Category: Featured

Defining quality is a thorny problem, but we shouldn’t shy away from the Government’s intention to make sure every student gets the best deal

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 is kindly authored by Meg Haskins, Policy Manager at the Russell Group.

You can read HEPI’s other blog on the current OfS consultation here and here.

Quality is one of the most frequently used, yet least clearly defined, concepts in higher education. For decades, debates have rumbled on about how best to measure it, and yet the term continues to be used liberally and often vaguely. From university marketing promising a “high-quality student experience” to political critiques of so-called “Mickey Mouse courses,” the term is everywhere – but its precise meaning remains elusive.

Quality matters: to students making significant financial and personal investments; to staff who take pride in their teaching and research; to funders and policymakers; and to the UK’s global reputation. If we’re asking students to take out significant loans and trust that higher education will act as a springboard into their futures, we must not only deliver quality but also demonstrate it clearly, transparently and in ways that support ongoing improvement.

The OfS consultation is the sector’s golden opportunity to define how this is done.

The Russell Group supports a more integrated and streamlined quality assessment system – one that reduces duplication, improves clarity and actively supports efforts to enhance quality further. But integration must not come at the expense of flexibility within the model. The system needs to make space for narrative contextualisation rather than reductive judgements.

Heavy reliance on benchmarking is particularly concerning. It risks disadvantaging institutions with a historically strong absolute performance and limiting meaningful differentiation. To ensure fairness, absolute values must carry greater weight, and there should be transparency on benchmark thresholds and definitions of “material” deviation, especially outcomes which will have regulatory and funding consequences.

So far, ministers have been light on detail about what change they’re actually expecting to see on quality assurance. Ideas of linking quality measures to recruitment numbers or fee levels have caused concern, which is understandable given that the system for measuring quality is untested. But we shouldn’t fear greater scrutiny. Students, taxpayers and the public deserve clarity about what quality looks like in real terms – and reassurance that it is being delivered at a high level and consistently.

Demonstrating quality is something Russell Group universities have always taken seriously, and is now under increasing public scrutiny in the face of rhetoric from certain political quarters about “rip-off degrees”. As such, our universities have taken steps to measure and robustly evidence the quality of our provision. Beyond regulatory metrics, graduate outcomes surveys, the TEF and professional body accreditations, our universities embed quality assurance through multiple levels of governance, including academic boards and senates, independent audits, annual and periodic module and programme reviews, and student feedback mechanisms. This has led to continuous improvement and enhancement of quality at our universities, reflected in the strength of their outcomes.

Crucially, high quality is not about selectivity or league tables. The Secretary of State is rightly clear in her ambition for all young people to have a wide range of excellent options across different institutions, levels and qualification types. But this choice needs to go hand-in-hand with quality, which is why we need baseline expectations across all institutions and swift regulatory action where these standards aren’t met.

If the sector embraces greater scrutiny in this way, then metrics must be robust, transparent and fair. Streamlining and clarifying processes should reduce duplication and burden, while maintaining a strong focus on enhancement.

The regulator has both carrots and sticks at its disposal. While it is positive to see an intention to reward high-quality provision, benchmarking that obscures excellence could inadvertently punish those delivering the strongest outcomes – surely not the government’s intention.

Particularly worrying is the idea that the OfS could start deriving overall ratings from a lower individual aspect rating. This compresses results and risks obscuring examples of high-quality provision, adding little value for students. Even more concerning is the proposal to reclassify the Bronze ratings as a trigger for regulatory intervention. This could redefine the baseline for compliance as a form of failure in quality, and blur the line between judgements of excellence and regulatory compliance – a muddled message for providers and confusing for students.

Ultimately, the goal must be a more outward-facing quality model – one that strengthens public and ministerial trust, reinforces the UK’s global credibility, and upholds the reputation for excellence that underpins our higher education sector.

By positioning higher tuition fees as one side of a “deal,” the Government is challenging the sector to demonstrate, clearly and confidently, that students are receiving both a high-quality experience and high-quality outcomes in return. That deal will only be credible if quality is defined fairly, measured transparently, and assessed in ways that support enhancement as well as accountability.

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December 9, 2025
Changes to TEF risk institutions choosing between continuous improvement or compliance

With the deadline for the Office for Students’ consultation on quality and standards fast approaching, the sector is staring down the barrel of a high-stakes new reality.

In this proposed world, a Bronze award is no longer just a rating; it is a compliance warning. While Gold providers may enjoy a five-year cycle, the underlying machinery proposes something far more demanding: the replacement of the fixed cycle with continuous data monitoring, where a dip in indicators can trigger immediate regulatory intervention.

To understand the implications of this shift, we need to adopt the lens of Janus – the god of transitions. By looking back at the lessons of the 2023 exercise, we can better evaluate the structural risks of the regulatory cycle looming ahead.

The evidence from the three major sector evaluations of the 2023 exercise – Office for Students’ commissioned IFF research, QAA and Advance HE – suggests that we are at a tipping point. The question is whether the new framework will drive continuous improvement or simply enforce continuous compliance.

The paradox of context

TEF 2023 was defined by a fundamental structural tension: the clash between the regulator’s need for sector-wide consistency and the provider’s need to articulate institutional nuance.

The lesson from 2023 was clear. Success didn’t come from generic excellence; it came from proving that practices were “embedded” in a way that served a specific student demographic. In fact, QAA analysis shows the word ‘embedded’ appeared over 500 times in panel statements. High-performing institutions proved that their support wasn’t optional but structurally woven into the curriculum because their student intake required it.

But this nuance comes at a heavy price. If you demand a highly individualised narrative to justify your metrics, you dramatically increase the administrative labour required to produce it. This reliance on narrative also creates a profound equity issue. The framework risks favouring institutions with the resources to craft polished, professionalised narratives over those taking actual risks on widening participation.

Furthermore, for smaller and specialist providers, the ‘paradox of context’ is statistical, not just narrative. We must recognise the extreme volatility of data for small cohorts, where a single student’s outcome can drastically skew statistics. If the regulator relies heavily on data integration, we risk a system that mistakes statistical noise for institutional failure.

The compliance trap

The IFF Research evaluation confirmed that the single biggest obstacle for providers in TEF 2023 was staff capacity and time. This burden didn’t just burn out staff; it may have distorted the student voice it was meant to amplify. While the student submission is intended to add texture to the metrics, the sheer scale of the task drove standardisation. The IFF report highlights that providers struggled to ensure student engagement was adequate due to time constraints. The unintended consequence is clear: instead of messy, authentic co-creation, the burden risks creating a system where providers rely on aggregating generic survey data just to “manage” the student voice efficiently.

The stakes are raised further by the proposed mechanism for calculating overall ratings. The consultation proposes a rule-based approach where the Overall Rating is automatically determined by the lowest of the two aspect ratings. This removes necessary judgement from the process, but the consequences are more than just reputational. With proposals to limit student number growth for Bronze providers and potential links to fee limits, the sector fears a ‘downward spiral.’ If a provider meets the baseline quality standards (Condition B3) but is branded Bronze, stripping them of the resources (through fee or growth limits) needed to invest in improvement creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of decline.

From “project” to “department”

This brings us to the most urgent risk of the proposed rolling cycle. If a single, periodic TEF submission required that level of resource to prove “embedding” what happens when the oversight becomes continuous?

The structural shift here is profound. We are moving from TEF as a periodic “project” – something universities can surge resources for every four years – to TEF as a permanent “department”. This continuous oversight demands permanent, dedicated institutional infrastructure for quality evidencing. It translates the high cost of a periodic audit into the risk of an endless, resource-intensive audit. The danger is that we are not moving toward continuous improvement but toward continuous compliance.

Furthermore, the proposed timeline creates a specific trap for those rated Bronze. The proposal suggests these providers be reassessed every three years. However, given the lag in HESA and Graduate Outcomes data, a provider could implement a strategic fix immediately, yet still be judged on ‘old’ data by the time the next three-year cycle arrives.

Furthermore, three years is often insufficient for strategic changes to manifest in lagged data. This risks locking institutions into a cycle where they are constantly being assessed – and potentially penalised – without the necessary time to generate new data that reflects their improvements.

Innovation lag

Furthermore, this permanent bureaucracy is being built on a framework that is already struggling to keep pace with reality. There is a speed mismatch between regulation and innovation.

Regulation moves at the pace of government; Artificial Intelligence moves at the pace of Moore’s Law. The QAA analysis noted that TEF 2023 submissions contained minimal reference to AI, simply because the submission process was too slow to capture the sector’s rapid pivot.

If we lock ourselves into a rigid framework that rewards historical ‘embeddedness’, we risk punishing institutions that are pivoting quickly. Worse, the pressure for consistency may drive ‘curriculum conservatism’ – where universities centralise design to ensure safety, reducing the autonomy of academics to experiment.

The path forward?

So, how do providers survive the rolling cycle? The only viable response is strategy alignment.

Universities must stop treating TEF as a separate exercise. Data collection can no longer be an audit panic; it must be integrated into business-as-usual strategic planning. Evidence gathering must become the byproduct of the strategic work we are already funded to do.

But the regulator must move too. We need a system that acknowledges the ‘paradox of context’ – you cannot have perfect nuance and perfect statistical comparison simultaneously.

As we submit our responses to the consultation, we must advocate for a regulatory philosophy that shifts from assurance (preventing failure) to enabling (fostering responsible experimentation). If the cost of the new cycle is the erosion of the resources needed for actual teaching, then the framework will have failed the very test of excellence it seeks to measure.

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December 9, 2025
Before we automate REF there are three issues we need to talk about

The long-awaited REF-AI report prompts the sector to imagine an increasingly automated REF, but also leaves several important questions unanswered about what such a future might mean for the people and practices that underpin research assessment. Before we embed AI more deeply into REF2029, we need to pause and reflect on three issues that deserve much greater attention, starting with the long-term risks to disciplinary expertise.

Long-term impacts: Efficiency gains and the risk of skills erosion

Recommendation 15 in the report proposes that: “REF assessments should include a human verification step… confirming that final judgements rest on human academic expertise.”

This feels sensible on the surface. But the longer-term implications warrant more attention. Across many sectors, evidence shows that when automation takes on tasks requiring expert judgement, human expertise can slowly erode as roles shift from analysis to oversight. The report itself recognises this trend when discussing labour substitution and task reallocation.

REF processes already rely heavily on signals, heuristics and proxies, particularly under time pressure. Introducing AI may further reduce opportunities for deep disciplinary reading in panel work. If this happens, then by the 2030s or 2040s, the experts needed to meaningfully verify AI-generated assessments may become harder to sustain.

This is not an argument against using AI, but rather a suggestion that we need to consider the long-term stewardship of disciplinary expertise, and ensure that any AI integration strengthens, rather than displaces, human judgement. We don’t yet have expertise in how to collaborate effectively with AI systems and their outputs. This needs to be developed as a conscious endeavour to ensure that AI supports research assessment responsibly.

Learning from Responsible Research Assessment (RRA)

Over more than a decade, frameworks such as DORA, CoARA, the Hong Kong Principles and the Leiden Manifesto have laid out clear principles for responsible use of quantitative indicators, transparency, equity, and disciplinary diversity. The REF-AI report notes that in the interviews conducted: “Seldom was mention made of responsible research assessment initiatives such as DORA and CoARA… There is no clear view that the deployment of GenAI tools in the REF is antithetical to the ambitions of such initiatives.” But the absence of discussion in the focus groups does not necessarily mean a positive alignment, it may simply indicate that RRA principles were not a prominent reference point in the design or facilitation of the project.

A fuller analysis could explore how AI intersects with core RRA questions, including: i) How do we assess what we value, not just what is machine-readable? ii) How do we prevent AI from amplifying systemic inequities? iii) How do we ensure transparency in systems underpinned by proprietary models? and iv) How do we avoid metrics-by-stealth re-entering the REF through automated tools? These considerations are essential, not peripheral, to thinking about AI in research assessment.

Representation: A report on bias that overlooks some of its own challenges

Finally, representation. As the authors have acknowledged themselves, it is hard to ignore that the authorship team comprises four men, three of which are senior and white. This matters, not as a criticism of the individuals involved, but because who examines AI uptake shapes how issues of bias, fairness and inclusion are framed. Generative AI systems are widely acknowledged as being trained on text that contains gendered, racialised and geographical biases; the report also notes that: “Concerns of bias and inaccuracy related to GenAI tools are widely acknowledged…” What is less evident, however, is a deeper engagement with how these biases might play out within a national research assessment exercise that already shows uneven outcomes for different groups.

A similar issue arises in the dataset. Half of the interviewees were from Russell Group institutions, despite the Russell Group representing around 15 per cent of REF-submitting HEIs. The report itself notes that experimentation with AI is concentrated in well-resourced institutions: “Variation in experimentation with GenAI tools is mainly influenced… by institutional resource capacity.”

Given this, the weighting of the sample will skew the perspectives represented. This does not necessarily invalidate the findings, but it does raise questions about whether further, broader consultation would strengthen confidence in the conclusions drawn.

Doing it better?

The report does an excellent job of surfacing current institutional anxieties. Larger, well-resourced universities appear more open to integrating AI into REF processes; others are more cautious. Survey findings suggest notable scepticism among academics, particularly in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. Despite this, the report signals a direction of travel in which REF “inevitably” becomes AI-enabled and eventually “fully automated.” Whether this future is desirable, or indeed equitable, remains an open question.

The REF-AI report is therefore best read as an important starting point. For the next phase, it will be vital that Research England broadens the conversation to include a wider diversity of voices, including experts in equality and inclusion, disciplinary communities concerned about long-term skills, those with deep experience in RRA, smaller institutions, and early career researchers who will inherit whatever system emerges.

This more diverse team must be given licence to make bold decisions about not just what’s inevitable but what’s desirable for the research ecosystem the REF ultimately seeks to monitor and shape. We cannot simply pay lip service to principles of responsible research assessment, equity, diversity and inclusion, and ignore the resulting outcomes of the decision-making processes shaped by those principles.

AI will undoubtedly shape aspects of future research governance and assessments. The challenge, now, is to ensure that its integration reflects sector values, not just technological possibility.

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December 9, 2025
Trinity College bans political activism over chalkboard messages

Imagine wearing an “I Voted” sticker to class and having the school investigate you for it. Or handing out pocket editions of the Constitution on campus for Constitution Day, only for your school to deem this disruptive.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Juneteenth. Labor Day. Columbus Day. Connecticut’s Trinity College seemingly prohibits on-campus celebrations of all these federal holidays. (Don’t even get us started on t-shirts that read “Reagan-Bush 1984” or “Nevertheless, She Persisted.”)

On November 7, individuals identifying with Students and Faculty for Justice in Palestine left chalkboard messages around campus while classes were out of session. These messages read, “Trinity is suppressing freedom of assembly,” “Disclose Divest Protest,” “Trinity Invests in Genocide,” “You are on stolen land,” and “Free Palestine.”

Message left by Students and Faculty for Justice in Palestine on a chalkboard in Seabury Hall. (@sfjp_trin / Instagram.com)

That evening, Trinity President Daniel Lugo emailed the campus community, announcing an investigation of the messages for disruption, intimidation, and harassment. Then came the anti-speech money quote: “Our Student Handbook and employment policies clearly prohibit political activism within academic settings.”

No nuance. No qualifiers. Just a blanket ban on political activism anywhere “academic.”

There’s only one problem. FIRE couldn’t find any such rule. In fact, Trinity’s official policies affirm the importance of free expression and academic freedom, and — to its credit — the school’s time, place, and manner rules largely track First Amendment standards. Although Trinity is a private college and not legally required to protect students’ First Amendment rights, it laudably promises to uphold students’ expressive freedom in its policies. So last week, FIRE wrote to Lugo, urging him to make good on these commitments.

FIRE calls on Trinity to end its investigation into the matter and remove any existing policy prohibiting “political activism within academic settings.”

Lugo’s letter said that the college community “deserves to teach, learn, and work in spaces free from intimidation, harassment, or disruption.” We certainly agree, but this letter errs in suggesting that the chalkboard messages should merit punishment. On the contrary, the after-hours commentary doesn’t come close to a material and substantial disruption. Even if they did, it still wouldn’t justify outlawing all political speech on campus.

The chalkboard messages weren’t harassment either. Harassment requires content so objectively offensive, pervasive, and severe that it effectively denies students equal access to education. There is no evidence these messages rise to this level of unprotected speech.

Nor are they intimidation. Unprotected intimidation (i.e. a true threat) requires a serious expression of intent to commit unlawful violence, and a conscious disregard of the potential for that expression to put its recipient in fear of serious physical harm. Again, nothing of the sort here.

Viral video appears to show Trinity College singling out one student’s political dorm display for removal

Without the freedom to express even inoffensive political convictions, the promise of free speech is meaningless. America’s colleges and universities cannot conceivably function as insulated vacuums for discussion on topics of national and international importance, especially in service of such a broad and spontaneous edict.

Political activism has always been part of campus life in the United States. Without it, groups from Students for a Democratic Society to Turning Point USA wouldn’t exist, and George Carlin’s most legendary, politically charged bits (including his landmark UCLA set) might never have happened.

Trinity’s overbroad language puts America’s long and proud tradition of fostering political engagement in jeopardy, and that is cause for alarm. Accordingly, FIRE calls on Trinity to end its investigation into the matter and remove any existing policy prohibiting “political activism within academic settings.”

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December 8, 2025
ED Calls Civil Rights Workers It’s Trying to Ax Back to Work

The OCR employees were fired in March as part of a broader reduction in force at the Education Department.

Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

The Education Department is calling Office for Civil Rights employees who were fired earlier this year back to work.

The Trump administration tried to ax half of the Education Department’s OCR staff in March, but it has been paying them not to work since then while it continues to fight litigation contesting its plan. The department says it hasn’t given up on defending that move, but now says it’s “important to refocus OCR’s work and utilize all OCR staff to prioritize OCR’s existing complaint caseload.”

“In order for OCR to pursue its mission with all available resources, all those individuals currently being compensated by the Department need to meet their employee performance expectations and contribute to the enforcement of existing civil rights complaints,” the department said in Friday emails obtained by Inside Higher Ed. “Utilizing all OCR employees, including those currently on administrative leave, will bolster and refocus efforts on enforcement activities in a way that serves and benefits parents, students, and families.”

One email gave an employee a Dec. 15 return date, while another said Dec. 29. It’s unclear how many workers will return. Bloomberg reported that the order went out to “more than 260,” while USA Today cited the department as saying “roughly 250,” but the Associated Press said “dozens.” Inside Higher Ed is awaiting clarification from the department.

Rachel Gittleman, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents department employees, said her union hasn’t been told how many workers in its bargaining unit received the email. She said in a statement Monday that “while we are relieved these public servants are finally being allowed to return to work, Education Secretary Linda McMahon has made clear that she would rather play politics than uphold her responsibility to protect students’ rights.”

“For more than nine months, hundreds of employees at the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) have been sidelined from the critical work of protecting our nation’s most vulnerable students and families,” Gittleman said. She said the administration’s actions keeping these employees out of work and on leave “wasted more than $40 million in taxpayer funds.”

“By blocking OCR staff from doing their jobs, Department leadership allowed a massive backlog of civil rights complaints to grow, and now expects these same employees to clean up a crisis entirely of the Department’s own making,” she added.

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December 8, 2025
Towards an educational gain approach to TEF

This blog was kindly authored by Johnny Rich, Chief Executive of Push and Chief Executive of the Engineering Professors’ Council.

You can read HEPI’s other blog on the current OfS consultation here.

The Office for Students is currently consulting on plans to use the Teaching Excellence Framework to regulate fees and student numbers. There are two problems with this. Firstly, the TEF is a poor measure of what deserves to be rewarded. Secondly, even if it weren’t, using fees as rewards will damage the higher education sector.

Paul Ashwin has already dismantled the notion that TEF has the heft for such heavy-lifting. He correctly criticises its broad institution-wide sweep, its data time lags, its susceptibility to gaming and so on. At its heart, the TEF is largely dependent on metrics that are, at best, questionable proxies of how effectively universities perform their core educational purpose. These are then reflected in four cliff-edged, unnuanced ratings.

Hanging fees on this hook is a weighty burden, and it’s a hook that’s stuck to a wall with Blu-Tack.

But before we dismiss the idea faster than a toddler being offered broccoli, it’s worth considering what it would take to make it easier to swallow. Palatable, even.

To this end, it’s worth taking a step back. The purpose of teaching – especially excellent teaching – is surely to see that learning is achieved. And, given that the current framework relies so heavily on outcomes as the indicators of teaching excellence, surely what TEF is really trying to appraise is how well universities support learning gain.

In the early days of TEF, until 2019, HEFCE explicitly led a hunt for a holy grail metric or algorithm for ‘learning gain’. The quest concluded that learning gain was not a simple one-dimensional thing. Rather than being an attribute of a course (let alone a whole university), it was inherently a measure of a relationship between a student and the education they receive. A function rather than a point on a graph.

No single metric would work for different courses, different institutions and different students.

Having one overall TEF rating per institution with little room for context creates a driver that creates risk for universities that might want to try anything new.

Instead of universities asking themselves how their educational experience might be improved for their students, the safer question is What gets gold? Let’s copy that or Let’s stick with that.

And instead of thinking about how they could diversify to offer something innovative to students who have been traditionally underserved by higher education, it’s less risky to try to recruit whatever students are historically most likely to succeed.

That has a cooling effect on innovation and diversity in the sector, especially when coupled with the effect of rankings, which drive institutions to emulate the so-called ‘best’ and to count what’s measured rather than measure what counts, as Prof Billy Wong brilliantly explained in his recent HEPI blog. It is ironic that one effect of the marketisation of higher education has been to increase homogeneity across the sector, rather than competition driving universities to seek out niches.

We need to return to the quest for a multi-dimensional measure of learning gain – or, as it is now being called, ‘educational gain’ – the distance travelled by the student in partnership with their institution. Prof Wong’s blog accompanied the publication of a paper outlining just such a new approach. This – or something similar – could give the OfS the load-bearing hook it wants.

In the spirit of offering solutions, not just criticisms of the OfS’s plans, I propose that, instead of a TEF with stakes stacked high like a poker chips, the OfS could define a ‘suite’ of metrics (most of which already exist and some of which are already used by the TEF) that it would regard as valid measures of different dimensions of educational gain. These would be benchmarked by socio-economic background, region, discipline mix – or whatever is relevant to the metric in question.

Each institution regulated by the OfS would need to state which measures from the suite it thinks should be used to judge its educational gain. Some would veer towards employment metrics, others would champion access and value-added, and others would aim for progression to further study as a goal. Most, I suspect, would pursue their own multi-faceted mix.

Whatever selection they make would be based on the institution’s mission and they would not only have to say which measures should be used, but what targets they believe they should achieve.

The OfS’s role would be, in the first instance, to assess these educational gain ‘missions’ and decide whether they are sufficiently ambitious to deserve access to fee funding and, subsequently, to assess over time whether each institution is making satisfactory progress towards its targets.

This is not as radical it may sound. The OfS already operates a similar approach in inviting universities to define goals from a preset list in their Access and Participation Plans, although in that instance the list is made up of risks rather than targets.

If the OfS feels the bronze/silver/gold signalling of the TEF is still important, it could still give awards based on level of achievement according to the institutions’ own sufficiently ambitious terms of success.

This would encourage, rather than dampen, diversity. It would be forward-looking rather than relying on lagged data. And it would measure success according to a sophisticated assessment of the distance travelled both by institutions and by their students.

If this were the hook from which OfS wanted to dangle funding carrots, it would drive excellence through each autonomous institution being encouraged to consider how to improve the education it individually offers and to chase that, instead of palely imitating familiar models.

However, even with this educational gain-driven version of TEF, that still leaves the second problem I mentioned at the start.

How would using the TEF to regulate fees damage the sector?

On the one hand, ‘gold’ universities would win higher fees (relative to other institutions at least). Given they are succeeding on the fees they’re already receiving, it would seem an inefficient use of public funding to channel any more money in their direction, as apparently they don’t need it to deliver their already excellent teaching.

On the other hand, for those universities that are struggling, a lack of financial resource may be a significant factor either in their lower assessment or in gaining ground in future. Denying funding to those that need it most would condemn them to a spiral of decline.

The effect would be to bifurcate the system into the gold ‘haves’ and the bronze ‘have-nots’ with the distance between the two camps growing ever more distant, and the silvers walking a tightrope in between, trying to ensure they can fall on the side with the safety net.

An education gain-based approach to TEF wouldn’t solve this problem, but – as I’ve outlined – it could provide a system to incentivise and regulate excellence that would mean the OfS doesn’t have to resort to creating a binary divide through a well-intentioned, but inefficient and unfair allocation of limited resources.

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December 8, 2025
Higher Education and the Culture of Silence
American higher education presents itself as a beacon of truth, courage, and critical inquiry. Yet behind the marketing gloss lies a pervasive culture of silence—one that extends far beyond colleges and universities themselves. The same forces that suppress dissent on campus operate through a larger ecosystem of nonprofits, contractors, ed-tech companies, and “public-private partnerships” that orbit higher ed. Together, they form a network of institutional interests that reward secrecy, punish whistleblowers, and prioritize reputation and revenue over honesty and accountability.

At the center of this system are nondisclosure agreements. NDAs are now standard tools not only in universities, but in the foundations that support them, the think tanks that shape education policy, and the ed-tech corporations that extract profit from student data and public subsidies. Whether a case involves workplace retaliation, fraudulent recruitment, financial misconduct, algorithmic harm, or student exploitation, NDAs are used to hide patterns of abuse and protect organizations from scrutiny. What gets buried is not just information—it is the possibility of reform.

The threat of litigation is part of the same architecture. Universities, nonprofits, and ed-tech companies routinely rely on aggressive legal strategies to silence critics. Workers attempting to expose unethical contracts, deceptive marketing, or discrimination face cease-and-desist letters. Researchers who publish unflattering findings are pressured to retract or soften their conclusions. Students raising alarms about data privacy or predatory practices encounter legal intimidation disguised as “professional communication.” These organizations—flush with donor money, investor capital, or public funds—use lawsuits and threats of lawsuits as shields and weapons.

Leadership across this broader ecosystem is often weak, conflicted, or corrupt. University presidents beholden to trustees are mirrored by nonprofit executives beholden to major donors, and by ed-tech CEOs beholden to venture capital. Many leaders prioritize political favor, philanthropic relationships, and corporate growth over the public interest. They outsource accountability to law firms, PR agencies, and consulting outfits whose job is not to fix problems but to bury them.

And circulating through this system is the same cast of characters: politicians chasing influence, lawyers crafting airtight silence, consultants selling risk-mitigation strategies, bean counters manipulating data, and conmen repackaging failed ideas as “innovation.” The lines between nonprofit, corporate, and educational interests have blurred to the point of erasure. Trustees who shape campus policy sit on nonprofit boards. Ed-tech companies hire former university officials and then market themselves back to campuses. Donors direct funds through philanthropic intermediaries that simultaneously pressure institutions for access and silence.

The victims of this system—faculty, staff, gig workers in tech and nonprofit roles, graduate students, undergraduates, and even the communities surrounding campuses—are pressured to comply. They face retaliation in the form of job loss, non-renewal, demotion, academic penalties, professional blacklisting, or immigration vulnerabilities. Whistleblowers are isolated. Critics are surveilled. And when the fallout becomes too public to contain, institutions rely on payouts—quiet settlements, buyouts, and confidential agreements that allow perpetrators to move seamlessly to their next institution or company.

This culture of silence is not a collection of isolated incidents. It is a structural feature of modern higher education and the industries built around it.

But it is not unbreakable.

If you have experienced or witnessed this culture—whether in a university, a higher-ed nonprofit, or the ed-tech world—the Higher Education Inquirer invites you to share your story. You may do so publicly or anonymously. We understand the risks. We know many people cannot speak openly without jeopardizing their jobs, degrees, or health. Anonymous accounts are welcome, valued, and protected.

Your story, no matter how brief, can help illuminate the patterns that institutions spend billions to obscure. Silence is what sustains the system. Truth—shared safely and collectively—is what can dismantle it.

Sources
- Elisabeth Rosenthal, An American Sickness
- Alondra Nelson, Body and Soul
- Harriet A. Washington, Medical Apartheid
- Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
- Reporting from the Higher Education Inquirer on university corruption, NDAs, donor influence, and ed-tech abuses
- Investigations into nonprofit and ed-tech misconduct published in public records, court filings, and independent journalism
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December 8, 2025
U of Kansas Expands Program for Students With Disabilities

The University of Kansas has received a five-year, $1.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Postsecondary Education to grow the university’s transition program for students with intellectual disabilities.

KU Transition to Postsecondary Education (KU TPE) first launched at the Lawrence campus in 2015 to provide experiences for such students to engage in higher education and land a meaningful job. Now, the program will expand to two neighboring institutions, increasing opportunities for learners in the state.

The background: Approximately one in five individuals with disabilities graduate from college, compared to 38 percent of people without disabilities, according to a 2024 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

The Transition and Post-secondary Programs for Students with Intellectual Disabilities (TPSID) grant provides funding to colleges and universities to create or expand programming for students who meet the criteria.

Other colleges, including Utah Valley University, have received similar grants from ED to kick-start educational programs for individuals with intellectual disabilities. For the 2025 award year, Northeastern State University in Oklahoma, Washington State University, Texas A&M University–San Antonio, Georgian Court University in New Jersey, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, the University of Memphis and Curry College in Massachusetts were among the grant recipients.

How it works: Students enrolled in KU TPE complete two-year undergraduate certificates, with the goal of landing a competitive job after graduation that aligns with their personal and career goals, according to the university press release.

“Students come in as full-fledged, card-carrying Jayhawks,” Dana Lattin, research project director at KU TPE, said in a university press release. “They take courses like those in any other program of study that are aligned with their career and personal interest.”

TPE students complete 24 credit hours—about six credits per semester—including nine credits on career and life planning, three credits for communication coursework, three credits for health and wellness classes, and nine for electives. In addition, students are encouraged to find employment and paid internships while enrolled, helping set them up for success after graduation.

Part of the program’s effectiveness stems from the students’ integration into campus life, researchers said. TPE participants engage in campus resources and activities—including clubs, organizations and events—just like their peers enrolled in bachelor’s degree programs.

Data shows that 74 percent of graduates are employed in their communities after completing their credential; by comparison, only 6 percent of all adults with disabilities in Kansas are employed in a competitive role.

Scaling up: Campus leaders plan to use the funding to increase program supports for KU TPE participants, including adding credential programs, bolstering peer supports and establishing more career development elements, according to the program abstract submitted to ED.

The university will also establish a consortium with Wichita State University Tech and Benedictine College, also in Kansas, to create additional transition programs for students with disabilities. The goal is to increase enrollment opportunities for as many as 48 students across the state.

The KU research team is also looking for additional funding from the state to ensure the programs are sustainable.

“Sharing that 75 percent of people with intellectual disability who attend college are competitively employed, many of which are working full-time, will help show the value of ongoing support for these programs in Kansas,” Lattin said.

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December 8, 2025
Conservative Think Tank AEI Names Ben Sasse Senior Fellow

Former University of Florida president Ben Sasse is now an American Enterprise Institute fellow.

The American Enterprise Institute, a prominent conservative-leaning think tank, has named former U.S. senator and university president Ben Sasse a nonresident senior fellow, AEI announced Friday. Its website says his work there will focus on “higher education, innovation, technology, American history and culture, and national security.”

Sasse’s AEI post and his continuing voice at other major conservative institutions—The Wall Street Journal has run at least three op-eds by him this year, including one calling on university board members across the country to stand up to faculty “radicals” and “encourage greater intellectual diversity”—shows he’s not persona non grata after his abrupt exit from the University of Florida last year.

Sasse attributed his resignation from UF to his wife’s health, though the student newspaper, The Independent Florida Alligator, has reported the board may have forced him out. During the first year of his roughly 18-month presidency, his office spent more than $17 million. Sasse denied wrongdoing and argued that driving new initiatives at UF required major investments.

Sasse, a Republican who represented Nebraska in the Senate, remains a professor in UF’s Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education. He previously was president of Midland University.

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December 8, 2025
Harvard Prof to Leave U.S. After Immigration Arrest

At the time of his initial arrest, Gouvea said he was hunting rats.

APCortizasJr/iStock/Getty Images

Immigration authorities arrested Carlos Portugal Gouvea, a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, on Wednesday after his J-1 visa was revoked for shooting a BB gun outside of a Boston-area synagogue Oct. 2, the day of Yom Kippur. Gouvea agreed to voluntarily leave the United States rather than be deported.

The Department of State revoked Gouvea’s visa Oct. 16, and a month later, Gouvea accepted a plea deal “on the charge of illegal use of the air rifle while his other charges for disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, and vandalizing property were dismissed,” the Department of Homeland Security wrote in a news release.

Gouvea shot the pellet gun outside Temple Beth Zion in Brookline, Mass., just a few miles south of the Harvard campus, The New York Times reported. Private security guards for the synagogue heard a loud noise outside, and the temple was put in a lockdown. When a guard saw Gouvea behind a tree and attempted to arrest him, they engaged in a brief physical struggle and then Gouvea fled, the Times reported. He was later arrested by Brookline police. Gouvea fired two total shots, one of which police later discovered had shattered a car window. Harvard officials put Gouvea on administrative leave shortly after his October arrest.

In its news release, the Department of Homeland Security called the act an “anti-Semitic shooting incident,” a characterization federal officials have maintained since the incident.

“It is a privilege to work and study in the United States, not a right. There is no room in the United States for brazen, violent acts of anti-Semitism like this. They are an affront to our core principals as a country and an unacceptable threat against law-abiding American citizens,” Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at DHS, said in a statement. “We are under zero obligation to admit foreigners who commit these inexplicably reprehensible acts or to let them stay here. Secretary Noem has made it clear that anyone who thinks they can come to America and commit anti-American and anti-Semitic violence and terrorism should think again. You are not welcome here.”

At the time of his initial arrest, Gouvea said he was “hunting rats.” He was not charged with a hate crime by local police, and leaders from Temple Beth Zion told the Times they did not believe the shooting was motivated by bias.

“From what we were initially told by police, the individual was unaware that he lived next to, and was shooting his BB gun next to, a synagogue, or that it was a religious holiday,” Benjamin Maron, the synagogue’s executive director, and Larry Kraus, its president, wrote in the statement to the Times. “It is potentially dangerous to use a BB gun in such a populated spot, but it does not appear to have been fueled by antisemitism.”

A lawyer for Gouvea also told the Times in October that the matter was “a total misunderstanding of an entirely innocent situation.”

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December 8, 2025