We are very grateful to John Wilson for his engagement with our book in “Book Review: Campus Speech and Academic Freedom” (Feb. 2, 2026). But we think it is important to correct the record regarding his characterization of our position on the meaning and scope of academic freedom.
Mr. Wilson claims that our view is that “professors who mention their personal political views in class or in their research are automatically bad teachers and bad scholars.” This seriously misstates the position we take in the book.
In fact, we have an extensive discussion of how it is not possible to expect faculty members in professional settings to refrain from taking political positions. We note that in 2003, the University of California, to its credit, abandoned its longstanding requirement that faculty members be “neutral” and “dispassionate” when exercising academic freedom.
We argue that “faculty members could hold strong viewpoints and yet act in accordance with the highest professional standards.” We state emphatically that “it is not possible to make faculty experts refrain from articulating any political viewpoint” while adding that “it is possible to require that they limit the viewpoints expressed in classes to those that are academically justifiable and germane, and to create a space in class where other defensible positions can be expressed.”
We acknowledge that this “requires difficult judgments about when opinion shades into unethical political indoctrination”—which is why we then go through several case studies to elucidate those judgments.
Mr. Wilson’s view is that “professors who fail to do their jobs and teach their politics instead of the subject of their classes can still be punished—but only for failing to do their jobs, and not for the mere mention of politics.” We agree.
We appreciate the opportunity to correct the record and look forward to Mr. Wilson’s ongoing engagement with other aspects of the book’s arguments.
Erwin Chemerinsky is the dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley and Howard Gillman is the chancellor at the University of California, Irvine.
Dues for institutional members are calculated on a sliding scale based on the institution’s budget as defined in the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System’s (IPEDS) report as “Expense by Function.” (See below for a detailed explanation.) The information below is for the membership year beginning July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2027.
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CUPA-HR Dues Tier
IPEDS Reported Budget Range
2026-27 Dues Rate
1
Up to $18,412,125
$340
2
$18,412,126 – $32,380,410
$470
3
$32,380,411 – $44,215,072
$800
4
$44,215,073 – $60,234,325
$1,140
5
$60,234,326 – $80,350,263
$1,590
6
$80,350,264 – $114,382,306
$1,950
7
$114,382,307 – $175,351,927
$2,360
8
$175,351,928 – $343,862,604
$2,660
9
$343,862,605 – $676,953,437
$3,010
10
$676,953,438 and up
$3,350
2026-27 Dues for Other Membership Types
Corporate — $1,400
International Institution — $1,140
Affiliate Organization — $460
Retiree — $30
Student — $25 (Waived for the 2026-27 membership year)
Transitional — $30
Details Regarding Institutional Membership Dues
Any institution of higher education recognized as such by the U.S. Department of Education or by a similar appropriate governmental agency in another country, and any institution, organization, or agency directly involved in either the academic or research functions of such institutions or administrative HR responsibilities, may become an institutional member of the CUPA-HR.
In a multi-campus situation, each organized campus shall be considered a separate institution for purposes of membership if a human resources office exists on that campus.
Coordinating bodies such as a university system’s headquarters, state boards of higher education, and college district offices shall be eligible for membership and will be considered as separate institutions for purposes of membership. All System Offices/District Offices shall be categorized into Dues Code 4 for the purposes of CUPA-HR membership dues.
Dues are determined on the basis of the institution’s budget as defined in the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System’s (IPEDS) Report as “Expense by Function.” This data is collected annually on three forms depending on institution type:
Expenses by functional and natural classification (Private not-for-profit institutions or Public institutions using FASB) Total expenses – Total Amount
On IPEDS Finance survey – Part E, line 13
Expenses by function (Private for-profit institutions) Total Expenses
On IPEDS Finance survey – Part E, line 7
Definition: Total expenses are the outflow or other using up of assets or incurrence of liabilities (or a combination of both) from delivering or producing goods, rendering services, or carrying out other activities that constitute the institution’s ongoing major or central operations or in generating revenues. Alternatively, expenses may be thought of as the costs of goods and services used to produce the educational services by the institution. Expenses result in a reduction of net assets.
Expenses and other deductions (Public institutions – GASB 34/35) Total Expenses and Deductions
On IPEDS Finance survey – Part C, line 19
Definition: Total expense is the sum of operating and non-operating expenses and deductions.
Are your retention efforts aligned with what today’s adult learners actually need?
Many colleges and universities are doubling down on student retention, but the results aren’t always there. New research from Collegis Education and UPCEA reveals why: A persistent disconnect between institutional strategies and what online adult learners say actually helps them stay enrolled.
This report shares the voices of more than 1,000 adult online learners and 50+ institutional leaders to uncover where support systems fall short — and how to close the gap.
What you’ll learn:
The top reasons adult learners consider leaving — and how institutions can better address them
What adult learners rate as the most helpful support strategies (hint: it’s not what most institutions are prioritizing)
Where institutional leaders are “flying blind” when it comes to measuring online retention
Three strategic shifts to help you personalize support, use data more effectively, and drive real gains in persistence
This guide is designed for:
Provosts and academic leaders
Retention and student success teams
Online program administrators
Enrollment and institutional strategy professionals
Understand what adult learners need, uncover what your institution might be missing, and start closing the gap.
Submit the form on the top right to get your free copy.
Our mission is to enable impact in higher education. We help our partners achieve more, deliver superior experiences, and drive impact across the entire student lifecycle by leveraging and aligning data, technology, and talent.
I have been in the higher education industry long enough to remember when we asked if universities needed a Facebook page. Then we asked if they needed a mobile app. Now, as we stare down the barrel of 2026 and the rise of AI-driven “Answer Engines,” the question de jour is even more existential:
Does the website even matter anymore?
If Google’s AI Mode is just going to scrape your content and serve it up on a silver platter without a user ever clicking through, why are we spending six figures on a website redesign?
The realist in me says: You’re right to be worried.
The Click Crisis: Traditional organic traffic is in a state of systemic decline. Click-through rates drop by an average of 15.5% when an AI Overview is present.
The Zero-Click World: A massive chunk of search queries now result in no click to an external website at all.
The Bottom Line: The “digital brochure” era is officially over. If your strategy is just “getting traffic,” you are fighting a losing war.
But the strategist in me knows something else. Your website has never been more important. It just has a completely different job description.
The Website Shift: From Discovery to Verification
In the old world, your website was a discovery tool. People found you, explored you, and learned about you there. People found your content, took time to explore, and learned more about you.
In 2026, AI handles discovery. ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google’s AI Overviews are the new front door. By the time a human being actually clicks a link and lands on your .edu domain, they aren’t looking for general information. They have already done their homework.
They are looking for verification. They are looking for trust. They are looking to see if the “vibe” matches the data.
Your website is no longer a library. It’s a closing argument.
Seven Ways Higher Education Websites Can Win in 2026
If the website is now a “closing tool” for high-intent visitors, how do we build it? Here are the seven big higher ed website themes I’ll be exploring deeply on this blog over the next few months.
1. Radically Human Authenticity (The “Un-AI” Content)
AI is great at summarizing facts—it is terrible at being human. If your website is filled with generic “excellence” and “innovation” copy, you are feeding the robot, but you aren’t feeding the soul.
The Strategy: We need to double down on Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). Real faculty voices. Real student stories. Content that screams “a human wrote this.”
Why: Because trust is the new currency. 75% of consumers judge a business’s credibility based on its website design and tone alone. When AI handles the “what,” your website must handle the “who.”
2. Accessibility as a Growth Engine
For years, we’ve treated accessibility (WCAG compliance) like eating our vegetables—something we do because we have to.
The Reality: It’s actually a competitive weapon. 94.8% of the world’s top homepages still fail basic accessibility standards.
The Opportunity: Accessible sites are easier for AI to parse and easier for humans to navigate. Investing here isn’t just compliance; it’s ROI. Studies show that every $1 invested in accessibility can yield up to $100 in benefits.
3. The “Zero-Friction” Conversion
With fewer visitors coming to the site, every single visit is precious. These are high-intent users. They are ready to convert.
The Problem: We still put up barriers. For example, slow load times are killer—on mobile, 53% of users will abandon a page that takes longer than three seconds to load. Even a one-second delay can reduce conversions by 7%.
The Fix: We need to treat our sites like e-commerce engines. Shorter forms, optimized for completion. Clearer navigation. Highly accessible pages. On-site AI tools like chatbots aren’t just support features; they are revenue drivers, capable of increasing sales (or enrollment inquiries) by up to 67%.
4. Personalization at Scale (The “Segment of One”)
If a prospective nursing student lands on your homepage, why are you showing them a generic photo of a frisbee game on the quad?
The Strategy: We need to move beyond “one size fits all” and embrace AI-driven personalization. This means serving dynamic content based on user behavior—showing the nursing labs to the nursing prospect and the art studio to the painter. This means going beyond the demographics and into psychographics — factors that drive highly complex, highly emotional decision making.
The Why: Personalization is a primary revenue driver. In the e-commerce world, it contributes up to 35% of total sales for major retailers. In higher ed, it’s the difference between a bounce and an application.
5. Immersive Storytelling (The “Experience” Layer)
If visitors are only coming to your site for the deep dive, you’d better make the water deep.
The Strategy: We need to move beyond static text and embrace immersive storytelling. This means interactive tools, data-rich infographics, and video-first experiences that keep users engaged.
Why: Because engagement metrics are the new SEO. If users bounce instantly, the AI engines assume your content isn’t authoritative. We need to build “sticky” experiences that prove we are the source of truth.
6. Web Governance: The Unsung Hero of Trust
You can’t build a high-performance engine if nobody knows who has the keys.
The Reality: As we push for more content from more SMEs, the risk of “content rot” explodes.
The Fix: Sustainable governance and website maintenance. We need clear ownership, rigorous workflows, and automated audits. If your site is cluttered with outdated info, you don’t just confuse users—you train the AI to ignore you.
7. The Mindset Shift: From Project to Process
This is the hardest pill to swallow. For decades, higher ed has treated the website as a capital project: you build it every five years, launch it with confetti, and then ignore it until it breaks.
The Reality: In an AI-driven world, the landscape changes too fast for a five-year cycle.
The Fix: We must move from “Website as a Project” to “Website as a Product.” This means continuous iteration, monthly optimization, and treating your digital presence like a garden that needs daily tending, not a building that is “finished.”
The Bottom Line: Higher Ed Websites Still Matter — They Just Have a New Job
So, is the website dead? If you mean the “static digital filing cabinet”? Yes, absolutely. But if you mean the “central hub of brand authority and trust”? It’s just getting started.
In 2026, we don’t build college and university websites to be found; we build them to be believed.
Trump wrote in a late-night social media post that the federal government also wants “nothing further to do, into the future, with Harvard University.”
Alex Wroblewski/AFP via Getty Images
President Donald Trump has demanded Harvard University pay the federal government $1 billion, escalating a high profile, almost year-long fight over alleged campus antisemitism.
The demand, posted on Truth Social late Monday night, comes as Harvard is locked in negotiations with the Trump administration and landed just six hours after The New York Times reported that the federal government had backed off demands for a financial penalty. The Trump administration had reportedly sought up to $200 million from Harvard, which has resisted settling with the federal government as some Ivy league peers and other institutions have done. While others reached agreements, Harvard took Trump to court and won, so far fending off efforts to strip its federal research funding and restrict its ability to host international students, among other attacks.
Late Monday, Trump disputed the reporting by The New York Times.
“Strongly Antisemitic Harvard University has been feeding a lot of “nonsense” to The Failing New York Times. Harvard has been, for a long time, behaving very badly!,” Trump wrote online.
The president claimed that Harvard “wanted to do a convoluted job training concept” in lieu of a monetary settlement but that proposal “was turned down” and “wholly inadequate.” He added a financial penalty was needed due to “serious and heinous illegalities that they have committed.”
Now, Trump has upped the ante on a potential settlement deal.
“We are now seeking One Billion Dollars in damages, and want nothing further to do, into the future, with Harvard University,” Trump wrote in the first of two posts disputing the coverage. (Trump demanded The New York Times change its reporting in a second post on Truth Social.)
The New York Times has reported since July that a settlement with Harvard was imminent, a claim that officials such as Education Secretary Linda McMahon have echoed in public for months. But Trump’s latest billion-dollar demand suggests any such deal remains out of reach.
Trump also took aim at Harvard President Alan Garber in Monday’s late-night-posting spree.
“Dr. Alan Garber, the President of Harvard, has done a terrible job of rectifying a very bad situation for his institution and, more importantly, America, itself. He was hired AFTER the antisemitism charges were brought – I wonder why???,” Trump wrote on social media.
Garber took over in an interim capacity in early 2024 after then-president Claudine Gay stepped down amid a public relations firestorm driven by both a damaging performance at a Congressional hearing on campus antisemitism and swirling plagiarism allegations. Harvard lifted Garber’s interim tag in August 2024 and extended his term of service late last year.
Harvard did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Tuesday morning.
Throughout Europe, students are often regular members of external quality assurance mandated to perform evaluations and accreditations in higher education. While this role has been secured through the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG), we have little knowledge about how students participate in such panels and which roles they take up. In a paper presented at the SRHE conference in Nottingham in December 2025, we addressed this issue – both conceptually and empirically.
One could imagine that there are several roles that students could play as part in an external quality assurance panel. Students are most often seen as representatives of their fellow students. This has implications as to how students are appointed to such panels, as various student interest organizations usually have the power to nominate specific students to the task. More recently, the idea of students being partners has also gained interest, where a key assumption is that students should be involved and participate in all aspect and processes related to their own education – including quality assurance. The initiative “student partnerships in quality Scotland (sparqs)” is a well-known example of this inclusive approach (Varwell, 2021). However, one could argue that students may even take on an expertise-based role in quality assurance. This type of role is not based on experience per se but rather the ability to reflect upon the knowledge possessed and the ability to engage in systematic efforts to learn more – based on these reflections (Ericsson, 2017).
In our paper presented at the SRHE conference we argue that the role of students participating in quality assurance panels (or any other related processes in higher education) may not be static, restricting students to merely one role at a time (see also Stensaker & Matear, 2024). We rather argue – in line with Holen et al (2021) – that the roles students may take on are highly dynamic. A consequence of this would be that students may shift rapidly from one role to another, depending on, for example, the evaluation context, committee setting, or the issue that is being discussed.
To test our assumptions, we conducted a survey targeting students taking part in European quality assurance processes; to be more specific, we targeted the `Quality Assurance Student Experts Pool` within the European Students’ Union. This group was established in 2009 with the aim to improve the contribution of students in quality assurance in Europe. When included in the pool, students undergo training sessions providing them with relevant background knowledge about quality assurance processes and the ESG. The members of the pool are then called upon by quality assurance agencies throughout Europe to act as student representatives on their quality assurance panels at program, institutional, or national level, performing evaluations, accreditations and other forms of assessments. The `Quality Assurance Student Experts Pool` therefore represents a unique entity in Europe, as it is the only European structure that collects and trains students for these roles. 35 students (of a total of 90) responded to our survey.
The students responding have on average been involved in quality assurance for more than four years, and over 60 percent have participated in four or more evaluation or accreditation processes. In line with our expectations, the students indeed report that they are taking on several roles during the evaluation processes, they are representatives of students, they feel they are equal partners within the evaluation panel they are part of, and they also see themselves as experts. In our data, we could not identify a clear hierarchy between the different roles. However, our data suggest that students are often perceived as a partner, while less often as experts. A possible interpretation here is that temporality and experience matter: students may be initially viewed as a representative and as a partner when starting their work within the panel, and through the process of participating in multiple panels over time they might demonstrate expertise which is in turn recognized by their peers in the panels. An interesting feature coming out of the data is also that the students in the `Quality Assurance Student Experts Pool` regularly share knowledge among the members of the pool, and in that way contribute to continuously build the expertise of all members. Expertise is in this way not taken for granted or expected as a prerequisite for being a member, but rather nurtured, systematised and made available to newer and future members.
We want to thank all the students that bothered to respond to our small questionnaire. While our study is exploratory, we do think it provides new insights regarding student involvement and influence in a setting characterized by a high level of expertise and professionalism, and we hope that the findings can help future research to further unpack the dynamic nature of students’ roles in quality assurance panels.
Jens Jungblut is a Professor at the Department of Political Science at the University of Oslo. His main research interests include party politics, policy-making, and public governance in the knowledge policy domain (education & research), organizational change in higher education, agenda-setting research, and the role of (academic) expertise in policy advice.
Bjørn Stensaker is a Professor at the Department of Education at the University of Oslo. He has a special research interest in governance, leadership, and organizational change in higher education – including quality assurance. He has published widely on these topics in a range of journals and book series.
Officials at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are looking to cut $17 million from the budget.
Sean Rayford/Getty Images
While December capped off a difficult year for higher education with roughly 300 jobs cut and dozens of programs eliminated, colleges made fewer cutbacks to start the year.
January still saw job cuts, but at a much lower rate than the prior month. Like last year, many institutions continue to be squeezed by a mix of federal and state funding pressures, declining enrollment, rising operating costs, and financial friction at even the wealthiest universities.
Here is a look at the latest round of job and program cuts to start 2026.
Santa Monica College
Facing a persistent budget deficit that has climbed to a projected $16.7 million, administrators plan to eliminate 70 jobs at the California community college, the Santa Monica Daily Press reported.
The announcement comes as officials have warned that the college could deplete its financial reserves due to a long-running budget deficit that they have struggled in recent years to rein in. Declining enrollment and recent changes to state funding also put pressure on the college’s finances.
“This decision weighs heavily on me,” superintendent and president Kathryn E. Jeffery wrote in a message to the community. “These are not just positions on a spreadsheet—they represent real people, colleagues who have dedicated themselves to our students and our mission.”
California College of the Arts
Set to close at the end of 2026–27 academic year, the private arts college laid off 28 employees last month, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The move came roughly a week after Vanderbilt University announced it was buying the Bay Area campus.
Of the 28 employees laid off in January, many reportedly worked in areas such as academic affairs, enrollment services, communications, student affairs, and the president’s office.
Vanderbilt bought the campus amid recent financial struggles for CCA and plans to open a San Francisco campus following the closure, continuing its national expansion beyond Nashville.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Trustees at the flagship campus pushed through a surprise resolution last month to shave $17 million in administrative costs, triggering expectations of layoffs, The News & Observer reported.
The newspaper reported that the last-minute resolution, introduced in a committee meeting, didn’t appear on the agenda for the meeting and was not available for public review prior to the meeting. Some members on the board were caught by surprise and they had little time to examine the proposal.
The full board ultimately approved the budget cuts despite process concerns with the vote. Chapel Hill officials have not specified exactly what the cuts approved last month will target, though UNC Chancellor Lee Roberts told the newspaper “layoffs are always a last resort.”
New Jersey City University
A looming merger between Kean University and New Jersey City University will result in some positions being eliminated, though exact numbers have not been released, the Jersey City Times reported.
An official at Kean, which is absorbing the financially challenged NJCU as part of the merger deal, told the newspaper that “a majority of NJCU faculty and staff are expected to be retained post-merger,” but some cuts are needed to “address a $25 million to $30 million budgetary gap.”
PennWest officials plan to cut dozens of programs amid efforts to recalibrate academic offerings in order to better align with modern learning and workforce needs, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
Officials at the public university plan to axe at least six undergraduate degrees, four graduate programs and 34 minors. Another nine bachelor’s degree programs offered across PennWest’s three campuses are also under consideration and could be cut. However, despite the program cuts, officials told the newspaper that it does not have corresponding plans to lay off faculty and staff members.
Program cuts follow a recent round of furloughs at two PennWest campuses last fall.
University of Montana
Officials at the flagship campus have proposed terminating master’s degree programs in literature and economics and pausing minors in Chinese and Irish studies due to low enrollment, theMontana Free Press reported.
Faculty Senate and the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education must still review the proposal before the university winds down programs targeted for elimination. Faculty, students and alumni have pushed back on the plan; the Economics Department chair said the master’s degree targeted for elimination has maintained stable enrollment.
Officials declined to say how many employees would be affected by the proposed cuts.
Texas A&M University
While many program cuts in January were driven by finances, others were political in nature.
Texas A&M officials announced late last month that they were axing the Women’s and Gender Studies program, effective immediately, to comply with a system policy that restricts discussions of “race or gender ideology.”
Beyond the policy, which has also prompted Texas A&M to censor some of Plato’s writings in a philosophy course, officials noted that the program had struggled with low enrollment.
University of Pennsylvania
One of the nation’s wealthiest universities is enacting far-reaching budget cuts.
Officials at Penn—which has an endowment recently valued at $24.8 billion—recently asked units across campus to prepare to scale back expenditures by 4 percent in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1, the Philadelphia Business Journal reported. Officials attributed the campus-wide budget cuts to a moment of “considerable uncertainty” for the Ivy League university, which has faced federal pressures from the Trump administration in recent months.
Penn is currently in a standoff with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which accused the university of defying a subpoena in an investigation into alleged antisemitism. The EEOC is seeking information on Jewish students and employees, which Penn has resisted providing due to concerns about the legality of the demand and exposing personal details.
Bryan Alexander’s latest book, Peak Higher Ed, is meant to spur discussion about possible futures for higher education after the enrollment peak of 2011. It isn’t so much a set of predictions as a set of questions. I came away with some of my own.
Alexander is a futurist with a specialty in higher ed. He hosts a well-regarded podcast (on which I was once a guest, many years ago), and has published a couple of earlier books focused on specific challenges like climate change. This one reads like the culmination of a trilogy. Although he doesn’t use the term, it comes with its own theories of history.
Drawing on the work of other futurists, Alexander sketches out four possible scenarios: growth, collapse, discipline and transform. Broadly speaking, he identifies the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first as exemplifying growth. Growth describes enrollment, of course, but also the pace of technological and economic advancement that was, in part, enabled by the growth of higher education. (The first community college, Joliet Junior College, was founded in 1901, starting a chain reaction of institutional growth that peaked in the 1960s.) As new populations came into higher education through the GI Bill, coeducation and integration, colleges and universities grew to accommodate them.
Since the peak, though, the situation has changed. In the last decade, more colleges have merged and closed than opened, and many that remain open are working with fewer resources than before. The exceptions, inevitably, are at the top of the prestige hierarchy; Compass Direction State may be on its second or third round of retrenchments, but Ivy U is humming right along. Alexander takes as his central question where we should go from here. OK, demographics aren’t a tailwind anymore, one political party has decided that colleges are wretched hives of scum and villainy, and the college wage premium isn’t what it once was; now what?
That’s where I was hoping for something a bit more concrete. Alexander devotes entire chapters to climate change and AI, but spends relatively little time detailing how colleges actually work. That perspective leads to a far too credulous account of “degrowth” as a strategy. “Degrowth” makes sense at 30,000 feet, but at the campus level, it’s a tough sell. It happens, of course—part of the institutional appeal of a heavily-adjunct faculty is that it enables scaling back without actually requiring layoffs—but as a positive agenda, I can’t think of a single instance of it working. (In his brief discussion of college mergers, Alexander comes close to admitting as much.) It’s not an agenda that attracts either students or donors. It’s a fine line between degrowth and death spiral.
That 30,000 foot perspective comes through in smaller ways, too. On the ground, for instance, it’s obvious that dual enrollment is, at best, a double-edged sword. Its growth has been largely a function of political leaders seeing a budgetary two-fer, paying for one set of classes that counts twice. From an institutional sustainability perspective, it raises fundamental questions about business models. But Alexander breezes past that, blithely assuming that it’s purely positive.
The missing piece in the book, for me, is the driving force. OK, we can diagnose different modes (or moods) for different periods. What drives the change from one to the next? On campus, what makes certain proposals seem almost inevitable and others nearly impossible?& What constitutes the force of gravity that compels nearly every institution in the same direction?
If I were to describe the last few decades of higher education, my story would be of the gradual triumph of the market over literally everything else. A profession that makes the most sense when it’s insulated from short-term market pressures has been pushed, over time, into an ethos of “run it like a business.” True believers in the market are offended by the existence of spaces outside of it, and attack those spaces as havens of apostates. Public disinvestment in public higher education has gone from shocking to controversial to a seeming fact of life. Now, it’s normal to judge a program or an institution on its ROI above all else, or to pit public institutions against each other in a sort of Hunger Games.
If that’s what’s driving change, then the direction of change becomes more legible. Wealth becomes ever more concentrated in a few hands, which are then empowered to set the terms by which everyone else plays. The humanitarian side of public spending is subjected to austerity, the better to afford beefing up the enforcement side of public spending. The conflicts of interest that insulation from the market was supposed to prevent instead become normalized; rather than worrying about grade inflation and academic rigor, we judge colleges on graduation rates and call that “performance.”
“Market discipline” decides which academic disciplines get resources. (In my world, we call that “alignment with employer needs.”) Billionaires like Mark Andreessen attack professors as elitists; that’s both absurd on its face and symptomatic of a worldview. Professors don’t have more power than billionaires, but their (waning) autonomy from billionaires constitutes a sort of anomaly in a culture that’s otherwise fawningly deferential to extreme wealth. The wealthy find that anomaly offensive, and reach for whatever rhetorical tool is at hand to bring the professors to heel.
That’s one theory of what is driving change. There are others. The book needs one.
By focusing on what drives change, it’s easier to outline where growth is likely to happen and where decline is harder to stop. The “K-shaped” economy works its logic through many sectors, including higher ed.
I don’t see the final triumph of the market as inevitable, because “inevitable” is such a strong word. But marketization is powerful enough that ignoring it feels otherworldly. In a context in which the logic that benefits the folks at the top is pushed into every sector of society, what should people who value other things—history, art, a sense of shared humanity—do? That’s the book I was hoping to read. That said, if the point was to generate questions, Alexander has more than hit his target.
The North Dakota State Board of Higher Education will allow colleges to develop reduced-credit degree programs—although only for certain majors, the North Dakota Monitor reported.
Only bachelor of applied science degrees, which are generally career and technical programs, such as exercise science or finance, are permitted to be less than 120 credits under the board’s new policy. Each public university will be allowed to pilot up to two reduced-credit majors, and the pilots will run from fall 2026 to 2030.
The new policy comes as three-year degrees are becoming increasingly common, with a slew of in-person reduced-credit programs launching in fall 2025. Other states, such as Utah, have also taken steps to allow their public colleges to experiment with reduced-credit programs in an effort to allow students to spend less time and money on their college education.
Many university public relations strategies are still predominantly built for a traditional media ecosystem that has dramatically changed over the years. As op-ed placements shrink and newsrooms continue to contract, higher education communicators should consider helping faculty build durable, direct publishing platforms through tools like Substack and LinkedIn newsletters.
Faculty-led content platforms have the potential to:
Reach audiences institutional channels may never touch
Attract journalists, collaborators and prospective students
Add depth, diversity and timeliness to school narratives
Tim Hussey, Harvey Mudd College’s vice president and chief communications officer, has seen this impact firsthand. His colleague, Professor Josh Brake, authors the Substack, The Absent-Minded Professor.
“The posts could be reaching students that are interested in the work being done at Harvey Mudd and thus benefit Admissions; they could be reaching faculty at other institutions working in similar spaces and be a vehicle to share best practices and encourage collaboration,” explained Hussey. “This kind of faculty public scholarship truly broadens the reach and impact of the college’s work.”
Traditional media relations efforts shouldn’t be abandoned but complemented with faculty-led direct publishing and engagement strategies. For many communications departments, this requires a shift from controlling messages to enabling voices; from pitching stories to amplifying scholars; and from measuring success by placements to focusing on sustained reach, relevance and engagement. Below are ways that communicators can enable this shift.
1. Meet Faculty Where They Are
We need to be sensitive to faculty members’ existing workloads. Content creation on individual platforms shouldn’t be seen as another obligation. If publishing feels like a chore, it won’t last, and it won’t be good. This shouldn’t be an institutional mandate.
Support starts with understanding individual goals, motivations and comfort levels. Communications teams act as advisers, not enforcers, respecting academic freedom and autonomy.
Quanda Hunter is the director of marketing and communications at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. The Ford School has faculty who engage in independent public scholarship through platforms like Substack; Professor Don Moynihan’s newsletter, with over 23,000 subscribers, is one notable example.
“For those interested in expanding their reach or trying new platforms like Substack or LinkedIn, we’re here to support them, similar to how we’ve always supported them in engaging with traditional media,” said Hunter. “Whether it’s sharing examples, offering advice or brainstorming ideas together, we provide whatever guidance feels most useful. Sometimes it’s just a conversation to help someone think through their approach. Ultimately, we want to lower barriers, build confidence and celebrate faculty efforts in public scholarship, whatever form that may take.”
2. Encourage Authentic Voice and Personal Perspective
Substack and LinkedIn Newsletters allow faculty to show how they think, not just what they publish. They can respond quickly to current events and emerging debates. Faculty voices are more compelling and credible when they are not overly branded or mediated.
Ashley Cimino works with several professors at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business who have vibrant individual publishing platforms: Professor Cam Harvey’s video podcast Through the Noise; Professor Dan Vermeer’s Substack In The Watershed; Professor Sharique Hasan’s newsletter Superadditive; and Professor Scott Dyreng’s Tax Chats Podcast (cohosted with UNC’s Jeff Hoopes).
“The authenticity of these channels adds depth to how we showcase the diversity of experience and expertise among our faculty,” she said. “Faculty-led content complements our institutional channels by expanding both the volume and the richness of stories we’re able to share.
“When our faculty communicate directly with their audiences, their passion and individuality come through much more than when it’s filtered through more traditional, branded channels,” noted Hunter.
Communicators should consider training faculty on how to share their content through such channels. Encouraging this activity can go a long way and training is a critical enabler.
3. Amplify Content
Support doesn’t always mean editing or coaching. Sometimes it simply entails helping the content travel. The easiest win-win is amplifying faculty-created content through institutional channels.
“The Communications Office has been thrilled to help share and promote Josh Brake’s Substack with Harvey Mudd’s audiences on our social media channels, in our internal newsletter, in parent and alumni newsletters and with the media,” Hussey said. “These kinds of personal, first-hand experiences from faculty resonate with our community and can showcase the innovative teaching and learning that is going on every day at the college.”
Promoting contributions can signal institutional validation and expand reach beyond the faculty member’s existing network.
“When we share faculty content through our channels, it helps demonstrate impact and expand reach, which can be motivating,” said Cimino.
Such amplification can play an important role in supporting a culture that normalizes faculty contributions via their own channels. This can build confidence, both for the individual faculty contributor and that individual’s peers from the institution observing from the sidelines. It can help reduce uncertainty and encourage others to experiment in low-risk ways.
“We share and celebrate their content and achievements across our networks,” said Hunter. “This shows their efforts are valued and can encourage others to explore new ways of engaging.”
Questions to Consider
Next time you are asked to pitch a piece of research and you reach out to 100 journalists with a beautiful personalized message and get no feedback, consider how you and your colleagues might adapt. Ask:
How might we help faculty reach audiences directly, rather than relying solely on traditional media intermediaries?
Which faculty voices and perspectives could benefit from greater visibility through personal platforms?
Which faculty members are already creating content that could be amplified more intentionally?
What training or light-touch support could lower barriers for faculty interested in publishing directly?
How might we measure success beyond media placements to incorporate faculty-driven platforms that connect to our big-picture goals?
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