Category: Featured

  • Why early STEAM education unlocks the future for all learners

    Why early STEAM education unlocks the future for all learners

    Key points:

    When we imagine the future of America’s workforce, we often picture engineers, coders, scientists, and innovators tackling the challenges of tomorrow. However, the truth is that a student’s future does not begin in a college classroom, or even in high school–it starts in the earliest years of a child’s education.

    Early exposure to science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) builds the foundation for critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity. Research indicates that children introduced to STEAM concepts before the age of eight are significantly more likely to pursue STEM-related fields later in life. Yet for too many children, especially neurodivergent learners and those in underserved communities, STEAM education comes too late or not at all. That gap represents a missed opportunity not only for those children, but also for the industries and communities that will rely on their talents in the future.

    The missed opportunity in early education

    In most school systems, STEAM instruction ramps up in middle school or high school, long after the formative years when children are naturally most curious and open to exploring. By waiting until later grades, we miss the chance to harness early curiosity, which is the spark that drives innovation.

    This late introduction disproportionately affects children with disabilities or learning differences. These learners often benefit from structured, hands-on exploration and thrive when provided with tools to connect abstract concepts to real-world applications. Without early access, they may struggle to build confidence or see themselves as capable contributors to fields like aerospace, technology, or engineering. If STEAM employers fail to cultivate neurodivergent learners, they miss out on theirunique problem-solving skills, specialized strengths, and diverse thinking that drives true innovation. Beyond shrinking the talent pipeline, this oversight risks stalling progress in fields like aerospace, energy, and technology while weakening their competitive edge.

    The result is a long-term underrepresentation of neurodivergent individuals in high-demand, high-paying fields. Without access to an early STEAM curriculum, both neurodivergent students and employers will miss opportunities for advancement.

    Why neurodivergent learners benefit most

    Neurodivergent learners, such as children with autism, ADHD, or dyslexia, often excel when lessons are tactile, visual, and inquiry-based. Early STEAM education naturally aligns with these learning styles. For example, building a simple bridge with blocks is more than play; it’s an exercise in engineering, problem-solving, and teamwork. Programming a toy robot introduces logic, sequencing, and cause-and-effect.

    These types of early STEAM experiences also support executive functioning, improve social-emotional development, and build persistence. These are crucial skills in STEM careers, where theories often fail, and continued experimentation is necessary. Additionally, building these skills helps children see themselves as creators and innovators rather than passive participants in their education.

    When neurodivergent children are given access to STEAM at an early age, they are not only better equipped academically but also more confident in their ability to belong in spaces that have traditionally excluded them.

    Houston as a case study

    Here in Houston, we recognize the importance of early STEAM education in shaping our collective future. As the world’s Energy Capital and a hub for aerospace innovation, Houston’s economy will continue to rely on the next generation of thinkers, builders and problem-solvers. That pipeline begins not in a university laboratory, but in preschool classrooms and afterschool programs.

    At Collaborative for Children, we’ve seen this firsthand through our Collab-Lab, a mobile classroom that brings hands-on STEAM experiences to underserved neighborhoods. In these spaces, children experiment with coding, explore engineering principles, and engage in collaborative problem-solving long before they reach middle school. For neurodivergent learners in particular, the Collab-Lab provides an environment where curiosity is encouraged, mistakes are celebrated as part of the learning process, and every child has the chance to succeed. Additionally, we are equipping the teachers in our 125 Centers of Excellence throughout the city in practical teaching modalities for neurodivergent learners. We are committed to creating equal opportunity for all students.

    Our approach demonstrates what is possible when early childhood education is viewed not just as childcare, but as workforce development. If we can prioritize early STEAM access in Houston, other cities across the country can also expand access for all students.

    A national priority

    To prepare America’s workforce for the challenges ahead, we must treat early STEAM education as a national priority. This requires policymakers, educators and industry leaders to collaborate in new and meaningful ways.

    Here are three critical steps we must take:

    1. Expand funding and resources for early STEAM curriculum. Every preschool and early elementary program should have access to inquiry-based materials that spark curiosity in young learners.
    2. Ensure inclusion of neurodivergent learners in program design. Curricula and classrooms must reflect diverse learning needs so that all children, regardless of ability, have the opportunity to engage fully.
    3. Forge stronger partnerships between early education and industry. Employers in aerospace, energy, and technology should see investment in early childhood STEAM as part of their long-term workforce strategy.

    The stakes are high. If we delay STEAM learning until later grades, we risk leaving behind countless children and narrowing the talent pipeline that will fuel our nation’s most critical industries. But if we act early, we unlock not just potential careers, but potential lives filled with confidence, creativity and contribution.

    Closing thoughts

    The innovators of tomorrow are sitting in preschool classrooms today. They are building with blocks, asking “why,” and imagining worlds we cannot yet see. Among them are children who are neurodivergent–who, with the proper support, may go on to design spacecrafts, engineer renewable energy solutions, or code the next groundbreaking technology.

    If we want a future that is diverse, inclusive, and innovative, the path is clear: We must start with STEAM education in the earliest years, for every child.

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  • MacKenzie Scott’s recent college gifts top $700M. See who got funding.

    MacKenzie Scott’s recent college gifts top $700M. See who got funding.

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    Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott is on another donation spree, giving more than $740 million total to over a dozen historically Black colleges and universities, as well as at least one tribal college since mid-October.

    In 2019 — the same year Scott and her ex-husband, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, divorced — she pledged to give away most of her wealth. Scott’s fortune is estimated to be worth $38.7 billion, according to Bloomberg.

    On Thursday, Little Priest Tribal College, in Nebraska, said it received a $5 million donation from the billionaire philanthropist. The institution — the first tribal college to publicly announce a gift from Scott during her latest donation blitz — said it would use the gift to accelerate plans to develop a new 10-acre campus.  

    Only two days earlier, Xavier University of Louisiana, a HBCU, announced it had received a $38 million unrestricted donation from Scott. 

    So far, Howard University, in Washington, D.C., has garnered the largest among Scott’s recent gifts to colleges. Earlier this month, the philanthropist donated the research university $80 million, earmarking $17 million of that amount for its medical college. 

    Most of the colleges have received gifts from Scott before. 

    Scott has made mass donations to higher education institutions in previous years — by 2021, she had given at least $1.5 billion total to roughly six dozen institutions. Her other rounds of donations have likewise focused on minority-serving institutions, such as Hispanic-serving institutions and HBCUs. 

    Below, we’re rounding up colleges that have received gifts from Scott in her latest donation spree. Let us know if we’ve missed any announcements.

    Scott has given over $700M to colleges in latest donation spree

    The gifts higher education institutions have received from Scott in recent months

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  • Is Higher Ed Broken?

    Is Higher Ed Broken?

    During the recent government shutdown, I bravely traveled to Philadelphia for the annual meeting of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities’ annual meeting. Then I hung out at Bryn Mawr College, where Marjorie Hass, president of the Council of Independent Colleges, gave a fantastic talk about curriculum to a big group (that included not that many faculty). Finally, I Amtraked up to a conference at Drew University in New Jersey. In one week, I made the rounds of what most people think of as “college.”

    In my role as creator of Inside Higher Ed’s wacky weekly newsletter The Sandbox, I go to plenty of higher ed conferences. The Drew gathering was a horse of another color. It convened 150 people from various sectors of learning—tech gurus, mentorship experts, K–12 educators, innovators in experiential learning, those who have started new organizations and institutions—to talk about the future of higher ed.

    The Drew convening opened with a talk by Michael Horn of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. As a reminder, in 2013, he and Clayton Christensen predicted in a New York Times op-ed that online education was going to disrupt our sector and that 25 percent of struggling colleges and universities were going to close. He presented new research that shows dozens of brand-name schools in New England could now be in deep financial doo doo.

    One of the questions at Drew was “What is the purpose of higher education?” If you ask faculty, the answers are likely to loftily uphold ideals we all believe: to open minds, spark curiosity, even help build citizens who will maintain our (endangered) democracy. Most will rightly claim that colleges and universities are engines of economic opportunity.

    When I asked my students at a regional public what they wanted out of their education, they parroted these ideas. They came to be challenged, to meet people unlike themselves, to think differently. College, they complained noted, instills discipline and helps them ease into adulthood. Most believed in the value of a traditional liberal arts education.

    This is not surprising because, well, they’re college students and they’ve been chugging the Kool-Aid we serve them. We live these values when they come to our campuses. My old friend Stanley Hauerwas, the potty-mouthed esteemed theologian, used to say in typical fashion, “I don’t want my students to make up their goddamned minds; they don’t have minds worth making up until I’ve taught them.” Coming to college can feel for many the way Dorothy did when she went over the rainbow. Life goes from drab sepia tones to a Technicolor.

    Twenty years ago, when I won the lottery became faculty, things were still pretty Emerald City–esque. I had landed a tenure-track job after a couple different careers as a nine-to-fiver. What a luxurious and privileged position! How many other employees have this kind of flexibility, job security and, well, lack of accountability?

    But boy howdy, we’re back in dusty Kansas.

    Because here’s the thing: As enrollments drop, state and federal support withers, and philanthropic dollars are necessary to keep our citizens safe, fed and healthy, the number of faculty at most institutions has remained mostly unchanged while expenses continue to rise. This is a math problem a fifth grader could solve. We need to adapt if we want to continue to prepare the next generations to keep our country going.

    A handful of elite institutions have turned themselves into high-end brands, with people mistaking exclusivity for excellence and the national media mistaking them for the whole sector, fueling the rankings arms race and copycat syndrome.

    Meanwhile, most of us are stuck in the messy middle, trying to do everything everywhere all at once. Research, workforce training, student life, athletics, DEI, study abroad, mental health—missions layered like geological strata. The result? Silos, identity crisis, bloat and burnout.

    The sad truth is that few people outside academe are convinced we’re doing a good job. That includes not just the disaffected without degrees who were told they were losers if they didn’t go to college, but plenty of professionals who did and are still paying off debt and are not convinced their kids should follow that path. Plus, the children of privilege are dropping out of fancy-pants schools to work at start-ups. For many young people, the choice now is not which college to attend but whether to bother going at all.

    There are still plenty of folks who want access to more education, and we have to remember that most degree seekers aren’t of traditional college age. But that doesn’t mean even they want to buy what we’re currently selling. There are nearly 4,000 institutions of higher learning in this country. Some will survive, others will thrive, and for some, it may end up looking like the Hunger Games.

    At dinner with a dozen presidents this fall, one told a story that captured how resistance to current reality can end. That president had been warning his faculty about the financial cliff ahead. They either didn’t believe him or couldn’t be bothered to figure out how to change. Then he told them the school was closing and handed out pink slips. That’s what happens when you wait for someone else to solve the math problem.

    Those in the group that Michael Horn and Clay Christensen said were going to go belly up—small privates and regional publics—are going to have to do some hard rethinking and find a way to be something other than, in the formulation of Jeff Selingo, “Comprehensive U.”

    We’ve been able to muddle through with tiny ivory towers on each campus: disciplinary niches, departments, divisions, colleges. The world, however, does not follow the ways of our little chessboard pieces that each move in their quirky little ways.

    We are in the midst of some serious paradigm shifts, folks. Not just in the last two decades, but in the past two years, since AI began to change every aspect of life as we know it, whether you like it or not (and yes, I know that many do not like it and stick their fingers in their ears saying la la la I can’t hear you).

    This is why the Drew convening felt like going from sepia tones to Oz. If there was a man behind the curtain, it was the visionary president of Drew, Hilary Link, whose scholarship on the Renaissance shows that we already have within us what we need, if we’re only able to see from a different perspective. This perpetual learner has been on an 18-month journey asking questions of all different types of thinkers and trying to figure out where to go next. The convening was a first step in consolidating what she’s learned, backed by a university board that understands the survival challenges and prizes boldness.

    In the final session, President Link asked me to talk about innovations I’ve seen as I talk to presidents around the country. The sad truth is that while there are many creative leaders well aware of the need to change, they face resistance from the usual suspects.

    Boards are often filled with well-meaning and accomplished people who went to college in another era and may not understand much about our current environment.

    And faculty cling to traditions that define their own legitimacy. The Angry Eight (or Furious Five or Irate Individual) on a campus can stop brilliant ideas in two sessions of the Faculty Senate. And while these longtime faculty members try to burn it all down, they rarely come up with realistic and informed solutions to move forward.

    Because of resistance from above or below, institutions are cycling through presidents faster than drug-aided Lance Armstrong could pedal, leaving little time for anything but triage. Finding good examples of meaningful innovation is hard.

    So, I pointed to a quirky example that has caught my attention. The Community Solution Education System consists of six private, previously independent not-for-profit institutions that act as one entity. They share infrastructure and an overarching mission while maintaining their individuality. This approach takes aim at the real obstacles: redundancy, inefficiency, low morale, leadership churn and the isolation that keeps colleges from learning from one another. It smashes the silos.

    Shared services for essential stuff—HR, IT, procurement—free up resources for student services. Networks of presidents and provosts who actually talk to one another about practical, scalable solutions. Small, niche-y colleges get the efficiencies of large ones without losing their soul.

    Collaboration and radical cooperation, not competition, might be higher ed’s best survival strategy. The Community Solution proves that shared purpose doesn’t have to mean sameness. It’s one of the rare higher ed innovations not about shiny tech or brand reinvention but about rebuilding the scorched environment of the ecosystem itself.

    The ground beneath us is shifting faster than ChatGPT could rewrite this essay. One of the speakers at the meeting in New Jersey aptly quoted the boss. Bruce Springsteen sang, “I can’t tell my courage from my desperation.” Yep. As long as it motivates you to get shit done, does it really matter which one it is?

    Rachel Toor is a contributing editor at Inside Higher Ed and the co-founder of The Sandbox, a weekly newsletter that allows presidents and chancellors to write anonymously. She is also a professor of creative writing and the author of books on weirdly diverse subjects. Reach her here with questions, comments and complaints compliments.

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  • Teaching as a Sacred Life (opinion)

    Teaching as a Sacred Life (opinion)

    Some people dream about retirement as heaven; I see it as hell. I do not wish to retire. I am only 80 and have been a college professor for a mere 56 years. I’m a workaholic and I have every reason to continue. My office is my Shangri-La. In a small space, it is a mini-museum of an entire career—2,000 books, plaques for well beyond a dozen teaching and scholarship awards, many photographs, travel mementos from around the world, and artifacts of every kind. All organized and I know where everything is. I look around and remember. And there is much to remember. Students from across the institution sometimes drop in just to marvel at what this office says about a career. I once wrote an article on one’s office as a teaching tool.

    I’m a fairly ordinary guy. My degrees would not raise any eyebrows—undergraduate from a directional-named tertiary regional university, Ph.D. from my home-state Midwestern university. A tour in Vietnam and church-related travels all over the globe add some zest. I have had some successes in the academic world—books, lots of articles, some wider recognition and campus leadership roles. I’ve been department chair for 35 years; “it is a small place.” I’ve had some offers all the way up to a presidency inquiry. I’ve spurned them all. 

    I am a teacher, the highest calling in this human existence and at a place best suited for my practice. A colleague called our role “a slice of heaven breaking into this earthly realm.” He was right. It isn’t what I do; it is who I am. Back when I began graduate school, jobs in my discipline were plentiful. My early predecessors scrambled for prestigious appointments and got them. I declared from day one that what I wanted was a small liberal arts college where I could affect students’ lives. Some accused me of low aspirations. My adviser proclaimed, “You can do better than that.” However, things changed for historians dramatically in the mid-1970s, and the opportunities, prestigious and other, dried up. But I was fortunate; my desires came about.

    Teaching is about mentoring students. And I have had my share. Of the majors, at least, I remember almost all of them, now in the upper hundreds. They have done well. I’m committed to that. I remember from my first year, my first high-profile student received a prestigious national Ph.D. award. I was ecstatic. She retired many years ago as a prominent scholar and provost. And I am just as enthusiastic about the several graduates from this past spring who went on to top graduate and professional schools and good career opportunities.

    I am proud to hope that I have played a role in their becoming. If it is my fortune, they will join the ranks who check in periodically, send cards and letters, get married (and divorced), have kids, and come by to see me occasionally. Maybe it is just to confirm if the old man is still alive. I have several second-generation majors and a couple of third-generation ones—again, “it is that kind of place.” I have stories about their parents and grandparents, a bit disconcerting to their elders. I’m a storyteller and I have an almost inexhaustive supply. I’ve lived a lot of life, and this is a tool to employ in speaking to new generations of students. We travel quite a bit, and every place we go, every book read, movie watched, indeed every experience, I approach didactically. How does this become part of my classroom and student learning?

    I’ve heard the cliché that we should teach learning to think, not what to think. Yes, but we also have a greater responsibility. I’m not tolerant enough to accept that genocide is OK, rape is just fine or that the world is flat and John F. Kennedy is alive in a hospital in Dallas. That is the antithesis of intellect. I have little patience for conspiracy theorists or patent immorality, even if there is a lot of both going around. Our goals must be higher, our expectations more worthy.

    But it isn’t just about the students. I’ve hired several department members, selected to perpetuate the purposes we want to achieve. My job is to model the norms and culture that have made us successful and for my colleagues to achieve their best selves. The greatest tribute that I have received in my career was from a now-deceased member of the department who proclaimed, “His greatest strength as a leader is that he is so deeply committed to our success that he is just as pleased to see our work succeed as he is to see his own work succeed.” I hope that I have lived up to that high accolade.

    I do not enjoy summer, because my colleagues and our students are not around much. No hanging out in the office talking about everything from books, politics, philosophy, culture, teaching and maybe a little gossip. I find it hard to come to grips with what a full year would be as an extended summer. I can only read and write so many hours a day, especially if I can’t see it manifest itself in the classroom. I’ve been at this long enough to know that no matter your stature, when you are gone, your shelf life is short. In four years, or three, in many cases today, you are just a name that the ever-cycling group of current students may or may not have heard about, but in any case, you aren’t impacting them directly.

    Everything about this academic life hasn’t been idyllic. Pay may have been less than ideal, frustrations exist, challenges are around every corner and today the very existence of my discipline, type of institution and indeed the liberal arts are under threat from forces internal and external.

    I know that someday my portion of the quest will come to an end. Health is precarious, the mind fragile, life full of the unsuspected. I’ve witnessed that from 50-plus years of colleagues. I know my vulnerabilities—back surgeries, hearing and creeping infirmities. Things can change in the blink of an eye. But as long as mind and body cooperate, I remain a teacher, the highest calling with which we mortals are graced. It is my slice of heaven, and, as for my students and my sacred department office space, I do not want to give up either prematurely.

    Joe P. Dunn is the Charles A. Dana Professor of History and Politics at Converse University.

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  • Volunteer EMTs Provide Medical Response Support on Campus

    Volunteer EMTs Provide Medical Response Support on Campus

    On a normal day on the Florida State University campus, it’s not unusual to see a student drive by in a vehicle equipped with sirens and the name “Medical Response Unit” plastered to the side.

    “I saw everybody driving around in the golf carts and I really wanted to know what was happening,” said neuroscience major Anakha Vargheese.

    The vehicles are part of a student-led emergency medical response unit, connected to the student health center, that trains student volunteers to provide health care and assistance to their peers.

    For the university, the unit provides emergency response support and health education to all students. For volunteers, the experience gives them needed work-based learning and professional development for future careers as medical professionals.

    In action: FSU’s Medical Response Unit includes more than 150 trained student volunteers on staff, including Vargheese, who serves as director of administration for the unit. Volunteers are certified in various roles, including emergency medical technicians and paramedics.

    To be eligible, students must be empathetic and committed to improving campus health and welfare. All volunteers agree to participate for four semesters including training, so students are primarily admitted in their first or second year of college.

    The unit is well-known on campus, and the competition to earn a spot on the crew is fierce. In the most recent application cycle, MRU received 350 applications for 50 positions, said Bryce Couey, a senior biology major who serves as executive director for the MRU.

    At the start of the term, students accepted to the program are assigned to a crew of three or four people, including one trainee who shadows the crew for the semester. Crews serve two-hour-and-fifteen-minute shifts between 7:45 a.m. and 6 p.m. and may be called on to help bandage a sprained ankle, provide transport to the campus health center or address whatever other issues may arise.

    MRU volunteers provide care for campus community members at campus events, including football tailgates and an annual carnival.

    During the academic year, volunteers cover various campus events, including football tailgates, baseball games, student organization events, intramural sports, the homecoming parade and an annual circus event, which is Vargheese’s favorite.

    “One thing coming into the MRU that I really wanted to gain was clinical experience,” Vargheese said. “But another additional thing that I got out of it was the community and the people. So just being able to spend time with your friends and your crew at these really special events, it’s really fun.”

    The unit has an assortment of vehicles to perform emergency responses, including SUVs, electric carts and a mobile first aid trailer, each equipped with emergency lights, sirens and medical equipment.

    The unit also provides educational training sessions and certification for other students, including Stop the Bleed, which provides a national training certificate for bystanders to control a bleeding emergency before professionals arrive.

    In addition, the unit leads two trainings developed in house for FSU students to recognize and respond to emergency situations, said program director Michael Stewart-Meza; one is tailored for students in fraternity and sorority life and another for the general campus population.

    The impact: The unit is one way FSU hopes to destigmatize receiving help among the campus community.

    “Before and after their shifts, [volunteers] are roaming around campus and attending class in their MRU uniforms,” Stewart-Meza said. “It develops a comfortability that other students will have with them. They’re their classmates, they’re their friends and they’re in the sororities and fraternities with them.”

    Both Couey and Vargheese initially joined MRU to gain clinical experience for their premed education, but the experience has also taught them personal and professional skills, as well as helped them create a sense of connection on campus.

    “It has made me a better person,” Couey said. “I was very introverted when I joined the unit, and I feel as if the people in the unit and the unit itself have gotten me out of my shell and allowed me to grow into the best version of myself.”

    “Being out there in the field and treating patients, caring for them in whatever way that we can, it’s really affirming and rewarding,” said Vargheese. “Without MRU here at college, I don’t know what I’d be doing. I really found my place.”

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  • Universities and economic growth in the Commonwealth

    Universities and economic growth in the Commonwealth

    Join HEPI for a webinar on Thursday 11 December 2025 from 10am to 11am to discuss how universities can strengthen the student voice in governance to mark the launch of our upcoming report, Rethinking the Student Voice. Sign up now to hear our speakers explore the key questions.

    This blog was kindly authored by Professor Colin Riordan, Secretary General, The Association of Commonwealth Universities.

    Governments throughout the Commonwealth are faced with a familiar dilemma. Once seen as central to nation-building, poverty reduction and technological self-sufficiency, universities in many countries face scepticism and waning public support. At a time when cost of living pressures are relentless, institutions are increasingly seen as ‘a kind of elite luxury that the taxpayer pays for’, as Michael Ignatieff recently put it. But that narrative misses the point. New evidence shows that investment in higher education delivers measurable, long-term economic growth – the kind that no government can afford to ignore.

    Education as economic infrastructure

    The evidence is revealed in a new study, undertaken by London Economics at the request of The Association of Commonwealth Universities, to investigate the link between investment in higher education and economic growth.

    The study found that a hypothetical 1% increase in the proportion of the population obtaining tertiary education qualifications (tertiary attainment) in 2025 would boost Commonwealth GDP by US$28 billion in 2029. That’s in addition to further increasing annual gains along the way, a clear sign that higher education returns compound over time.

    Why does this matter? Well, it is clear that many, if not all, of the pressures on universities stem from a paucity of resources following on from the 2008 financial crisis (from which many large economies have still not recovered); from the Covid pandemic; and from an upturn in conflicts across the world that are costly drains on the public purse. The difficulties are exacerbated by locally specific problems, including natural disasters such as drought, flooding, and extreme weather events, as well as political events such as Brexit, trade wars, and political instability.

    Governments have to find ways to restore their position in the face of these headwinds, and higher education can easily be depicted as part of the fiscal problem rather than of the solution. Demonstrating the return on investment in higher education will allow education ministers to go well-armed into the conference chamber with their finance ministers and national leaders.

    Beyond the balance sheet

    There are other economic arguments for universities, of course. Their knock-on effects through research and innovation, as employers, and as attractors of foreign direct investment, all come in addition to their core educational function. Universities improve public health outcomes, generate productivity gains, and strengthen civic life. But making the case for higher education as central to national prosperity is essential at a time when governments are facing seemingly intractable difficulties.

    The message, then, is clear: far from being a luxury perk for the elite, expenditure on higher education is an investment in critical national infrastructure. Building opportunities in higher education equates to building a road to future prosperity. Unlike eye-catching projects involving new roads, railways, bridges or airports, however, increasing the proportion of the population with higher education qualifications requires a leap of the imagination, and an array of arguments to be marshalled.

    Certainly, a clear vision of how the world will be different as a result of such an investment is critically important. Voters and populations want to know what difference more university places will make to their lives. It is up to politicians to set out that vision, but they themselves must first be persuaded, and so we must marshal further helpful arguments to support them.

    A shared responsibility

    Firstly, the investment does not have to come solely from the public purse. Tertiary attainment is the proxy that implies prior increases in expenditure on higher education, which could include private investment, partnering with overseas institutions, changing the proportion of the cost for which the individual is responsible, or imaginative loan schemes. Reformulating incentives and requiring efficiencies could certainly be in the mix. So, no education minister should need to envisage themselves going cap-in-hand to the finance department.

    On the contrary, they can offer the prospect of contributing to the public coffers in due course. Depending on the size of the country and the proportion of tax take, this could range from the US$ billions in a country like India to hundreds of millions in Bangladesh and many tens of millions in Kenya.

    A call to reimagine policy

    In a country like the UK, the GDP boost of a hypothetical 1% increase in tertiary attainment in 2025 would amount to £4.9 billion in 2029. This means that increasing capacity in higher education is fiscally prudent as well as being the most important tool we have to future-proof the economy and improve productivity in an age of AI-driven technological transformation. But in low-income countries, the multiplier effect is even higher, and so the argument for investment is stronger still.

    Commonwealth countries with rapidly growing youth populations face an urgent need to expand tertiary access if they are to harness their demographic dividend. Targeted investment in higher education is one of the most effective levers to drive inclusive, sustainable economic growth. The evidence supports stronger collaboration between governments, universities, and international funders to build tertiary systems that deliver for national economies.

    With all necessary caveats in relation to correlation versus causation, the results of the London Economic analysis are compelling. Governments that embed higher education policy into national economic planning and industrial strategies, and invest in universities as economic assets and hubs for talent development, innovation and productivity, will do more than balance their budgets: they will secure their future.

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  • 6 Effective Ways to Build Attention and Boost Student Participation – Faculty Focus

    6 Effective Ways to Build Attention and Boost Student Participation – Faculty Focus

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  • Dismantling of ED Prompts Flurry of Reactions

    Dismantling of ED Prompts Flurry of Reactions

    Dismantling of ED Prompts Flurry of Reactions

    jessica.blake@…

    Tue, 11/18/2025 – 09:00 PM

    Numerous higher ed leaders, advocates and politicians weighed in on McMahon’s plan to ship several ED programs to other agencies. Here’s a snapshot of what they said.

    Byline(s)
    Jessica Blake

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  • Labour takes steps to bring higher education and local skills closer together

    Labour takes steps to bring higher education and local skills closer together

    The post-16 white paper promised to strengthen statutory guidance on local skills improvement plans (LSIPs), including “clearer expectations on higher education providers to engage” and a move to make the plans cover skills all the way up to level 8.

    This greater roles for universities in LSIPs was gestured at in Skills England’s ministerial guidance, and even announced by Labour in opposition.

    Now, the revised guidance has been published – and the push for higher education providers to play a more central role has indeed materialised.

    This is a local shop

    LSIPs were introduced in the Skills and Post-16 Education Act under the last government as employer-owned priorities and actions around skills needs and the provision of technical education in a designated local area of England. Some 38 different plans were approved by the Secretary of State in summer 2023, with annual progress reports following – you can find them all on this page if you don’t mind navigating through some confusingly designed websites.

    That legislation also introduced mechanisms to assess how well education providers were contributing to the plans – for example, accountability agreements for further education colleges. For higher education institutions, the only mention of accountability in the old guidance was an enjoinder to make a note of activity related to LSIP priorities in strategic plans. The previous government framing around LSIPs was notably quiet on the role of higher education, as we’ve noted before – which is not to say that many HE institutions didn’t get involved, to greater or lesser extents (the progress reports linked above demonstrate this, though in a non-systematic way).

    LSIPs cover a three-year period, so a new round in summer 2026 is Labour’s big chance to reshape them in its preferred fashion. Today’s guidance is to be used for an LSIP draft submitted by the end of March, and – pending government approval – the new plans will be published in or around June next year.

    The areas covered by LSIPs, and the corresponding employer representative bodies (ERBs), have also been shifting – today we get the latest areas confirmed, now sensibly contiguous with local authority areas. An additional wrinkle that Labour announced in last year’s devolution white paper is for so-called strategic authorities (“mayoral and non-mayoral combined authorities, combined county authorities, and the Greater London Authority”) to take joint ownership of LSIPs, along with ERBs. Eventually everywhere will be in a strategic authority – one day – but today’s guidance is in many places split depending on whether the LSIP is or is not in a more devolved part of England.

    Best laid plans

    LSIPs are a complicated undertaking at the best of times – as the government puts it, they “unite employers, strategic authorities, higher education, further education and independent training providers and wider stakeholders in solving skills challenges together.” Their effectiveness in really driving change remains unproven but – in theory – they respond to calls for a skills system that is planned at a local rather than central government level (or one that is not planned at all).

    The new guidance confirms just quite how complex an endeavour putting a plan together has become. New LSIPs will need to join up with the industrial strategy and its sector plans, “as far as they relate to industries within the local area.” This will also create synergies (or cross-purposes) with the new local growth plans for mayoral authorities announced at the spending review, which focus on economic development, and the Local Get Britain Working Plans (GBWPs) which are supposed to be looking at “broader causes of economic inactivity.”

    The guidance references a need for a read-across to the clean energy jobs plan (the LSIPs legislation placed a requirement on the plans to consider the environment), but this presumably will equally apply all the other forthcoming workforce strategies – now renamed as jobs plans, keep up – that different sectors are being obliged to come up with for purposes of linking migration and skills.

    And in perhaps the most notable shift of all, the new Labour version of the LSIP is instructed to pay heed to the post-16 white paper, and specifically the new prime ministerial targets for participation in higher-level learning. This is even presented as the first bullet point in the list of what the Secretary of State will take into account in the approval process. Reading between the lines, it looks like the government will be wanting plans which are relatively bullish on the growth of provision, including – but not only – at levels 4 and 5.

    Skills England is tasked with monitoring and oversight, as well as providing copious data to inform the plans’ development.

    Get HE in

    As set out in the new guidance at least, each LSIP will function as a little microcosm of the more coherent and cooperative education and skills landscape that Labour is swinging for in its white paper vision. Whether the plans can really drive these reforms, or simply reflect their framing, is another question – but there’s similar language about asking both further and higher education providers to lean in and

    work together in support of the ambitions set out in their respective LSIP, creating a more coherent post-16 education system with better pathways and opportunities to progress from entry up to higher level skills, enabled by the Lifelong Learning Entitlement.

    As mentioned, LSIPs will now be required to run the full gamut of technical education from entry level up to level 8, having previously been limited to level 6 provision as a cut-off. Asking employers and local areas to think about postgraduate-level skills needs is a bit of a watershed moment, even if the government itself seems to have only limited appetite for much policy change, and it will be fascinating to see what comes of it.

    Perhaps it’s the paucity of much proper government support for the higher education sector in recent years which leads me to celebrate this, but the language in the guidance around higher education’s fit within local systems feels spot on, in terms of how the sector would like itself to be understood:

    Higher education providers (HEPs) are focal points for higher level technical skills, research and innovation. The differences in mission, specialisms and strategic objectives between different types of institutions mean that HEPs can add unique value to local skill systems in a variety of ways, including through industry partnerships, research-led innovation, and national and international development initiatives; as well as feeding in higher education specific intelligence, such as graduate outcomes or skills pipeline data, to complement and add to further education and employer data.

    What getting stuck in looks like

    Both HE and FE providers will be expected to play a role in LSIP governance. Core elements of the new plans will need to include details of how both types of providers have been engaged in shaping the priorities and actions, as well as identifying challenges, and set out how they will support implementation and review progress.

    The potential actions included within LSIPs are varied, but it’s anticipated that they will speak to both improving the local skills “offer” – including changes that higher and further education providers can make to better align provision with the skills needs of the area and to simplify access – and to raise awareness of existing provision, helping both employers and learners to better understand what’s available.

    On the latter, there’s a nice moment where the guidance makes a genuinely sensible suggestion:

    Where engagement between higher education providers and LSIPs has not previously taken place, ERBs (and Strategic Authorities) may find engaging with the heads of careers and employability (who tend to work on skills development and measuring skills impact) a useful starting point.

    Higher education institutions will be “expected” (more on that later) to help ERBs and local government structures help map higher technical skills needs, share information about what they currently offer, and reflect on how their provision can be more responsive. And help with evaluation, and use their subject expertise and industry links to help develop the technical skills of staff elsewhere. And employ their national and international reach to gather best practice. It’s almost as if universities are teeming hives of resource and capable people, rather than ivory towers intent on remaining aloof from their local areas.

    Plus there’s an expectation for collaboration with further education and with other higher education providers to, “where appropriate”,

    create a more strategically planned response to skills needs, leading to improved local and regional coverage and coordination.

    It all sounds very nice if it works – and it all helps to flesh out the how of the white paper’s grand but largely un-operationalised ideas.

    Who’s accountable then?

    In its promises to give universities a “seat at the table” in LSIPs, it sounded like there was the possibility of Labour introducing a degree of accountability for higher education institutions, in the same way that applies to further education colleges (both through accountability agreements with DfE, and in a growing emphasis on local skills in Ofsted inspections). Research from the Association of Colleges has previously highlighted universities’ lack of formal accountability within the LSIP system as a mild bone of contention among stakeholders.

    This hasn’t happened – as far as accountability applies to higher education institutions’ role in the plans, it will remain limited to an expectation that activity is recorded in strategic or business plans, as was previously the case. There is now also encouragement for HEIs to “publicly communicate their role in the LSIP in other ways.” What we do get much more of is an emphasis on those responsible for the plans to seek out and involve the higher education sector.

    We therefore run up against the same issues that dog Labour’s HE agenda elsewhere – there might be an attractive vision of collaboration and coherence, which all things being equal the sector would be well-disposed towards, but at a time of maximum turmoil and with incentives pointing in other directions, can it really gel? Otherwise put: is dedicating enormous resource, goodwill and strategic direction to local needs a prudent choice for institutions battling to survive, or would they be better off focusing on recruiting every single last international student they can get their hands on for the rest of the Parliament? To which we might also add that the retrenchment in higher education civic work that seems to be taking place in some areas has likely already damaged some of the required structures and led to the loss of needed expertise.

    It’s a similar story elsewhere in the system: local government structures have never been more stretched, devolution-related reforms are still in their infancy, and while employer groupings may be well-placed to say what skills they would like more of, are they really effective stewards of fiendishly complicated local projects involving multiple actors and spotty data?

    A set of 39 well thought through and carefully monitored LSIPs at the heart of a responsive ecosystem of employers, HE and FE, and local government – each with one eye on the industrial strategy, and another on an area’s own specific character – would do wonders for Labour’s education and skills agenda. But the conditions need to be in place for it to emerge, and right now it feels like quite the reach.

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