State lawmakers across the country filed more bills to restrict or protect libraries and readers in the first half of this year than last year, a new report found.
The split fell largely along geographic lines, according to the report from EveryLibrary, a group that advocates against book bans and censorship.
Between January and July 2025, lawmakers introduced 133 bills that the organization deemed harmful to libraries, librarians or readers’ rights in 33 states — an increase from 121 bills in all of 2024. Fourteen of those measures had passed as of mid-July.
At the same time, legislators introduced 76 bills in 32 states to protect library services or affirm the right to read, the report found.
The geographic split among these policies is stark.
In Southern and Plains states, new laws increasingly criminalize certain actions of librarians, restrict access to materials about gender and race, and transfer decision-making power to politically appointed boards or parent-led councils.
Texas alone passed a trio of sweeping laws stripping educators of certain legal protections when providing potentially obscene materials; banning public funding for instructional materials containing obscene content; and giving parents more authority over student reading choices and new library additions.
Tennessee lowered the bar to prosecute educators for sharing books that might be considered “harmful to minors.”
A New Hampshire bill likewise would’ve made it easier for parents or the state attorney general to bring civil actions against school employees for distributing material deemed harmful to minors, but it was vetoed by Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte.
In Nebraska, a new law allows for real-time alerts for parents every time a student checks out a book. South Dakota requires libraries and schools to install filtering software. New laws in Idaho heighten the requirements to form library districts and mandate stricter internet filtering policies that are tied to state funding.
In contrast, several Northeastern states have passed legislation protections for libraries and librarians and anti-censorship laws.
New Jersey, Delaware, Rhode Island and Connecticut have each enacted “freedom to read” or other laws that codify protections against ideological censorship in libraries.
Connecticut also took a major step in modernizing libraries in the digital age, the report said, becoming the first state in the nation to pass a law regulating how libraries license and manage e-books and digital audiobooks.
Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at [email protected].
Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: [email protected].
Fewer than 52% of Indiana high school graduates from the Class of 2023 went directly to college, according to the latest data quietly released by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education.
Just 51.7% of 2023 graduates, about 39,000 students, enrolled in college within a year of finishing high school, data showed. That’s down from a steady 53% between 2020 and 2022, and far below the state’s peak of 65% a decade ago.
Around 36% of all graduating seniors enrolled in one of Indiana’s public four-year institutions, followed by 8% who chose a private college or university.
Another 7.6% went to a school outside of Indiana, according to the data.
The figures, posted to the agency’s website earlier this month, reflect concerns state leaders have long expressed about Indiana’s declining college-going culture, especially as the state shifts focus toward career credentials and work-based learning.
“The startling drop in our college-going rate yet again can be credited to the lack of two things: money and morale,” said Rep. Ed DeLaney, D-Indianapolis, in a statement released Wednesday.
“While our governor has been taking a victory lap for getting our state universities to freeze tuition, he has failed to guarantee that his move will not decrease financial aid and scholarship opportunities,” DeLaney continued. “Any lack of opportunity for tuition support will lead to more Hoosiers not being able to afford college and being forced to choose a different path.”
The 2023 numbers come just six months after the higher education commission approved sweeping changes to Indiana’s high school diploma, set to take effect statewide in 2029, that emphasize work-based learning and career readiness over traditional college preparation.
High schoolers will be required to earn at least one “diploma seal” to graduate, including options for employment or postsecondary readiness. While some seal options are specifically geared toward college-bound students, graduates will no longer be required to complete all the coursework or meet other criteria typically expected for college admission.
Rep. Ed DeLaney, D-Indianapolis, sits in the House Education Committee on Wednesday, Feb. 12. (Casey Smith/Indiana Capital Chronicle)
DeLaney maintained that Republican leaders “have been devaluing the opportunities that our colleges and universities can offer students.”
“At the same time, the supermajority has made attacking colleges and universities the centerpiece of their culture war agenda — from policing what can be taught in the classroom, to forcing institutions to eliminate hundreds of degree options, to creating an entirely new high school diploma that emphasizes the path directly into the workforce,” the lawmaker said.
“Trying to bury this report in a website and not send a press release is a telling sign that the Commission on Higher Education knows this does not look good, and does not act to fix it,” DeLaney added. “It simply isn’t important enough to them. They are busy eliminating college courses and creating new tests. This is what the legislature has asked them to do.”
CHE has not issued a press release on the latest data and did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Indiana’s college-going rate has dropped more than any other state tracked by the National Center for Education Statistics over the past 15 years.
Previously, Indiana reached a college-going rate of 65%.
“We set a goal to get it back when it slumped,” DeLaney recalled. “Now, it doesn’t seem like we care to address the issue. That is a shame for our students, a shame for our economy, and a shame for our state.”
“The supermajority has been in power for 20 years and this is their achievement,” DeLaney said. “At some point we have to ask ourselves: is a declining college-going rate not the result they want?”
By the numbers
According to the numbers published on CHE’s online college-going dashboard, the vast majority of 2023 grads who continued their education earned some form of college credit while still in high school: 85.6% of college-goers took and passed an Advanced Placement exam; 64.6% earned dual credit; 90.7% earned the Indiana College Core diploma, which comes with a block of 30 general education credits that can be transferred to and accepted at colleges across the state; 86.3% earned as associate’s degree; and 63.6% earned another type of credential.
A quarter of postsecondary enrollees, 25%, are seeking STEM-related degrees, while:
17.8% enrolled in business and communications programs
16% enrolled in health programs
11% enrolled in social and behavioral sciences and human services programs
9.9% enrolled in arts and humanities programs
7.4% enrolled in trades programs
5.8% enrolled in education programs
7% were undecided
College-going among male students dropped to 45%, compared to 59% for female students — widening an existing gender gap.
Among racial groups, Asian and white students had the highest college-going rates, at 70.7% and 54%, respectively. The college-going rates among other racial groups lagged, though, at 45.5% for Black students, and 41.7% for Hispanic students.
The rate for students from low-income backgrounds — as measured by eligibility for free or reduced lunch — was 38.7%, compared to about 60% for their higher-income peers.
More than 78% of college-bound graduates from the 2023 cohort were part of Indiana’s 21st Century Scholars program, according the the new data. The scholarship fund covers full tuition and fees at Indiana colleges and universities for low-income students, who enroll in the 8th grade.
Also previewed in the data was an update on the Class of 2022.
The CHE dashboard showed 53% of the 2022 cohort that enrolled in a postsecondary program within a year after high school graduation met all three early college success benchmarks: they did not need remediation; they completed all courses they attempted during their first year of enrollment; and they persisted to their second year of schooling.
According to the latest numbers, 77.5% of the 2022 cohort that enrolled in a postsecondary program persisted to the second year.
Indiana Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: [email protected].
As dangerous myths about autism circulate on the national stage, many colleges echo a quieter, yet similarly misguided assumption: that autistic students are socially isolated or incapable of forming meaningful relationships. But the 43 autistic college students we interviewed tell a very different story—one grounded in connection, authenticity, and community, built on their own terms.
Dr. Karly Isaacson (Ball) Three years ago, we launched the Postsecondary Education: Autistic Collegians’ Experiences of Success (PEACES) national study, drawing participants from both community colleges and four-year institutions across the U.S. We invited autistic students—both self-identified and formally diagnosed—to share their experiences through annual surveys, in-depth interviews, and photo-based storytelling activities. To date, we’ve gathered over 1300 survey responses, nearly 80 interviews, and nearly 70 photo reflections across three waves of data collection, with a fourth wave launching in fall 2025.Dr. Brett Ranon Nachman
As we analyzed the second wave of interviews, one theme stood out: the central role of friendship. Again and again, students described how meaningful friendships shaped their college experiences, not in spite of their autism, but through it. We used this analysis to publish a journal article on autistic college student friendship earlier this month. In this op-ed, we describe three key ways in which autistic college students foster meaningful friendships: engaging in autistic spaces, practicing autistic authenticity, and bonding over shared interests. We hope that understanding how autistic college students think about and experience friendship can ultimately guide colleges in creating more supportive, inclusive environments for this largely misunderstood, minoritized student population.Dr. Bradley E. Cox
Autistic spaces offer connection without explanation. Contrary to the common myth that autistic students are inherently socially disconnected, many participants in our study described finding deep connections in spaces designed by and for autistic people. Whether through formal autism support programs (ASPs), campus disability centers, or informal sensory-friendly spaces, students emphasized how these environments allowed them to engage with others who shared similar communication styles, sensory needs, and lived experiences. These spaces didn’t just accommodate difference—they affirmed it.
Catherine T. McDermottFor some students, these autism affirming communities were a lifeline, especially during vulnerable transitions like receiving a new autism diagnosis or navigating the pressures of living on one’s own for the first time. One student shared how knowing there was “somewhere to turn” in these difficult periods made all the difference. Others described naturally gravitating toward autistic peers before even knowing their friends’ diagnoses, drawn together by shared ways of thinking and being. Still, not every student stumbled into connection. Several expressed frustration that their schools offered few avenues to find others like them on campus. As one student put it, “you feel like the black sheep of the campus because there’s not really anything for you.” Institutions that take autistic students seriously must prioritize not just services, but creating autistic spaces on campus that are intentional, visible, and community-driven.
Practicing authenticity builds deeper relationships. For many autistic students, friendship flourished not when they tried to hide who they were, but when they stopped trying. Students described how letting go of masking (a strategy that some autistic people use to appear non-autistic), led to stronger, more affirming relationships. As one student put it, “the more authentic in myself that I become, the stronger my relationships become.” College, for many, provided a rare opportunity to explore what it meant to show up fully as themselves, autism and all. This wasn’t always easy. Several students shared fears of judgment or past experiences of exclusion, and some still found themselves masking in certain spaces. But when peers responded with respect and curiosity—whether during a class presentation, a theater performance, or an informal hangout—autistic students said they felt “seen,” “heard,” and “valued” when they presented their autistic characteristics and were met with acceptance. Vulnerability often became a gateway to connection. One participant recounted the anxiety of playing pool with friends, worried about motor difficulties, only to be met with patience and encouragement. These moments of openness helped students discern who was safe, who cared, and who was worth pursuing as a friend. Practicing authenticity didn’t always come without cost—but for many, it made friendship more meaningful and sustainable.
Shared passions spark connection. While autistic spaces and identity-based connections were vital, students also emphasized another major source of friendship in doing what they love. Shared interests—from playing Dungeons & Dragons to Taylor Swift fandoms—created natural entry points for relationship-building. Nearly every autistic college student we interviewed was involved in a club, job, or hobby that helped them find “their people.” These weren’t just time-fillers or a line to add to a resume—they were genuine community builders.
Many autistic students created their own spaces when they couldn’t find an existing affinity group or organization. One started a disability advocacy club; another launched an American Sign Language (ASL) group; a third founded a fiber arts circle. Whether through casual gaming nights, photography collaborations, or cat playdates, students built friendships by doing things they genuinely cared about—often with people who shared their pace, humor, and communication style. As one student shared, it meant everything to have even “just one person to go to coffee with who actually cared about the topic.” In these spaces, autistic passions weren’t sidelined—they were celebrated. And when peers leaned into those interests too, genuine friendships blossomed.
In a time when public discourse too often distorts what it means to be autistic, colleges have a unique opportunity—and responsibility—to listen to autistic students themselves. Our research shows that autistic students are not only capable of forming meaningful friendships, but that they do so in ways that are intentional and creative. Colleges that invest in spaces for connection, support students in showing up authentically, and celebrate shared interests will not only dismantle outdated stereotypes—they will foster communities where all students can thrive.
Dr. Karly Isaacson (Ball) is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Michigan State University for Project PEACES.
Dr. Brett Ranon Nachman is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the University of Pittsburgh and Director of Research for College Autism Network.
Dr. Bradley E. Cox is an Associate Professor of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education (HALE) at Michigan State University and Founder of the nonprofit College Autism Network.
Catherine T. McDermott is a consultant for Project PEACES and Founder of McDermott Autism Services.
Child care worries have been made worse this summer by federal cuts and depleting pandemic funds, and they aren’t expected to ease by the first day of school. While their kids might have gotten a rest, parents reported longer commutes and newfound stress.
A dozen parents from across the state told Mississippi Today about summer child care plans for their toddlers and elementary school-aged children. They shared a mix of anxiety about finding care and frustration with existing options.
Parents have had more reasons to be anxious about those options this summer than in previous ones. A loss of federally funded summer programming for youth, added fees for day care tuition and the loss of vouchers to subsidize tuition costs have changed the landscape of child care.
Shequite Johnson poses with newborn Noah on a work trip in Jackson, Miss., on Feb. 12, 2025. (Shequite Johnson)
For Shequite Johnson, a professor at Mississippi Valley State University, it has meant driving 45 minutes in the opposite direction of her job for day care.
“I’ve had to leave my 13-year-old with my 4-year-old,” she said. “And you’re put in a situation where you have to make these decisions. Some are even leaving their babies at home by themselves for five hours and checking on them during lunch hour.”
She had to pull her 4-year-old boy from a day care in her hometown because of excessive fees. She was charged a $20 late fee at pickup, a $100 registration fee for each of her two boys, and a $150 supplies fee that was announced in June on top of the $135 weekly fee.
The Mississippi Department of Human Services recently announced a cutback on vouchers that subsidize child care costs. Without Johnson’s child care voucher, her nearby options were limited to a city-run program in an unsafe neighborhood and three programs in aging facilities.
Delta Health Alliance runs free and reduced summer programming for elementary-aged children. But Johnson makes more than the income cut-off.
“It’s a crisis right now in Mississippi,” said Carol Burnett, executive director of Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative. “The lack of affordable child care prevents employers from keeping their workforce. And yet the state of Mississippi wants people to go back to work.”
“Parents are having to make choices. And none of them are good,” she added.
The Child Care Initiative operates a program that connects single moms with higher-paying jobs and covers the costs of child care during the transition. The organization is also advocating for the Mississippi Department of Human Services to spend some of the $156 million in unspent Temporary Assistance for Needy Families on Mississippi’s Child Care Payment Program.
The Child Care Development Fund, which nationally supports these voucher state programs, relied on pandemic-era funding that ran out in September. The Department of Human Services asked the Legislature for $40 million to continue serving the same number of families – but received $15 million.
In April, the department put a hold on renewals for child care vouchers except for deployed military parents, parents who are TANF recipients, foster children guardians, teen parents, parents of special needs children and homeless parents. As a result, 9,000 parents lost child care assistance.
The department will keep the hold until the number of enrollees drops to 27,000 or its budget goes below $12 million in monthly costs. As of Friday, it had no further update but said it will have an announcement in the next couple of weeks.
Using TANF funds unspent from past years regardless of whether they were allocated for child care assistance is prohibited, according to federal guidance. However, the TANF state office can use the leftover funds to form a direct payment program. Ohio and Texas enacted this policy.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services regional manager Eric Blanchette shared this idea with Mississippi Department of Human Services Early Childhood Director Chad Allgood, according to an email obtained as part of a records request filed by Mississippi Today into communication regarding TANF funds. As of Friday, there were no plans to enact a similar policy in Mississippi.
A second rent
Monica Ford pays nearly $1,600 in monthly child care costs for three kids. She works as a Shipt delivery driver in addition to her day job as a Magnolia Guaranty Life Insurance Co. auditor. She, her husband and their children recently had to move in with his parents.
Monica Ford poses with children Tahir, 7, Kian, 4, Nuri, 1, at Freedom Ridge Park in Ridgeland, Miss., July 19, 2025. (Monica Ford)
“It’s more than I’ve paid in rent,” she said. “It’s why I live with my family now.”
She uses a Jackson day care that charges $10 per minute for late pickup. The fees must be paid by the next morning.
Nearly all of the single mothers interviewed said they take on extra work to cover the rising costs of child care in their area. It’s extra work that sees them spending less time with their children.
Ashley Wilson’s child care voucher wasn’t renewed in the spring. She works 55 hours a week at a bingo hall and at Sonic Drive-In.
“We don’t get help. That’s what I don’t understand,” said Wilson, an Indianola parent.
Her preferred day care option in Indianola charged $185 per week and $20 late fees, which Wilson could not afford. Her sister was able to afford monthly costs because of an arrangement with an Angel – a benefactor who helps local families with tuition at day care providers.
Wilson tried other day cares in town. Several were in dangerous neighborhoods with staff that left milk bottles to spoil. Her toddler came home wet some afternoons and with cuts another. She gets help from family when she can.
Whitney Harper lost her child care voucher in April. She is lucky when a relative is willing to watch her 2-year old. Lately, she has considered hiring a sitter off care.com, a website that connects parents with local babysitters. In Jackson, where she lives, the hourly rate is $14 per hour.
Most of the day cares in the Jackson metro area charge between $150 and $250 per week, which is more than she can afford as a sales associate at Home Depot.
“It has been harder this year. They won’t work around my schedule, but I need the job,” she said of her employer.
‘This is the worst I have seen it’
Day care centers are left on the brink when families lose child care vouchers. Making up the lost revenue has meant higher tuition and fees for some centers and reaching out to private donors for others.
“These are small businesses,” Burnette said. “The big story in child care is how much it costs to run it. It requires adequate public investment.”
Level-Up Learning Center leadership team poses in front of their Greenville, Miss., location on July 26, 2024. Left to right are Chief Operating Officer Adrienne Walker, CEO Kaysie Burton and COO/Athletic Director Kwame Malik Barnes. (Level Up Learning Center)
This week, Level Up Learning Center owner and CEO Kaysie Burton visited Greenville’s Walmart, seeking to persuade the manager to sponsor his employees’ child care tuition. She submitted two grant applications and is working on at least three others. Burton’s business survived flooding and relocation. But the latest voucher cutback could shut her banner-adorned doors to the community
At Level Up Learning Center, 75% of parents rely on child care vouchers. In the last three months, 20 Learning Center parents have lost their child care vouchers yet most have stayed. Burton has a policy of not turning parents away if they are willing to contribute a portion of the weekly rate. She has not increased her tuition or instituted punishing fees.
But making up the lost revenue can be a challenge. Since the cutback, she has let seven teachers go, or roughly a third of her staff.
“We’re down to skin and bones right now,” Burton said. “I am willing to take anybody that is willing to come partner with us and help us help parents so that their kids can keep coming in.”
When Burton started her business during the COVID-19 pandemic, she saw the need in the Mississippi Delta for affordable, quality child care. She remains committed to helping prepare a future generation of Greenville leadership.
“We’re in the thick of it with our parents,” Burton said. “And we all just need help and we need prayer.”
SunShine Daycare owner Barbara Thompson has greeted each parent at the door since she started babysitting neighbors’ kids in her living room. The former banker has long had a passion for raising neighborhood children regardless of their parents’ status or income. She raised her seven siblings when her mother died when Thompson was 12.
But for the first time in 30 years of running a business in Greenville, Thompson is losing families by the dozen as well as longtime staff. She has leaned heavily on prayer and has reached out to state representatives for help. She fears more departures and the downsizing of her business.
In the last two months, 12 parents pulled their kids from SunShine. She will have to let three teachers go as a result.
“We won’t have any children if this continues,” Thompson said.
She regularly informs parents of the child care voucher waitlist and of the process for renewals. Besides caring for children, Thompson advises many young parents in her community. She noticed that state agencies communicate primarily through email, which a lot of her parents don’t check regularly.
Children who leave her stoop festooned with cartoon characters can face hours alone without parental supervision. Some children will sit and watch television with their grandparents. For Thompson, child care is about raising children to be “productive citizens.” The youngest years are some of the most important, she stressed.
“They didn’t take it from us,” Thompson said. “They took from the children. That’s the world’s future.”
Waitlisted
Vennesha Price is waitlisted at nearly every day care in Cleveland, where she lives. She’s been on some of the lists for eight months.
“If you haven’t been a resident for five years and you haven’t navigated the waiting list for five years, it’s harder to find a spot,” she said.
She found it difficult to both have a productive work day and watch her elementary-aged children. Eventually, she found a day care that was 40 minutes away. She wakes up an hour earlier to make the commute in time before work.
“I’m a single mother so it’s very difficult,” Price said. “After my grandmother went on to the Lord, it became a struggle trying to get to the day care in time.”
She started factoring late fees into her monthly budget. She’s also including the gas money needed for the extra legs of her commute. Her child care costs doubled for June and July.
“It’s almost like private school tuition now,” she said.
Agencies in at least 28 states and the District of Columbia have issued guidance on the use of artificial intelligence in K-12 schools.
More than half of the states have created school policies to define artificial intelligence, develop best practices for using AI systems and more, according to a report from AI for Education, an advocacy group that provides AI literacy training for educators.
Despite efforts by the Trump administration to loosen federal and state AI rules in hopes of boosting innovation, teachers and students need a lot of state-level guidance for navigating the fast-moving technology, said Amanda Bickerstaff, the CEO and co-founder of AI for Education.
“What most people think about when it comes to AI adoption in the schools is academic integrity,” she said. “One of the biggest concerns that we’ve seen — and one of the reasons why there’s been a push towards AI guidance, both at the district and state level — is to provide some safety guidelines around responsible use and to create opportunities for people to know what is appropriate.”
North Carolina, which last year became one of the first states to issue AI guidance for schools, set out to study and define generative artificial intelligence for potential uses in the classroom. The policy also includes resources for students and teachers interested in learning how to interact with AI models successfully.
In addition to classroom guidance, some states emphasize ethical considerations for certain AI models. Following Georgia’s initial framework in January, the state shared additional guidance in June outlining ethical principles educators should consider before adopting the technology.
In the absence of regulations at the federal level, states are filling a critical gap, said Maddy Dwyer, a policy analyst for the Equity in Civic Technology team at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a nonprofit working to advance civil rights in the digital age.
While most state AI guidance for schools focuses on the potential benefits, risks and need for human oversight, Dwyer wrote in a recent blog post that many of the frameworks are missing out on critical AI topics, such as community engagement and deepfakes, or manipulated photos and videos.
“I think that states being able to fill the gap that is currently there is a critical piece to making sure that the use of AI is serving kids and their needs, and enhancing their educational experiences rather than detracting from them,” she said.
Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: [email protected].
This HEPI guest blog was kindly authored by Mary Curnock Cook CBE, who chairs the Dyson Institute and is a Trustee at HEPI, and Bess Brennan, Chief of University Partnerships with Cadmus, which is running a series of collaborative events with UK university leaders about the challenges and opportunities of generative AI in higher education.
Are universities super tankers, drifting slowly through the ocean while students are speedboats, zipping around them? That was one of the most arresting images from the recent Kings x Cadmus Teaching and Learning Forum and captured a central theme running through the Forum: the mismatch between the pace of technological and social change facing universities and the slow speed of institutional adaptation when it comes to AI.
Yet the forum also highlighted a fundamental change in how higher education institutions are approaching AI in assessment – moving from a reactive, punitive stance to one of proactive partnership, a shift from AI prohibition to integration. As speaker after speaker acknowledged, the sector’s initial approach of trying to detect and prevent AI use has been shown to be both futile and counterproductive. As one speaker noted, ‘we cannot stop students using AI. We cannot detect it. So we have to redefine assessment.’
From left to right: Mary Curnock Cook, Professor Andrew Turner, Professor Parama Chaudhury, Professor Timothy Thompson. Source: Cadmus
This reality has forced some institutions to completely reconceptualise their relationship with AI technology in order to work with the tide rather than against it. Where AI was viewed as a threat to academic integrity, educators are beginning to see it as an inevitable part of the learning landscape that calls for thoughtful integration, not least so that students are equipped for change and the AI-driven workplace. For example, Coventry University has responded by moving its assessment entirely to a coursework-based approach, except where there are Professional, Statutory and Regulatory Body (PSRB) requirements, and explicitly allows the use of AI, in most cases, to assist.
Imperial College’s approach exemplifies this new thinking with its principle of using AI “to think with you and not for you.” This approach recognises AI as a thinking partner rather than a replacement for human cognition, fundamentally changing how universities structure learning experiences. The shift requires moving from output-focused assessment to process-based evaluation, where students must demonstrate their thinking journey alongside their final products.
Like many universities, Imperial is also concerned about equity of access to AI. As a baseline it offers enterprise access to a foundational LLM with firewalled data, Copilot, which ringfences the data within the institution. But it also has a multi-LLM portal pilot, which includes ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini and DeepSeek, acting as an AI sandpit to help instil a culture of thinking of the LLMs as different tools to be experimented with – users can switch between them and ask them the same question to see the variation in results. Meanwhile, LSE has partnered with Anthropic to offer all students free access to Anthropic’s Claude for Education, which helps students by guiding their reasoning process, rather than simply providing answers.
Practical implementation challenges
This transition to integration requires practical frameworks that many institutions are still developing. A speaker voiced the sector’s uncertainty as: ‘We do not know the next development – we didn’t see this one coming.’ This unpredictability leads to what was termed ‘seeking safety in policy’ – a tendency to over-regulate when the real need is for adaptive frameworks.
The challenge of moving beyond traffic light systems (red/amber/green classifications for AI use) emerged repeatedly. These systems, while intuitive, often leave educators and students in the ambiguous amber zone without clear guidance: ‘everyone falls in the middle. You cannot do the red stuff but how do you enforce that? What do we really mean by the green stuff?’ Instead, some institutions are moving towards assessment-specific guidance that explicitly states when and how AI can be used for each task.
Cultural and systemic transformation
This technological shift demands profound cultural change within institutions. As one participant observed, ‘Culture change is being driven by students. Academics may not want to change but they no longer have a choice if they’re getting assessments written by AI – or they don’t know if the assessments are written by AI’. The pace of student adoption is outstripping institutional adaptation, creating tension between established academic practices and emerging student behaviours – those speedboats and super tankers again.
However, while the magnitude of the challenge calls for institutional-scale change and moving beyond individual innovations to systemic transformation, super tankers don’t turn quickly.
Strategic approaches to change at scale
Several institutions shared their successful strategies for managing large-scale change. The key appears to be starting with early adopters and building momentum through demonstrated success. As Cadmus founder Herk Kailis noted, change champions are: ‘the best people who are keeping the sector evolving and growing – and we need to get behind them as there aren’t that many of them.’ Imperial’s approach of appointing ‘AI futurists’ in each faculty demonstrates how institutions can systematically seed innovation while maintaining a connection to disciplinary expertise.
Another speaker observed that successful change requires ‘recognising the challenges and concerns of academic colleagues, bringing them together, supporting colleagues in making the changes they want.’ At Maynooth University, incentives for staff, such as fellowships and promotion pathway changes, rather than mandates, draws on the notion that ‘you can’t herd cats but you can move their food’.
Cross-institutional collaboration
The forum emphasised that institutional change cannot happen in isolation. The complexity of stakeholder groups – from faculty leads to central teams to students and student-facing services – requires sophisticated engagement strategies. As one participant noted about successful technology implementation: ‘Pilots don’t work if they are isolated with one stakeholder group. You need buy-in from all the groups.’
The call for sector-wide collaboration extends beyond individual institutions to include professional bodies, regulatory frameworks and quality assurance processes – QA must also keep up with the pace of change. PSRBs, in particular, were singled out as a blocker to change.
International networking is also important. For example, UCL is working with Digital Intelligence International Development Education Alliance (DI-IDEA) from Peking University, which is experimenting with AI in education in innovative and accelerated ways.
Building sustainable change
Perhaps most importantly, the forum recognised that sustainable institutional change requires long-term commitment and resource allocation, and this imperative could arguably not have come at a more difficult time for many HE institutions. The observation that ‘There’s never been a greater need and appetite from staff to engage with this at a time when resourcing in the sector is a real problem’ highlights the tension between ambition and capacity that many institutions face.
However, the success stories shared – such as Birmingham City University’s Cadmus implementation saving 735.2 hours of academic staff time while improving student outcomes – demonstrate that institutional change, while challenging, can deliver measurable benefits for both educators and learners when implemented thoughtfully and systematically.
Three recommended actions from the forum
1. Address systemic inequalities, not just assessment design
Research from the University of Manchester shared at the conference showed that 95% of differential attainment stems from factors beyond assessment itself – cultural awareness, digital poverty, caring responsibilities and lack of representation.
Action: Take a holistic approach to student success that addresses the whole student experience, implements universal design principles, and recognises that some students are ‘rolling loaded dice’ in the academic game of privilege. Don’t assume assessment reform alone will solve equity issues.
2. Reduce high-stakes assessment
Traditional exam-heavy models risk perpetuating inequalities and don’t reflect workplace realities. Multiple lower-stakes assessments can support deeper learning and may be more equitable.
Action: Systematically reduce reliance on high-stakes exams in favour of diverse and more authentic assessment methods. This helps to address both AI challenges and equity concerns while better preparing students for their futures.
3.Co-create with students as partners
Students are driving the pace of change – they are already using AI. They need to be partners in designing solutions, not just recipients of policies.
Action: Involve students in co-designing assessments, rubrics and AI policies. Create bi-directional dialogue about learning experiences and empower students to share learning strategies. Build trust through transparency and genuine partnership.
That Southern rock refrain from Molly Hatchet captures the bitter reality faced by millions of Americans who invested in higher education only to be left with debt, shattered hopes, and uncertain futures.
Educator Gary Roth’s The Educated Underclass points to a growing class of credentialed individuals caught in precarious economic and social positions—overqualified yet underpaid, burdened by debt without the stability education promised. Yet it is the borrowers’ own stories that reveal the human toll behind the numbers.
Over the past month, The Higher Education Inquirer has chronicled the experiences of borrowers misled by predatory institutions—mainly for-profit colleges—through its Borrower Defense Story Series. These narratives shed light on the deeply personal consequences of institutional deception and a federal loan forgiveness process that is often slow, bureaucratic, and uneven.
In one story, a single mother describes her experience at Chamberlain University School of Nursing. She followed every instruction, met every deadline, and committed herself fully to a career in health care. Yet she never earned her degree. Despite this, she remains burdened with thousands of dollars in student loan debt. Her borrower defense application has yet to yield relief.
Another borrower shares her journey with Kaplan University Online, where promises of flexible learning and job placement proved empty. After transferring and completing her degree elsewhere, she still faces uncertainty as her borrower defense claim drags on, highlighting the emotional toll of navigating a broken loan forgiveness system.
A third story critiques the broader system of higher education finance, describing how students—especially those without family wealth or institutional support—become trapped in debt relationships that limit their autonomy and economic mobility. Rather than offering a pathway to security, college becomes a mechanism of financial entrapment.
These individual stories are not exceptions. As of April 30, 2024, over 974,000 borrowers had received more than $17 billion in loan discharges under borrower defense rules, mostly through group claims tied to scandals involving Corinthian Colleges, ITT Tech, and DeVry. Yet hundreds of thousands still await decisions, and many are excluded entirely due to private loans, school exclusions, or bureaucratic delays.
The borrower defense rule was meant to shield students from fraud, but political interference, legal challenges, and an overwhelmed bureaucracy have marred its implementation. Behind the statistics are people deceived, indebted, and left behind.
Meanwhile, elite institutions hoard resources, adjunct faculty struggle to survive, and the promise of higher education rings hollow for many.
“I’m hung up on dreams I’ll never see.” This lyric is not just poetry but the lived reality for millions. Unless there is radical change—debt cancellation, labor protections, honest admissions, and accountability—the cycle of exploitation will only grow louder.
Some were sold dreams they could never afford. Many of those dreams are now lost.
Sources
Roth, Gary. The Educated Underclass. Pluto Press, 2022
National Center for Education Statistics. “Debt After College”
The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS). “Student Debt and the Class of 2023”
American Psychological Association. “Mental Health Impacts of Student Debt”
Bousquet, Marc. How the University Works. NYU Press, 2008
McMillan Cottom, Tressie. Lower Ed. The New Press, 2017
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The Trump administration will release the remaining fiscal year 2025 K-12 grant funds that it had frozen — nearly $5 billion — to states and districts, the Office of Management and Budget confirmed Friday.
The funding for student academic supports, English learners, immigrant students and teacher training was supposed to be available July 1, but was not released pending a “programmatic review” by OMB, the White House’s budget arm.
That review was to ensure the grants align with Trump administration policies and priorities, OMB told K-12 Dive earlier this month. The office had said initial findings showed “many of these grant programs have been grossly misused to subsidize a radical leftwing agenda.”
On Friday, a senior administration official told K-12 Dive in an email, “Guardrails are in place to ensure these funds will not be used in violation of Executive Orders or administration policy.”
Earlier this week, OMB began releasing $1.3 billion it had withheld for after-school and summer programming under the 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant, according to the Afterschool Alliance.
The remaining funds to be released are:
$2.2 billion for Title II-A for professional development.
$1.4 billion for Title IV-A for student support and academic enrichment.
$890 million for Title III-A for English-learner services.
$375 million for Title I-C for migrant education.
Education officials, Republican and Democratic lawmakers, education organizations, parents and nonprofits had all urged OMB to release the funds that were approved by Congress in an appropriations bill that President Donald Trump signed in March. They said the weekslong delay in accessing the money was already causing “budgetary chaos” for schools, which began cancelling contracts, laying off staff and eliminating programs when the funds didn’t arrive as scheduled.
A survey by AASA, the School Superintendents Association, found that nearly 30% of districts said they needed access to the withheld funds by Aug. 1 to avoid cutting programs and services for students. By Aug. 15, survey respondents said they would have to notify parents and educators about the loss of programs and services. The survey was conducted earlier this month and drew responses from 628 superintendents in 43 states.
On Friday, David Schuler, AASA’s executive director, said in a statement that he was pleased the “critical” funds would now be available to schools.
Sen Patty Murray, D-Wash., vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement Friday, “There is no good reason for the chaos and stress this president has inflicted on students, teachers, and parents across America for the last month, and it shouldn’t take widespread blowback for this administration to do its job and simply get the funding out the door that Congress has delivered to help students.”
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, addressed the news during a keynote speech Friday at the Together Educating America’s Children conference in Washington, D.C., according to a press release.
“Today, they backed down: our lobbying, our lawsuits, and our advocacy for why these funds matter to kids, it worked.” Weingarten said.
Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, said in a Friday statement, “These reckless funding delays have undermined planning, staffing, and support services at a time when schools should be focused on preparing students for success.”
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The Trump administration agreed Friday to temporarily pause enforcement of recent policy changes that restrict some education-related federal programs based on students’ immigration or citizenship status.
The agreement, filed in U.S. District Court for Rhode Island, was reached between the parties in a lawsuit brought last week by 20 states and the District of Columbia against multiple federal agencies, including the departments of Education and Health and Human Services.
Under the agreement, Head Start programs in those states won’t be required to verify the immigration or citizenship status of the children they enroll until at least Sept. 3, 2025. HHS, which administers Head Start, previously said the new policy requiring immigration status verification would take effect immediately.
The Department of Education, meanwhile, was set to enforce its new restrictions for some immigrants in programs like dual enrollment, adult education and career and technical training programs by Aug. 9. The Friday agreement would delay that by about a month.
As part of the agreement, states that sued cannot be held liable for admitting students without proper immigration status into the programs before Sept. 4. That means programs will not be retroactively penalized for enrolling all students regardless of their immigration status, as has been the norm for Head Start for decades.
“Today’s stipulation ensures that, for now, critical services will continue without disruption, and that families across New York and the nation will not be punished for seeking the help to which they are lawfully entitled,” the New York Attorney General’s office said in a Friday press release.
New York led the states filing the original lawsuit, and arguments are expected on or after Aug. 20. The District of Columbia joined the suit as did these states:
Washington
Rhode Island
Arizona
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Hawaii
Illinois
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Nevada
New Jersey
New Mexico
Oregon
Vermont
Wisconsin
The U.S. Department of Education could not be reached for comment in time for publication.
A freeze on federal education funding that prompted two lawsuits has been lifted, and states will be able to access the money next week, the U.S. Department of Education announced Friday.
The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which argued that districts were spending the money to advance a “radical left-wing agenda,” has completed its review of five different programs totaling $5.5 billion, said Madison Beidermann, spokeswoman for the department.
The funds support education for English learners and migrant students and pay for staff training and extra instructional positions. The news came a week after the administration released over $1.3 billion for summer and afterschool programs, which was also held up for review.
The department alerted states June 30, one day before they expected to receive the money, that the review was in process, forcing programs to cut staff and end summer programs early. Congress appropriated the funds for this coming school year, and President Donald Trump signed the budget in March.
The release of the funds, announced just hours before Education Secretary Linda McMahon was scheduled to meet with the nation’s governors in Colorado Springs, Colorado, comes as superintendents nationwide were preparing to eliminate services like literacy and math coaches, according to a survey conducted by AASA, the School Superintendents Association. Half of the 628 chiefs who responded from 43 states said they would have to lay off staff who work with special education students if the funds weren’t released. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten brought the message to attendees at the union’s annual TEACH conference in Washington, D.C.
“The administration backed down and we are getting the money,” she said to a cheering audience. “Those of you who lobbied yesterday, thank you. Those of you who brought the lawsuit, thank you.”
Attorney generals from 24 blue states and the District of Columbia sued on July 14 over the freeze, arguing that the administration’s actions were harming schools. School districts, parents, unions and nonprofits filed a second challenge on July 21, saying that OMB has never stood in the way of the department’s practice of releasing the funds in two steps, first on July 1 and the rest on Oct. 1. Republican senators joined their Democratic colleagues in pressuring the administration to free up the money.
Friday’s announcement doesn’t mean the legal fight is over. In a statement, Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which is handling the second case, said the legal team would “continue to monitor the situation and work in court to ensure the administration fully complies with the law and that these resources reach the schools and students who need them most.”
Districts can now start the school year without the shortfall, but that doesn’t mean advocates’ worries are over about future disruptions to funding. The July 1 distribution date is a longstanding practice, not something written into the law.
Tara Thomas, government affairs manager for AASA, said her organization wants to “have additional conversations” with Congress or the administration to “ensure that this type of uncertainty at the last minute doesn’t happen again. Districts need to continue to rely on stable, timely, reliable federal funding.”
Another fight over education funds could also be ahead. The White House is reportedly preparing another recissions package that would target education funding. Thomas said she didn’t know what might be included, but it could be cuts that the Department of Government Efficiency made to grant programs.
On Friday, Trump signed a recissions package, pulling back $9 billion in funds from public television and foreign aid.
