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  • When It Comes to Developing Policies on AI in K-12, Schools Are Largely On Their Own – The 74

    When It Comes to Developing Policies on AI in K-12, Schools Are Largely On Their Own – The 74

    Generative artificial intelligence technology is rapidly reshaping education in unprecedented ways. With its potential benefits and risks, K-12 schools are actively trying to adapt teaching and learning.

    But as schools seek to navigate into the age of generative AI, there’s a challenge: Schools are operating in a policy vacuum. While a number of states offer guidance on AI, only a couple of states require local schools to form specific policies, even as teachers, students and school leaders continue to use generative AI in countless new ways. As a policymaker noted in a survey, “You have policy and what’s actually happening in the classrooms – those are two very different things.”

    As part of my lab’s research on AI and education policy, I conducted a survey in late 2025 with members of the National Association of State Boards of Education, the only nonprofit dedicated solely to helping state boards advance equity and excellence in public education. The survey of the association’s members reflects how education policy is typically formed through dynamic interactions across national, state and local levels, rather than being dictated by a single source.

    But even in the absence of hard-and-fast rules and guardrails on how AI can be used in schools, education policymakers identified a number of ethical concerns raised by the technology’s spread, including student safety, data privacy and negative impacts on student learning.

    They also expressed concerns over industry influence and that schools will later be charged by technology providers for large language model-based tools that are currently free. Others report that administrators in their state are very concerned about deepfakes: “What happens when a student deepfakes my voice and sends it out to cancel school or bomb threat?”

    At the same time, policymakers said teaching students to use AI technology to their benefit remains a priority.

    Local actions dominate

    Although chatbots have been widely available for more than three years, the survey revealed that states are in the early stages of addressing generative AI, with most yet to implement official policies. While many states are providing guidance or tool kits, or are starting to write state-level policies, local decisions dominate the landscape, with each school district primarily responsible for shaping its own plans.

    When asked whether their state has implemented any generative AI policies, respondents said there was a high degree of local influence regardless of whether a state issued guidance or not. “We are a ‘local control’ state, so some school districts have banned (generative AI),” wrote one respondent. “Our (state) department of education has an AI tool kit, but policies are all local,” wrote another. One shared that their state has a “basic requirement that districts adopt a local policy about AI.”

    Like other education policies, generative AI adoption occurs within the existing state education governance structures, with authority and accountability balanced between state and local levels. As with previous waves of technology in K-12 schools, local decision-making plays a critical role.

    Yet there is generally a lack of evidence related to how AI will affect learners and teachers, which will take years to become more clear. That lag adds to the challenges in formulating policies.

    States as a lighthouse

    However, state policy can provide vital guidance by prioritizing ethics, equity and safety, and by being adaptable to changing needs. A coherent state policy can also answer key questions, such as acceptable student use of AI, and ensure more consistent standards of practice. Without such direction, districts are left to their own devices to identify appropriate, effective uses and construct guardrails.

    As it stands, AI usage and policy development are uneven, depending on how well resourced a school is. Data from a RAND-led panel of educators showed that teachers and principals in higher-poverty schools are about half as likely to AI guidance provided. The poorest schools are also less likely to use AI tools.

    When asked about foundational generative AI policies in education, policymakers focused on privacy, safety and equity. One respondent, for example, said school districts should have the same access to funding and training, including for administrators.

    And rather than having the technology imposed on schools and families, many argued for grounding the discussion in human values and broad participation. As one policymaker noted, “What is the role that families play in all this? This is something that is constantly missing from the conversation and something to uplift. As we know, parents are our kids’ first teachers.”

    Introducing new technology

    According to a Feb. 24, 2025, Gallup Poll, 60% of teachers report using some AI for their work in a range of ways. Our survey also found there is “shadow use of AI,” as one policymaker put it, where employees implement generative AI without explicit school or district IT or security approval.

    Some states, such as Indiana, offer schools the opportunity to apply for a one-time competitive grant to fund a pilot of an AI-powered platform of their choosing as long as the product vendors are approved by the state. Grant proposals that focus on supporting students or professional development for educators receive priority.

    In other states, schools opt in to pilot tests that are funded by nonprofits. For example, an eighth grade language arts teacher in California participated in a pilot where she used AI-powered tools to generate feedback on her students’ writing. “Teaching 150 kids a day and providing meaningful feedback for every student is not possible; I would try anything to lessen grading and give me back my time to spend with kids. This is why I became a teacher: to spend time with the kids.” This teacher also noted the tools showed bias when analyzing the work of her students learning English, which gave her the opportunity to discuss algorithmic bias in these tools.

    One initiative from the Netherlands offers a different approach than finding ways to implement products developed by technology companies. Instead, schools take the lead with questions or challenges they are facing and turn to industry to develop solutions informed by research.

    Core principles

    One theme that emerged from survey respondents is the need to emphasize ethical principles in providing guidance on how to use AI technology in teaching and learning. This could begin with ensuring that students and teachers learn about the limitations and opportunities of generative AI, when and how to leverage these tools effectively, critically evaluate its output and ethically disclose its use.

    Often, policymakers struggle to know where to begin in formulating policies. Analyzing tensions and decision-making in organizational context – or what my colleagues and I called dilemma analysis in a recent report – is an approach schools, districts and states can take to navigate the myriad of ethical and societal impacts of generative AI.

    Despite the confusion around AI and a fragmented policy landscape, policymakers said they recognize it is incumbent upon each school, district and state to engage their communities and families to co-create a path forward.

    As one policymaker put it: “Knowing the horse has already left the barn (and that AI use) is already prevalent among students and faculty … (on) AI-human collaboration vs. outright ban, where on the spectrum do you want to be?”

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • If everyone hates today’s student loans, where are the big alternative ideas?

    If everyone hates today’s student loans, where are the big alternative ideas?

    Author:
    Nick Hillman

    Published:

    HEPI Director, Nick Hillman OBE, considers the paucity of big alternative ideas from those behind the campaigns against student loans.

    The student loan row rumbles on for another weekend … It is an odd one because everyone is unhappy but there is no consensus on what the problem is. Is it the 9% repayment rate, as the Rethink Repayment campaign say? Is it the variable interest rate that means debts can grow even as you make repayments? Is it the latest freeze to the repayment threshold? Is it that some people have borrowed for courses that lead to modest earnings? Is that we send too many people to university? Or is it that the very idea of student debt is immoral? When you can’t agree what the problem is, it is perhaps unreasonable to can’t expect policymakers to coalesce around a solution.

    In the media interviews I have done on the issue, it sometimes feels as if I am the only person left flagging some of the advantages of the system we have. This has made me something of a lightening rod – a friend WhatsApped me this morning to say I would soon join the ‘top ten of Britain’s most hated’ …

    One reason we have reached this odd spot is, I think, that Ministers who complained about student loans in Opposition still seem lukewarm in their support now. But if they are not going to rip the system up for either graduates or students, then the system we have is their policy by default and it is part of their role to explain its merits. Lukewarm support for the status quo may end up resembling the apologetic stance of the Remain campaign, which of course led to defeat.

    It is important to remember the student and university funding system we have exists for a reason: it reflects important trade-offs.

    We could make different decisions instead, such as expecting the generality of taxpayers to cover all of the current costs or sending fewer people to higher education. But let’s not pretend these routes have no challenges of their own. The latest IFS Zooms In podcast ‘Are Plan 2 student loans “unfair”’, which I was delighted to take part in, provides a summary.

    I think the current conversation reveals something important: people know they don’t like the system we have but seemingly have no real idea of what a big reform to it would look like. HEPI is actually among one of the very few organisations to have published a range of big alternative ideas, from Johnny Rich’s employer contribution model to Alan Roff’s graduate contribution scheme. We have floated other changes too, such as harmonising the five different student loan repayment models, having a review of the parameters of student loans once every five years or establishing a long-overdue official independent assessment of students’ true living costs.

    Personally, and it is not a HEPI corporate view, I share some of the qualms people have with the current arrangements – since the Plan 2 system was designed in 2012, the repayment threshold has been mucked around with and held down when it was meant to be uprated annually, inflation has gone way above national targets (thereby increasing the interest on student loans*) and maintenance grants have been abolished (meaning the poorest students graduate with the biggest debts). All three of these changes have made the system worse in my view and some recalibration could therefore make sense. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, recent changes have effectively wiped out the contribution from taxpayers for the 2022 cohort, yet it was meant to be a co-payment model.

    But fixing such things are tweaks; they would not rip up the system or deliver something entirely new. Bigger changes could be made if workable models could be devised to take the place of current arrangements. Remember, however, that no country in the world has a graduate tax and for good reasons. Perhaps the widespread anger among younger graduates really stems from a wider sense of intergenerational inequity. In a sense, student loans are easier to tackle than the regulations limiting housebuilding or the flatlining of productivity or the costs of childcare, yet changing them won’t solve these other challenges.

    The failure of those complaining about the current system to devise a much better system may also explain why all the big national parties in power in recent years – Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats – have ended up backing loan-based student finance while in office. It also explains why international bodies, such as the OECD, have tended to regard our student loan model as superior to other funding systems: they noted in 2015 (before some of the recent changes) that ‘among all available approaches, the UK offers still the most scalable and sustainable approach to university finance.’ One important consequence has been that we have been able to support more people in higher education than many competitor countries (to the chagrin of some people).

    Notably, the SNP are the only UK political party that has held power over higher education policy in recent times and been properly consistent in their opposition to student fees. This approach has arguably been underwritten by the Barnett formula and Scottish students do still take on student debt (for maintenance), plus the SNP’s policies come at the cost of having to ration the number of places for Scottish students in Scottish universities. But SNP leaders still deserve some credit for this consistency, even if there are increasingly loud arguments for changing their approach too – it is that tricky old issue of trade-offs again.

    * There was a recent period when inflation was significantly over 10%. The student loan interest should therefore theoretically have been much higher too. But a cap was put on it. As a result, people’s loan balances fell in real terms, which seems to have been completely forgotten about during the current debates.

    My other pieces on the current student loans row can be found below:

    1. Why the current campaign on student loan interest may be misguided, misunderstood and misdirected
    2. There are three ways to tackle the current student loan crisis: one is unwise, one is unaffordable and one is unpalatable. All are unfair.
    3. What did the three wise men, Ron DEARING, John BROWNE & Philip AUGAR, say about student loan interest?

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  • Prison Program Puts Moms and Babies Together Shows Promise, Officials Say – The 74

    Prison Program Puts Moms and Babies Together Shows Promise, Officials Say – The 74


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    PIERRE — For the past five years, conversations about prisons and how to manage them have played out as one tumultuous bout of realignment and soul-searching after another for South Dakota’s leaders.

    Wardens were expelled. Structural deficiencies were exposed. New wardens and corrections secretaries came and went. Lawmakers fought bitterly over how to spend money they set aside for prisons.

    Assaults and overdoses spiked. When the dust settled, the state had endorsed a new women’s prison in Rapid City, a new men’s prison in Sioux Falls, and a correctional rehabilitation task force.

    But something else happened along the way: Prison officials quietly stood up a program they now view as a solid win for some inmates and their families.

    Since 2022, qualifying inmate mothers have lived full-time with their children in a house on the campus of the South Dakota Women’s Prison in Pierre that looks nothing like a prison.

    In the three years since its launch, none of the women who’ve left prison after participating in South Dakota’s Mother-Infant Program have returned to state custody.

    It’s too early to calculate any long-term impact, but Corrections Secretary Nick Lamb told the Legislature’s budget-setting committee recently that he likes the odds for success.

    More than 40% of South Dakota parolees return to prison within three years of their release. In states with similar programs, Lamb said, the repeat offense rate for participating moms “is something like 2%.”

    Through fiscal year 2025, which ended on June 30, 17 women had participated, according to the Department of Corrections Annual Statistical Report. Ten had been released at the time the report was issued, and corrections spokesman Michael Winder said none have returned to prison.

    Another mother-infant house is nearing completion at the new women’s prison in Rapid City, which is set to open this year. The program in Pierre will continue.

    “There’s a beautiful new building out there built just for this,” Lamb told lawmakers.

    A new program for an old building

    The program began under former Department of Corrections Secretary Kellie Wasko.

    To be eligible, the mothers must be on minimum custody status, have 30 months or less remaining on their sentence and be serving time for a nonviolent offense.

    The women and their children live in two fused-together Governor’s Houses just outside the main prison complex in Pierre. The homes are prefabricated dwellings, built at Mike Durfee State Prison in Springfield and typically sold to low-income families.

    The structure had been there for years.

    Until around five years ago, it was known as the “PACT” house, a nod to its use for a less-expansive familial bonding program called Parents and Children Together that was launched by former Gov. Bill Janklow to allow female prisoners weekend-long visits with their kids.

    Interest in PACT had waned by the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Warden Aaron Miller told South Dakota Searchlight during a recent tour. The pandemic shuttered it altogether.

    Wasko moved to reopen its doors as a full-time home for inmate moms and their kids shortly after her arrival in March of 2022. Colorado, the state where Wasko had worked in corrections previously, has a mother-baby unit for inmate moms.

    ‘Just learning’

    On a recent Friday, the moms were gathered in the shared living area at lunchtime, sitting in a semicircle of couches as an episode of the children’s program “Bluey” played on a flat-screen television.

    There were seven women living in the house with their kids that day — four boys and three girls, ranging in age from two months to 18 — but the building can hold up to 10. Women typically stay in the program for 30 months.

    One of the moms, Sara Bernie, said it can feel “pretty cramped” with 10 families, but “we make it work.”

    Bernie’s daughter, Spiryt, turns 1 this month. They’ve been there since Spiryt’s birth.

    “We’re just learning to walk,” Bernie said of her daughter, wearing a fresh-looking pair of Minnie Mouse sneakers and a long-sleeved Minnie Mouse shirt.

    Bernie moved from Michigan to Yankton to work at a restaurant. She’d been in South Dakota less than a month when she was charged with drug distribution. She’d been pregnant about a month, too, and spent the start of her sentence in the main women’s prison, transitioning to the mother-infant program when Spiryt was born.

    “Coming over here, it is a totally different world,” said Bernie.

    Having Spiryt right there, she said, has served to motivate her. Bernie has completed a kitchen management program. The program, run by food service provider Aramark, earned her early discharge credits and put her in a position to make federal minimum wage working in the prison kitchen and save money for her future. Most inmate jobs pay around 50 cents an hour.

    With Spiryt at her side as a motivator, Bernie said, “I am 100% focused on going back out.”

    Her other two children, ages 6 and 14, are in Michigan. She wants to go back there when her sentence is up in early 2028.

    Sometimes, prison staff will clear the adults from the prison’s recreation gym so the littles can take over. Aside from those moments, the children don’t see the inside of the prison. When it’s warm, they play outside.

    Sitters fill role for moms, prison system

    A babysitter or correctional officer watches Spiryt when Sarah goes to work, leaves for recreation time or goes to church. The babysitters are the only other women in the house most evenings. Overnight, it’s often just the moms and babies.

    Bernie is CPR certified, as are all the mothers in the house. That’s also a qualification for the babysitters, who are minimum security inmates interviewed first by the staff, then by the moms.

    “We vote on the babysitters,” Bernie said. ” They usually work out pretty well.”

    The daytime correctional officer, Karen Boyer, often relies on the babysitters to help manage the chaos of a seven-family house. On some days, Boyer spends a lot of time away from the building, taking babies to doctor visits outside the prison in a Chevrolet Suburban packed with car seats.

    “It’s kind of like school,” she said. “When one gets sick, they all get sick.”

    The children start to feel like grandkids after a while, she said.

    It’s a feeling the babysitters get, too.

    “When the kids leave, it’s like they’re losing someone in their family,” Boyer said.

    Kay Cain has been a sitter since November. On the outside, Cain was a pediatric nurse, so working with kids came naturally. She typically takes care of Dennis, an 18-month-old with a mop of curly hair who gives fist bumps when asked for “knuckles.”

    “You’ve kind of grown on me, haven’t you?” she said to Dennis when asked about her favorite part of the job.

    Like Bernie, Dennis’ mother came from out of state, and was living in Yankton when she was arrested. Destiny Hogan said she was pregnant and using fentanyl and methamphetamine at the time.

    “If I wouldn’t have gotten arrested, I don’t know if either of us would be here,” Hogan said.

    Now, having lived side-by-side with Dennis his whole life, she’s closer to him than she’s been with any of her five other children.

    “He’s the only one I’ve been there with from day one,” Hogan said.

    Birthdays, holidays

    Cameras in the corners, khaki prison-issued pants and the supervising correctional officer’s uniform are the only outward signs that the house doubles as a prison facility.

    There are two bathrooms, one with a Peter Pan theme and another with a unicorn theme, on either side of the building. Each bedroom has a theme, as well, and there are hand-painted cartoon images on every wall outside the bedrooms. Every painting was done by an inmate.

    Meals are delivered each day for the women and children. Every month or so, everyone will have what Bernie called a “big meal” together.

    The children get birthday parties, and Bernie wrote out a wishlist for Spiryt. A little boy got an electric drum kit at the last birthday party.

    Christmas gifts come by way of an angel tree, where community members buy the toys listed on tags hanging from a tree.

    A lot of the gifts come in a similar fashion, originating with community members or community partners. Others come from prison staff members.

    Wasko, the former corrections secretary, took particular pleasure in playing Santa Claus, Corrections spokesman Michael Winder said.

    By policy, kids are allowed one bag of gifts at gift-giving time, Winder said.

    “You’d never seen a bag so big,” as the ones Wasko would deliver, he said.

    Community support

    That the PACT house was available at the time of the program’s launch was a big help, allowing the state to avoid building space from scratch or retrofitting areas inside the women’s prison to make them function more like living spaces appropriate for infants.

    As with gifts for the kids, a lot of supplies come through community support, said Miller, the warden at the women’s prison.

    Churches pitch in for car seats, collapsible cribs, toys or furniture, he said, as do local supporters like the Pierre office of a Canadian nonprofit called Birthright, founded in 1968 to support women with unplanned pregnancies.

    Birthright has kept the building stocked with diapers and wipes since the program’s launch.

    An organization called Right Turn offers educational programming to the mothers, Head Start offers early childhood educational materials and teaches moms how to bake and cook, CPR training comes from the Sanford Frontier and Rural Medicine (FARM) Project, and the group Disability Rights of South Dakota helps mothers connect with the resources they’ll need on the outside as they prepare for release.

    The program costs the Department of Corrections $15,000 a year, a figure folded into the $8.8 million budget for the women’s prison in Pierre.

    Building bonds

    Spiryt got restless as she sat on her mom’s lap during her conversation with a reporter and prison administrators. The tot’s eye was drawn to the neon cord of the earbuds plugged into Bernie’s inmate-issued tablet. Spiryt flopped to her left and grabbed the cord.

    Reflexively, Bernie stretched a hand to her window sill, grabbed an identical but non-functioning pair of earbuds and swapped them into Spiryt’s tiny hands.

    “I hide these up here and give them to her when she does this,” Bernie said, smiling down at Spiryt. “That way she still thinks she’s getting away with something.”

    That’s precisely the kind of attentive understanding the program wants mothers to develop with their children.

    “The premise of the program is that they will be able to bond with their child,” Miller said. “It’s teaching moms how to be moms.”

    Miller was around in 1997, when the Pierre women’s prison first opened. At that point, former Gov. Janklow’s move to create a weekend visitation house for inmate mothers was viewed with scrutiny.

    The prison houses women at all security levels and has a minimum security unit, but the main building was designed to house maximum-custody inmates.

    “At the time, no one could imagine having kids in a maximum security facility,” Miller said, even if the overnight visits took place in a conventional house designed for families outside prison walls.

    The women who stayed there through the years tended to do better on the outside, Miller noted, but “when they were only there for the weekend, it was totally different.”

    South Dakota is one of at least nine states with prison nursery programs, Stateline reported last month, the oldest of which is in New York. The programs have expanded as the number of women entering prisons has grown, from around 13,000 in 1980 to nearly 86,000 in 2023.

    ‘Not here to punish inmates’

    The program came up as the Legislature’s budget committee got an update last month on construction at the new women’s prison in Rapid City. The mother-infant program building was nearing completion, Lamb told the committee.

    One senator, Piedmont Republican John Carley, asked Lamb how the prison keeps the program from feeling like a prize for the participating moms.

    “What’s the difference between them truly feeling they’re incarcerated and dealing with the crime maybe they committed versus, ‘hey, this is a lot of wonderful free stuff,’” Carley said.

    Lamb told Carley that his job is not to punish inmates. The incarceration is the punishment, he said.

    “The ladies that are back there no longer have their freedom,” Lamb said. “So they’re serving their punishment by being with us.”

    The low rate of repeat offenses from women who’ve gone through similar programs across the U.S. shows its value as a rehabilitation tool, Lamb told Carley as he invited the senator and anyone else on the committee to visit the shared family space on the Pierre prison campus.

    Lamb, a father of seven, also said there’s a moral component at play. Babies, he said, should not be separated from their mothers for a mother’s misdeeds.

    “Harming the mother is one thing,” Lamb said. “But separating the child from the mother is something totally different.”

    South Dakota Searchlight is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. South Dakota Searchlight maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seth Tupper for questions: [email protected].


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  • WEEKEND READING: International students deserve the same strategic care as widening participation students

    WEEKEND READING: International students deserve the same strategic care as widening participation students

    This blog was kindly authored by Professor Manuel Barcia, Pro‑Vice‑Chancellor (Global Engagement) at the University of Bath

    When we speak about international students the conversation too often becomes dominated by visa statistics, economic contributions and recruitment trends. While these aspects all matter, they tell only a fraction of the full story. What truly defines the international student experience is the courage it takes to leave home, the determination to succeed in a new academic culture, and the trust placed in universities to honour that journey with meaningful support. After decades of working in global higher education, I have become convinced that our sector must be far more intentional, principled, and ambitious in how we support these students.

    The UK has long recognised the importance of supporting students from underrepresented backgrounds. Widening participation initiatives have transformed our institutions and proven that when universities take equity seriously, student success improves. This work rests on a simple but profound principle, namely that talent is universal, but opportunity is not. Ability is not confined to particular world regions, income brackets, or national borders. What indeed changes from place to place is access to resources, to networks, to information. That, and the confidence that higher education is a space where one belongs, which may be a given for some, but it is far from being a universal experience. The day we understand this, we will stop viewing support to international students as an optional extra and start seeing it as a matter of fairness.

    International students, including the thousands who come from India and China each year, face many of the same structural barriers as widening participation students. Unfamiliar academic conventions take time to sink in, limited social capital bites as students need to find their way into a new culture, financial pressures sometimes derail careers and lives, and the weight of family expectations can lead many to very dark places. In fact, international students often carry the hopes of entire households. That they may feel like outsiders in spaces that were not designed with them in mind should not surprise anyone.

    My own journey into UK higher education has shaped how I understand this. I grew up in a working‑class family in a developing country, and the possibility of studying abroad only became real because of scholarships such as Chevening and the now abolished Overseas Research Students Awards Scheme. I arrived in the UK with ambition, but also with uncertainty and the quiet fear that I might not belong in spite of having followed Liverpool FC since I was a child, knowing the lyrics of virtually every Led Zeppelin song, and having watched every episode of Man About the House and Chocky.

    Those early experiences taught me how powerful it is when a university chooses to invest in a student’s success, and how isolating it can feel when that support is absent. But with hindsight today, I also realised that it was back then when I became aware that the categories we use (e.g. international and widening participation) are not mutually exclusive. Many students, like me, have inhabited both simultaneously.

    The policy implications of widening global participation

    At the University of Bath, we are working to build an international student experience that reflects these realities and responds to them with purpose – and I believe there are wider policy implications for our sector.

    One of the reasons I joined Bath was its willingness to treat internationalisation as a matter of values, not just numbers. Our International Student Experience team engages with students long before they set foot on campus, as is the case with domestic widening participation initiatives. We offer guidance on visas, accommodation, academic expectations, and the practicalities of relocating to the UK. Early interventions like these reduce uncertainty, build confidence, and help students arrive prepared rather than overwhelmed.

    We also recognise that financial barriers remain one of the biggest challenges for international students. That is why Bath has recently launched a new suite of undergraduate and postgraduate scholarships designed specifically to widen access for talented international students. These awards aim to support those who have the ability and ambition to excel but may lack the financial means to pursue a world‑class education abroad. As someone whose own academic journey was made possible by scholarships, I know first-hand how transformative this support can be, and not just financially, but emotionally, signalling that the institution believes in you and your potential.

    Belonging is another essential pillar of our approach. As someone whose academic work has focused on the histories of marginalised and displaced communities, I also understand the difference that it makes when individuals feel seen and valued. Bath’s intercultural events, peer‑to‑peer networks, and community‑building initiatives are designed to create those essential spaces where international students can form meaningful connections. Belonging, to our community, is a prerequisite for academic success, and not just a decorative extra.

    Caring beyond compliance

    Yet across the sector, international students are still too often treated through the lens of compliance rather than care. Domestic widening participation is framed as a moral and regulatory imperative, a good in its own right and a source of pride. By contrast, international student support is too often seen as a market function. This artificial distinction is increasingly untenable. International students are full members of our academic communities, whose success shapes our institutional outcomes. As such, their wellbeing is central to the mission of the university.

    The good news here is that the widening participation ecosystem we have in place already offers a blueprint for a more holistic approach. One of its most important lessons, I would argue, is the value of proactive, data‑driven support. Widening participation initiatives recognise that students benefit from early, structured interventions and that responsibility for student success must be shared across the institution. I do not see why international student data, including progression, attainment and continuation, cannot be monitored with the same granularity and acted upon with the same urgency. And why shouldn’t the four pillars of connection, inclusion, support and student autonomy, identified in recent work on belonging, be applied to all students regardless of their home country?

    At this moment the UK higher education sector is at a crossroads. Just as policy uncertainty, rising costs, and intensifying global competition are reshaping student expectations, universities are facing a new reality where the reliance on historical prestige is not always enough. The best course of action, I would propose, would be to demonstrate, through policy and practical action rather than rhetoric, that international students are valued members of our academic communities.

    While for me this is a strategic priority, it is definitely also a matter of principle. I know what it means to arrive in a new country with hope, determination, and limited means. I know how transformative it is when a university chooses to invest in your success. And I know how much stronger our institutions become when they embrace international students not as revenue streams, but as full participants in the academic community.

    Widening participation has shown what is possible when the sector commits to equity. We recognise that if we support talent, it can thrive and our institutions and the knowledge they create are all the stronger for that. It is time to extend that same understanding and commitment to international students, not just because they are a source of income, but because they are a vital part of who we are and who we aspire to be.

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  • Inside one state’s approach to fighting antisemitism in schools

    Inside one state’s approach to fighting antisemitism in schools

    by Anya Kamenetz, The Hechinger Report
    February 14, 2026

    The town of Concord, famed for its Revolutionary War history, has highly rated public schools, standing out even in the already high-performing state of Massachusetts. But in June of last year, they were singled out in a negative way — for antisemitism. 

    The Anti-Defamation League, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and a pro bono team at the law firm Mayer Brown filed a brief with the federal Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights alleging a former student in the Concord-Carlisle district was the victim of antisemitic bullying from middle school through high school by a total of seven others, until he left for a private Jewish day school in November 2024. The Title VI civil rights complaint details incidents including the drawing of swastikas on school property and the use of antisemitic slurs and invective such as “kike” and “go to the gas chamber.” 

    Awareness of, and alarm about, antisemitism has been growing since the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, and the ensuing war in Gaza, and schools all over the country are struggling to respond. 

    New York City public schools launched an anti-hate hotline. California recently passed a law banning certain classroom materials and creating a new Office of Civil Rights for K-12 education that includes an antisemitism prevention coordinator. 

    Massachusetts, with one of the largest Jewish populations in the country, is the only state to tackle the issue with a statewide legislative commission. After holding public hearings over 13 months to discuss the Concord-Carlisle case and other incidents, the Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism released its final report on Dec. 1. It called for schools to teach more about antisemitism, Judaism and Israel; make stronger and more frequent public statements about the unacceptability of antisemitism; and introduce new processes to report and track incidents of antisemitism, including in the classroom, among other recommendations.

    Massachusetts is a deep-blue state, and the commission started its work before Donald Trump was elected to a second term. But the report and recommendations are being published in the context of the Trump administration accusing schools and universities of not doing enough to combat antisemitism and pulling hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding from higher education institutions, notably Harvard. The same week the commission released its report, the U.S. House Committee on Education & the Workforce launched a coordinated investigation into alleged antisemitism in three public school districts, in California, Pennsylvania and Virginia. This is happening even as the administration is pulling back on enforcement of antidiscrimination protections of Black, Hispanic and LGBTQ+ students and those with disabilities, among others.  

    This work has proven controversial, starting with the definition of “antisemitism” and continuing with the proposed solutions and broader implications for communities. California’s new law was immediately challenged with a lawsuit brought by teachers and students who say it violates free speech. And in Massachusetts, the commission’s final document was met with a “shadow report,” issued in direct response by Concerned Jewish Faculty and Staff, a group of Massachusetts-based experts in fields like education, law and Holocaust and genocide studies. 

    For groups like these scholars and Together for an Inclusive Massachusetts, a multicultural coalition, the problem — and the real impetus behind these efforts nationwide — is that national pro-Zionist organizations, like the Anti-Defamation League, the Israeli-American Civic Action Network and the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis, a media watchdog group headquartered in Massachusetts, are attacking teachers unions and other groups perceived to be allied with Palestine. In a lobbying visit to the state house responding to the final report, these groups called the commission a “Trojan horse” for these interests, “pushing Trump’s agenda.” 

    In an interview, Rep. Simon Cataldo, the Democratic cochair of the commission, who is Jewish and grew up in Concord, said that’s not the case: “ What we’re trying to do is approach this issue in the  Massachusetts way, and that’s a way that needs to be zealously protective of folks’ civil liberties.” He said commission members are striving to treat people equally under the law, regardless of their positions on Israel and Palestine. 

    A still-unaddressed question is what kind of curriculum or intervention actually reduces antisemitism at schools like Concord-Carlisle. Ron Avi Astor is a bullying and school violence expert at the University of California, Los Angeles who has studied bias around the world, including in Israeli schools. He said there is no proven approach: “There isn’t a lot of research showing that any of the stuff that we’re doing works.”  

    Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter featuring the most important stories in education.

    Concerns about the Massachusetts report begin with its definition of antisemitism. It advises educators to embrace the definition developed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, a multinational nonprofit focused on Holocaust education. That definition, also used by the Trump and Biden administrations, gives 11 examples of antisemitism, several of which could be interpreted primarily as political criticisms of the state of Israel — like claiming that the existence of Israel is a “racist endeavor” or drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy with that of the Nazis. The shadow report notes that Kenneth Stern, one of IHRA’s lead drafters, himself has warned against the definition being “weaponized” and urged institutional leaders not to adopt it as formal policy.

    “It’s extremely problematic,” said a teacher in suburban Boston who asked not to be named because she has been disciplined for some of her public comments. She is affiliated with Massachusetts Teachers Association Rank and File for Palestine, a group within the state teachers union that formed after Oct. 7 to call for their pension fund to divest from Israel and to protest the adoption of the IHRA definition. “It’s vague enough that people won’t want to criticize Israel,” she said. “It conflates Zionism and Judaism.” 

    ADL testified at the commission’s first hearing about a national rise in what it termed antisemitic incidents post-Oct. 7. Six in 10 of these incidents, by the ADL’s own count, relate to Israel or Zionism, including the use of slogans at campus protests like “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” or “We don’t want no Zionists here.”  

    Cataldo defended the IHRA definition. He argued that some, though not all, Jews experience criticism of Israel as antisemitic: “For many folks, the only Jewish state is part of their religious identity.” Other Jews, he acknowledged, identify as anti-Zionists. 

    He also argued that anti-Zionist rhetoric can be used in an antisemitic way: “You walk down the street and you’re visibly Jewish, wearing a yarmulke, and someone shouts in your face, ‘Free Palestine!’ instead of ‘Dirty Jew!’” 

    In its examination of curricula, the commission also kept the focus primarily on the Israel-Hamas war. The Massachusetts Teachers Association held a 2024 webinar and published materials on a website in early 2025 that included a poster with an image of a Star of David made from dollar bills, symbolizing U.S. military aid to Israel, and images of soldiers in keffiyeh scarves carrying assault weapons. In a SCCA hearing, Rep. Cataldo called these materials “virulently antisemitic.” 

    The union declined to comment for this article. Its president, Max Page, told press after the hearing that critics had “cherry-picked” examples from materials not only on the union website but accessible through links on the site. The union apologized and took some of the materials and links down. No one reported that any of the materials were actually used in classrooms. Massachusetts, like many other states, has a high degree of local and classroom-level control over what is taught.

    Related: Some teachers struggle to teach the Holocaust without running afoul of new ‘divisive concepts’ rules

    The commission report calls for more instruction and the creation of resources on antisemitism, Jewish history, Israel and Palestine, as well as for the formation of an advisory council on Holocaust and genocide education consisting of experts and community members, alongside councils on topics like special education and English language learners. The state is already one of 30 to mandate Holocaust education. 

    But some experts say that Holocaust education is no panacea for reducing antisemitism. Journalist and author Dara Horn has argued that in the absence of more context about Jewish life today, teaching about Jews solely as victims of genocide may be making antisemitism worse. 

    Avi Astor of UCLA, who is working with Los Angeles’ two Holocaust museums to collect data on the impact of their programming, agrees. “I talk to the teachers and kids who come out of the museum,” he said. “They’re not all really clear on what a Jew is when they leave. They know that a lot of bad things happen to Jews, but I’ve had teachers and kids ask, well, what did the Jews do?” 

    In Massachusetts, teachers and students said the increased tension and scrutiny of potential antisemitism in the classroom has already led to teachers avoiding these topics. 

    Jen Meagher, a high school teacher in suburban Massachusetts, said “people are so on edge about this” that there has been less discussion of these topics in schools since Oct. 7 than ever before. “I teach an AP language and composition course, and we deal with rhetoric and news and that kind of thing, and I do struggle with not talking about Palestine and Israel in that class,” she said. “To me that feels like I’m not doing my job — not talking about the world honestly.” 

    Jamal Halawa teaches English as a second language at Somerville High School near Boston. He is Palestinian-American and an activist with a group called Somerville for Palestine. But he doesn’t teach about the issue, and he said most of his colleagues don’t either: “I’d say about half the teachers are terrified to touch it.” Meanwhile, he said, “kids are scrolling on their phones, seeing the most horrible things for two and a half years.” The lack of teaching on the topic, he said, “creates a cognitive dissonance in the kids.” 

    He sees the work of the commission as a continuation of attempts to silence talk of Palestinian rights both in schools and in the community. “It makes us crazy to think that calling for the liberation of our people makes a few people feel uncomfortable, so they’re going to say that we’re antisemitic,” Halawa said. “Many of us in Somerville for Palestine are Jewish.” 

    Avi Astor, as a school climate researcher, said schools’ primary concern should be figuring out how to keep discussion going while being respectful of people’s feelings. “What’s relevant in classrooms is how the kids feel and what they actually think about the other groups,” he said. 

    Related: College uncovered: The politics of protest

    The experience of Concord-Carlisle in particular shows how schools struggle to parse, define and respond to antisemitism. 

    ADL attorney Corena Larimer said that the mistreatment of one student affected others: “Incidents such as Heil Hitler salutes in the hallways targeted Jewish students generally and made for a hostile environment.” But others said they didn’t recognize their school in the Title VI complaint. “I was so surprised when I saw that complaint,” said Mack Rottenberg, who as a senior was one year ahead of the bullied student. “I’m pretty openly Jewish, and at Concord-Carlisle, I’ve felt nothing but love and support.” 

    And a teacher at the school, who asked not to be named because of fear of retaliation, dismissed the claims to The Hechinger Report as overblown. “At every school there will be kids that are jerks, isolated incidents, but this was implying pervasive, systemic antisemitism,” said the teacher. “I don’t recognize the school described in this Title VI complaint. It’s preposterous.” 

    Melinda Kulish, the mother of twins who are seniors at the high school, also said neither she nor her children had heard anything about the bullying. But unlike Rottenberg, they weren’t surprised. Her daughter, Gwen Sodergren, stopped wearing her Star of David necklace for a year after Oct. 7, partly because she had an outspoken Israeli friend who became a target of hostility from classmates. “I didn’t think it would be a good idea for me to be broadcasting that I’m Jewish — that would group me into the conflict,” Gwen said. 

    Kulish and her children also said antisemitism was not the only form of bias unaddressed at the school. Kulish pointed out that there was a similar high-profile case of prolonged racist bullying against a Black student in the district in 2023. “Anything political, people are kind of scared to talk about it,” said Gwen. Casey Sodergren, Gwen’s twin, said he’s been targeted for his queer identity, and he’s witnessed anti-Black bullying as well. 

    While the state commission work has come to a close, having drawn both heat and light to these issues, communities are now deciding how to implement its recommendations, which are not legally binding. Going forward, community and student leaders in Concord-Carlisle are emphasizing the power of inclusion and allyship. 

    The Department of Education lists the Title VI case as pending. Concord-Carlisle district superintendent Laurie Hunt declined to comment for this article. At a public meeting of the school committee and select board that drew a reported 250 attendees over Zoom in July 2025, she expressed “a heartfelt sorry for all the pain and hurt in the community.” Parents and local community members, meanwhile, formed a group called Concord-Carlisle Against Antisemitism.

    Brian Farber, a member of the group, is the father of a fifth and seventh grader in an interfaith family. He said his children haven’t personally experienced antisemitism in school: “The conversation with our kids has been about bullying. We said, of course, don’t be that kid. But also, stand up for those who are being bullied and report it to a trusted adult immediately.” 

    He’s found the district to have been responsive so far to the group’s concerns. For example, it will be including religion as a category in its annual school climate survey. 

    Farber also said that since the complaint was filed, he’s seen many positive examples of non-Jews offering solidarity. He’s joined the town’s diversity, equity and inclusion commission, looking to improve awareness of how to report incidents of bias against every group. “We just want both these towns, Concord and Carlisle, to be safer, more inclusive, for everybody,” he said. 

    At Concord-Carlisle High School, meanwhile, Rottenberg tried to start a Jewish Student Union back in 10th grade. But he said he was told, “There really isn’t a place for this at this school,” since “there’s no Christianity club.” 

    After the ADL complaint was filed, Rottenberg said, school administrators told him and his cofounder that they’d changed their minds. This is in line with a commission recommendation that schools should allow and encourage Jewish Student Unions and similar cultural groups. The Jewish Student Union now meets once a week and has about 25 members, including Gwen Sodergren and, notably, some non-Jewish allies.

    “I think we’re just trying to rise up against the hate. I don’t care who the hate is towards. If it’s towards a Jewish person, Black person, Asian person,” Rottenberg said, “ what’s great is that we just have kids trying to fight against that and stand together.”  

    Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, via Signal at CarolineP.83 or on email at [email protected]. 

    This story about anti-Zionism vs. antisemitism was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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  • Top Superintendent Roosevelt Nivens on a Student-First Mindset – The 74

    Top Superintendent Roosevelt Nivens on a Student-First Mindset – The 74


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    Roosevelt Nivens didn’t set out to become a school superintendent. He wanted to be a football coach. But his innovative, student-first mindset in running Lamar Consolidated Independent School District in Texas led to his recognition Thursday as the nation’s top superintendent.

    Nivens’ commitment to leadership, communication, professionalism and community involvement helped him achieve the Superintendent of the Year Award on Thursday at The School Superintendent Association’s national conference in Nashville.

    The organization selected Nivens from three other finalists in Maine, Kentucky and Maryland. He’s led a district of nearly 50,000 students west of Houston since 2021, part of his 30 years of education experience that began with teacher and principal roles in Dallas.

    “If you’re smart, you realize you don’t get here by yourself,” he said. “It’s a lot of people — 49,000 kids back home, 6,500 staff are working right now doing a phenomenal job. But it’s a tremendous honor.”

    Nivens spoke with The 74’s Lauren Wagner on Friday at the conference. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

    What initiatives and developments are you most proud of during your tenure at Lamar Consolidated?

    We are opening an in-district charter school for kids with autism spectrum disorder. The traditional setting works for some, but not for all. So what can we do to support a group of students who want that support? I sat with a parent back in November, and they were paying $40,000 a year to get their child support outside of school. So we want to try to support kids and families. That’s our purpose. It’s opening in August, but we’ve been planning this for two years.

    I would also say we’ve increased the number of students who are thinking about post-secondary [plans]. I secured private funding for a college superintendent trip. So I take two juniors from every high school — 14 kids who are first-time college goers — and I take them out of state. It’s fully funded by private donors. Those kids haven’t even been out of the county. We’ve done it three years in a row now. The first year was Louisiana, last year was Arizona and then North Carolina.

    We’re opening a brand new career technical education center in August. Lamar didn’t have a CTE center when I got there — we were partnering with different colleges. I don’t believe kids should have to decide what they’re going to do so early. The system is built where you have to say, ‘Okay, child, you have to choose advanced academics or advanced band or athletics. Pick and choose.’ Give them options. You know, they’re 14 years old. We wanted to make sure everybody had options on what they wanted to do. 

    Your district has rapidly grown since you started your role in 2021. What challenges have you dealt with to keep up?

    We’ve added about 14,000 kids. There are 49,000 now and when I got there, there were around 36,000. I’ve opened 15 schools in five years, and that takes planning. My chief operations officer and his team do a great job helping me and bringing me data, and we think about where schools would go and when they need to go. 

    Another challenge is that since we’re growing so fast, we have to rezone schools. We’ve had a lot of resistance from parents. Finally, I publicly intervened, because we may take students out of one historic school and put them in a brand new campus, and parents are like, ‘No, I went to that school.’ But that’s not fair. I was like, ‘Just because you went there 50 years ago doesn’t mean these kids should still be in that school.’ Our first bond issue in 2022 was $1.5 billion, and the one in 2025 was $1.9 billion. And the community supported it. 

    What’s your favorite part about your job?

    Definitely campus visits. I love listening to our babies. I taught elementary school and didn’t like it because they were too small — I was a high school guy. But now when I have a tough day, I go to a campus and go see some pre-K babies, some kindergarten babies. They’re the sweetest. And they don’t judge anything. One kid was like, ‘You’re as big as a truck!’ And I said, ‘That’s the laugh I needed today, man.’ By far, that’s my best part of my job.

    Courtesy of Lamar Consolidated Independent School District

    Did you want to become a superintendent when you first began teaching?

    No. I didn’t want to. I wanted to be a head football coach. That was it. I worked with a lot of great people, but I worked with a few who were not good with kids. I would have my [students] call me and say, ‘Coach, I don’t have a ride.’ Or, you know, ‘My mama’s high.’ All kinds of stuff. And I would go pick them up or whatever I needed to do. After school, I would take them home, and I would buy them food. And I didn’t see [some teachers] doing that. And I was like, ‘Why are you in this job if you’re not doing that?’ They always would talk bad about the job and I was like, ‘Do you hate kids?’ So I would go home and talk to my wife about it, and she would say, ‘What are you going to do about it?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m their peer. I can’t do anything about it.’ She said, ‘Yeah, you can. Become a principal.’

    So as a principal, I did all the hiring, and if you didn’t know how to teach math, that was fine. If you’re a good person and you love kids, we could teach you how to teach math, right? Then I started working with other principals who I thought weren’t doing as much as they could for their campuses. So it was kind of the same mindset — you know what, I’ll become a superintendent.

    Courtesy of Lamar Consolidated Independent School District

    What keeps you up at night right now as a superintendent?

    In general it’s the contrast between COVID and now. When COVID hit, all the parents had to teach their own kids and their teachers were heroes, right? Now it’s like the world has forgotten that, and the reverence for the job and for the profession is gone. You know, give teachers an opportunity. It’s an automatic, ‘My son said this.’ And, ‘Why did you do that? I’m going to get you fired.’ It’s a cancel culture. So I talk a lot in my community about grace. We’re all human. The teacher might have done something wrong, and I’m not saying we’re always right, but let’s have a conversation about it. I don’t think anybody has bad intentions, right? But let’s have some grace with each other. Let’s be more kind to each other.


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  • Pell Grant Facing $11.5B Shortfall

    Pell Grant Facing $11.5B Shortfall

    Last year, analysts projected a significant long-term budget shortfall for the Pell Grant program—the first in more than a decade—sending shock waves through Congress.

    And while the Legislature tried to address it with a $10.5 billion Band-Aid, the Congressional Budget Office’s latest projection shows that even such an emergency action won’t be enough to prevent devastating deficits for the long-standing financial aid program that helps low-income students pay for college.

    The report, released late Thursday evening, projects that by the end of fiscal year 2026, which ends Sept. 30, the Pell Grant program will be short $5.5 billion; that number skyrockets to $11.5 billion in fiscal year 2027 if Congress doesn’t make cuts or put in new money. And by 2036, the final year included in the CBO’s 10-year projection, the cumulative toll could reach up to $132 billion if Congress doesn’t up its spending to keep pace with inflation. (The 10-year deficit would be about $104 billion if adjusted for inflation.)

    “A $100 billion 10-year projected shortfall isn’t just a wake-up call, it’s a fire alarm,” said Alex Holt, senior adviser for higher education at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

    Pell awards are already set for the 2025–26 academic year and many grants have already gone out the door, so Congress can’t address the shortfall by clawing back federal dollars, experts said. That means lawmakers will have to find the $5.5 billion before grappling with the larger long-term shortfall.

    Without new money, students in future years could see changes to the maximum award, how many semesters they can use the grant for and when. The last time Pell faced a shortfall, Congress cut eligibility for the grant during the summer term, which was restored in 2017. And last year, when the CBO projected a $2.7 billion funding gap, the Trump administration proposed cutting the maximum award by more than $1,600 a year and blamed Congress for the program’s “chronic mismanagement.”

    Any cuts to the program would be a blow for the more than seven million low-income students who rely on it, advocates say.

    Higher education policy experts and student advocacy groups have warned about the looming consequences of a Pell Grant shortfall for years, but even they say that the scale of the CBO’s numbers came as a bit of a surprise.

    “Most analysts and advocates were of the mind that the $10.5 billion that Congress generously provided in the [One Big Beautiful Bill Act] would make the program whole through fiscal year 2026,” said David Baime, senior vice president for government relations at the American Association of Community Colleges.

    What this shows, Baime added, is that “substantially more appropriations will be needed” to keep the program afloat.

    Holt added that Congress has largely avoided making tough choices related to Pell and now “the bill really has come due.”

    “These one-year fixes are not sustainable. Congress made the program more expensive and now they either need to find a way to cut costs, find the money to pay for it, or both,” he said. “If you’re worried about low-income students, then you need to be worried about protecting Pell, and to protect Pell you need to get serious about how to pay for it.”

    Increasing Demand on Pell

    In the 2020–21 academic year, the Pell Grant went to 6.4 million students, costing $26.5 billion.

    By this current academic year, about 7.6 million students received the Pell Grant, according to CBO, which would cost about $34 billion in discretionary funds. Yet Congress hasn’t substantially increased funding for the program beyond the one-time funding last summer.

    The flat funding is in spite of Congress’s decision in 2020 to expand access to the Pell Grant program as part of the FAFSA Simplification Act. That expansion took effect in spring 2024, and a recent analysis found that 1.5 million additional students are now eligible to receive the maximum Pell Grant this academic year.

    Starting July 1, that number will only increase more as students in short-term workforce training programs will be able to use the Pell Grant to pay for their classes as well.

    Students in the short-term workforce programs won’t receive nearly as much in aid as the maximum $7,395 that students who are working toward a credential can access. However, experts worry Workforce Pell could exacerbate the shortfall.

    It remains unclear whether and how the Congressional Budget Office accounted for new costs related to Workforce Pell; the regulations that specify which training programs and students are eligible have yet to be finalized.

    Some, like Baime from AACC, say the “overwhelming financial pressure” put on Pell is from the 2020 expansion, not Workforce Pell. But Ben Cecil, the deputy director of higher education policy at Third Way, a left-of-center think tank, says, “We can’t underestimate the effects of Workforce Pell on the projected shortfall.”

    Education Under Secretary Nicholas Kent addressed the potential shortfall during a talk at the Community College Legislative Summit earlier this week, noting that Pell has had bipartisan support but that the lack of new money could force some “hard decisions” at the Education Department. He added that ED wants to work with Congress to identify which areas should be cut versus gain more support and acknowledged that Workforce Pell is a wild card.

    “We don’t know what the behavioral change will be, which makes costing this out a little bit of an imperfect science at the very beginning,” he said.

    Kim Cook, CEO of the National College Attainment Network, a leading advocacy group for federal student aid, said the numbers for Workforce Pell are “soft,” compared to the “firm” numbers for FAFSA Simplification.

    “FAFSA Simplification is doing exactly what we hoped for from a policy point of view—that more students are seeing this as a simpler form. The barriers are taken down. They’re completing the form, and they’re getting the aid for which they’re eligible,” she said. “Now the piece is that we have to call on Congress and the president who signed this into [law] to give Pell sufficient funding to keep that promise.”

    But getting Republicans in Congress to support an additional $16 billion at minimum for the Pell Grant program could prove difficult, especially as lawmakers are looking to trim—not increase—federal spending. Congress has until Sept. 30 to pass a federal budget for fiscal year 2027.

    Rep. Tim Walberg, the Republican chair of the House Education and Workforce committee, said in a statement Friday that the shortfall has been known “for some time,” and House Republicans want to make the program sustainable for future students.

    “In reconciliation, House Republicans proposed targeted reforms to reduce the shortfall and encourage completion—a responsible approach that recognizes fiscal realities,” he said. “We will continue to advocate for concrete solutions to ensure Pell remains strong and focused on students with the greatest need.”

    Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat and ranking member of the House education committee, declined to comment.

    Still, Cook remains hopeful. The Pell Grant has always been a bipartisan program that represents the core beliefs of American democracy, she said, and that should be the kind of leverage that’s needed to get lawmakers on board.

    “We have a fundamental belief in this country that we should help everyone who wants to pursue higher education be able to afford it,” Cook said. “And I think every lawmaker—many of whom have been Pell Grant recipients like me—will look at the need for an educated workforce in their districts and their states and see that this is absolutely a program that demands their support.”

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  • Asia reaping the benefits as market becomes multipolar

    Asia reaping the benefits as market becomes multipolar

    The market is “rebalancing” as students increasingly consider destinations in Asia and the Middle East, Harry Anderson suggested at East Asia Education Week in Jakarta, Indonesia last week.

    The deputy director at Universities UK International (UUKi) told delegates that the international landscape is now “more multipolar, more policy-sensitive”.

    This is leading to growth beyond anglophone countries and the rise of what is becoming known as the ‘big 14’ – particularly as students from Asia look to destinations within the same region for well-regarded and affordable options.

    According to Sonia Wong, regional research analyst at the British Council, East Asia is seeing a surge in intermobility. ” Everything is in East Asia’s favour,” she said, pointing out that East Asian institutions tend to do well in university rankings and are much closer to home as well as offering value for money in fees and living costs, making them more attractive choices for many students.

    Countries across East and Southeast Asia are ramping up efforts to grow international students cohorts. Japan is in the midst of an internationalisation drive, international students are flocking to Malaysia, and South Korea reached its goal of attracting 300,000 to the country two years early in late 2025.

    Meanwhile, Indonesia is positioning itself as a regional hub for transnational education in Southeast Asia, with plans to open as many as 10 new STEM- and medical-focussed campuses.

    Its deputy minister of higher education, science and technology, Stella Christie, told the conference she was confident that Indonesia could be a “great research nation, that we can be a great higher education ecosystem”.

    “We should have confidence,” she said, indicating that Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s conviction was the reason he was “working with UK stakeholders to “bring the best of the best” to the country.

    We are really open for business but it is not business as usual
    Stella Christie, Indonesian government

    “We are really open for business but it is not business as usual,” said Christie, stressing that the goal was to build capacity through partnerships.

    “What we want is technology transfer, what we want is for our local lecturers to be upskilled to these partnerships and have their doors opened so they can actually be part of the global research ecosystem,” she said.

    But Christie also suggested that Indonesia stands ready to welcome more international students into the country. “We also can be a magnet that draws from the regions across East Asia to come and study in Indonesia,” she said.

    Despite the region’s pull, though, Wong maintained that the UK was still a great choice for international students.

    Compared to the US and Australia “the UK really is still value for money”, she suggested, as programs in those countries are often longer – meaning that shorter degrees in the UK offer relative value for money.

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  • DOJ Sues Harvard

    DOJ Sues Harvard

    The Trump administration filed a lawsuit Friday accusing Harvard University of failing to comply with a federal investigation into whether its admissions processes are discriminatory.

    The federal government alleged in a court filing that the Ivy League university has unlawfully withheld “information necessary to determine whether Harvard, which has a recent history of racial discrimination, is continuing to discriminate in its admissions process.” The Trump administration alleged in the lawsuit that Harvard “has slow-walked the pace of [document] production and refused to provide pertinent documents relating to applicant-level admissions decisions.”

    The Trump administration said in the filing that it brought legal action “solely to compel Harvard to produce documents relating to any consideration of race in admission” and is not accusing Harvard of discriminatory conduct, seeking monetary damages or the revocation of its federal funding.

    “The Justice Department will not allow universities to flout our nation’s federal civil rights laws by refusing to provide the information required for our review,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a DOJ news release. “Providing requested data is a basic expectation of any credible compliance process, and refusal to cooperate creates concerns about university practices. If Harvard has stopped discriminating, it should happily share the data necessary to prove it.”

    Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in the same news release that the Department of Justice “will continue fighting to put merit over [diversity, equity, and inclusion] across America.”

    Applicant data sought by the DOJ includes grade point average, standardized test scores, essays and extracurricular activities, disaggregated by race and ethnicity, according to the court filing, which also noted that the federal government’s initial requested deadline was April 25 of last year. Harvard provided hundreds of pages of documents in response but the court filing says it handed over “aggregated admissions data”—not “individual-level applicant data.”

    A Harvard spokesperson denied claims of wrongdoing in an emailed statement.

    “Harvard has been responding to the government’s inquiries in good faith and continues to be willing to engage with the government according to the process required by law,” the spokesperson wrote to Inside Higher Ed. “The University will continue to defend itself against these retaliatory actions which have been initiated simply because Harvard refused to surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights in response to unlawful government overreach.”

    Friday’s lawsuit is the latest salvo from the Trump administration in a nearly yearlong fight with Harvard that has included efforts to cut off $2.2 billion in federal research funding and to prevent it from hosting international students. Harvard has managed to successfully fend off those efforts and sued the Trump administration last April. Harvard won that legal battle with the federal government last fall but remains in the crosshairs of the Trump administration, as the president and others have accused Harvard of permitting antisemitism, among other allegations.

    Despite Harvard’s legal victory, rumors of a settlement have persisted for months. Any such deal would follow similar agreements struck with the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Brown University, the University of Virginia, Cornell University and Northwestern University. 

    However, while a deal has supposedly been in the works for months, Harvard reportedly has been resistant to pay a fine as part of any such settlement. Earlier this month The New York Times reported that the federal government had dropped its request for a fine as part of the settlement, only to be immediately countered by Trump, who demanded Harvard pay $1 billion.

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  • DOJ Sues Harvard

    DOJ Sues Harvard

    The Trump administration filed a lawsuit Friday accusing Harvard University of failing to comply with a federal investigation into whether its admissions processes are discriminatory.

    The federal government alleged in a court filing that the Ivy League university has unlawfully withheld “information necessary to determine whether Harvard, which has a recent history of racial discrimination, is continuing to discriminate in its admissions process.” The Trump administration alleged in the lawsuit that Harvard “has slow-walked the pace of [document] production and refused to provide pertinent documents relating to applicant-level admissions decisions.”

    The Trump administration said in the filing that it brought legal action “solely to compel Harvard to produce documents relating to any consideration of race in admission” and is not accusing Harvard of discriminatory conduct, seeking monetary damages or the revocation of its federal funding.

    “The Justice Department will not allow universities to flout our nation’s federal civil rights laws by refusing to provide the information required for our review,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a DOJ news release. “Providing requested data is a basic expectation of any credible compliance process, and refusal to cooperate creates concerns about university practices. If Harvard has stopped discriminating, it should happily share the data necessary to prove it.”

    A Harvard spokesperson denied claims of wrongdoing in an emailed statement.

    “Harvard has been responding to the government’s inquiries in good faith and continues to be willing to engage with the government according to the process required by law,” they wrote to Inside Higher Ed. “The University will continue to defend itself against these retaliatory actions which have been initiated simply because Harvard refused to surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights in response to unlawful government overreach.”

    Friday’s lawsuit is the latest salvo from the Trump administration in a nearly yearlong fight with Harvard that has included efforts to cut off $2.2 billion in federal research funding and to prevent it from hosting international students. Harvard has managed to successfully fend off those efforts and sued the Trump administration last April. Harvard won that legal battle with the federal government last fall but remains in the crosshairs of the Trump administration, as the president and others have accused Harvard of permitting antisemitism, among other allegations.

    Despite Harvard’s legal victory, rumors of a settlement have persisted for months. Any such deal would follow similar agreements struck with the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Brown University, the University of Virginia, Cornell University and Northwestern University. 

    However, while a deal has supposedly been in the works for months, Harvard reportedly has been resistant to pay a fine as part of any such settlement. Earlier this month The New York Times reported that the federal government had dropped its request for a fine as part of the settlement, only to be immediately countered by Trump, who demanded Harvard pay $1 billion.

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