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  • Smarter Student Support: Designing Connected Ecosystems That Drive Equity and Completion

    Smarter Student Support: Designing Connected Ecosystems That Drive Equity and Completion

    Across higher education, student support systems are often built for institutions, not for students. As a result, many learners encounter a maze of disconnected services that feel reactive, impersonal, or inaccessible. For students already balancing work, caregiving, and financial pressures, this fragmentation can be the difference between staying enrolled and stopping out. 

    As Chief Academic Officer, I’ve seen how crucial it is to align support structures with academic goals and student realities. Institutions must move beyond piecemeal solutions and instead design holistic ecosystems that prioritize student experience, equity, and completion from the start. That means leveraging data, embracing design thinking, and fostering cross-campus collaboration. 

    Where fragmentation undermines student outcomes 

    Many institutions approach support through isolated units: advising, student success, IT, and academic departments each operating in silos. The result is a disjointed experience for students, where important information is delayed or missed altogether. Without a unified view of the student journey, opportunities for early intervention or personalized support fall through the cracks. 

    This fragmentation disproportionately affects students from historically underserved backgrounds. When support isn’t accessible or timely, those with less institutional knowledge or fewer resources are more likely to disengage. 

    Disconnected systems can lead to: 

    • Missed early warning signs 
    • Delayed or generic interventions 
    • Frustration from navigating multiple systems 
    • Lower retention and completion rates 

    It’s not enough to offer services. It’s crucial to ensure those services are connected, visible, and tailored to real student needs. 

    In my experience, when institutions treat student support as a set of tasks rather than a strategic function, it limits their ability to make meaningful progress on equity and completion. Students shouldn’t have to navigate a patchwork of websites, offices, and policies to get the help they need. They deserve a system that anticipates their challenges and responds in real time. 

    What a connected, learner-first ecosystem looks like 

    A modern support ecosystem begins with data. Institutions need to unify data from across the student lifecycle (from admissions to advising to classroom performance) to create a comprehensive view of each learner. With integrated platforms, faculty and staff can access timely insights to guide interventions and support decisions. 

    At Collegis, we’ve seen how data-powered ecosystems — supported by platforms like Connected Core® — drive measurable improvement in retention and equity. But technology alone isn’t enough. Data needs to be paired with personalization. That means using predictive analytics to identify students at risk and deliver outreach that is relevant, proactive, and human. 

    It’s not about automation replacing connection. It’s about enabling the right kind of connection at the right time. 

    I often ask, “Are support systems designed for students or around them?” A learner-first ecosystem doesn’t just meet students where they are academically. It considers their time constraints, personal responsibilities, and evolving goals. It removes barriers rather than creating new ones. 

    Key elements of a connected ecosystem include: 

    • Unified, actionable student data 
    • Proactive, personalized interventions 
    • Support that reflects real student lives 
    • 24/7 digital services and hybrid options 

    Flexible course scheduling, hybrid advising models, and round-the-clock support aren’t just conveniences. They’re equity tools that recognize the unique needs of today’s student body. 

    Using design thinking to reimagine support systems 

    Design thinking offers a powerful framework for this work. It starts with empathy — understanding the lived experience of students and mapping the friction they encounter in navigating institutional systems. From there, you can co-create solutions that reflect students’ realities, prototype interventions, and iterate based on feedback and outcomes. 

    I’ve found this approach invaluable for aligning innovation with mission. It brings together diverse voices (students, faculty, advisors, technologists) to build support systems that are not just efficient, but equitable. 

    Design thinking allows us to move beyond assumptions. Instead of designing around legacy processes or internal structures, we start with real student stories. This helps us ask better questions and arrive at more inclusive answers. 

    It’s not just about solving problems—it’s about solving the right problems. 

    The role of academic leadership in cross-campus collaboration 

    No single office can transform student support in isolation. It requires a coalition of academic, technical, and operational leaders working in sync. Academic affairs plays a central role in this work, bridging the gap between pedagogy and operations. 

    In my experience, success begins with a shared vision and clear metrics: 

    • What are we trying to improve? 
    • How will we measure progress? 

    From there, we build alignment around roles, resources, and timelines. Regular communication and an openness to iteration keep the momentum going. 

    One of the most powerful things academic leaders can do is model cross-functional thinking. When we approach student success as a collective responsibility, we shift the culture from reactive to proactive. And when data is shared across departments, everyone can see the part they play in helping students succeed. 

    Turning strategy into action

    At Collegis, we’ve partnered with institutions to bring student-centered strategies to life: 

    • Our Connected Core data platform enables the kind of integration that underpins personalized support. 
    • Our deep higher education experience ensures solutions align with academic priorities. 

    We believe in the power of aligning strategy with execution. We don’t just talk about transformation. We build the infrastructure, train the teams, and help institutions scale what works. From data strategy to digital learning design, we act as an extension of our partners’ teams. 

    This work is about more than improving services. It’s about advancing equity, accelerating completion, and fulfilling our mission to support every learner. 

    Designing for what matters most 

    If we want better outcomes, we have to start with better design. That means asking not just what services you offer, but how and why you deliver them. It means shifting from reactive support to intentional, data-informed ecosystems that center the student experience. 

    By embracing design thinking, unifying your systems, and working across traditional boundaries, you can build the kind of support that today’s learners deserve and tomorrow’s institutions require. 

    Student success shouldn’t depend on luck or persistence alone. The most impactful institutions are those that view support not as a service, but as a strategy — one that helps every student reach their full potential. 

    Let’s talk about how to design smarter student support together. 

    Innovation Starts Here

    Higher ed is evolving — don’t get left behind. Explore how Collegis can help your institution thrive.

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  • Is the Federal Trade Commission FOIA program still in operation?

    Is the Federal Trade Commission FOIA program still in operation?

    In light of recent developments at the Federal Trade Commission under the current administration — including staffing reductions and a temporary 2025 government shutdown — many observers and researchers are questioning whether the FTC’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) program is still functioning. The answer remains: yes — the FOIA program is still formally operational, but its capacity and responsiveness appear diminished under current conditions.

    The FTC continues to administer FOIA through its Office of General Counsel (OGC), which processes all FOIA requests. As of the 2024 fiscal year, the FTC’s FOIA Unit comprised four attorneys, five government-information specialists, and one paralegal, with occasional support from contractors and other staff. In that year, the agency processed 1,919 requests (and 29 appeals), up from 1,812 in 2023. The agency’s publicly available “FOIA Handbook,” last updated in April 2025, continues to outline how requests should be submitted, what records are on the public record, and how exemptions are applied.

    The FTC’s website still provides instructions for submitting a FOIA request via its online portal, email, fax, or mail. That means requests remain legally eligible — including those related to for-profit colleges, student loan servicers, institutional behavior, complaints, or decision-making memos.

    However, HEI’s own experience in 2025 highlights some of the challenges with the FTC’s current FOIA responsiveness. In January 2025, we submitted a FOIA request asking for a record of complaints against the University of Phoenix. Beyond an automated message, there was no response. In August 2025, we submitted another FOIA request asking for complaints against a company that dealt with student loans; in that case, not even an automated acknowledgment was received. On November 30, 2025, we received an automated response to our FOIA request about AidVantage, a student loan servicer and subsidiary of Maximus. While we did receive a reply, it reflected a stale message stating they would respond after the government reopened — even though the government had reopened on November 13.

    These examples illustrate that while FOIA is formally operational, actual responsiveness has deteriorated. For years, HEI had a good relationship with the FTC, obtaining critical information for a number of investigations in a timely manner. It remains to be seen whether that reliability can be restored.

    Compounding the issue are broader staffing and operational changes at the FTC. In testimony before Congress in May 2025, FTC Chair Andrew N. Ferguson reported that the agency began FY 2025 with about 1,315 personnel but had reduced to 1,221 full-time staff, with plans to potentially reduce further to around 1,100 — the lowest level in a decade. These staffing reductions coincide with scaled-back discretionary activities, such as rulemaking, public guidance publishing, and outreach. During the October 2025 lapse in government funding, the FTC announced that FOIA requests could still be submitted but would not be processed until appropriations resumed.

    For researchers, journalists, and advocates — including those pursuing records related to for-profit colleges, student loan servicers, regulatory decisions, or historical investigations — FOIA remains a legally viable tool. The path is open, though response times are slower, staff resources are constrained, and releases may be more limited, especially for sensitive or exempt material.

    Sources

    Congressional budget testimony on FTC staffing and budget: https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/118225/witnesses/HHRG-119-AP23-Wstate-FergusonA-20250515.pdf

    FTC FOIA Handbook (April 2025): https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/FOIA-Handbook-April-2025.pdf

    FTC 2024 Chief FOIA Officer Report (staffing, request volume): https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/chief-foia-officer-report-fy2024.pdf

    FTC website instructions for submitting FOIA requests: https://www.ftc.gov/foia/make-foia-request

    FTC 2025 shutdown plan showing FOIA processing paused during funding lapse: https://www.ftc.gov/ftc-is-closed

    Reporting on FTC removal of business-guidance blogs in 2025: https://www.wired.com/story/federal-trade-commission-removed-blogs-critical-of-ai-amazon-microsoft/

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  • Gender governance and the global grammar of illiberal inclusion

    Gender governance and the global grammar of illiberal inclusion

    by Ourania Filippakou

    Across global higher education, the terms of justice, equality and inclusion are being rewritten. In recent years, the rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the United States (Spitalniak, 2025) has unfolded alongside a global resurgence of anti-gender, ultra-nationalist, racialised and colonial politics (Brechenmacher, 2025). At the same time, the rise of authoritarian and far-right ideologies, together with deepening socioeconomic inequalities fuelled by an ascendant billionaire class (Klein and Taylor, 2025) and the growing portrayal of feminist and queer scholarship as ideological extremism (Pitts-Taylor and Wood, 2025), signal a profound shift in the rationalities shaping the politics of higher education. These developments do not reject inclusion; they refashion it. Equality becomes excess, dissent is recast as disorder, and inclusion is reconstituted as a technology of governance.

    This conjuncture, what Stuart Hall (Hall in Hall and Massey, 2010, p57) would call the alignment of economic, political and cultural forces, requires a vocabulary capable of capturing continuity and rupture. It also reflects the deepening crisis of neoliberalism, whose governing logics become more coercive as their legitimacy wanes (Beckert, 2025; Menand, 2023). As Hall reminds us, ‘a conjuncture is a period when different social, political, economic and ideological contradictions… or as Althusser said ‘fuse in a ruptural unity’’ (Hall in Hall and Massey, 2012, p57). A conjuncture, in this sense, does not resolve crisis but produces new configurations of ideological coherence and institutional control. In my recent article, ‘Managed Inclusion and the Politics of Erasure: Gender Governance in Higher Education under Neoliberal Authoritarianism’ (Review of Education, Pedagogy & Cultural Studies, 2025), I theorise these developments as a global grammar of illiberal inclusion: a political rationality that appropriates the language of equity while disabling its redistributive, democratic and epistemic force. The article develops a typology of symbolic, technocratic and transformative inclusion to examine how feminist, anti-caste and critical vocabularies are increasingly absorbed into systems of civility, visibility and procedural control. Transformative inclusion, the configuration most aligned with redistribution, dissent and epistemic plurality, is the one most forcefully neutralised.

    Across geopolitical contexts, from postcolonial states to liberal democracies, gender inclusion is increasingly appropriated not as a demand for justice but as a mechanism of control. The techniques of co-option vary, yet they consolidate into a shared political rationality in which equity is stripped of redistributive force and redeployed to affirm institutional legitimacy, nationalist virtue and market competitiveness. This is not a rupture with neoliberal governance but its intensification through more disciplinary and exclusionary forms. For example, in India, the National Education Policy 2020 invokes empowerment while enacting epistemic erasure, systematically marginalising the knowledges of women from subordinated caste, class and religious communities (Peerzada et al, 2024; Patil, 2023; Singh, 2023). At the same time, state-led campaigns such as Beti Bachao elevate women’s visibility only within ideals of modesty and nationalist virtue (Chhachhi, 2020). In Hungary, the 2018 ban on gender studies aligned higher education with labour-market imperatives and nationalist agendas (Barát, 2022; Zsubori, 2018). In Turkey, reforms under Erdoğan consolidate patriarchal norms while constraining feminist organising (Zihnioğlu and Kourou, 2025). Here, gender inclusion is tolerated only when it reinforces state agendas and restricts dissent.

    Elsewhere, inclusion is recast as ideological deviance. In the United States, the Trump-era rollback of DEI initiatives and reproductive rights has weaponised inclusion as a spectre of radicalism, disproportionately targeting racialised and LGBTQ+ communities (Amnesty International, 2024; Chao-Fong, 2025). In Argentina, Milei abolished the Ministry of Women, describing feminism as fiscally irresponsible (James, 2024). In Italy, Meloni’s government invokes ‘traditional values’ to erode anti-discrimination frameworks (De Giorgi et al, 2023, p.v11i1.6042). In these cases, inclusion is not merely neutralised but actively vilified, its political charge reframed as cultural threat.

    Even when inclusion is celebrated, it is tethered to respectability and moral legibility. In France, femonationalist discourses instrumentalise gender equality to legitimise anti-Muslim policy (Farris, 2012; Möser, 2022). In Greece, conservative statecraft reframes inclusion through familialist narratives while dismantling equality infrastructures (Bempeza, 2025). These patterns reflect a longer political repertoire in which authoritarian and ultra-nationalist projects mobilise idealised domestic femininity to naturalise social hierarchies. As historian Diana Garvin (Garvin quoted in Matei, 2025) notes, ‘what fascisms old and new have in common is they tend to look to women to fill in the gaps that the state misses’, with contemporary ‘womanosphere’ influencers in the US reviving fantasies of domestic bliss that obscure intensified gendered precarity (Matei, 2025).

    Such gendered constructions coexist with escalating violence. More than 50.000 women and girls were killed by intimate partners or family members in 2024, which means one woman or girl was killed every ten minutes, or 137 every day, according to the latest UNODC and UN Women femicide report (UNODC/UN Women, 2025). This sits within a wider continuum of harm: 83.000 women and girls were intentionally killed last year, and the report finds no sign of real progress. It also highlights a steep rise in digital violence, including harassment, stalking, gendered disinformation and deepfakes, which increasingly spills into offline contexts and contributes to more lethal forms of harm. These global patterns intersect with regional crises. For example, more than 7.000 women were killed in India in gender-related violence in 2022 (NCRB, 2023); eleven women are murdered daily in femicides across Latin America (NU CEPAL, 2024). At the same time, masculinist influencers such as Andrew Tate cultivate transnational publics organised around misogyny (Adams, 2025; Wescott et al, 2024). As UN Secretary-General António Guterres (2025) warns: ‘Instead of mainstreaming equal rights, we are seeing the mainstreaming of misogyny’.

    These global pressures reverberate across institutions that have historically positioned themselves as democratic spaces, including universities, which increasingly recast gender equity as a reputational risk or cultural flashpoint rather than a democratic obligation (D’Angelo et al, 2024; McEwen and Narayanaswamy, 2023). Equity becomes an emblem of modernity to be audited, displayed and curated, rather than a demand for justice. Ahmed’s (2012) theorisation of non-performativity is essential here: institutions declare commitments to equality precisely to contain the transformations such commitments would require. In this context, symbolic and technocratic inclusion flourish, while the structural conditions for transformative inclusion continue to narrow.

    These shifts reflect broader political and economic formations. Brown (2015) shows how neoliberal reason converts justice claims into performance demands, hollowing out democratic vocabularies. Fraser’s (2017) account of ‘progressive neoliberalism’ illuminates the terrain in which market liberalism coupled with selective diversity politics absorbs emancipatory discourse while preserving inequality. Patnaik (2021) argues that the rise of neofascism is a political necessity for neoliberalism in crisis, as rights are redefined as privileges and inclusion is repurposed to stabilise inequality. In this conjuncture, these tendencies intensify into what Giroux (2018, 2021, 2022a) names ‘neoliberal fascism’, a formation structured by three interlocking fundamentalisms: a market fundamentalism that commodifies all aspects of life, a religious fundamentalism that moralises inequality; and a regime of manufactured ignorance and militarised illiteracy that discredits critical thought and erases historical memory (Giroux 2022b, p48-54).

    The United States now offers a further manifestation of this global pattern, illustrating how attacks on DEI can function as a broader assault on higher education. As recent analyses of US politics show, the first and particularly the second Trump administration is actively modelling itself on Viktor Orbán’s illiberal statecraft, centralising executive power, purging public institutions and mobilising ‘family values’ and anti-‘woke’ politics to reshape education and media governance (Giroux, 2017; Smith, 2025; Kauffmann, 2025). The dismantling of DEI under the Trump administration, framed as a defence of merit, free speech and fiscal responsibility (The White House, 2025), marks the beginning of a wider attempt to consolidate political influence over higher education. Executive orders targeting DEI have been followed by lawsuits, funding withdrawals and intensified federal scrutiny, prompting universities such as Michigan, Columbia and Chicago to scale back equality infrastructures, cut programmes and reduce humanities provision (cf Bleiler, 2025; Pickering, Cosgrove and Massel, 2025; Quinn, 2025). These developments do not simply eliminate DEI; they position anti-gender politics as a mechanism of disciplining universities, narrowing intellectual autonomy and extending political control over academic life. They exemplify wider global tendencies in which inclusion becomes a field through which illiberal projects consolidate authority. The assault on DEI is thus not a uniquely American phenomenon but part of a broader authoritarian turn in which inclusion is recoded to stabilise, rather than challenge, existing power.

    Understanding gender governance in higher education through this conjunctural lens reveals not merely the erosion of equity but the emergence of a political formation that reconfigures inclusion into an apparatus of civility, visibility and administrative control. These tendencies are not aberrations but expressions of a larger global grammar that binds emancipatory rhetoric to authoritarian-neoliberal governance. The result is not the dilution of equality but its rearrangement as a practice of containment.

    The implications for the sector are profound. If inclusion is increasingly reorganised through metrics, decorum and procedural compliance, then reclaiming its democratic potential requires an epistemic and institutional shift. Inclusion needs to be understood not as a reputational asset but as a commitment to justice, redistribution and collective struggle. This means recovering equality as political and pedagogical labour: the work of confronting injustice, protecting dissent and renewing the public imagination. Academic freedom and equality are inseparable: without equality, freedom becomes privilege; without freedom, equality becomes performance.

    As Angela Davis (Davis quoted in Gerges, 2023) reminds us: ‘Diversity without structural transformation simply brings those who were previously excluded into a system as racist and misogynist as it was before… There can be no diversity and inclusion without transformation and justice.’ And as Henry Giroux (2025) argues, democracy depends on how societies fight over language, memory and possibility. That struggle now runs through the university itself, shaping its governance, its epistemic life and the courage to imagine more just and democratic possibilities.

    Ourania Filippakou is a Professor of Education at Brunel University of London. Her research interrogates the politics of higher education, examining universities as contested spaces where power, inequality, and resistance intersect. Rooted in critical traditions, she explores how higher education can foster social justice, equity, and transformative change.

    Author: SRHE News Blog

    An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

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  • Higher Education Inquirer : Security Threats: Groypers on Campus

    Higher Education Inquirer : Security Threats: Groypers on Campus

    1. Transitional Vulnerability

    First-year students often experience isolation, uncertainty, and identity formation. Groypers prey on this transitional moment by offering belonging, brotherhood, and contrarian confidence.

    2. Political Vacuum
    As universities retreat from serious civic education and as student affairs offices shrink under austerity, space opens for fringe networks to fill the ideological void.

    3. Online Radicalization Pipelines
    Groypers thrive in places like:

    Discord
    Telegram
    X/Twitter
    anonymous forums
    niche livestream communities

    Campus life becomes an extension of these networks, where online provocations evolve into real-world harassment or orchestrated spectacle.

    4. Conservative Student Groups as Entry Points
    Mainstream Republican or “free speech” groups are often targeted for infiltration. Groypers show up:
    to push Q&A sessions into racist or antisemitic talking points,
    to pressure student Republicans to shift further right,
    to create rifts between libertarian, traditional conservative, and MAGA factions.

    The strategy is division, not dialogue.

    Common Groyper Tactics on Campus
    1. Ambush Questioning
    At public lectures or campus Republican events, Groypers coordinate to dominate Q&A sessions, posing racially charged or conspiratorial questions designed to go viral.

    2. Online Harassment and Dogpiling
    Students—often women, LGBTQ+ students, or activists—find themselves targeted with:

    brigade attacks,
    doxxing attempts,
    edited clips taken out of context,
    swarm-like intimidation.

    3. Misery Farming
    Groypers intentionally provoke negative reactions to harvest “proof” that campuses are hostile to conservatives. This content is then fed into national media pipelines.

    4. Grooming and Recruitment
    They seek out students who feel:
    lonely
    unsupported
    resentful
    ideologically adrift
    economically anxious

    A mix of dark humor, contrarian bravado, and “insider knowledge” becomes the grooming pathway.

    The Institutional Problem: Campuses Are Not Prepared
    Universities often misread these actors as:
    “just trolls,”
    “rowdy conservatives,”
    “free speech activists.”

    They’re not.

    Groypers are engaged in ideological recruitment and targeted harassment that can escalate into threats, coordinated disruption, and offline violence. Yet institutions remain slow to respond because:
    they lack digital literacy,
    they fear backlash from right-wing media,
    they outsource security and student affairs to PR firms,
    administrators underestimate decentralized extremist networks.

    Faculty—especially contingent or early-career academics—often feel unsupported or intimidated.

    How Groypers Fit into the Larger Campus Crisis
    The Groypers’ rise exposes deeper fractures:
    neoliberal hollowing of the university
    growing distrust in democratic institutions
    political polarization fueled by billionaire-backed media
    the decline of genuine civic education
    surveillance capitalism and algorithmic radicalization

    Campuses have become battlegrounds—not by accident, but because they sit at the intersection of youth, identity, technology, and national politics.

    What Higher Education Must Do Now
    Universities need to respond with clarity, not panic, and with structural solutions, not symbolic statements.

    1. Treat Digital Extremism as Part of Student Safety
    This means training staff, hiring specialists, and supporting targets of online harassment.

    2. Reinvest in Human Infrastructure
    Student Affairs, counseling centers, and campus journalism must be strengthened—not cut or replaced with outsourcing contracts.

    3. Support Independent Investigative Student Journalism
    Student reporters are often the first to detect radicalization trends—but only if their newsrooms are funded and protected.

    4. Protect Academic Freedom Without Ceding Ground to Harassment
    “Free speech” cannot be a shield for sustained intimidation campaigns.

    5. Strengthen Civic Education Rooted in Truth and Inclusion
    The real antidote to extremism is not censorship—it’s meaningful democratic literacy.

    Seeing the Threat Clearly
    Groypers are not the dominant force on campus. Most students reject their worldview. But they are a growing presence within a broader crisis where U.S. higher education lacks the stability, funding, and courage to defend its mission.

    The real danger is not the meme or the mascot—it’s the vacuum that allows extremist networks to flourish.

    The Higher Education Inquirer will continue monitoring this issue as the 2026 and 2028 election cycles approach, when radical groups often intensify campus recruitment and provocation.

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  • 12 Ways to Improve College for Military Learners

    12 Ways to Improve College for Military Learners

    Colleges can support military-affiliated students through peer connections and community.

    SDI Productions/Getty Images

    Approximately 5 percent of all undergraduate learners are active-duty military, reservists, National Guard or veterans, but many systems within colleges aren’t set up to accommodate their needs.

    A November research brief from the Center for Higher Education Policy and Practice outlines some of the barriers to military students’ success while they’re enrolled and offers strategies to improve their college experiences. The report draws on interviews with students, recent graduates, higher education faculty and staff, policy experts, and past research.

    1. Clearly outline program costs and the support services available to military-connected learners. Colleges should also share data on military student enrollment, completion and job outcomes, such as on a dedicated military-student web page.
    1. Streamline credit transfer policies using the American Council on Education’s Military Guide as a starting point for military experience. Providing quality transfer advising can also ensure maximum allowable credits are awarded for prior service and can explain how a major program may increase or decrease transferred credits.
    2. Provide financial aid counseling for military-connected students so they know the benefits available for them at federal, state and institutional levels. The college should also allocate dollars in the case of benefit delays or work with appropriate offices to expedite funds.
    3. Create peer mentorship programs to connect incoming students with currently enrolled military learners who have similar lived experiences. Affinity groups on campus, such as the Student Veterans of America, can also instill a sense of belonging.
    1. Offer professional development training for faculty and staff to be culturally competent about military-specific needs. Green Zone Ally Training is one example that helps higher education professionals support veterans on campus.
    2. Offer flexible courses that accommodate active-duty service members and their families, who may be navigating deployments or relocations. These could include online classes or competency-based education.
    3. Establish policies for service-related disruptions including deadline extensions, rescheduling exams or alternative-format course materials to mitigate disruptions to students’ academic timelines.
    1. Provide accessibility across systems so veterans with disabilities gain equitable access to resources. In instances when accommodations are needed, creating a streamlined process to qualify for accommodations through the disability services office ensures veterans can access all resources.
    2. Create partnerships with external agencies who also support military-connected individuals, such as Veterans Service Organizations and the local Veterans Affairs office.
    3. Connect students with career coaches who can translate their military experience and training into the civilian workforce as well as liaise between veteran-friendly employers and students. Some military-connected students may need additional advice on how professional demeanor and formality expectations vary in the civilian workforce, the report noted.
    1. Expand access to co-op programs and internships that are tailored to military learners and career exploration opportunities. Military-focused career events can make the match between veteran-friendly organizations and future employees.
    2. Track career outcomes for military-affiliated students and align offerings with labor market opportunities.

    How does your college or university provide specialized resources to military-affiliated students? Tell us more here.

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  • States Should Step Up on Graduate School Aid (opinion)

    States Should Step Up on Graduate School Aid (opinion)

    Two decades ago, Uncle Sam offered a helping hand for college graduates who desired careers that required advanced degrees by establishing a loan program known as Grad PLUS. That hand has now been withdrawn. Also known as Direct PLUS loans, this program allowed students to borrow beyond the $20,500 limit available through direct unsubsidized loans to cover their full cost of attendance. With the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law last summer, Grad PLUS loans will no longer be an option for prospective graduate students after July 2026.

    The question of whether colleges and universities raise their tuition prices as the availability of federal aid increases has been a hotly debated topic for more than four decades, with contradictory findings. One recent study found that institutions increased their tuition prices after the creation of Grad PLUS, and determined that the funds did not increase access (or completion) for graduate education in general or for underrepresented groups in particular. These findings echo previous studies that also support a positive relationship between government aid and college prices. In contrast, other studies and analyses at the undergraduate level, as well as for graduate business, medical and law programs, have found little evidence of nonprofit institutions increasing tuition in relation to government subsidies. (The for-profit sector is another story.)

    In any case, the elimination of Grad PLUS is a new reality that incoming graduate students will have to face. Now, students in master’s and doctoral programs will only be able to borrow up to $20,500 annually (with a maximum of $100,000). Students in professional degree programs, like law and medicine, will have a higher cap of $50,000 annually (up to $200,000 total). Additionally, the maximum amount students can borrow from the federal government for their undergraduate and graduate studies combined is $257,500. Students who borrow beyond any of these limits annually will have to turn to private loans to finance the remaining costs, which are less accessible for low-income students (who have less credit) and often come with higher interest rates.

    The specific impact of these new limits on students is not yet known, but if we look at data for borrowers from previous years, we see potential impacts. In 2019–20, approximately 38 percent of all graduate borrowers borrowed beyond these caps, according to an analysis by Jobs for the Future. When disaggregated by degree type, 41 percent of graduate borrowers pursuing master’s degrees, 37 percent pursuing Ph.D. degrees and 25 percent pursuing professional degrees borrowed beyond the loan caps set by OBBBA.

    A recent analysis published by American University’s Postsecondary Education & Economics Research Center shows potential impacts not just by graduate degree type but also by specific field of study. For professional degrees (with the higher loan cap), more than half of borrowers for chiropractic, medicine, osteopathy and dentistry programs borrowed more than $200,000 for their degrees in recent years. Among the master’s programs reviewed, half or more of borrowers in programs including audiology/speech pathology, public health, nursing and school and mental health counseling, to name a few, borrowed beyond the new limits.

    Based on these analyses, it is clear that many prospective graduate students will be impacted by the new loan caps, at least in the short term. The rationale for these loan caps is that graduate programs will lower their costs to make graduate education more affordable, although it is doubtful that colleges will decrease the costs of graduate programs within just a year. It should be noted that many students do not borrow at all to obtain their degrees. In 2019–20, approximately 40 percent of full-time domestic students enrolled in master’s degrees did not borrow.

    For programs that attract students from high-income backgrounds (usually selective elite institutions), what incentive is there to decrease costs if enough students can pay out of pocket? For instance, between 2014 and 2019, medical school matriculants from high-income backgrounds (over $200,000) increased substantially. The number of students attending law schools from wealthy backgrounds has also increased in the past couple of decades, particularly at selective elite institutions. Graduate education, at least at elite schools, has become less accessible for many low-income students.

    Without financial support, options for low-income students will become even more limited. These students will largely be relegated to less selective public universities, and the more elite private schools will become even less economically diverse than they already are. Financial aid offices will become the de facto second admissions office. Using Massachusetts as an example, our analysis found that the annual cost of attendance exceeded the annual loan limit of $50,000 in the case of every accredited law and medical school in the state, with the gap between the cost of attendance and the limit ranging from about $5,600 in the case of the lone public law school (the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth), and $33,000 in the case of the only public medical school option (University of Massachusetts Chan), to as high as $71,000 for Harvard Law School and $64,000 for Harvard Medical School.

    Law School (J.D.) Institution Type 2025 Estimated Cost of Attendance Annual COA Above/ Below Cap
    Boston College Private, nonprofit $99,991 $49,991
    Boston University Private, nonprofit $92,914 $42,914
    Harvard University Private, nonprofit $121,250 $71,250
    New England Law Private, nonprofit $113,279 $63,279
    Northeastern University Private, nonprofit $88,926 $38,926
    Suffolk University Private, nonprofit $96,190 $46,190
    Western New England University Private, nonprofit $74,176 $24,176
    University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Public $55,648 (in-state) $5,648
    Amounts calculated based on current advertised rates for first-time (entering), full-time students enrolled in daytime, nine-month and on-campus programs.
    Medical School (M.D.) Institution Type 2025 Cost of Attendance Annual COA Above/Below Cap
    Boston University Private, nonprofit $100,927 $50,927
    Harvard University Private, nonprofit $113,746 $63,746
    Tufts University Private, nonprofit $99,884 $49,884
    University of Massachusetts Chan Public $83,247 (in-state) $33,247
    Amounts calculated based on advertised rates for first-time (entering), full-time students enrolled in daytime, 10-month and on-campus programs.

    This simple analysis, of course, does not take into account any institutional grants or scholarships students may be awarded, but those funds vary by institutional budgets.

    What happens when a deserving medical school applicant gains admission and a financial aid offer, only to realize that they still have a balance of $40,000 after institutional and federal aid is applied? For students to turn to private lenders, they will likely need either good credit and a substantial income or a cosigner, which may not be an option for many students from underresourced backgrounds. Almost 93 percent of private student loans given last year had a cosigner. Almost 51 percent of individuals from low/moderate incomes have limited or poor to fair credit. Even if they are lucky to be offered loans, the interest rates will likely be much higher.

    With Washington Out, States May Have to Intervene

    With the recent federal cuts to Medicaid likely to lead to decreases in state funding for postsecondary education, states may be hesitant to award funds to support students pursuing graduate education—but there are frameworks to help states determine which graduate programs deserve state funding and which type of funding to provide students. Third Way recently produced a framework that categorizes programs by personal return on investment and social value. One possible solution would be to offer accessible loans and state subsidies based on how a state places certain programs in this model.

    For programs that lead to high ROI and social value—for example, dentistry—states that are facing a shortage of dentists could offer accessible (and lower than market rate) loans in exchange for working in certain geographic areas in that state. Providing low-interest loans instead of grants would make sense for this category because dentists are more likely to have high enough earnings (postresidency) that they can repay their loans. Certain localities have set up zero-interest loans for students pursuing specific industries, such as a San Diego County program for aspiring behavioral health professionals (a type of pay-it-forward program).

    Some states, such as Pennsylvania, do have loan repayment programs for certain health occupations in exchange for working in specific areas of their states. Offering this solution without providing accessible loans will only benefit students who come from wealthier families, as they are more likely to have good enough credit or relationships with creditworthy cosigners to access private loans in the first place.

    For programs that are high in social value but low in personal ROI, such as teaching or social work, if a state determines this is an area of need, they can offer grants to lower the cost of attending these programs and minimize the amount of loans students will have to take out, in exchange for service in these fields for a specific period of time. Offering accessible, low-interest loans to students pursuing these careers could still be an option, but should be secondary, or supplemental to, grants.

    In line with recommendations from a jointly authored report from the American Enterprise Institute, EducationCounsel and the Century Foundation, states can offer grants to graduate students who demonstrate financial need, in addition to targeted grant aid for certain programs. Already, certain states, such as Maryland, New Mexico, Virginia and Washington, offer grant aid to graduate students in specific fields or based on financial need. Massachusetts also offers a tuition waiver to incentivize students to enroll in graduate programs at its public universities.

    Unfortunately, I was unable to find a single repository of state aid specifically for graduate students from various states. The closest I could find was a report released by the National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs for the 2023–24 academic year with data on state-funded expenditures for both undergraduate and graduate student aid. The report shows that only a handful of states allocated more than a million dollars to need-based graduate aid (Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Texas and Virginia), but does not specify for which programs, nor does it detail how aid is awarded and to which institutions.

    The Education Finance Council also maintains a list of nonprofit loan providers in different states that offer lower-interest or more accessible loans, many of which are state-administered, such as the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority. States that already administer conditional loans, scholarships, grants or loan forgiveness programs at the undergraduate level should consider expanding these programs to high- demand industries that require postbaccalaureate credentials if they have not already.

    What Can Institutions Do?

    Institutions are the closest to students, and they can play a role as well. Beyond offering need-based grants/scholarships to lower the cost of attendance, institutions can also guide students in the lending process, such as by publishing preferred lenders on financial aid websites. These lenders should have a good reputation with borrowers and offer low interest rates. Examples of institutions that advertise preferred lenders include Baylor University, the University of Iowa and the University of Central Missouri.

    Institutions with more financial resources can either directly partner with lenders to offer lower fixed interest rates through risk sharing or provide loans themselves. Harvard Law School makes loans available to graduate students through a partnership with the Harvard Federal Credit Union. Some private loan providers looking to get into the graduate lending space are now in conversations with institutions about developing new risk-sharing models.

    Many occupations that typically require graduate degrees, such as teaching, nursing and medicine, will face steep shortages in the coming years. States should align aid programs with current and future workforce shortages, determine which graduate programs will exceed federal loan caps and by how much, offer targeted grants for high-social-value but low-earning fields where costs exceed caps, and provide below-market or zero-interest (and accessible) loans for high-social-value, high-earning fields.

    Institutions must act urgently by partnering with accessible, ethical lenders; increasing need-based aid for students who need it most; and protecting students from predatory options. At the very least, institutions can advertise the upcoming student loan changes on their websites. With OBBBA loan caps, Washington is stepping back. Will states and institutions be able to step forward and lead the way in preserving access and promoting economic mobility? Only 2026 will tell.

    Josh Farris is research and policy specialist and Derrick Young Jr. is cofounder and executive director at Leadership Brainery, a nonprofit organization focused on improving access to graduate education for students from limited-access backgrounds.

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  • Northeastern Technical College Fires President

    Northeastern Technical College Fires President

    Northeast Technical College fired its president last week, reversing course on a resignation agreement accepted by the board just two weeks earlier that would have reportedly kept him in the job until June.

    Kyle Wagner, president of the public college in South Carolina since 2016, submitted his resignation Nov. 11 and then went on medical leave, according to Queen City News. But two weeks later, NETC’s governing board rescinded the agreement and fired the longtime president with little explanation, the local news outlet reported. The decision was effective immediately.

    The board also voted to immediately begin a search for the college’s next president.

    Wagner’s firing comes after a tumultuous year for the college and the president. Last December, Northeastern Technical College was sanctioned by its accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, for compliance concerns that included not employing adequate numbers of full-time faculty members, among other issues cited in a report.

    That same month, the South Carolina Office of the State Inspector General determined that Northeastern Tech had placed some high school students in a dual-enrollment program in additional classes, unbeknownst to them, which resulted in unexpected bills from the college.

    College employees, including Wagner, benefited financially from the mistake, according to the OIG’s office.

    “NETC failed one or more invisible students, transforming them, via a flawed fast track scheme, into ghost students—haunting the reliability of NETC’s enrollment numbers. Inflated enrollment numbers provided additional funding to NETC which served select faculty and staff justifying salary increases and/or bonuses,” Inspector General Brian Lamkin wrote in his report. “Due to the inadequacies of NETC staff, some students were left with grade discrepancies, issues with financial aid eligibility at future institutions, and unreconciled student account balances.”

    Local politicians called for Wagner to resign late last year, citing the accreditation and dual-enrollment issues. Despite lawmakers’ concerns, then–board chairman Dan Bozard said in January that they backed Wagner “without reservation.” But some 11 months later, that support has evidently diminished.

    Contacted by LinkedIn, Wagner did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed. College officials also did not respond to a media inquiry about Wagner’s reported firing.

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  • The Growing Diversity of Community College Trustees

    The Growing Diversity of Community College Trustees

    Between 1997 and 2025, the proportion of women serving on community college boards grew from 33 percent to 47 percent.

    Maricopa County Community College District

    New data shows that community college trustees have become more reflective of the diverse student bodies they serve over the past three decades.

    That’s one of the big takeaways from a report the Association of Community College Trustees published last week in partnership with the Center for the Study of Community Colleges, which shows that the proportion of women serving on community college boards is on the rise. Between 1997 and 2025, female representation on the boards grew from 33 percent to 47 percent, with the biggest increases coming in the past seven years. During the same time frame, the proportion of nonwhite trustees grew from roughly 12 percent to 27 percent.

    Association of Community College Trustees/Center for the Study of Community Colleges

    While disparities remain, that breakdown is now closer to mirroring the diversity of community college students. In 2025, 57 percent of students were women and 58 percent identified as people of color, according to data from the American Association of Community Colleges.

    The report, “Community College Trusteeship in 2025: A Commitment to Serve,” draws on surveys of more than 2,000 community college trustees and 40 qualitative interviews with trustees, building on similar reports from 1997 and 2018. The study demonstrates that trustees “have a pulse on their communities’ needs, a deep commitment to the community college mission of open access to high-quality higher education for all people, and the kind of visionary thinking needed to keep their institutions thriving,” ACCT president and CEO Jee Hang Lee said in a news release.

    That’s in part because community college governing boards are also more likely now to have members who attended a community college.

    In 2025, 64 percent of trustees attended a community college and 27 percent previously worked at one, according to the report. In 1997, only 51 percent of trustees had been community college students and 22 percent had been employees. Today’s trustees also are also showcasing the earning potential of community college graduates: 71 percent of trustees who attended a two-year college made at least $100,000 a year in 2025, while 31 percent made close to $200,000, according to the report.

    community college trustee experience

    Association of Community College Trustees/Center for the Study of Community Colleges

    In an interview, one such trustee said that attending a community college first allowed them to continue on to a university “to get my education at a reasonable cost and also to improve my life and my business.”

    For many trustees, those firsthand experiences with the community college system have also translated into enthusiasm for higher education governance work. “I was a nontraditional college student,” one said in an interview for the report. “I went back to school with three kids in tow and got my bachelor’s and my master’s, and it’s just something that I believe in.”

    That’s a common trajectory for community college trustees.

    Among trustees who were once community college students, 83 percent have a bachelor’s or higher degree, and 54 percent have a graduate or professional degree. And over all, trustees have become even more educated over the past 28 years. Although the vast majority of trustees have long held a college degree, the proportion with a bachelor’s degree rose from 84 percent to 86 percent between 1997 and 2025; the proportion with a graduate or professional degree rose from 50 percent to 59 percent.

    But other aspects of community college governance haven’t changed as much since the 1990s, the report shows.

    In 2025, trustees spent an average of five hours a week on board duties—hardly any change from 1997. Similarly, trustees identified funding, access and affordability as top challenges in 1997, 2018 and in 2025. This year, however, 63 percent of trustees also cited enrollment as a top issue, “likely stemming from the fact that most states have begun to experience the anticipated enrollment cliff,” the report noted.

    Community college trustees have also maintained high levels of trust in and support for their college leaders. In 2025, 94 percent of respondents indicated a “somewhat or very strong level of trust” between boards and presidents, while 96 reported somewhat or very strong levels of support—numbers that have hardly changed since 1997.

    community college trustee trust and support

    Association of Community College Trustees/Center for the Study of Community Colleges

    And that’s an essential aspect of effective governance, one trustee said in an interview.

    “The demands [on] a college president are huge, and [it’s a] difficult job, which is one reason [that] when you get somebody, you’ve got to support them,” they said. “You hire somebody and then you get out of their way and let them do what you hired them to do. That is so important.”

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  • Associate Provost on Coordinated Attack on Academic Freedom

    Associate Provost on Coordinated Attack on Academic Freedom

    Valerie Johnson has watched—and fought against—political attacks on academic freedom for years. A political scientist and associate provost of diversity, equity and inclusion at the Catholic DePaul University, Johnson understands well the political incentives for conservatives to bring universities to heel.

    This year brought an avalanche of new and continuing attacks on what professors can teach, speak about and research at American colleges and universities, led by the Trump administration and exacerbated in states like Florida and Texas, where Johnson describes these changes as swift and effective.

    Together with co-authors and editors Jennifer Ruth, a film professor at Portland State University, and Ellen Schrecker, a professor emerita of American history at Yeshiva University, Johnson wrote The Right to Learn: Resisting the Right-Wing Attack on Academic Freedom (Beacon Press, 2024). In October, the book was granted the American Association of Colleges and Universities’ Frederic W. Ness Book Award, an annual honor that highlights the “book that best illuminates the goals and practices of a contemporary liberal education.”

    Johnson spoke with Inside Higher Ed over Zoom about the impetus for the book and how she interprets the escalating attack on academic freedom today.

    The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

    Q: What prompted you to write this book? Was there a specific moment when the scope of this campaign against academic freedom that you describe became unmistakable for you?

    A: Yes, it was the summer of 2021. A friend of mine was working with the African American Policy Forum, and they wanted to sound the alert that we were seeing a rollback of rights. And so they had asked Jennifer Ruth, my co-author and co-editor of the book, to work on what they called the Faculty Senate campaign. Twenty twenty was a momentous year. We began to see gag orders about what could be taught. So Jennifer and I … wanted to alert all faculty senates across the United States that we were seeing this erosion of academic freedom and that they should pay attention. We asked them to write resolutions asking their administrations to reaffirm academic freedom.

    Q: How have faculty senates or governing bodies adapted—or failed to adapt—to the current legislative landscape?

    A: Well, I would like to say I’ve seen quite a bit of resistance, but unfortunately people have a way of conceding when their livelihoods are at stake. And how you answer that question is also determined by where you are in the country. If you’re in a red state—like Florida, like Texas—where there are prohibitions like, “Hey, you cannot teach on this, this, this and this,” then either you stay there and withstand some degree of punishment, or you leave. A lot of faculty are leaving red states for bluer states.

    It’s actually been very surprising to me. This period in American history has really caused me to rethink what I originally believed about human nature. It is very surprising how cowardly people are … I am a political scientist by training, and I [know] only about 4 to 5 percent of people will protest anything. And we have seen various rallies, protests, etc., but it hasn’t been as engaging as I would like to see.

    Q: One of the things that the book addresses is that efforts on the right to degrade academic freedom are strategic rather than reactive. What evidence convinced you that this was an organized, long-term project?

    A: There’s always been attempts to erase history. Frederick Douglass said a long time ago that America is false to its past. It’s false to its present, and it resigns itself to be false to the future.

    America has always created a story that it is something it is not, and I think the values that we have are largely aspirational. When universities talk about their mission statements, they’re not saying it’s [complete], they are saying, “This is who we’d like to be.” There has always been a concerted effort to blame the victim when it comes to people who have marginalized identities and to ensure that, largely, their stories are not told. And so through education, if you could limit discussions of race and social equality, then people aren’t thinking about it. They’re not thinking about passing legislation that pursues those goals. And you could make people believe that, “Hey, all the problems of the past have been resolved,” when, in fact, if you look empirically, they haven’t.

    Q: When you were doing your research, were there any state-level policies or actors that really surprised you, either in their influence or how quickly they spread?

    A: Yeah, I would say Florida and Texas. It was very quick. [Governor Ron] DeSantis definitely took over the university system very quickly [with] Don’t Say Gay and Anti-Woke. I mean, it’s amazing, but it’s an easy setup. For the average citizen, it’s a part of the culture wars where they see LGBTQIA rights, for example, or women’s rights, and they’re alarmed by them … It is “me against them,” and particularly in red states and the Bible Belt, it has been a pretty easy sell to the citizenry because it aligns with some of their well-cherished values, but it doesn’t promote human rights. It doesn’t promote a country or a world where people are seen not by any sort of cultural or identity markers, but by their membership in the human race.

    Q: Are there any aspects of the current debate that you think are most misunderstood, either by the media or the public or folks in higher ed?

    A: Yes, I think there are a couple of things that are really misunderstood. One is structural inequality, or when you look at, for example, inequality by race. I think most people think that the civil rights movement resolved any social economic inequality when, in fact, it did not. I always use the metaphor of a Monopoly game gone wrong—just because you change the policy doesn’t mean you change the conditions. So let’s say you and I are playing a game of Monopoly, and halfway through the game, I realize you’ve been cheating all along. So I call you out on it, and your response to that is, “OK, let’s change the policy. No more cheating.” And then you say, “Let’s resume the game.” The problem with that is you have already amassed the red hotels, the green houses. Generation by generation, those people who benefited from slavery or land appropriation of the Native Americans and Mexicans, or Jim Crow and residential segregation, that’s a cumulative advantage. For those people who were disadvantaged, there’s a cumulative disadvantage that moves forward from generation to generation. Existing racial inequality—I don’t think people actually understand it. They saw shows like The Cosby Show, and they are like, “Oh, wow, all people from minoritized backgrounds, they’ve made it.” In fact, it’s really a myth.

    To that extent, if you say that you want to provide opportunities that create inclusion on college campuses, they’re looking at that like, “Well, wait a minute. They’ve made it. So this is unfair to me.” Then you have this disdain for DEI. Of course, for people between the ages of zero and 18 in America, the majority of them are nonwhite. So every single year, campus enrollment is becoming less white … and American universities and colleges that are going to have to depend on American students for their enrollment will increasingly have to court and recruit students who are nonwhite because of the demographic shift.

    Q: How should universities communicate with the public about academic freedom without reinforcing the right wing framing that expertise equals elitism?

    A: One thing that is constantly on my mind is: How do you talk about something as heavy as academic freedom? In a way, I wish we would have retitled the book something like “The Right to Learn: Resisting the Attack on What You Can Learn,” or something like that. When you put “academic freedom,” people ask, what is academic freedom? People know about free speech, but people don’t know about academic freedom. That is why you have an increasing number of students who come to college campuses believing that they should get a tailor-made curriculum.

    So, what can universities do? I believe in community education. I love it when community groups and politicians ask me to come and speak to regular community folk. We have to see our enterprise as not only teaching in the university, but outside of the university, and that could be done with op-ed pieces or just going where people are—churches, community institutions … I think that’s the only way it’s going to happen. We have to get out of the ivory tower.

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  • Making sense of specialisation: what the Post-16 White Paper means for university identity

    Making sense of specialisation: what the Post-16 White Paper means for university identity

    Over the weekend we published blogs on the art of reimagining universities and on why the TEF could collapse under the weight of DfE and the OfS’ expectations.

    Today’s blog was kindly authored by Nick Barthram, Strategy Partner at Firehaus and Merry Scott Jones, Transformation Partner at Firehaus and Associate Lecturer at Birkbeck, University of London.

    It is the tenth  blog in HEPI’s series responding to the post-16 education and skills white paper. You can find the other blogs in the series here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

    The government’s Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper sets a new tone for tertiary education in England. It is not just another skill or funding reform. It is a statement of intent about how universities, colleges, and employers should work together to build the country’s economic capability.

    The paper sets out a broad reform agenda built around stronger employer collaboration, higher-quality technical education, and a more flexible lifelong learning system. Initiatives such as Local Skills Improvement Plans and the Lifelong Learning Entitlement illustrate how the system is being reshaped to enable post-16 institutions to play distinct, complementary roles within a shared ecosystem of skills and innovation. All of this will unfold against a backdrop of constrained funding, uneven regional capacity, and growing regulatory pressure, making clarity of role more important than the White Paper itself acknowledges.

    While the paper avoids overt market language, the phrase comparative advantage does a lot of work. It invites universities to reflect on what they are best at and how that compares with others, without requiring them to openly compete. The intention is clear: to encourage institutions to define, and then demonstrate, their unique value. This is not new thinking. Advance HE, supported by a sector steering group including representation from AHUA, CUC, Guild HE and UUK, published a discussion paper last year on Measuring What Matters, exploring institutional performance and the importance of evidencing and communicating value creation.

    For some, that will mean sharper choices about subjects, audiences, partnerships, and purpose. For others, it will be about aligning their contribution to regional priorities. Not every university serves its region in the same way. The most prestigious universities will act as lighthouses, shaping national and international ecosystems through research and innovation. Others will play a more local role, deepening their community impact and supporting regional industry.

    The common thread is focus. Universities can no longer rely on breadth as a badge of strength. The challenge now is to identify what makes their contribution distinct and coherent, and to express that with clarity.

    From strategy to articulation

    Responding to the White Paper will be a demanding process. It will call for rigorous analysis, evidence-gathering, and an honest evaluation of institutional strengths and weaknesses. It will also require a sophisticated understanding of stakeholders’ and audiences’ needs. And of course, diplomacy will be required to manage the trade-offs that follow. Every decision will carry consequences for identity, culture, and relationships.

    In time, many universities will produce credible strategies: detailed statements of focus, lists of priorities, and maps of partnerships. But the real risk is stopping there. Institutional strategy alone will not create coherence.

    Universities often complete strategic work and then move straight to execution, adding imagery or campaigns before uniting everything around a purpose that aligns what you offer and who it’s for. The step that often gets missed is articulation – translating strategic intent into something people can understand, believe in, and act on.

    The White Paper calls for coherence across regions and the sector. Universities need to mirror that with coherence within their own walls. When purpose, culture, and communication line up behind a shared sense of direction, policy responses become practice, not just strategy. And this, fundamentally, is what the Government is seeking.

    The groundwork for meeting these changes is only just beginning, with many hard yards still to come. While covering that ground, there are lessons from outside the sector worth remembering.

    1. Specialisation  is relative
      A university’s strengths mean little in isolation. What matters is how those strengths stand out within the broader system of institutions, partners, and employers. Understanding where your work overlaps with others and where it uniquely contributes is essential. Knowing what not to do is often as important as knowing where to lead.
    1. Demand is defined by more than the UK Government
      The White Paper rightly highlights the importance of the national industrial strategy in shaping what is ‘in demand’. But universities should also consider the needs and motivations of their wider audiences: students, partners, and communities. Clarity about who your work matters to is as important as clarity about what that work is.
    1. Purpose must be expressed, not just defined
      Defining purpose is a strategic exercise; expressing it is an act of leadership. Purpose that remains on paper does not change behaviour, attract talent, or inspire partners. It must be made visible and tangible across everything the institution says and does, from how staff describe their work to how the university presents itself to the world.
    1. Perception matters as much as reality
      Universities are naturally driven by research and evidence. Yet specialisation is as much about being perceived as specialised as it is about being so in practice. The most successful institutions will work not only to build genuine expertise but also to occupy space in their audiences’ hearts and minds. Shifting perception requires consistency in both story and substance.
    1. Alignment is critical to success
      The institutions that succeed will be those that align intent, culture, and message. When leadership, staff, and students share a single understanding of what the university stands for, decision-making becomes simpler, collaboration easier, and communication more powerful. Alignment is not achieved through a campaign but through ongoing dialogue and consistent behaviour.

    A catalyst for clarity

    The Post-16 White Paper is ultimately a call for focus. For universities, that means not only deciding where they fit but demonstrating that fit clearly and consistently to students, partners, and staff.

    Those who stop at strategy will adapt. Those who move beyond it — articulating their role with confidence, coherence, and conviction — will help define what a purposeful, modern university looks like in the decade ahead.

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