administrators struggled to maintain continuity while addressing student trauma. Some institutions used Telegram channels and websites to communicate safety protocols. At the University of Tehran, student housing councils coordinated emergency shelter plans. Shahid Beheshti began consolidating students into centralised dormitories. Yet in the absence of a coordinated national strategy, many institutions were left to improvise. In some cities, student councils filled the gap, but coordination remained uneven, particularly in less connected regions.

Meanwhile, leaving the city was?extremely difficult as large swathes of the population tried to do likewise, particularly from Tehran after the Israeli and US warnings to evacuate specific areas. Outbound roads were jammed or restricted to one-way traffic and getting on a train was virtually impossible.

Tragic reports emerged of students killed in airstrikes. Among the victims were , as well as , located across the city. Another heartbreaking loss was , a master¡¯s student in computer engineering at Sharif University, who was killed with her family.

To add to the hardship, the international internet was cut off entirely for about a week. Although officials said this was to secure national security, many Iranians believed it was intended to suppress access to war-related news. In addition to the psychological burden of being cut off from information, many students lost access to peers, digital course materials and educational resources hosted on social media platforms and cloud services.

One additional consequence has been the , the konkoor, which was originally scheduled for late June. No new date has been firmly set. Moreover, many potential applicants are displaced or traumatised by the conflict. Some are still unable to return to their hometowns and lack both the academic materials they need to prepare for the exam and the peace of mind required to study effectively. For these young Iranians, the war may have ended, but the academic uncertainty continues.

Though (hopefully) short, the war was unlike anything in living memory ¨C a technologically advanced and highly asymmetric conflict that blurred the lines between military and academic life. From AI-powered microdrones to the targeted killing of scientists, the war revealed the deep entanglement of modern warfare and knowledge production.

For Iran¡¯s higher education system, it was not just a disruption ¨C it was a reckoning. Now, even as a fragile ceasefire holds, the long-term effects continue to unfold, leaving institutions and individuals to grapple with the aftermath of a war that redefined the meaning of intellectual security.

Roohola Ramezani?has a PhD in philosophy from?Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran. He was formerly a?research fellow at?the IFK International Research Centre for Cultural Studies in?Vienna.