Growing public skepticism in higher education has fueled a number of polls and surveys aimed at understanding how families, students and taxpayers perceive the value of a college degree.
For instance, a majority of Americans believe at least one type of postsecondary credential holds value, according to a 2025 study by Gallup, and most parents want their kids to attend college. But few of those studies have looked at how colleges and universities see themselves improving students’ lives.
A new survey by Tyton Partners released Thursday found three in four college stakeholders strongly believe their institution’s education is worth the cost of tuition. However, two-year institutions were more likely to say this is true, compared to private universities.
Only 28 percent of administrators and support staff working at private four-year institutions strongly agree that their institution’s education is worth the cost, compared to 68 percent of community colleges. The survey, fielded in late June and early July, includes responses from more than 1,600 stakeholders at 825 institutions.
The sector breakdown wasn’t a surprise to Catherine Shaw, Tyton’s managing director, in part because of how the vocational missions of two-year colleges to prepare the local workforce compare to four-year private institutions that focus more on holistic student development.
“That part of it was so squarely within the value proposition of the reasons we have two-year degrees,” Shaw said.
For students, there’s a direct relationship between those who say their college is worth the cost and those who think the college prepares students well for jobs and careers. Among the 792 student respondents who do believe their college is worth the cost, 95 percent believe college is preparing them well for jobs and careers. Inversely, fewer than half (48 percent) of students who don’t see the value of their degree believe college is preparing them well for a career.
“In short, perceptions of value hinge on whether institutions effectively prepare students for the workforce,” the report states. This was true regardless of an institution’s sector, size, selectivity or demographic makeup.
This was the first time Tyton’s survey has asked respondents about perceived value, which Shaw said was in part because of larger national studies gauging perceived value among individuals in the U.S.
“It was interesting that there wasn’t the institutional perspective captured at scale [in previous surveys],” Shaw said. “We wanted to contextualize [the conversation] and see if our institutional stakeholders and our students are asking themselves the same questions and how they feel relevant, because they’ve got skin in the game.”
What Creates Value
More than a quarter of all institutions pointed to career readiness as a top college outcome beyond earning a credential, but two-year colleges were most likely to say this was the top outcome (37 percent). In comparison, the most popular outcome among four-year public and private institutions was critical thinking skills (41 percent and 36 percent, respectively).
Faculty members were most likely to say critical thinking skills were a top college outcome, which Shaw said makes sense given their role in higher education. Administrators and advisers were more likely to point to career readiness as a top outcome for students.
Tyton’s survey also asked administrators, support staff and faculty members which support services improve students’ value of education. Academic and career advising rose to the top, with over half of respondents in all roles ranking these services higher than tutoring, financial aid counseling or mental health counseling.
How institutions deliver high-impact career preparation varied based on institution type. Thirty-eight percent of community colleges said apprenticeships were the most meaningful measures to improve student employment metrics, followed by career pathways at 35 percent.
In comparison, embedded career exploration ranked highest among four-year institutions (54 percent of public universities, 50 percent of private) as did guaranteed internships for all students (31 percent of four-year public institutions) and experiential learning coursework (33 percent of four-year privates).
Student awareness of these opportunities is the greatest barrier to career readiness, according to career services professionals (45 percent), followed by limited capacity (17 percent) and a lack of consistent programming throughout the year (13 percent). Fewer than half of surveyed students (42 percent) said they were aware of career services available to them.
“This focus is especially timely as institutions prepare for increased scrutiny under new federal measures, such as the earnings accountability test,” the report states. “Programs that do not result in gainful employment risk losing eligibility for federal aid. Embedding career readiness across offerings isn’t just about boosting ROI: It’s fast becoming essential for institutional viability.”
This HEPI blog was kindly authored by Abi Pearson, Employability Project Assistant (Placement Year) at the University of Sheffield and a third-year BA Sociology with Social Policy student
At the University of Sheffield, the Law Family Ambition Programme aims to support the success of young men from pre-16 through to graduation and beyond, made possible through a philanthropic donation from the Law Family Charitable Foundation. The programme focuses on young men’s educational attainment and delivering support through a whole-provider approach, with targeted support from areas such as the Careers Service and Student Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.
HEPI’s recent report on the educational underachievement of boys and young men provides evidence of the importance of qualifications, demonstrating the significance of programmes like Ambition working to get young men into higher education:
Men with no qualifications are nearly twice as likely to be unemployed as women with no qualifications but there is virtually no gender gap in unemployment rates for people who have two A-levels or equivalent.
As a placement student for the Careers and Employability Service, I acted as one of the Careers contacts for recipients of the Law Family Ambition Scholarship (‘Ambition Scholars’). I managed the Equal Opportunities in Careers scheme, tasked with hosting events and improving Careers Service provisions for widening participation students, including Ambition Scholars, as well as supporting the operational delivery of the Ambition Programme itself.
In the second half of my placement year, I was given the opportunity to lead an internship programme developed for Ambition Scholars and Equal Opportunities students at the University of Sheffield, in which I was able to contribute to change by connecting students to meaningful work experience. Ambition Scholars were given enhanced support at every stage of their application, with some Scholars who did not apply still reaching out to show appreciation at our readiness to support them.
Being able to work as a placement student in this area has been endlessly fascinating. From witnessing the success of Adolescence in conversations with University peers to working with the demographics its discourses concern, I have been given the rare opportunity to witness a new dimension to a world that I believed myself to be so familiar with in higher education.
In experiencing higher education practice as both a student and staff member, I also increasingly see the value of keeping students involved with work that affects them. I had the opportunity to work with many Scholars within the Ambition cohort, as well as support the recruitment of an Ambition Student Intern in the Careers Service and work with them for the duration of their internship. The Intern provided us with Scholar insights during various pursuits, ensuring that practice was consistently student-centred and appropriately pragmatic, ending his internship by co-leading a session for staff in the Operations Group based on the recommendations of himself and fellow Scholars.
Working on this programme has certainly come with challenges. As is the problem for others across the sector, finding a communication style that works for our key demographic remains difficult as well as attempts at community-building for Scholars who perhaps do not see a benefit in connecting with students from similar backgrounds to themselves once arriving at University. This has meant that engagement with support services and events remains low and relatively unchanging throughout Scholars’ journeys.
However, in this regard, I was taught one of many defining lessons of my placement year: lack of engagement and success are not mutually exclusive. During some focus groups I was able to lead on, Scholars often remarked that, despite not engaging with much of the support offered within Ambition, the safety net of the programme itself was one of its most valuable assets. It is possible that, for students, success in a programme like this is not defined by its popularity, but rather its durability and consistency through unprecedented times for young people and higher education. This approach means that Scholars are able to thrive on their own terms at University, in the knowledge that there is always a team there to support them.
And so, as my placement draws to a close, my key reflection is thus: taking a Placement Year at your own University is well worth it. The microcosm of the world that universities present allows me to return to my final year with a multiperspectivity which will benefit me in finishing my degree and beyond. Working on the Ambition Programme, especially, has given me the chance to contribute to challenging belief systems whilst simultaneously experiencing the development of my own, advancing my personal as well as my professional development beyond what I could have imagined at the start.
In 2021 AdvanceHE published our literature review which set out to demonstrate significant impact in access, retention, attainment and progression from 2016–21.
Our aim was to help institutional decision making and improve student success outcomes. This literature has helped to develop intervention strategies in Access and Participation Plans. But the HE world has changed since review and publication.
Recent sector data for England showed that 43 per cent of higher education providers sampled by the Office for Students (OfS) were forecasting a deficit for 2024–25 and concluded that:
Many institutions have ongoing cost reduction programmes to help underpin their financial sustainability. Some are reducing the number of courses they offer, while others are selling assets that are no longer needed.
All the while, institutions are, quite rightly, under pressure to maintain and enhance student success.
The findings of our 2021 review represent a time, not so long ago, when interventions could be designed and tested without the theorising and evaluation now prescribed by OfS. We presented a suite of options to encourage innovation and experimentation. Decision making now feels somewhat different. Many institutions will be asking “what works now, as we find ourselves in a period of financial challenge and uncertainty?”
Mattering still matters
The overarching theme of “mattering” (France and Finney 2009, among others) was apparent in the interventions we analysed in the 2021 review. At its simplest, this is interventions or approaches which demonstrate to students that their university cares about them; that they matter. This can be manifest in the interactions they have with staff, with systems and processes, with each other; with the approaches to teaching that are adopted; with the messages (implicit and explicit) that the institution communicates.
Arguably, a core aspect of mattering is “free” in terms of hard cash – us showing students that we care about them, their experience, and their progress, for staff to have a friendly approach, a regular check in, and meaningful and genuine dialogue with students. Such interactions may well carry an emotional cost however, and how staff are feeling – whether they feel that they matter to the institution – could impact on morale and potentially make this more difficult. We should also be mindful of the gendered labour that can be evident when teaching academics are encouraged to pick up more “pastoral” care of students; in research-intensive institutions, this may be more apparent when a greater proportion of female staff are employed on teaching focused contracts.
In our original review we found that there were clear relationships between each student outcome area – access, retention, attainment and progression – and some interventions had impact on more than one outcome. Here are five of our examples, within the overarching theme of mattering, which remind the sector of this impact evidence whilst illustrating developments in thinking and implementation.
Five impactful practices
Interventions which provide financial aid or assistance to students pre and post entry were evidenced as impactful in the 2016-2021 literature. We remember the necessity of providing financial aid for students during Covid, with the government even providing additional funding for students in need. In the current financial climate, the provision of extra funding may feel like a dream for many institutions. Cost reduction pressures may mean that reducing sizable student support budgets are an easy short-term win to balance the books.
In fact late last year, Jim Dickinson predicted just this as the first wave APPs referenced a likely decline in financial support. As evaluative data has shown, hardship funding is used by students to fund the cost of living. When money is tight, an alternative approach is to apply targeted aid where there is evidence of known disadvantage. Historically the sector has not been great at targeting, but it has become a necessity. Preventing student withdrawal has never been more important.
We also noted that early interventions delivered pre-entry and during transition and induction were particularly effective. The sector has positioned early and foundational experiences of students as crucial for many years. When discussions about cost effectiveness look to models of student support, targeting investment in the early years of study, rather than universally applied, could have the highest impact. Continuation metrics (year one to year two retention) again drive this thinking, with discrete interventions being the simplest to evaluate but perhaps the most costly to resource. Billy Wong’s new evidence exploring an online transition module and associated continuation impact is a pertinent example of upfront design costs (creation), low delivery costs (online), and good impact (continuation).
Another potentially low cost intervention is the design of early “low stakes” assessment opportunities that give students the chance to have early successes and early helpful feedback which, if well designed, can support students feeling that they matter. These types of assessments can support student resilience and increase the likelihood of them continuing their studies, as well as providing the institution with timely learner analytics regarding who may be in need of extra support (a key flag for potential at-risk students being non-completion of assessments). This itself is a cost saving measure as it enables the prioritisation of intervention and resource where the need is likely to be greatest.
Pedagogically driven interventions were shown in our review to have an impact across student outcome areas. This included the purposeful design of the student’s curriculum to impact on student learning, attainment, and future progression. Many institutions are embarking on large scale curriculum change with an efficiency (and student experience/outcomes) lens. Thinking long term enough to avoid future change, yet attending to short term needs is a constant battle, as is retaining conversations of values and pedagogy.
How we teach is perhaps one of the most powerful and “cost-free” mechanisms available, given many students may prioritise what time they can spend on campus towards attending taught sessions. An extremely common concern expressed by new (and not so new) lecturers and GTAs when encouraged to interact with students in their teaching is “But what if I get asked a question that I don’t know the answer to?” Without development and support, this fear (along with an understandable assumption that their role is to “transmit” knowledge) often results in a retreat to didactic, content heavy approaches, a safe space for the expert in the room.
But participative sessions that embed inclusive teaching, relational and compassionate pedagogies, that create a sense of community in the classroom where contributions are valued and encouraged, where students get to know each other and us – all such approaches can show students that they matter and support their experience and their success.
We also found that interventions which provided personal support and guidance for students impacted positively on student outcomes. One to one support can be impactful but costly. Adaptations in delivery or approach, for example, small group rather than individual sessions and models of peer support are worth exploring in a resource sensitive environment. Embedding personal and academic support within course delivery and operating an effective referral system for students when needed, is another way to get the most out of existing resources.
Finally, the effective use of learner analytics was a common theme in our review of impact. Certainly, the proactive use of data to support the identification of student need/risk makes good moral and financial sense. However, large scale investment might be necessary to realise longer term financial gains. This might be an extension of existing infrastructure or as Peck, McCarthy and Shaw recently suggested, HE institutions might turn to AI to play a major role in recognising students who are vulnerable or in distress.
Confronting the hidden costs
These financial dilemmas may feel uncomfortable; someone ultimately gains less (loses out?) in a targeted approach to enhancing student success. Equality of opportunity and outcome gaps alongside financial transparency should be at the forefront of difficult decisions (use equality legislation on positive action to underpin targeting decisions as needed). Evaluation, and learning from the findings, become even more important in the context of scarce resources. While quick decisions to realise financial savings may seem attractive, a critical eye on the what works evidence base is essential to have long term impact.
Beyond our AHE review, TASO has a useful evidence toolkit which notes cost alongside assumed impact and the strength of the evidence. As an example, the provision of information, advice and guidance and work experience are cited as low cost (one star), with high-ish impact (two stars). This evidence base only references specific evidence types (namely causal/type three evidence). The series of evidence-based frameworks (such as Student Success, Employability, Inclusive Practice) from AdvanceHE are alternative reference points.
The caveat to all of the above is that new approaches carry a staff development cost. In fact, all of the “low cost” interventions and approaches cited need investment in the development and support of academic staff. We are often supported by brilliant teams of learning designers and educational developers, but they cannot do all this heavy lifting on their own given the scale of the task ahead. As significant challenges like AI ask us to fundamentally rethink our purpose as educators in higher education, perhaps staff development is what we should be investing in now more than ever?
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Dive Brief:
Stanford University will continue to consider applicants’ connections to alumni and donors when accepting its incoming fall 2026 undergraduate class, despite a new California law meant to curb the practice.
Last year,Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law banning private nonprofit colleges that receive state-funded student aid from practicing legacy and donor admissions.Those who violate the rule, effective Sept. 1, must provide extensive demographic data on their newly enrolled students and the admissions rates of those with legacy or donor ties compared to those without.
Stanford will no longer accept funding from state student aid programs “in order to comply with recent California legislation,” it said last month.Instead, the university will use its own scholarship funding to make up the difference.
Dive Insight:
Like many highly selective colleges that offer legacy and donor admissions, Stanford accepts a disproportionate share of its undergraduates from that population. In fall 2023, 13.6% of the university’s admitted undergraduate class had ties to alumni or donors, according to institutional data. Stanford’s overall acceptance rate that year was just under 4%.
Former California Assemblymember Phil Ting introduced the legislation banning legacy and donor admissions in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling striking down race-conscious admissions.
But several amendments to the bill significantly defanged it. Ting’s initial language would have cut colleges that violated the ban off from access to the Cal Grant, a program providing financial aid to students from low- and middle-income families.
Instead, the version that passed the state house lacked monetary penalties for such institutions, opting for a name-and-shame approach. To that end, the California Department of Justice would publicly list such colleges on its website.
While lawmakers framed the legislation as a ban, Stanford’s decision to continue using legacy and donor admissions demonstrates the limits of the law’s influence. By turning down state funding, the university can avoid the data reporting penalty and being listed on the state justice department’s website.
Stanford students who previously received state aid won’t see a difference in the amount of financial aid they receive, and no action by them is required, the university said in a July 29 press release.
Admitted students whose family income is below $100,000 don’t pay tuition, room or board at Stanford. For households making less than $150,000 annually, students do not pay tuition.
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Dive Brief:
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the National Science Foundation to restore potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research grants to the University of California.
Researchers at the university system in June brought a class-action lawsuit against NSF and other federal agencies over their termination of $324 million in funding, and quickly won a temporary injunction restoring the grants.
This week, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin concluded NSF violated that order by cutting funding to the University of California, Los Angeles in late July over allegations related to antisemitism and other concerns. An NSF spokesperson said in an email Wednesday the agency has reinstated UCLA’s funding in response to the order.
Dive Insight:
On June 4, several University of California researchers sued President Donald Trump and his administration over mass cuts to research funding spearheaded by the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.
Plaintiffs argued that the funding cuts violated key constitutional principles, including separation of powers, freedom of speech and right to due process, in addition to multiple federal statutes.
“Before President Trump took office, federal agency grant making proceeded under the authority of Congress, which created agencies through its constitutionally assigned exclusive legislative power, and appropriated taxpayer funds for specific public purposes that the agencies were tasked to execute,” the researchers said in their complaint.
They added that after taking office, Trump “attempted to seize direct control of federal agencies by bypassing Congress and upending the statutory and regulatory system under which federal agencies have historically and legally operated.”
Later that month, Lin concluded that the researchers would likely win their case on its merits and issued a preliminary injunction directing the Trump administration to restore terminated funding to University of California institutions and barring agencies from cutting their funding without grant-specific explanations.
But in late July, NSF “indefinitely suspended” numerous grants to UCLA, as attorneys for the plaintiffs noted in court filings. In the suspension notices, the agency cited allegations of widespread campus antisemitism and “illegal race-based preferences in admissions” — claims now common in the administration’s attacks on higher education.
The University of California system last week entered negotiations with the Trump administration in an effort to restore more than half a billion dollars in total research funding. When announcing the talks, UC President James Milliken called the UCLA cuts “a death knell for innovative work” that “do nothing to address antisemitism.”
The funding cuts came shortly after the U.S. Department of Justice alleged UCLA had violated civil rights law by failing to adequately address antisemitism.
The Los Angeles Times put the figure of NSF’s cut funding to UCLA specifically at $300 million. As one UCLA professor recounted in court papers filed Monday, the indefinite suspension orders had immediate and permanent effects, including stalled research and the loss of a potential graduate student worker to another project.
NSF argued in court that its indefinite suspensions did not violate Lin’s earlier injunction, which the agency said applied to grant terminations. But in Tuesday’s order, Lin concluded that the two terms were equivalent in practice.
“NSF may have re-labeled its action a ‘suspension,’but it is a distinction without a difference in this case,” Lin wrote. “After all, a terminated grant can be reinstated, just as a suspension can be ‘lifted.’ And a suspension, if it is of indefinite length, is functionally identical to a termination from the researcher’s perspective.”
Greetings from a northeastern Virginia where the heat has been brutal. For several weeks we lived under temperatures reaching 100 ° F, while humidity sopped everything badly enough that the “feels like” reading hit 110. (And the Trump administration decided to federalize and militarize DC – that’s for another post.)
North of us, epic wildfires burned swathes of Canada. “‘It’s the size of New Brunswick, to put it into context,’ Mike Flannigan, a professor of wildland fire at Thompson Rivers University, told CBC News.” This is apparently the second worst fire year on record. Climate change has not only increased temperatures in that nation but dried out regions, making them tinder.
Parts of Europe are also suffering under horrendous heat waves. As a result the region is experiencing upticks in fires, heat exhaustion, and deaths. Temperatures are hitting the 30s and even 40s (centigrade; for Americans, this means upper 90s and over 100 F).
I’d like to explain about how these are predictable outcomes of the worsening climate crisis, how global warming is doing precisely what we thought it would do, but I’d also like to get in the habit of issuing shorter blog posts. Besides, I suspect my readers either get the point or have turned away by now.
What I wanted to focus on today was a recent connection made between Europe’s fierce summar, the climate crisis… and digital technology. Britain is suffering under drought conditions exacerbated by global warming, a drought so harsh that the government has assembled a National Drought Group to organize responses. (One of my shorthand expressions for thinking of climate change is that regions with too much water will receive more, while those with less, less. A kind of climate Matthew Effect. The UK drought is an exception for now.)
Yesterday the drought team issued a report on the crisis, summing up steps various local authorities are taking along with series of recommendations for Britons wanting to take actions against the drought. I’d like to draw your attention to one of them:
Fiery red box not in the original.
“Delete old emails and pictures as data centres require vast amounts of water to cool their systems.”
There’s much we can say or ask about that single line. Just how much of an impact does cloud computing hosting have on British water use? If this is aimed at residents, are businesses or the government taking similar measures? Should one use cloud services not colocated in drought-stricken areas?
At a broader level I wonder about the possibility that the growing anti-digital movement, which some call the techlash, might finally become focused on climate implications. Do we decide that advanced computing (think generative AI or bitcoin mining) has too large a footprint and must be curtailed? Or do we instead assess its climate benefits – crunching vast arrays of data, running simulations, generating new research – as outweighing these costs?
For years I’ve been asking audiences about the climate-digital connection. I’ve asked people to imagine individual and group choices they might have to make in the future as the crisis worsens and electricity becomes more fragile, more restricted. These are provocative, clarifying questions. Think of choosing between WiFi and air conditioning, or cloud computing versus refrigeration. And now we have a first glimpse of that future with the British government requesting Britons to cut back their digital memories. We can imagine new questions in that light. How would you choose between streaming video and potable water, or Zoom versus crop irrigation?
The Higher Education Inquirer reminds us of the higher education implications.
For colleges and universities, the connection between digital behavior and resource conservation is an opportunity to model sustainability. Digital housekeeping campaigns could encourage staff and students to purge outdated files, trim redundant email chains, and archive with intent. Institutions can audit cloud storage use, revisit data retention policies, and prioritize providers that invest in energy- and water-efficient infrastructure. These choices can be paired with curriculum initiatives that make students aware of the climate–digital nexus, grounding sustainability not just in labs and gardens, but in inboxes and servers.
Indeed. These actions are available to us, should we choose to take them.
Yet this is a difficult conversation to have now, at least in the United States, as the Trump administration attacks climate science even to the point of hurling a satellite out of Earth orbit. Businesses are walking back climate commitments. Journalists don’t mention the crisis very often. Democrats are falling silent. Yet, strangely enough, climate change continues, ratcheting up steadily. We must think and act in response. That means, among other things, rethinking our digital infrastructure and practices.
Student ambassadors are more than just friendly faces on a campus tour; they’re living, breathing stories of what it’s really like to study at your institution. Whether they’re current students or recent alumni, they give prospects something no brochure or ad campaign can match: authenticity.
Today, that authenticity is going digital. Many institutions are now recruiting digital student ambassadors who meet prospects where they already spend most of their time, on social media, in live chats, and across online communities.
So, why does this matter? Because ambassadors humanize your school’s brand. They answer questions honestly, share glimpses of daily life, and help prospects picture themselves as part of the community. For Gen Z, especially, that peer-to-peer connection is gold. A relatable student voice can often be far more persuasive than a polished marketing message.
As we’ll see, many of the qualities and characteristics of a student ambassador remain constant, but success in the digital realm also requires some special skills. Let’s start with the basics – what exactly does a student ambassador do, and how would we describe this role?
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What Is a Digital Student Ambassador?
How would you describe a student ambassador? A student ambassador is a representative of their institution who shares authentic experiences, supports prospective students, and fosters a welcoming community. They act as a bridge between the school and its audience, answering questions, giving insights, and promoting campus culture through personal interaction, events, and digital engagement.
On digital channels, these ambassadors take on a new kind of role: becoming micro-influencers for your school. They showcase campus moments on Instagram Stories, upload vlogs to YouTube, or join discussion threads to help someone halfway around the world decide whether your school is the right fit.
And here’s where “digital” makes the difference. Traditional ambassadors focus on in-person tours, open houses, and campus events. Digital ambassadors bring that same personal touch into the online world. They host live Q&As, post blogs or videos, and respond to inquiries on platforms like Unibuddy, connecting with prospects who may never set foot on campus before applying. For international or out-of-town students, these online connections can be the deciding factor. The best blend is the warmth of a welcoming peer with the creativity and consistency of a skilled content creator.
Digital Student Ambassador Responsibilities:
Welcoming and Touring Visitors: Ambassadors guide campus tours, share personal stories, and help visitors envision themselves as part of the community. They may host “shadow days,” lead Q&A panels at open houses, or ensure new students feel at ease during orientation.
Outreach and Communication: Many connect directly with prospects through calls, emails, and social media. They answer questions, follow up with applicants, or even make congratulatory calls to admitted students. Some take over institutional Instagram accounts or host live Q&A sessions, providing candid insights into academics, housing, and student life.
Event Support and Promotion: Ambassadors often help plan and run recruitment events, student panels, and webinars. They may work with faculty to coordinate workshops or invite speakers from student services, bringing a student-led energy to every event.
Content Creation and Storytelling: Today’s ambassador programs frequently include content production. Students might write blogs, create videos, or manage social media takeovers to highlight campus life.
Peer Advising and Support: Beyond recruitment, ambassadors mentor new and younger students, answer parent questions, and direct peers to campus resources. In certain settings, such as K-12 schools or community programs, they may lead workshops or classroom discussions.
Bridge Between Students and Administration: Ambassadors also act as liaisons, communicating student feedback to staff and reinforcing institutional values within the student body. This two-way role supports a stronger campus culture and understanding.
Ultimately, the role is about representing the school’s values and culture through genuine, student-to-student engagement. As one Higher Education Marketing advisor explains, “Students want to see themselves in your school’s marketing material”, and ambassadors make that possible.
Whether volunteer or paid, ambassadors gain significant benefits: leadership and communication skills, valuable networking, and a stronger sense of belonging. Many describe the experience as a highlight of their education, one that builds confidence and allows them to give back to their community.
The Rise of the Digital Student Ambassador
The student ambassador role isn’t new, but the way it’s delivered has changed dramatically. Today, many of those warm, peer-to-peer conversations that once happened during campus tours now take place entirely online. That’s where the digital student ambassador comes in.
What is a digital ambassador? A digital ambassador is a student representative who promotes their institution online through social media, live chats, and virtual events. They share authentic experiences, answer questions, and create engaging content, helping prospects connect with the school community, even if they can’t visit campus in person.
The job is the same at its core: share genuine student experiences and help prospects imagine themselves at your school. But instead of shaking hands at an open house, digital ambassadors are hosting live virtual tours, answering questions in chat rooms and giving followers a real look at campus life through Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube. For many prospects, especially those researching from halfway around the world, this might be their very first interaction with your institution. That’s why the role is so powerful. Here are the top characteristics of a student ambassador:
Communication That Connects Through a Screen
Speaking to a room is one thing. Making someone feel welcome through a camera or a line of text is another. Digital ambassadors need to master both. They know how to keep responses clear, friendly, and relatable, whether that’s through a quick message in a DM, a 30-second Instagram Story, or a thoughtful blog post. They understand tone, timing, and even how the right emoji can make an online exchange feel personal.
Self-Motivation in a Flexible Role
Unlike traditional ambassadors who work during scheduled tours or events, digital ambassadors often manage their own hours. They might respond to a question late in the evening, keep up with multiple conversations across platforms, or check in with an international prospect in a different time zone. That means self-motivation is of extreme importance. The best digital ambassadors don’t wait for prompts. They’re proactive about reaching out, following up, and making sure no question goes unanswered.
Tech-Savvy and Adaptable
A digital ambassador’s toolkit can change from one day to the next. One moment they’re editing a TikTok video, the next they’re co-hosting a Facebook Live Q&A or answering questions in a university’s custom chat app. They’re comfortable switching platforms, solving small tech issues, and adapting quickly when something unexpected happens. They also understand how to use each channel’s strengths to create the most impact, whether that’s a quick selfie video for a personal touch or a detailed written reply for complex questions.
Bringing Energy Online
Here’s the challenge: online, you don’t have the buzz of an in-person conversation to carry you. That means enthusiasm has to work harder. The best digital ambassadors make their passion for the school shine through in every message, video, or post. Research backs this up: positive, genuine interactions between current and prospects are one of the biggest drivers of enrollment conversions.
To recap, what makes a good ambassador? A good ambassador is authentic, approachable, and knowledgeable, with strong communication skills. They represent their institution with enthusiasm, build trust through genuine connections, and adapt easily to different audiences and platforms, ensuring every interaction leaves a positive, lasting impression.
In essence, a digital student ambassador is more than a student with social media skills. They’re a trusted peer, a skilled communicator, and a tech-savvy connector who can make a prospect feel seen, heard, and excited, no matter the distance. Schools that invest in them aren’t just extending their reach; they’re deepening their influence from the very first interaction.
Key Qualities of a Great Student Ambassador
What separates a good student ambassador from a truly exceptional one? Whether they’re greeting visitors in person or connecting with prospects online, the standouts share a set of defining qualities that make them unforgettable.
Communication That Connects
Great ambassadors are master communicators. They’re equally skilled at chatting one-on-one with a shy high school student or presenting to a room full of parents. They don’t just speak; they listen. They pick up on unspoken concerns, ask clarifying questions, and tailor their responses so every prospect feels understood. In a digital context, this means writing with warmth and clarity; friendly enough to spark conversation, yet concise enough to respect attention spans. They adapt effortlessly: a casual tone on Instagram, a polished one in email, and an authentic voice in video.
Positivity That’s Contagious
An ambassador’s outlook shapes a prospect’s first impression of the school. The best ones radiate genuine enthusiasm, never forced, never “salesy.” Their love for the institution is real, and it shows in every conversation, every smile, and every story they share. Admissions teams often spot potential ambassadors by noticing who already volunteers for events or naturally promotes their campus. Enthusiasm is magnetic: when an ambassador talks about their favorite class or a beloved campus tradition, that excitement becomes impossible to ignore.
Initiative and Leadership in Action
True leaders don’t wait for instructions; they step in. Exceptional ambassadors are proactive, spotting the student standing alone at an event and striking up a conversation, or jumping in to answer an unanswered question in a group chat. They embody self-discipline, integrity, and the ability to make others feel welcome. For digital ambassadors, initiative is non-negotiable. They must work independently, manage their time, and seize every opportunity to engage.
Inclusivity and Empathy
Great ambassadors make every prospect feel like they belong. They’re culturally aware, sensitive to differences, and skilled at connecting across backgrounds. They know what it’s like to be the newcomer, uncertain, maybe even overwhelmed, and they respond with patience and understanding. Whether reassuring an international student about campus diversity or helping a first-generation applicant navigate the admissions process, they create an atmosphere of welcome and respect.
Professionalism You Can Count On
While the role is peer-driven and personable, it’s also a serious responsibility. Ambassadors represent the school’s brand, and reliability is key. That means showing up on time, honoring commitments, and maintaining a respectful, professional demeanor, even in casual interactions. Digital ambassadors, in particular, must be disciplined enough to manage their role without constant oversight, delivering the same level of professionalism online as in person.
Knowledge and Resourcefulness
Prospects ask everything: from residence life to program details to financial aid. Ambassadors aren’t expected to have all the answers, but they must be well-informed about the institution’s key offerings and know exactly where to find information when needed. The strongest ambassadors are resourceful problem-solvers, following up quickly and connecting prospects to the right campus contacts. This builds trust and leaves prospects feeling supported.
Digital Fluency (for Online Engagement)
For digital student ambassadors, tech skills aren’t optional; they’re foundational. They navigate social media platforms, live chat tools, and video conferencing software with ease, staying on top of online trends and knowing how to leverage each platform’s strengths. They understand digital etiquette, moderate discussions effectively, and troubleshoot minor tech issues without losing composure. In short, they bring creativity, adaptability, and technical confidence to the role, turning digital spaces into welcoming, interactive environments.
When you combine these student ambassador qualities: communication, positivity, initiative, inclusivity, professionalism, knowledge, and tech fluency. You get a student ambassador who doesn’t just represent the school… they embody it. They make every interaction feel personal, every prospect feel valued, and every conversation a step closer to enrollment.
Examples of Great Student Ambassador Programs
John Cabot University
John Cabot University, an American university in Rome, runs a robust student ambassador program that shows how ambassadors can touch many facets of campus life. John Cabot University’s ambassadors are actively involved in the orientation process, event planning, leadership, and student support.
Their profiles (complete with friendly photos and contact info) are featured on the school site to invite connections. This approachable public presence signals to new and prospective students that they have peer resources ready to help. John Cabot’s example underlines the importance of choosing outgoing, involved students – their ambassadors take on leadership in organizing events and mentoring newcomers, embodying the school’s warm, inclusive culture from the start.
Smaller career-focused colleges also leverage ambassadors. The Academy of Applied Pharmaceutical Sciences (AAPS) in Toronto uses student ambassadors in marketing-savvy ways by showcasing student and alumni success stories. AAPS regularly celebrates Student Success Stories: for example, posting when an alumnus lands a dream job in the pharmaceutical industry. These stories (often shared on AAPS’s website and social channels) let prospects “see themselves achieving their goals” at the college.
In essence, AAPS ambassadors become living proof points of outcomes, saying “look what our students achieve; you can join them.” Ambassadors share their journeys and tips (on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc.), adding authenticity to recruitment. The key is that AAPS selects enthusiastic storytellers proud of their field, so their posts come off as peer-to-peer endorsements of the college’s programs. This example shows that digital ambassador content doesn’t always mean live chats; even a series of student highlight posts with quotes and photos can serve as powerful testimonials.
Terry College of Business, University of Georgia (USA)
Business schools often rely on ambassadors to convey the program’s culture to applicants (for MBA or undergraduate business programs). The Terry College of Business at UGA has a team of Terry Ambassadors who exemplify leadership and community-building. Their mission statement: “Leading by example, ambassadors engage with students and alumni to build community within the college, increase understanding of opportunities available, and further the Terry legacy.”
This highlights how ambassadors at a business school not only assist with recruiting new students but also serve as connectors among current students and alumni – bridging different parts of the community. Terry Ambassadors are selected for attributes like strong academic records, interpersonal skills, and dependability. They uphold values such as integrity, respect, and servant leadership, acting as role models.
In practice, they host networking events, speak with prospective business majors about career opportunities, or welcome alumni back to campus. The benefit is two-fold: prospects get insiders’ perspectives on the program, and the ambassadors themselves gain networking and leadership experience (Terry explicitly notes ambassadors “develop a strong network of peers, alumni and professionals” as a benefit of the role. This example shows a slightly different angle – ambassadors not just for admissions, but for fostering pride and connections within a college community.
Specialized programs like language immersion schools use ambassadors. At Middlebury’s famed Language Schools, former students act as student ambassadors to share their experience with prospective enrollees.
For example, the Japanese Language School has student ambassadors listed with their emails so interested students can reach out to ask about the immersion program. These ambassadors answer questions like “What surprised you about your experience?” and “How much did your Japanese improve?”, giving honest testimonials about the intensive summer program. This helps prospects, who might be nervous about the immersion pledge, hear directly from peers who succeeded.
The ambassadors in this context need to be candid and reflective, able to articulate how they overcame challenges and why the program was worth it. Their enthusiasm for language learning and personal growth becomes a selling point for others. It’s a great example of how even non-traditional educational settings leverage peer ambassadors to build trust – after all, who better to convince someone to spend a summer speaking only Japanese than a student who did it and loved it?
Bishop O’Dowd High School
High schools also use student ambassadors, often in admissions tours or as “student hosts.” Bishop O’Dowd, a Catholic college-preparatory high school, actually has an army of nearly 400 student volunteers in its ambassador program – affectionately nicknamed the “Dragons” (after the school mascot). According to their admissions director, this large-scale program has been “transformative for the campus culture itself”. With so many students involved, it created “a culture of positivity and a willingness in students to truly engage” on campus.
Ambassadors at O’Dowd not only assist with tours and open houses, but by telling their personal stories to visitors, they have also become more reflective and positive about their own school experience. This is a powerful insight: a well-run ambassador program doesn’t just benefit the admissions office; it can fundamentally boost student morale and leadership school-wide. The key qualities for these youth ambassadors include being outgoing, responsible, and service-oriented – essentially, being proud “Dragons” who want to share that pride.
For younger students (high schoolers), being an ambassador also instills college and career-ready skills early on, such as public speaking and collaboration. Bishop O’Dowd’s example demonstrates how scale and inclusivity (hundreds of ambassadors representing all types of students) can amplify impact: every prospective family can meet a student who resonates with their child’s interests or background.
A great digital student ambassador is more than a smiling face on a brochure. They’re a communicator, a leader, a tech-savvy problem-solver, and, most importantly, a genuine student voice. They bridge the gap between your institution and prospects, turning formal marketing into an authentic human connection.
And the proof is in the results. When the University of Guelph launched its student social media ambassador program, engagement skyrocketed: 45% more interactions on Twitter and a 560% surge in Instagram likes, all in the first semester. Why? Because prospects trust real students sharing real experiences.
In conclusion, choose ambassadors who radiate positivity, connect easily with others, and navigate the online world with confidence. Give them the training they need, social media best practices, Q&A techniques, but don’t strip away their personality. Authenticity is their greatest asset, and when they’re free to speak in their own voice, it resonates far beyond what any scripted message can.
For students considering the role, here’s your sign to go for it. If you naturally talk about your school with enthusiasm, becoming an ambassador is simply channeling that passion into impact. You’ll build leadership skills, expand your network, and help future students feel at home before they even arrive.
In the end, the formula for a great digital ambassador is the same as for any ambassador: a sincere desire to help, connect, and inspire, supercharged by the reach of digital media. When schools and students partner in this way, everyone wins. Students grow as leaders, institutions gain their most credible advocates, and prospective learners get the authentic, peer-to-peer insight they crave. In an age where trust drives enrollment, investing in student ambassadors is investing in your most powerful recruitment asset: your own students.
Struggling to stand out in a crowded market?
Boost enrollment with digital student ambassador strategies!
Question: How would you describe a student ambassador? Answer: A student ambassador is a representative of their institution who shares authentic experiences, supports prospective students, and fosters a welcoming community. They act as a bridge between the school and its audience, answering questions, giving insights, and promoting campus culture through personal interaction, events, and digital engagement.
Question: What makes a good ambassador?
Answer: A good ambassador is authentic, approachable, and knowledgeable, with strong communication skills. They represent their institution with enthusiasm, build trust through genuine connections, and adapt easily to different audiences and platforms, ensuring every interaction leaves a positive, lasting impression.
Question: What is a digital ambassador?
Answer: A digital ambassador is a student representative who promotes their institution online through social media, live chats, and virtual events. They share authentic experiences, answer questions, and create engaging content, helping prospects connect with the school community, even if they can’t visit campus in person.
Five years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, academic recovery has stalled nationwide, and achievement gaps have widened, according to the State of Student Learning 2025 report from from Curriculum Associates.
The report offers one of the most comprehensive looks at Grades K–8 student performance in reading and mathematics, based on data from close to 14 million students who took the i-Ready Diagnostic assessment in the 2024–2025 school year.
The report shows that most students have not yet reached pre-pandemic achievement levels, and some are falling even further behind. The report does find some bright spots: Some historically underserved schools, especially majority-Black schools, are seeing modest, positive gains in both reading and mathematics. However, those gains have not yet translated into closing longstanding disparities.
“This report shows that disrupted schooling due to the pandemic continues to impact student learning, particularly for students who are in early grades, are lower performing, or are from historically underserved communities,” said Kristen Huff, head of measurement at Curriculum Associates. “Academic recovery has never been one-size-fits-all, and these results reaffirm the importance of nuanced, data-informed approaches. Above all, they underscore the vital work educators are doing every day to meet students where they are and help them move forward.”
Key findings
Academic progress has plateaued. Since spring 2023, national achievement has remained flat. While many students are growing at pre-pandemic rates, that growth isn’t closing the gap caused by pandemic disruptions.
The achievement gap has grown in many cases. Students who were already behind, particularly those scoring in the bottom 10th percentile, continue to fall behind, while top-performing students have often recovered or surpassed their pre-pandemic levels.
Younger students experienced greater learning losses. Even though they were not yet in school during the pandemic, elementary students, especially in Grades K and 1, saw the largest drops in achievement after the pandemic.
Vulnerable populations are experiencing uneven recovery. The report shows widening gaps between the nation’s highest and lowest performers. Across most grades, the differences between higher and lower percentiles have increased over time.
A data-driven, nationwide look
The 2025 report examines data through the critical years pre- and post-pandemic, from spring 2019 to spring 2025. Using a nationally representative sample of more than 11.7 million reading and 13.4 million mathematics assessments, the research examines:
Grade-level placement: how many students are performing at or below grade level
Scale scores by percentile: how learning differs across performance groups
Annual growth: whether students are making enough academic progress during the school year to recover lost ground
The findings reinforce that targeted support is needed to ensure every student can thrive academically, especially younger students, lower-performing students, and historically underserved communities.
eSchool Media staff cover education technology in all its aspects–from legislation and litigation, to best practices, to lessons learned and new products. First published in March of 1998 as a monthly print and digital newspaper, eSchool Media provides the news and information necessary to help K-20 decision-makers successfully use technology and innovation to transform schools and colleges and achieve their educational goals.
When the UK government unveiled its immigration white paper in May, my first reaction was simple: “A step in the right direction.”
Buried among the many proposals, five key policy reforms stood out for their potential to reshape international student recruitment for UK universities. The headline-grabber on social media was the shortening of the Graduate Route from 24 months to 18 months. But, truth be told, that’s not the change keeping universities awake at night.
The real shake-up comes from the Basic Compliance Assessment (BCA) reforms, expected to roll out in September 2025, which will prove especially tough for smaller universities.
What’s changing?
From next year, UK universities sponsoring international students will face much stricter BCA benchmarks:
Visa success rate: At least 95% of students issued a CAS must obtain their visa (up from 90%).
Enrolment rate: Of those, 95% must enrol on their course (up from 90%).
Completion rate: At least 90% must complete the course (up from 85%).
On paper, these increases might look like small percentage rises. In practice, they’re a gamechanger.
Why this is big
For years, many universities in the UK, both modern and traditional alike, have operated just above the current BCA thresholds, leaving little leeway for the inevitable drop-outs, deferrals, or visa refusals, especially from high-risk regions such as South Asia and Africa.
According to a recent story published by The PIE, quoting analysis from ApplyBoard’s study on visa refusal rates between Q1 2024 and the same period in 2025, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh saw a notable decline in visa grant rates.
Pakistan’s visa grant rate fell from 82% to 74%, while the other two countries saw even sharper declines: Bangladesh dropped 15 percentage points from 78% to 63%, and Nepal fell by 14 percentage points from 98% to 84% during the same period.
But now, with the bar raised, there’s far less margin for error. To comply, universities will have to halve their visa refusal rate from 10% to 5% and simultaneously boost enrolment and completion rates. That means rethinking recruitment pipelines, especially in regions like South Asia and Africa, where volumes are high but visa risks can be significant.
The good news, though, is that some of the biggest countries in high-risk regions, such as India, Nigeria and Ghana, have seen a marginal increase in visa grant rates, providing a sigh of relief for universities heavily recruiting from these countries.
Why smaller universities are nervous
Large universities enjoy a buffer. Recruit 10,000 international students in an intake, and a 5% refusal rate gives you room for up to 500 refusals before you breach the threshold.
Small universities, however, don’t have that luxury. If you enrol fewer than 100 international students, even a handful of refusals could push you into the danger zone. This forces smaller institutions to be extremely selective, tightening quality control on applications and perhaps narrowing the recruitment pool altogether.
It’s worth considering whether the MAC and UKVI might allow different levels of flexibility for smaller institutions. Applying the same standards across the board could be unfair, as not all institutions recruit in the same way or at the same scale.
A small, specialist provider in creative or performing arts, for example, will naturally draw fewer students than a comprehensive university offering everything from anthropology to zoology. Even among smaller universities, subject mix matters, as one with business, engineering and computing courses is likely to recruit far more students than another of the same size focused on niche disciplines such as veterinary science or agricultural studies.
The bottom line?
While the Graduate Route change has stolen the spotlight, the new BCA rules may well prove the bigger disruptor. For universities in the UK and recruiters in India and South Asia, September 2025 isn’t far away. The scramble to adapt has already begun.
How the BCA could reshape international recruitment
The impact of these changes will likely be felt in four major ways.
First and foremost, managing recruitment agents will become significantly more crucial. With visa refusal rates coming under intense scrutiny, universities will increasingly demand stricter compliance and accountability from their recruitment partners.
This will likely lead to more thorough vetting processes for agents, more stringent contractual agreements, and widespread implementation of standards such as the Agent Quality Framework (AQF).
Agents with consistently poor performance, particularly those associated with high visa refusal rates, will face swift removal from university-approved lists.
While the exact timeline for these changes is not yet clear, the immigration white paper also suggested the possibility of introducing a public “traffic light” system to display the BCA data of the universities transparently.
It would therefore be reasonable to expect a similar public database for recruitment agents available in the public domain, allowing universities easier access to detailed track records of agencies. This increased transparency will empower institutions to make more informed decisions about which agents to collaborate with.
Second, admissions processes will become more selective. This means deeper scrutiny of financial documents, academic readiness, and genuine study intent before issuing a CAS. Universities may introduce additional pre-CAS interviews, English proficiency re-checks, or even conditional academic bridging programs to ensure higher completion rates.
Selective treatment may be reintroduced as a strategy once again. Historically, many global universities have adopted region-specific recruitment policies, tailoring their approaches to different cities or states within the same country. These variations are often influenced by factors such as past visa approval rates, the academic calibre of students from particular areas, and key market insights.
In a vast and diverse market like India, this approach becomes especially relevant. Universities tend to exercise greater caution when recruiting from certain states compared to others, reflecting the complex demographic, economic, and educational landscape of the country.
This nuanced strategy allows institutions to optimise their recruitment efforts by focusing resources where the chances of success are higher, while managing risks in regions with less favourable indicators.
Finally, market focuscould shift. Institutions heavily reliant on high-risk markets may diversify towards countries with stronger visa success rates, while in South Asia, universities may work more closely with fewer but higher-quality partners. In practice, this might mean fewer students being offered places, but with higher confidence that those who arrive will stay the course.
In essence, the proposed changes to the BCA thresholds signal a fundamental shift in how international student recruitment is approached. Rather than focusing primarily on sheer volume or the quantity of students recruited, the emphasis is moving decisively towards quality, ensuring that students admitted meet higher standards and contribute positively to the university community and the broader educational ecosystem.
This shift challenges universities to rethink their recruitment strategies, prioritising compliance, student success, and sustainable growth over simply hitting numerical targets. For institutions within the prestigious Russell Group as well as others across the sector, the ability to swiftly adapt to these new expectations will be critical.
Those that embrace the change and implement robust quality-focused recruitment processes will be the ones best positioned to maintain strong and healthy intake numbers in the evolving landscape. Ultimately, the future belongs to universities that recognise the importance of quality over quantity and act accordingly.
In education, we often talk about “meeting the moment.” Our current moment presents us with both a challenge and an opportunity: How can we best prepare and support our teachers as they navigate increasingly complex classrooms while also dealing with unprecedented burnout and shortages within the profession?
One answer could lie in the thoughtful integration of artificial intelligence to help share feedback with educators during training. Timely, actionable feedback can support teacher development and self-efficacy, which is an educator’s belief that they will make a positive impact on student learning. Research shows that self-efficacy, in turn, reduces burnout, increases job satisfaction, and supports student achievement.
As someone who has spent nearly two decades supporting new teachers, I’ve witnessed firsthand how practical feedback delivered quickly and efficiently can transform teaching practice, improve self-efficacy, and support teacher retention and student learning.
AI gives us the chance to deliver this feedback faster and at scale.
A crisis demanding new solutions
Teacher shortages continue to reach critical levels across the country, with burnout cited as a primary factor. A recent University of Missouri study found that 78 percent of public school teachers have considered quitting their profession since the pandemic.
Many educators feel overwhelmed and under-supported, particularly in their formative years. This crisis demands innovative solutions that address both the quality and sustainability of teaching careers.
What’s often missing in teacher development and training programs is the same element that drives improvement in other high-performance fields: immediate, data-driven feedback. While surgeons review recordings of procedures and athletes get to analyze game footage, teachers often receive subjective observations weeks after teaching a lesson, if they receive feedback at all. Giving teachers the ability to efficiently reflect on AI-generated feedback–instead of examining hours of footage–will save time and potentially help reduce burnout.
The transformative potential of AI-enhanced feedback
Recently, Relay Graduate School of Education completed a pilot program with TeachFX using AI-powered feedback tools that showed remarkable promise for our teacher prep work. Our cohort of first- and second-year teachers more than doubled student response opportunities, improved their use of wait time, and asked more open-ended questions. Relay also gained access to objective data on student and teacher talk time, which enhanced our faculty’s coaching sessions.
Program participants described the experience as “transformative,” and most importantly, they found the tools both accessible and effective.
Here are four ways AI can support teacher preparation through effective feedback:
1. Improving student engagement through real-time feedback
Research reveals that teachers typically dominate classroom discourse, speaking for 70-80 percent of class time. This imbalance leaves little room for student voices and engagement. AI tools can track metrics such as student-versus-teacher talk time in real time, helping educators identify patterns and adjust their instruction to create more interactive, student-centered classrooms.
One participant in the TeachFX pilot said, “I was surprised to learn that I engage my students more than I thought. The data helped me build on what was working and identify opportunities for deeper student discourse.”
2. Freeing up faculty to focus on high-impact coaching
AI can generate detailed transcripts and visualize classroom interactions, allowing teachers to reflect independently on their practice. This continuous feedback loop accelerates growth without adding to workloads.
For faculty, the impact is equally powerful. In our recent pilot with TeachFX, grading time on formative observation assignments dropped by 60 percent, saving up to 30 hours per term. This reclaimed time was redirected to what matters most: meaningful mentoring and modeling of best practices with aspiring teachers.
With AI handling routine analysis, faculty could consider full class sessions rather than brief segments, identifying strategic moments throughout lessons for targeted coaching.
The human touch remains essential, but AI amplifies its reach and impact.
3. Scaling high-quality feedback across programs
What began as a small experiment has grown to include nearly 800 aspiring teachers. This scalability can more quickly reduce equity issues in teacher preparation.
Whether a teaching candidate is placed in a rural school or urban district, AI can ensure consistent access to meaningful, personalized feedback. This scalable approach helps reduce the geographic disparities that often plague teacher development programs.
Although AI output must be checked so that any potential biases that come through from the underlying datasets can be removed, AI tools also show promise for reducing bias when used thoughtfully. For example, AI can provide concrete analysis of classroom dynamics based on observable actions such as talk time, wait time, and types of questions asked. While human review and interpretation remains essential–to spot check for AI hallucinations or other inaccuracies and interpret patterns in context–purpose-built tools with appropriate guardrails can help deliver more equitable support.
4. Helping teachers recognize and build on their strengths
Harvard researchers found that while AI tools excel at using supportive language to appreciate classroom projects–and recognize the work that goes into each project–students who self-reported high levels of stress or low levels of enjoyment said the feedback was often unhelpful or insensitive. We must be thoughtful and intentional about the AI-powered feedback we share with students.
AI can also help teachers see what they themselves are doing well, which is something many educators struggle with. This strength-based approach builds confidence and resilience. As one TeachFX pilot participant noted, “I was surprised at the focus on my strengths as well and how to improve on them. I think it did a good job of getting good details on my conversation and the intent behind it. ”
I often tell new teachers: “You’ll never see me teach a perfect lesson because perfect lessons don’t exist. I strive to improve each time I teach, and those incremental gains add up for students.” AI helps teachers embrace this growth mindset by making improvement tangible and achievable.
The moment is now
The current teacher shortage is a crisis, but it’s also an opportunity to reimagine how we support teachers.
Every student deserves a teacher who knows how to meaningfully engage them. And every teacher deserves timely, actionable feedback. The moment to shape AI’s role in teacher preparation is now. Let’s leverage these tools to help develop confident, effective teachers who will inspire the next generation of learners.
Dr. Alice Waldron, Relay Graduate School of Education
Dr. Alice Waldron leads Relay’s collective efforts to accelerate progress toward our mission and vision through meaningful innovation. With a focus on impact, values, and financial sustainability, she creates and leads processes to test and scale innovation initiatives to meet the evolving needs of schools and educators. Prior to this role, Dr. Waldron was the founding Dean of Relay’s Online Campus as well as Relay’s national Dean of Clinical Experience.
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