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  • ED Announces Further Changes to Accreditation

    ED Announces Further Changes to Accreditation

    Secretary McMahon said the Dear Colleague letter will “foster a competitive marketplace” for accreditors and the institutions they oversee.

    Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

    The Department of Education intends to accelerate the process for changing accreditors, a move announced in a Dear Colleague letter that builds on other recent changes to oversight.

    Last week the Trump administration released a highly anticipated executive order to overhaul accreditation. That order took aim at accreditors who have diversity, equity and inclusion in their standards, threatening to revoke their recognition, and sought to make it easier for institutions to switch from one accrediting body to another and for new accreditors to enter the marketplace.

    The Department of Education cast the Dear Colleague letter as an action to comply with that executive order and announced that ED had “lifted the Biden Administration’s moratorium on accepting and reviewing applications for initial recognition of potential new accreditors.”

    The Trump administration revoked guidance from the Biden administration from 2022 that exerted more scrutiny over changing accreditors, which came after Florida’s Republican-led Legislature passed a bill that year requiring its public institutions to switch accreditors regularly. (The bill came after state officials clashed with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, which accredited all of Florida’s public institutions, over concerns of political influence.)

    “We must foster a competitive marketplace both amongst accreditors and colleges and universities in order to lower college costs and refocus postsecondary education on improving academic and workforce outcomes for students and families,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement about the guidance. “President Trump’s Executive Order and our actions today will ensure this Department no longer stands as a gatekeeper to block aspiring innovators from becoming new accreditors nor will this Department unnecessarily micromanage an institution’s choice of accreditor.”

    Thursday’s letter, signed by Deputy Under Secretary James P. Bergeron, emphasized that the U.S. Department of Education aims to expedite the process of changing accreditors by removing what ED called “unnecessary requirements” that officials argued stifle institutional innovation.

    ED will no longer scrutinize reasons for changing accreditors, according to the letter.

    “The law and regulation do not dictate a robust or onerous process for receiving the Department’s approval for a change in accrediting agencies or maintaining multiple accreditation,” Bergeron wrote in the Dear Colleague letter. “Therefore, consistent with statutory and regulatory obligations, the Department will conduct expeditious reviews of applications received except in rare cases where an institution lacks a reasonable cause for making a change.”

    The new guidance noted that institutions can switch to accreditors for a variety of reasons, including better alignment with their religious mission, a change mandated by state law or because an accrediting body requires a university to adopt “discriminatory” DEI principles.

    Additionally, Bergeron wrote, if the department “does not approve a change in accrediting agency within 30 days of the date of its receipt of a complete notice of this change and materials demonstrating reasonable cause, approval will be deemed to have been granted, unless the change or multiple accreditation is prohibited as described” in the Dear Colleague letter.

    Some accreditors offered a positive response to the change.

    The Middle States Commission on Higher Education, which recently launched its own effort to streamline the process of changing accreditors, welcomed the development in a statement.

    “As an accreditor with institutions that have been stalled in the process, this guidance will have a positive impact on the work we have been doing with several institutions. We look forward to helping our institutions understand what this may mean for them and for us,” MSCHE president Heather Perfetti wrote. “We appreciate that there are well-defined restrictions that will not allow for institutions to change accreditors to avoid accountability with an existing accreditor.”

    Thursday’s letter also prompted celebration in some conservative quarters.

    The Defense of Freedom Institute, a conservative think tank, urged ED in February to revoke the Biden administration’s guidance on switching, saying that in doing so the department would “wipe away politically motivated and patently unlawful actions of the previous administration.”

    They argued that doing so would create a more effective accreditation system. Following the release of the Dear Colleague letter Thursday, the organization thanked the Trump administration in a statement.

    “The Defense of Freedom Institute applauds the Trump administration for taking bold, necessary action to restore integrity, accountability, and competition to our broken accreditation system. For too long, accreditors have leveraged their Title IV gatekeeper status to stifle innovation in American higher education and to require ideological litmus tests that undermine civil rights and academic freedom on campus,” DFI president and co-founder Bob Eitel wrote.

    Critics, however, argue that making it easier to switch accreditors will have negative effects.

    Wesley Whistle, project director for student success and affordability in the higher education initiative at New America, a left-leaning think tank, told Inside Higher Ed that the new process amounts to a rubber stamp for changing accreditors. He argued that allowing institutions to switch accreditors more easily will likely drive them toward accreditors with lower standards.

    “What this Dear Colleague letter does is dilute that requirement [to demonstrate reasonable cause to switch accreditors], and undermines a critical safeguard that’s meant to ensure that institutions don’t escape oversight just because they don’t like scrutiny,” Whistle said.

    Whistle also suggested the compressed timeline for ED approval within 30 days limits any actual oversight. Timing is compounded, he added, by the lack of personnel, given the job cuts at the department.

    “This guarantees there will be no meaningful review. This isn’t about streamlining, it’s surrender. It’s the Wild West here: Do whatever you want, just say ‘mission’ and you can change accreditors,” he said.

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  • Trump Order Targets Undocumented Students’ In-State Tuition

    Trump Order Targets Undocumented Students’ In-State Tuition

    Immigrant rights advocates are urging state and higher ed leaders not to make any hasty changes to their in-state tuition policies after President Trump issued an executive order on Monday threatening to crack down on sanctuary cities and localities with laws that benefit undocumented immigrants.

    The blow to undocumented students, who in nearly half the country pay in-state tuition, is tucked into an executive order focused mostly on pressuring state and local officials to abandon their cities’ sanctuary status and cooperate with federal immigration authorities. The order demands federal officials make lists of “sanctuary jurisdictions” and the federal funds that could be suspended or cut if they don’t change course. The order also commands them to take “appropriate action” to stop the enforcement of state and local laws and practices “favoring aliens over any groups of American citizens,” including in-state tuition benefits to undocumented students “but not to out-of-state Americans.”

    The move has the potential to affect 24 states and Washington, D.C., which allow in-state tuition for local students with or without citizenship. (Florida previously allowed undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates but ended its decade-old, historically bipartisan policy in February.) Undocumented students and supporters have long touted these policies as a way to make college more affordable for those who can’t access federal financial aid but who grew up in the states and plan to work in their local communities after they graduate.

    “What immigrant, international and refugee students bring is needed talent, skills and contributions,” said Miriam Feldblum, executive director of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration. “In-state tuition increases the number of a state’s residents who are college educated, who are able to contribute far more to the state’s economy and to their communities than if they did not have a college education.”

    Gaby Pacheco, president and CEO of TheDream.US, a scholarship provider for undocumented students, said many of these students come from low-income backgrounds and couldn’t afford college otherwise.

    Her organization is currently scrambling to help undocumented students in Florida pay for the remainder of their credits and graduate before they have to pay much higher out-of-state tuition rates. In some cases, that means helping them transfer to more affordable institutions.

    For many, “it’s just impossible for them to be able to come up with that money,” she said.

    She’s encouraging state and institutional leaders to avoid “panicking” or “making abrupt policy changes” in response to the executive order.

    Other executive orders have “created so much panic and unnecessary movement from colleges, universities, states, that it was more hurtful than anything,” she said. The administration is putting forward a “belief” that charging undocumented students in-state tuition rates is unlawful, but “that belief is legally dubious.”

    Deciphering the Executive Order

    Immigrants’ advocates and legal scholars say the meaning of the executive order is somewhat hazy. For example, it’s unclear what it means for federal officials to “take appropriate action” to prevent in-state tuition policies from being enforced.

    The order also doesn’t directly say states or institutions with such laws will lose any federal funding, noted Ahilan Arulanantham, professor from practice at the UCLA School of Law and co-director of the law school’s Center for Immigration Law and Policy.

    Still, the order’s threatening tone toward sanctuary cities’ federal funds could be “a window into where this fight could go if the federal government wants to expend significant political capital on this issue,” Arulanantham said. Congress, for example, could decide to pass a law to cut federal funds from universities that offer undocumented students in-state tuition—a proposal outlined in Project 2025. But the executive order itself doesn’t explicitly take away federal dollars from anyone or have the power to do so, he said.

    “If I were a local government or state government official, I probably wouldn’t sue tomorrow over this,” Arulanantham said. “I would wait to see if this is actually going to have any teeth, or if it’s just like a press release.”

    Pacheco similarly described the order as “warning” states of the administration’s posture toward these policies. At the same time, she believes it’s important to plan ahead in case Trump takes the issue further.

    “They’re trying to tell states, ‘We believe that you providing certain benefits for undocumented students is against the law,’” she said. “We’ve known this forever—these states are not violating the law.”

    The order suggests that in-state tuition for undocumented students “may violate” a federal statutory provision that says undocumented people can’t receive higher ed benefits unless citizens are also eligible. But in-state tuition policies are designed to serve citizens living in these states, as well. For example, under California’s Assembly Bill 540, any nonresident who spent three years in California high schools is eligible for in-state tuition. That policy also benefits citizens who grew up in the state who may have left for any reason and returned.

    These types of in-state tuition policies, including California’s, have faced legal challenges in the past, “but all the challenges have failed, said Kevin Johnson, dean of the UC Davis School of Law. He described the executive order as “vaguely worded,” while the state laws, by contrast, are “very clear.”

    The legal argument is that undocumented students are “just being treated equally as all other residents of the state,” he said. “The idea is that they’re residents, which means they’re taxpayers—maybe it’s sales tax, maybe state income tax, federal income tax—whatever it is, they should be treated like other residents and not discriminated against because of their immigration status.”

    What Happens Next

    Arulanantham worries that despite their strong legal foundation, states and higher ed institutions may rush to end in-state tuition benefits for undocumented students out of fear.

    “That’s actually almost certainly the primary purpose of this order”: to spur “pre-emptive discrimination because [institutions] think they have to or they think it’s safer to,” he said.

    Feldblum noted that, prior to the executive order, some state lawmakers were already starting to shift on the issue, perhaps “to align themselves with the federal government.”

    While some states have recently doubled down on such policies, proposing new legislation to expand in-state tuition eligibility, others have also moved to curtail them. Following in Florida’s footsteps, lawmakers in other states, including Kansas, Kentucky and Texas, are considering legislation to prohibit in-state tuition for undocumented students. Texas was the first to allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates in 2001, joined by California that same year.

    “This is not coming in a vacuum … We have to take this seriously and substantively, consider the kinds of actions we need to take to defend in-state tuition—including, if needed, legal action,” Feldblum said. “And then also make sure we’re placing equal emphasis on supporting and communicating with potentially impacted students so that they know their education is important and that they’re important.”

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  • New ICE Policy Puts International Students at Greater Risk

    New ICE Policy Puts International Students at Greater Risk

    The Trump administration issued plans earlier this week for a new policy that vastly expands federal officials’ authority to terminate students’ legal residency status, according to newly released court documents.

    The policy detailed in the filings asserts that immigration officials have the “inherent authority” to terminate students’ legal residency status in the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System “as needed.” It also explicitly lays out two new justifications for SEVIS terminations: the vague “evidence of failure to comply” with nonimmigrant visa terms, and a visa revocation, which can be issued without evidence of a violation by the State Department—and which, crucially, is not subject to court challenges.

    Immigration attorneys told Inside Higher Ed that if implemented, the new policy would enshrine broad permission for ICE to begin deporting students practically at will.

    “This is very bad news for foreign students,” said Charles Kuck, an immigration attorney representing 133 international students in the largest lawsuit challenging recent SEVIS terminations. “Any student who’s arrested, literally for any reason, is probably going to have their status terminated going forward.”

    Last Friday a U.S. attorney promised an official update to ICE policy on SEVIS terminations. On Tuesday, U.S. attorneys presented the document as evidence in a court filing in Arizona, describing it as “recently issued … policy regarding the termination of SEVIS records.”

    It was the first time that details of a new SEVIS termination policy were made public, and it was not at first clear whether it reflected official federal policy. On Tuesday, U.S. attorney Johnny Walker confirmed during another hearing for a SEVIS lawsuit in D.C. that it did, though the policy had yet to be finalized. Spokespeople for ICE did not respond to multiple questions from Inside Higher Ed.

    The plan comes less than a week after the administration began restoring thousands of foreign students’ SEVIS statuses after a series of court decisions overturned hundreds of status terminations. Kuck said the plan seemed to be a way for ICE to get around those rulings.

    “This is basically a cover-your-ass policy,” he said. “The fact that ICE initially reinstated visas was no surprise. They probably had U.S. attorneys screaming at them, ‘What are you doing?’ Now they’re trying to retroactively develop a policy that would allow them to do what they already did.”

    Immigration lawyer and Columbia University Immigrants’ Rights Clinic director Elora Mukherjee has been counseling international students across New York City for the past two months. After the visa-restoration decision last week, some students wanted to know if they were in the clear; she cautioned them against celebrating prematurely.

    “Whiplash is a good way to describe it,” she said. “Students are losing sleep—not just those whose visas have been terminated but those who are worried theirs could be next any day.”

    Fly-by-Night Policymaking

    The updated policy was outlined in an internal Department of Homeland Security memo filed as evidence in an Arizona federal court on Wednesday, where one of more than 100 lawsuits challenging visa revocations is being litigated.

    The unorthodox manner in which it was publicized has left immigration attorneys scratching their heads and international students’ advocates wondering how to respond.

    It also appears to have taken some federal officials by surprise. Kuck said that when he heard about the memo and brought it before the judge in his own case in Georgia, the U.S. attorney defending the government asked if he could send him a copy.

    Fanta Aw, president of NAFSA, an association of international educators, wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed that the document “should not be relied upon as ICE’s new policy.” She also emphasized that there is no change to ICE’s visa termination policy included in the memo, only SEVIS terminations.

    The document is labeled as a “broadcast message … for internal SEVP use only,” meaning it would have been sent to Designated School Officials working in colleges’ international student offices. But Aw said that’s not accurate, either, because it lacks the customary broadcast message number, and DSOs in her organization said they had not received it.

    Kuck said the lack of a rule-making process for a sweeping policy change like the one outlined in the memo is most likely unlawful, and he was working on filing an amendment to challenge it on Thursday. But that doesn’t mean it should be taken lightly.

    “People should view this as the future,” Kuck said. “This is clearly the power ICE wants to give itself, so they’re going to move ahead with it.”

    ‘A Nightmare Booby Trap’

    Mukherjee said such a broad license to terminate SEVIS status would allow ICE to deport international students far more quickly and with less accountability. The new policy, if implemented and upheld by the courts, wouldn’t just revert to the status quo of the last few months, she said; it would create a landscape in which ICE could begin deportation proceedings with impunity.

    “We’ve already seen many students whose SEVIS terminations led directly to removal proceedings,” Mukherjee said. “It’s terrifying.”

    Kuck said it’s crucial that students understand that they’re still in danger of deportation even if their status was restored last week—and not just because of the new policy plan.

    The few hundred students who won a temporary restraining order in court over the past week have had their statuses reinstated and backfilled to when they were revoked. But the status of thousands more who did not file lawsuits was only reactivated from that point onward. That means they have a gap in status for the days or weeks in between—which, according to ICE policy, is grounds for removal from the country, even if their initial SEVIS termination was accidental.

    “This is a nightmare booby trap for these kids,” Kuck said.

    The only way to protect them, he said, is by filing a class action lawsuit for all affected international student visa holders. Kuck said he’s working on filing an injunction for one right now, and he is acting with urgency.

    In the meantime, Mukherjee said students—both those in the country and those who had planned to come in the fall—are “deeply unsettled.” She’s been asking them questions she’d never been concerned about before: whether they have any social media accounts or even tattoos.

    “I’m talking to international students who are currently in the U.S., to international students who’ve been admitted to study in the U.S. starting in the fall, and they’re asking, ‘Will we be able to complete our degree program?’” she said. “The answer is that it’s unclear.”

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  • Higher Ed After Trump’s First 100 Days: The Key Podcast

    Higher Ed After Trump’s First 100 Days: The Key Podcast

    Inside Higher Ed journalists analyze the first 100 days of the Trump administration in this week’s episode of The Key, IHE’s news and analysis podcast.  

    Editor in chief Sara Custer, along with news editor Katherine Knott and reporters Johanna Alonso and Liam Knox, discuss the major events of the last three months and the impact they have had on universities and colleges.

    The team summarizes the executive orders that will affect higher education, including one to shutter the Department of Education, another to overhaul accreditation and another to tackle alleged antisemitism. 

    The conversation also explores the new relationship the federal government has established between itself and higher education and how the administration is threatening federal research funding to set ultimatums and progress its agenda, in particular with Columbia and Harvard University.

    The group updates listeners on the latest developments with international students’ Student Exchange and Visitor Information System status reinstatements. Alonso and Knox also talk about what they learned about the administration’s targeting of international students from speaking to students, their advisers and digging through dozens of lawsuits brought against the government. 

    While what comes next is anyone’s guess. The team discusses what they’ll be watching over the next 100 days, including what Congress will be working on, the fallout from the international student crackdown and how summer might shift the vibe on campus. 

    Listen and download the episode here. 

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  • How does UK research support Government’s five missions, and should universities align with them?

    How does UK research support Government’s five missions, and should universities align with them?

    Earlier this year, HEPI, with support from global information analytics company Elsevier, hosted a roundtable dinner on how UK research and innovation should support the government’s five missions.

    This blog considers some of the themes that emerged from that discussion.

    The Labour government has made clear that five missions drive its decisions on policy. These are: kickstarting economic growth, an NHS fit for the future, safer streets, breaking down barriers to opportunity and making Britain a clean energy superpower. In October 2024, it announced a £25 million R&D Missions Programme to address specific challenges involved in meeting these missions and to help turn scientific advances into real-world benefits.

    How well do the UK’s research strengths already map to the missions, and how much capacity exists to do more? For global information analytics company Elsevier, this was worth interrogating. It set to work, drawing on its Scopus database of research publications and the Overton index of policy documents, clustering papers into topics and using artificial intelligence and large language models to link them to the missions.

    This allowed it to track what share of UK research carried out between 2019 and 2023 relates to the missions the government has identified and how this compares to other policy areas, including how it has varied over time. Elsevier has also been able to make comparisons with the research strengths of other countries in these areas. The process involved developing a methodology that matched huge datasets to the narrative national goals set out in Labour’s manifesto.

    The role of R&D in supporting government priorities was the subject of a roundtable dinner, informed by this analysis, hosted by HEPI in February and attended by policymakers and senior leaders from across the higher education sector. The discussion was held under the Chatham House rule, by which speakers express views on the understanding that they will be unattributed.

    Useful information

    Sarah Main, vice-president, academic and government relations at Elsevier, told participants that the aim of the analysis was to be useful, for the research community and policymakers, in making the case for continued investment in R&D in the lead up to a tight spending review.

    The work shows that a significant share of the UK’s published research relates to government priorities: for example, 11% relates to growth and around 35% to its aims around health. By making comparisons with research outputs in other countries, it also identifies possible future partnerships and collaborations.

    But she pointed out that research output is only one way in which research and innovation supports the government’s missions; people, skills and infrastructure also play a part. Further work, she said, could help identify the key people, institutions and areas in which the UK has relevant strengths, as well as suggest emerging questions and themes.

    Many of those attending the roundtable felt that it was useful to see how far universities are producing research that supports government priorities and to be able to demonstrate this to policymakers – and the Treasury. They particularly welcomed the chance to identify where relevant research was taking place internationally.

    It was suggested that the tool would be useful in maintaining a dialogue between research and government priorities, identifying quickly the kind of work taking place and who was doing it and helping to build communities around research areas.

    Potential problems

    But there were reservations about aligning research too closely with specific policy areas. The fear was that what could be lost in the process was curiosity-driven work, which was a feature of the UK system and which could lead to valuable nuggets of knowledge that could go on to solve world problems. Another concern was that innovation strengths did not always translate into strengths around delivery.

    Some questioned how much could be achieved without investment in supporting a healthy research environment for the long term. The recent decision to cut overseas aid in favour of increasing the defence budget was an example of how quickly government policies could change.

    Research priorities could change too. One participant in the roundtable said it would be important not to ignore findings from further back in the past or for policymakers to forget the broader research agenda in favour of the latest exciting paper.

    ‘I look at the missions and I think the reason these are possible is because of R&D that was being done 25 years ago,’ said one delegate, who was worried that concentrating on where the government is looking now could be at the expense of developing capability in the missions of future generations and working out what these would be – learning to live with robots perhaps or addressing chronic loneliness. 

    Focusing exclusively on missions also ignores how ready the research community is for a shock like Covid or another existential challenge. And what about some of the nuances of where the UK’s research strengths are located, such as working with other disciplines, and how research feeds into growth in more general ways than through specific papers? Relevant skills training and universities’ educational role are also important.

    Talking politics

    Then, how much weight should be given to a government’s stated priorities? If last July’s election had elected a party with the mission to make Britain great again, would the research community want to find out how far the work it was doing supported it?

    Also, how far are the government’s missions likely to persist, with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin doing everything they can to undermine them, as one delegate argued? Far more likely to determine whether the government gets re-elected will be progress on growth and healthcare, which have been consistent public concerns for decades. Even if, as Elsevier has found, 35% of research in the UK relates to health, ministers may respond by asking why, in that case, people are no healthier.

    Some felt that universities needed to be more political and to understand better the channels by which research becomes policy and how to negotiate them. This could involve researchers considering the attitudes of the public as well as those of politicians.

    The government may also need to give universities a clearer idea of what good looks like when it comes to universities, such as whether the amount of research related to healthcare that Elsevier has identified is good enough, where the government wants universities to be focusing and what resources will be available to them. 

    But spending too much time dabbling in politics could be dangerous. Instead, suggested one participant, universities should be engaging “at scale” with all sectors and everyone involved in the political process, giving advice to whoever needs it.

    The public purse

    Universities should also avoid dwelling on their own self-interest. One delegate noted that finding out how far they contribute to the government’s missions would be of little use if the sector collapses. But another suggested that focusing too closely on missions could encourage universities merely to highlight relevant work they are already doing and then make another request for money.

    It is certainly the case that there will be plenty of other calls on the public purse over the next few months and years. In this context, it could be useful for the sector to stress the shorter-term wins relevant to the missions that management science or operational research can offer, as well as long-term gains such as new drugs. One delegate suggested that it would be useful to have clearer identification of where research has directly led to spin-out companies and economic growth.

    The roundtable concluded that universities are clearly relevant to addressing the government’s missions, that they are already influencing policy and that the methodology under discussion could help inform strategy. But it recognised that outcomes – such as reduced crime and an efficient NHS – are what matter most to the public and these therefore should be the priority.

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  • Las instituciones de enseñanza superior recurren estudiantes hispanos para compensar disminución en la matrícula

    Las instituciones de enseñanza superior recurren estudiantes hispanos para compensar disminución en la matrícula

    RIVER FOREST, Illinois — Cuando Jacqueline Quintero empezó a explorar opciones para ir a la universidad cuando se graduara de secundaria, se dio cuenta de algo que muchas parecían tener en común.

    “No me gusta decirlo, pero todo el mundo parecía tan blanco”, dijo Quintero, cuyos padres llegaron a Estados Unidos desde México. “Simplemente no sentía que yo pertenecía allí”.

    Hasta que fue a una recepción para estudiantes admitidos en la Dominican University, cerca de donde creció en los suburbios del oeste de Chicago. Entre las cosas que la hicieron decidirse casi de inmediato a ir allí: Se proporcionaba información a las familias tanto en inglés como en español.

    “Por fin mis padres pudieron hacer preguntas” en su lengua materna, dice Quintero, que ahora cursa el penúltimo año de la carrera de Derecho. “Estaba acostumbrada a traducirles toda mi vida. Me puse a llorar, literalmente”.

    Este aparentemente pequeño detalle es uno de los muchos que han ayudado a impulsar la matrícula de Dominican en casi un 25 por ciento desde 2021, un período durante el cual las instituciones comparables han luchado por atraer estudiantes y cuando el número de jóvenes de 18 años está a punto de comenzar un largo declive.

    Esto se debe a que la universidad ha aprovechado un grupo de clientes potenciales que está creciendo: Los graduados hispanos como Quintero.

    Históricamente, a las universidades y escuelas superiores no les ha ido bien a la hora de reclutar estudiantes hispanos. Ahora su propio éxito puede depender en gran medida de ello.

    “La demografía de nuestro país está cambiando, y la enseñanza superior tiene que adaptarse”, afirma Glena Temple, presidenta de Dominican.

    O, como dijo Quintero, sonriendo: “Ahora nos necesitan”. 

    Relacionado: ¿Te interesa recibir más noticias sobre universidades? Suscríbete a nuestro boletín quincenal gratuito de educación superior.

    Jacqueline Quintero, hija de inmigrantes mexicanos, estudia en la Dominican University y tiene previsto estudiar Derecho. “Ahora nos necesitan”, dice refiriéndose a las universidades que reclutan estudiantes hispanos como ella. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report

    Mientras que se prevé que en 2041 las cifras de graduados en enseñanza secundaria blancos, negros y asiáticos disminuyan en un 26%, un 22% y un 10%, respectivamente, se prevé que el número de graduados hispanos en enseñanza secundaria durante ese periodo aumente un 16%, según la Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, que realiza el seguimiento de estos datos.

    Según el Centro Nacional de Estadísticas Educativas, casi 1 de cada 3 alumnos desde preescolar hasta 12º curso es hispano. Esta cifra es superior a la de menos de 1 de cada 4 de hace una década. La proporción de alumnos hispanos en las escuelas públicas es aún mayor en algunos estados, como California (56%), Texas (53%) y Florida (38%).

    Esto hace que estos jóvenes – a menudo hijos o nietos de inmigrantes, o inmigrantes ellos mismos – adquieran una nueva importancia para las universidades, que históricamente no han conseguido atraer a tantos estudiantes hispanos como a gente de otros orígenes raciales. 

    Sin embargo, en un momento en que la educación superior necesita que aumente, la proporción de estudiantes hispanos que van a la universidad ha ido disminuyendo. Invertir esa tendencia es todo un reto, por muchas razones – el elevado costo, la necesidad de encontrar un trabajo inmediatamente después de la secundaria, el hecho de que muchos proceden de familias sin experiencia universitaria a las que pedir consejo – agravadas por los ataques cada vez más agresivos a los programas de diversidad de los campus, que podrían dificultar aún más la captación y el apoyo a estos estudiantes. 

    En el pasado, según Deborah Santiago, directora ejecutiva de la organización de defensa de los hispanos Excelencia in Education, las instituciones de enseñanza superior “podían alcanzar sus cifras [de matriculación] sin implicar a esta población. Eso ya no es así”.

    Ese gran número de estudiantes hispanos que se acercan a la edad universitaria “es para lo que tenemos que prepararnos como instituciones de enseñanza superior y para satisfacer las necesidades de nuestras comunidades”, afirma Greg Mosier, presidente del Kansas City Kansas Community College, que ahora se anuncia en periódicos en español y en la radio en español.

    “A medida que los baby boomers se jubilan, la población joven es mucho menor y tiene que sostener a una población de más edad”, afirma Michael Collins, vicepresidente del Centro para la Equidad Económica Racial de la organización sin fines de lucro Jobs for the Future. 

    El Centro para la Liberación Cultural de la Dominican University, cerca de Chicago. La sala es un lugar de estudio, conversación y encuentro para estudiantes de todas las procedencias. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report

    A menos que las universidades construyan redes más amplias, dijo Collins – incluyendo la ayuda para que más hispanoamericanos puedan acceder a empleos mejor pagados – “nuestra calidad de vida será menor. Es un panorama bastante desolador”.

    Incluso los más pequeños esfuerzos por matricular y apoyar a los estudiantes hispanos se complican aún más con la retirada de los programas de diversidad y las ayudas económicas a los estudiantes indocumentados, muchos de ellos hispanos. 

    En febrero, Florida puso fin a la política de cobrar una matrícula estatal a los estudiantes indocumentados, por ejemplo. Otros estados han impuesto o están considerando medidas similares. La administración Trump ha desechado un programa de la era Biden para apoyar a las instituciones que prestan servicios a los hispanos. Y el Departamento de Educación, en una carta a las universidades, interpretó que la sentencia del Tribunal Supremo de 2023 que prohíbe las preferencias raciales en la admisión prohíbe “la toma de decisiones basada en la raza, sin importar la forma.”

    Aunque la base jurídica de esa decisión ha sido ampliamente cuestionada, tiene en vilo a las instituciones de enseñanza superior. Incluso muchos colegios y universidades que los activistas elogiaron por impulsar la matriculación de hispanos no quisieron hablar de ello.

    Algunos expertos dicen que la mayoría de los programas para reclutar y apoyar a los estudiantes hispanos no se verían afectados por las campañas anti DEI, ya que se ofrecen a cualquiera que los necesite. “Estas cosas funcionan para todos los estudiantes”, dijo Anne-Marie Núñez, directora ejecutiva del Instituto para el Éxito de los Estudiantes Hispanos de la Universidad de Texas en El Paso.

    Relacionados: En Puerto Rico, la campaña de Trump para desmantelar el Departamento de Educación pega más fuerte

    La proporción de graduados de secundaria hispanos que van directamente a la universidad es inferior a la de sus compañeros blancos, y está disminuyendo: del 70% al 58% entre 2012 y 2022. Ese es el último periodo para el que se dispone de cifras del Centro Nacional de Estadísticas Educativas. Los estudiantes hispanos que se matriculan en la universidad también la abandonan en mayor proporción. 

    Hay razones económicas y culturales para ello. 

    Según la Oficina del Censo, el ingreso medio anual de las familias hispanas es más de un 25% inferior al de las familias blancas, lo que significa que la universidad puede parecer fuera de su alcance. El Center for Law and Social Policy ha calculado que más de tres cuartas partes de los estudiantes hispanos que acuden incluso a colegios comunitarios de bajo coste tienen necesidades financieras no cubiertas. 

    Esto empuja a muchos directamente al mercado laboral. Muchos estudiantes universitarios hispanos trabajan al menos a tiempo parcial mientras estudian, algo que, según las investigaciones, reduce la probabilidad de graduarse.

    Cuando Eddie Rivera terminó la secundaria en Carolina del Norte, “la universidad no era realmente una opción. Mi consejero no me ayudó. Sólo seguí lo que mi cultura hispana nos dice, que es ir a trabajar”.

    Cuando Eddie Rivera terminó la secundaria en Carolina del Norte, “sólo seguí lo que mi cultura hispana nos dice, que es ir a trabajar”. Animado por sus compañeros, acabó matriculándose en la Dominican University. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report

    Rivera, que tiene el estatus DACA, o Acción Diferida para los Llegados en la Infancia, trabajó en una residencia de ancianos, en un parque de trampolines cubierto y en un hospital durante la pandemia, donde sus colegas le animaron a ir a la universidad. Con la ayuda de un programa de becas para estudiantes indocumentados, también terminó en Dominican, donde a sus 28 años es estudiante de tercer año y se especializa en relaciones internacionales y diplomacia, con planes de obtener una maestría en política exterior y seguridad nacional.

    Dominican, una pequeña universidad católica que data de 1922 y que antes se llamaba Rosary College, tiene una historia de educación de hijos de inmigrantes, del norte y centro de Europa, inicialmente. 

    Hoy, de las farolas del campus de 30 acres cuelgan pancartas con fotos de antiguos alumnos hispanos de éxito, y una banda de mariachis dirige las celebraciones del Día de los Muertos. 

    Las visitas a la institución se realizan en inglés y español, se ofrece a los estudiantes trabajo en el campus y el personal ayuda a familias enteras a superar crisis sanitarias, de vivienda y financieras. Dominican añadió un campus satélite en otoño en el barrio mexicano-americano de Pilsen, en Chicago, que ofrece titulaciones de dos años orientadas al empleo. Todos los estudiantes de la universidad reciben ayuda financiera, según datos federales. 

    Relacionado: ‘Hay una cultura de temor’: Estudiantes indocumentados agonizan ante inicio del nuevo mandato de Trump

    “Todos los días me encuentro con un miembro del personal o un profesor que me pregunta qué me pasa en la vida y cómo pueden ayudarme”, dice Aldo Cervantes, estudiante de tercer año de Negocios con especialización en Contabilidad, que quiere dedicarse a la banca o a los recursos humanos.

    También hay una Academia Familiar para que los padres, abuelos, hermanos y primos de los estudiantes conozcan los recursos de la universidad; como incentivo, las familias que acudan a cinco sesiones obtienen créditos para que su estudiante realice un curso de verano sin costo alguno.

    Un armario de ropa en la Dominican University para estudiantes que necesitan trajes de negocios para entrevistas de trabajo. Uno de los factores que frenan la matriculación de hispanos en la universidad es la menor renta media de los hogares. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report

    “Cuando observamos a la población latina que va a la universidad, no se trata de una elección individual”, afirma Gabe Lara, Vicepresidente de Éxito y Compromiso Estudiantil, utilizando el término preferido por la universidad para referirse a las personas de ascendencia latinoamericana. “Es una elección familiar”.

    Estas y otras medidas han contribuido a más que duplicar la proporción de estudiantes hispanos en los últimos 10 años, hasta casi el 70% de los 2.570 estudiantes de Dominican, según cifras facilitadas por la universidad. 

    Genaro Balcazar dirige las estrategias de matriculación y marketing como director de operaciones de la universidad, tiene una forma pragmátuca de ver la situación.

    “Atendemos las necesidades de los alumnos no por quiénes son”, dijo Balcázar, “sino porque necesitan la ayuda”.

    Comunícate con Jon Marcus al 212-678-7556 o [email protected]. 

    Este artículo sobre la enseñanza superior  y el reclutamiento de alumnos hispanos fue producido por The Hechinger Report, una organización de noticias independiente sin fines de lucro centrada en la desigualdad y la innovación en la educación. Suscríbete a nuestro boletín. Escucha nuestro podcast sobre educación.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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  • Engaging Students in Meaningful Learning Experiences – Faculty Focus

    Engaging Students in Meaningful Learning Experiences – Faculty Focus

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  • The paradox of parents’ involvement in their children’s time at university

    The paradox of parents’ involvement in their children’s time at university

    Over the past few decades, there has been – as many an academic will attest – a significant shift in the extent to which parents are involved in their children’s higher education.

    Parents now often attend university open days with their children, with some institutions laying on separate talks and events for them. Moreover, despite the introduction of tuition fees and maintenance loans, many parents end up making some financial contribution to their child’s higher education.

    To date, however, we know relatively little about parents’ perspectives on their involvement, nor about the extent to which they support their children in non-financial ways once they have embarked on their higher education journey. Research that I have recently completed (with Julia Cook and Dan Woodman) on parents of Australian higher education students may be transferable to the UK, given the similarities between the two higher education systems and social structures more generally.

    Drawing on data from the longitudinal Life Patterns project, which has been following the lives of young Australians since the 1990s, we asked parents with children in higher education – or shortly to enrol – a series of questions about the support, if any, they were offering their children, as well as whether they felt parents should be supporting their children in any particular ways. Their responses were fascinating.

    Independence and intervention

    Nearly all of those we spoke to believed that higher education was a space in which young people learned how to be independent – and it was this that helped to distinguish it from school. University was typically positioned as a space where their children would “fend for themselves”, engage in “adult learning”, and be accountable for their own actions.

    However, while there was a strong rhetorical commitment to higher education as a time of achieving independence, when describing the detail of their parenting practices our participants outlined a wide range of ways in which they had been closely involved in the lives of their student children (or thought a parent should be), providing high levels of practical and emotional support.

    All of those we interviewed were either already providing financial support to their offspring at university, or they had clear plans to do so when their children enrolled. In addition, they either had already spent, or thought it was desirable to spend, considerable time with their children supporting them through any problems they encountered during their studies. This differed between participants but often included “coaching” approaches, to help the child identify the root cause of problems; strong encouragement to take advantage of the various services available on campus – sometimes with detailed advice about how best to access these; and, in a significant number of cases, direct involvement in academic matters, including paying for private tutors.

    The following excerpts from our interviews are illustrative:

    Yeah, we would help [daughter] through that and … make a timetable for her for the week on how she could help with the study. …. So she’s not thinking it’s all got to be done in a short amount of time.

    The other thing we could do is investigate some tutoring if that’s required.

    None of our interviewees remarked on the apparent paradox between the rhetorical foregrounding of “independence”, on the one hand, and the numerous examples of parental intervention, on the other. This is perhaps unsurprising. It does, however, raise the interesting question of why these parents continued to see university as a space of independence given the various forms of support they were giving their child (or thought should be given).

    Defining distances

    In answering this question, we can first point to the dominance of discourses about independence. Despite the well-documented changes to young people’s lives over recent decades and the associated later age at which the traditional markers of adulthood are on average now reached, independence as an achievement of early adulthood retains considerable discursive power. Admitting that one’s child is “semi-dependent”, or similar, while at university may thus be viewed as admitting or that an adult child is struggling and even that one has “failed” as a parent.

    Relatedly, it appears that there continues to be some social opprobrium associated with acknowledging that one intervenes in the life of one’s son or daughter once they reach the age for higher education. This is alluded to in the following comment from one of our interviewees:

    Kids get older, they’re more mature than you think. You don’t want to be seen as mothering your children, I don’t want to be that umbrella parent that’s hanging over them all the time saying ‘do go do this’ or ‘you should do that’.

    Both structural factors (such as having to pay tuition fees, and the high cost of university housing) and cultural influences (such as the expectation that parents take responsibility for monitoring their child’s educational progress) likely encourage parents to continue to intervene quite significantly in the lives of their student-children. Yet it appears that these participants were nevertheless keen to discursively distance themselves from such behaviours.

    These findings provide new insights into how parenting practices are shifting over time. They may also have broader political and policy implications. Our sample was broadly middle class and we would speculate that the interventions outlined above may not be available to all students – particularly those from families with no prior experience of higher education. Universities thus need to be aware that some students may be being supported in their academic endeavours by parents, and this may serve to exacerbate social inequalities. Can more support be offered within universities to those without such familial resources?

    With respect to more general policy debates, for those who believe that the student loan should be increased (or grants restored) to cover costs currently often picked up by parents, arguments may be harder to make if the actual degree of parental contribution is masked by the discourse of “independence”. There may therefore be some advantage to being more open about the degree of parental support, with respect to finances at least.

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  • Higher education postcard: Mason Science College

    Higher education postcard: Mason Science College

    Greetings from Birmingham!

    This is Mason Science College, founded in 1875 by Sir Josiah Mason. It was one of the institutions which formed the nucleus of the University of Birmingham in 1900 (the other was Queen’s College, founded in 1825 as the Birmingham Medical School). The buildings were used by the university until the 1960s but are now gone.

    Mason had made his fortune in manufacturing – mostly steel pens, but other products too.

    The card was posted on 17 April 1905 in Bournemouth to an address in Doncaster.

    Thanks for letter and will answer in a day or so. Went to hear Sousa’s band today. Have you heard him? I trust you are stronger dear. Love in haste …

    John Philip Sousa and his band were touring Britain in 1905, but I can’t pin down where they played on Monday 17 April.

    Here’s a jigsaw of the card.

    Apologies for the brevity of this post – I’m under the cosh this week, with work and other stuff, so the postcard blog is short and sweet. Hopefully back to normal next week!

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  • The implications for UK universities of Trump’s attacks on EDI

    The implications for UK universities of Trump’s attacks on EDI

    Few will be unaware of Donald Trump’s antipathy towards diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the US. In February 2025, Trump issued executive orders and policy directives aimed at eliminating DEI programmes and removing references to “gender ideology” from federal agencies.

    For those of us who know DEI as equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), there is concern about the ripple effects of Trump’s measures on UK universities, for research as well as teaching and learning.

    One of the immediate impacts of this manoeuvre was to remove essential LGBTQ+ content from federal websites. Terms such as “transgender”, “LGBT”, and “pregnant person” were all banned. Decades of HIV data, contraception guidelines, and research on racial health disparities were suddenly inaccessible. For US researchers in higher education, such staggeringly blatant anti-EDI policies have disrupted the passage of critical research focused on improving health outcomes for marginalised groups.

    Such censorship – to our minds at least – thoroughly undermines scientific integrity, limiting the study of complex health and social issues. Our colleagues in the US are now forced to work within these constraints, which threaten accuracy and inclusivity. Indeed, the politicisation of scientific terminology arguably damages public trust in research and, in the US, diminishes the credibility of federal agencies.

    Implications for LGBTQ+ researchers

    Trump’s anti-EDI stance is a menace to any form of university research seeking to address inequalities and build inclusion for seldom heard population groups, and the effects of these decisions will have wide-reaching and intersectional repercussions.

    As committee members of a university’s LGBTQ+ staff network, our focus is understandably on the impact for our colleagues working on LGBTQ+ issues. US-based researchers working on LGBTQ+ themes now face obstacles in securing funding and publishing their work. And this has a knock-on effect on wider LGBTQ+ population groups. The suppression of critical health information and the suspension of targeted research leaves LGBTQ+ communities bereft of vital support and resources.

    More fundamentally, Trump’s policies send the signal that LGBTQ+ identities and needs are irrelevant from his agenda for US growth. It’s a quick step from this to the increase of social stigma and discrimination targeted at LGBTQ+ people. And this in turn worsens mental health and social marginalisation. To put it bluntly: the absence of LGBTQ+ representation in official communications sends a damaging message about the validity of these communities’ experiences.

    Lessons for UK universities

    To bring this back to the UK context then, a few things come to mind.

    First, the UK has its own, depressingly recent, history of government-led suppression of LGBTQ+ communication, which we’d do well to remember. Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 banned the promotion of homosexuality in schools across England, Scotland, and Wales. Repealed in England and Wales in 2003, this act led to years of silence and marginalisation within educational settings.

    Section 28 not only harmed students and staff at the time but also created a culture of fear and misinformation, curtailing inclusive teaching and research. To ensure the UK does not repeat such history, universities must prioritise legal advocacy and protection for all involved in higher education, to safeguard academic freedom and inclusivity. Being involved in the LGBTQ+ staff network as we are, we might also add that coalition building among universities, LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, and non-profits can also strengthen efforts to resist any potential policy shifts that might echo the restrictive measures of the past.

    Second, Trump’s agenda also urges us to re-think our approach to US-UK research collaborations and student exchanges. There seems to be an increasing discrepancy between what the UK and US each consider to be worthy of research and funding.

    Universities in the UK should assess how they foster links with other nations whose research agendas align more closely with UK priorities, to mitigate any potential funding losses. Moreover, UK universities should ideally review their reliance on external funding from the US to determine whether any existing projects might be impacted by shifts in US policy. Equally, with US suppression of data relating to LGBTQ+ issues impacting LGBTQ+ health and wellbeing, it’s vital that UK universities ensure that their research connected to LGBTQ+ issues is readily available.

    Third, it seems crucial that UK universities futureproof their relationships with US students. The possibility of new limitations on exchange programmes, including restrictions on modules with extensive EDI content, could impact the accessibility of UK higher education for US students. Online programmes that currently enrol US students may also face scrutiny, raising concerns about whether course content is monitored or whether degrees will continue to be recognised in the US due to their inclusion of EDI principles.

    Looking forward

    UK universities have a pivotal role to play in responding to what’s happening in the US in relation to Trump’s anti-EDI stance.

    We’ve focused particularly on the impacts of these political and policy shifts on LGBTQ+ research and culture in higher education. But they represent a more wholesale attack on initiatives seeking to safeguard the wellbeing of marginalised population groups. UK universities must continue to represent a safe space for education which upholds inclusivity, critical thinking, and academic integrity. This requires a strong coalition of organisations, advocacy groups, and academic institutions working together to resist the erosion of rights and the suppression of essential research.

    Such a coalition of critically-minded parties seems all the more important given the recent ruling by the Supreme Court on 16 April 2025 in relation to the Equality Act 2010, which insisted on the binary nature of sex, which is determined by biology. As a result, this leaves trans women unable to avail themselves of the sex-based protections enshrined in the Equality Act.

    Universities, like other institutions, will need to review their policies accordingly and should do their utmost to continue to assert a safe and inclusive environment for trans people. But this decision, coming so soon after the Cass review, is also contributing to the anxiety and uncertainty experienced by LGBTQ+ people more broadly. With echoes between the US situation and recent UK developments, the direction of travel is concerning.

    By standing together, we can safeguard the rights of all marginalised communities and ensure that the integrity of scientific research, human dignity, and social progress are protected.

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