Category: News

Has Canada reached a “turning point” in study permit approvals?
After months of high study permit refusal rates, stakeholders welcome a more successful second quarter of 2025.

But concerns remain about the overall volume of approvals – especially as students from key market India continue to struggle to secure study permits.

Meanwhile, approvals from Ghana surge over 200% compared to Q1 of 2025.
The IRCC data, compiled by BorderPass, showed that while Canadian study permit applications dipped in Q2 2025, the number of approvals increased by 4,450 – leading to a 10% increase in the overall approval rating.

“The encouraging sign is that June saw the highest approval rate of the year at 39%, which could point to a modest improvement in the second half of the year,” Jonathan Sherman, vice-president of sales & partnerships at BorderPass told The PIE News.

After record low approval ratings in Q1, stakeholders have welcomed the rise in approvals, though serious concerns remain about overall volumes.

“Just 31,580 permits were approved in the first half of 2025. IRCC’s published target for the year is about 300,000, which means at the current pace we will only reach around 20% of the goal unless there is a dramatic shift,” warned Sherman.

After Canada’s implementation of the study permit cap in 2024, the approval rate dropped from 67% in 2023 to 45% in 2024. So far in 2025, approvals for new study permits (excluding extensions) are tracking at 31%.

One of the most striking trends is India’s continued decline, with data showing study permit approvals falling another 7% in Q2 to just 20%, reflecting a “fundamental shift in how IRCC is assessing these applications”, said Sherman.

This stands in sharp contrast to the more than 80% approval rates for Indian students just a few years ago, “reflecting a fundamental shift in how IRCC is assessing these applications”, said Sherman.

The widening gap between universities and colleges also stood out in the data, a difference that Sherman said was “reshaping the international education market in Canada”.

Among the top 20 institutions by volume, university approvals have dropped from 63% in 2024 to 53% so far in 2025, but colleges have seen a steeper fall from 60% to 28%.

Colleges have felt the heaviest impact of federal policy changes, including the study permit cap and the new field of study restrictions for post-graduation work permits.

Despite a major win for the college sector in March this year when PGWP eligibility was expanded for degree students at colleges, these institutions have still been the hardest hit by the changes, with many of their programs no longer eligible for a work permit.

“That said, colleges that are focusing on programs with clear labour market outcomes such as health, technology, and skilled trades are showing better results,” noted Sherman.

“The institutions that carefully vet applicants for immigration quality and program alignment are also proving more resilient,” he advised.

At the current pace we will only reach around 20% of IRCC’s published target unless there is a dramatic shift

Jonathan Sherman, BorderPass

Alongside students from India, Iranian students also experienced volatility, with the country’s approval rating falling by more than 50% from Q1. In contrast, Ghana saw its approval rating surge by 225% on the previous quarter.

The approval rating for Chinese students – who make up Canada’s second largest international student cohort – saw stable growth, surpassing 65% approval, and South Korea remained a consistent top performer with approvals at more than 85%.

“Smaller markets like Vietnam, Nepal and Nigeria are also moving – some positively, some unpredictably – creating both new opportunities and risk. For many DLIs, this means rethinking region-based strategies in real time,” advised the BorderPass report.

As well as seeing variations across institution type and source market, a large number of IRCC officers were hired and trained in the first half of 2025, which Sherman said had “introduced some inconsistency in decision making as new processing are applied”.

“On this note, we are hearing that processing backlogs may get worse before they get better,” he warned.

Overall: “It is clear that IRCC is applying far greater scrutiny to new applications,” said Sherman, with the gap between high- and low-performing institutions becoming ever wider.

Specifically, by investing in application intelligence, thoroughly reviewing documents, confirming travel readiness and working with legally backed partners, some institutions have seen approval rates more than double the national average, according to Sherman.
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August 21, 2025
US-based TOEFL scorers “shut out” of ETS shifts, petition claims
Petition from ETS scorers takes issue with shifts being handed to offshore colleagues, claiming that such decisions are often taken last minute.

Concerns raised over new scorers not having English as a first language – which ETS says does not matter so long as the scorer has the correct expertise.

ETS defends “strategic decision” to look beyond the US for some of its scorers, saying this reflects the global nature of its business.
“Over the past several months, ETS has stopped assigning shifts to US-based rates and scoring leaders without any clear or honest explanation,” states the petition.

“There has been a quiet transition to a completely offshore rater pool, with scoring for the TOEFL Speaking section now handled almost entirely out of India. US raters – many of whom have supported this work for over a decade – have been ghosted,” it claims.

According to speaking raters and leaders interviewed by The PIE News, shifts for US-based raters and scoring leaders started reducing in December 2024 and have all but dried up, though employees are still asked each month to submit their availability.

But according to the testing giant, scoring staff were informed in December 2024 of the expansion of ETS’s scoring capabilities beyond the US, including being told that the shift “could result in a reduction of scoring hours for US-based raters”.

“This change reflects our effort to meet international demand more effectively and leverage a broader, global pool of qualified scoring professionals,” an ETS spokesperson told The PIE.

And yet, employees have complained of a lack of transparency from ETS: “Those who complained to HR or Scheduling receive either silence or vague boilerplate responses citing ‘global strategy’ or ‘volume’”, the petition states.

According to Teri Anglim, a scoring leader who has worked for TOEFL since 2006: “The email that came in December was well crafted… they said they were going to be including global raters and that some would see their shifts increase and others would decrease”.

“Come February, lots of raters would email me and say they were only scheduled for five days out of the month, some having registered their availability for every day,” said Anglim.

“Come March, they might get 10 days for the month, but a day and a half before their shift, they’d get an email saying that half of their shifts were cancelled,” she explained.

Several employees have echoed similar frustrations over shifts being cancelled at the eleventh hour.

Speaking to The PIE anonymously, another scoring leader explained it was their understanding that “ETS still sends out availability requests every month and actually confirms one or two shifts at most, only for them to be cancelled at the last minute”.

“Because I work for other programs, I’m getting scheduled for them but not for TOEFL. ETS essentially wants to keep our pool of workers ‘on-call’ to the side, just in case,” they said.

By Anglim’s accounts, shifts for US test raters had all but dried up in April, though test scorers training the new global raters continued receiving shifts.

In May, the number of raters on each scoring leader’s roster was increased, with experienced leaders finding it difficult to keep up with the increased monitoring.

“It’s humanly impossible to keep tabs on 24 people who are novices at scoring,” said Anglim, who became concerned that mistakes could slip through the cracks.

And yet, by June, Anglim was assigned six shifts for the whole month and saw three of them cancelled: “That was the end of TOEFL for us, the scoring leaders,” she said.

It’s not diverse, it’s certainly not equitable, and it’s not inclusive

Teri Anglim, TOEFL scoring leader

The petition is demanding that ETS provides a “clear, honest explanation of how shifts are being assigned”, as well as detailed accounts of how many US raters have received shifts since April and the ratio of US raters and the new global pool.

The scoring leader speaking to The PIE anonymously said they were “devastated to no longer be a part of a program [they] helped build 20 years ago… ETS used to be a great side income, but it’s mere pittance now.”

“[ETS] basically told us last fall that we would be training our replacements – they didn’t word it quite like that, but we all knew our days were numbered at that time.”

Since many raters work part-time for ETS, they say they have had to rely on other jobs and pick up shifts elsewhere since the reductions.

“At this point in my life, I do get social security, and I’m looking for other remote jobs,” said Anglim, who holds a BA from Arizona State University and two MA degrees from the University of Texas Arlington.

Beyond the personal impact on employees, Anglim said she was concerned about the standard of the new scorers, with the petition claiming that the scoring of the TOEFL Speaking section is “now handled almost entirely out of India”.

Anglim, who trained many of the new scorers, said: “I have nothing against the raters in India – I liked working with them – though I was concerned about non-native English speakers marking the test without other people.”

“How can a company like the Educational Testing Service (ETS) promote DEI when having scorers only from one place is not diverse, it’s certainly not equitable, and it’s not inclusive,” she said.

For its part, ETS has countered the claims, stressing that new raters are given the same “rigorous” training as existing ones and that it is irrelevant whether or not English is their first language.

Anglim recalled a case when she was reviewing the scores given to a test-taker from Germany, whose English was “impeccable” – “his vocabulary was better than I use”, she said – though he was scored two out of four for delivery.

In that incident, Anglim initiated a score change, but she said she was worried that individuals who have taken the test since January could be “collateral damage” of the new pool of scorers.

The TOEFL exam is primarily used to measure the English proficiency of test takers applying to English speaking universities in the UK, Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand, among a few others.

Out-of-work US-based raters fear that moving the test scoring offshore will lead to a loss of raters who instinctively know the nuances of the English language that can affect score outcomes.

What matters is expertise, not where someone was born or what their first language was

ETS

Alongside a “commitment to transparency, accountability and professional respect” for its employees, the petition’s signatories want an “acknowledgment that the rater and scoring leader roles are now being filled exclusively from India”.

The scoring leader speaking anonymously also said they were “concerned about the integrity of the test”, fearing “it will be compromised due to raters and leaders who aren’t fully proficient in English”.

“My interactions with some raters over the years and with these specific ‘global raters’ left me wondering how thoroughly ETS had vetted their language abilities.

“I fear that TOEFL will die once US universities get wind of this shift and also if scores end up being inaccurate, leading to difficulties or even failure for international students,” they said.

Responding to the claims, an ETS spokesperson said that the integrity of the TOEFL would “always be [its] highest priority”.

“All of our raters, whether English is their first or learned language, go through the same rigorous training, qualification process, and continuous monitoring to ensure scores are fair, accurate, and consistent.

“What matters is expertise, not where someone was born or what their first language was and our diverse community of raters reflects exactly that.”

ETS leadership have not formally responded to the petition or addressed the 342 signatories or their demands.

Speaking to The PIE, an ETS spokesperson said the company had “a growing global customer base and a business that continues to evolve to meet the needs of learners, institutions, and partners worldwide.

“In response to these changing demands, we made the strategic decision in late 2024 to expand our scoring capabilities beyond the US.

“This shift allows us to better serve a global testing population, increase operational flexibility, and uphold the quality and efficiency our customers expect.”

It told The PIE: “We are grateful to the many raters and scoring leaders in the US who have supported TOEFL over the years and helped establish the standards we maintain today.

“ETS remains committed to treating all members of our scoring community with respect and to communicating transparently as we continue to adapt in an increasingly globalised education landscape.”
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August 20, 2025
Alumni urge Harvard not to “give in” amid settlement rumours

“This is a critical juncture – and it’s essential you live the values Harvard teaches and not make a deal with the Trump administration that cedes the university’s autonomy in unconstitutional or unlawful ways,” states the August 1 letter.

Signed by 15,068 alumni, faculty, researchers, staff and other supporters, the letter criticises settlements made by Columbia and Brown, which signatories warn “represent a dangerous capitulation that risks eroding the foundation of American higher education”.

“As Harvard rightly argued in court in its lawsuit, the unconstitutional demands being made by this administration represent a blatant encroachment on academic freedom and university autonomy,” it continues.

Last month, Columbia became the first institution to settle with Trump over allegations of antisemitism on campus, paying the administration $221m in return for settling various civil rights and employment claims and restoring $400m in terminated funding.

Soon after, Brown University followed suit, reaching its own deal with the administration over similar disputes about DEI admissions practices and access to student data.

Harvard, having the largest endowment of any global university, has been the only one to challenge the White House in the courts, though recent rumours have suggested a $500m deal between Harvard and the government could be in the making.

The letter’s message is clear: “Do not give in.”

It calls on university leadership to uphold Harvard’s independence and reject political interference and punitive action, ensuring that admissions hiring, employment and disciplinary processes do not treat student and staff differently based on their political views.

The signatories recommend the establishment of a structure for the university to directly engage with the Harvard community about policy changes impacting them, urging Harvard to use its financial resources to “protect and honour” their livelihoods and education.

“Protect students, faculty, researchers and staff, especially those with international status, from any intrusions of privacy, unwarranted immigration action, and attacks on their constitutionally protected rights and freedoms,” it continues.

At this moment of national reckoning, Harvard must demonstrate that our values, integrity, and freedom are not for sale

Harvard alumni

The letter warns of the “chilling effect” that a settlement would have on the Harvard community and beyond.

Holding the line is critical for campuses across the US, for those that benefit from the research and scholarship of the university, and for the “foundational role that independent higher education plays in our democracy,” it argues.

“At this moment of national reckoning, Harvard must demonstrate that our values, integrity, and freedom are not for sale.”

Since mid-April, the Trump administration has launched multiple attacks on Harvard for allegedly failing to root out antisemitism on campus and failing to hand over international students’ records, among other accusations.

The university is fighting the government on multiple fronts in the courts, including defending its right to enrol international students, which the administration has repeatedly tried to revoke.

The university has publicly stood by its 7,000 international students, who make up over 27% of Harvard’s student body and come from nearly 150 different countries.

Amid broader attacks on higher education and severe visa challenges, colleges across the country are bracing for a major decline in international students this fall, with “conservative” estimates of a potential 30-40% decline.

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August 18, 2025
Experts knock new Trump plan to collect college admissions data

President Donald Trump wants to collect more admissions data from colleges and universities to make sure they’re complying with a 2023 Supreme Court decision that ended race-conscious affirmative action. And he wants that data now.

But data experts and higher education scholars warn that any new admissions data is likely to be inaccurate, impossible to interpret and ultimately misused by policymakers. That’s because Trump’s own policies have left the statistics agency inside the Education Department with a skeleton staff and not enough money, expertise or time to create this new dataset.

The department already collects data on enrollment from every institution of higher education that participates in the federal student loan program. The results are reported through the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). But in an Aug. 7 memorandum, Trump directed the Education Department, which he sought to close in March, to expand that task and provide “transparency” into how some 1,700 colleges that do not admit everyone are making their admissions decisions. And he gave Education Secretary Linda McMahon just 120 days to get it done.

Related: Our free weekly newsletter alerts you to what research says about schools and classrooms.

Expanding data collection on applicants is not a new idea. The Biden administration had already ordered colleges to start reporting race and ethnicity data to the department this fall in order to track changes in diversity in postsecondary education. But in a separate memorandum to the head of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), McMahon asked for even more information, including high school grades and college entrance exam scores, all broken down by race and gender.

Bryan Cook, director of higher education policy at the Urban Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C., called the 120-day timeline “preposterous” because of the enormous technical challenges. For example, IPEDS has never collected high school GPAs. Some schools use a weighted 5.0 scale, giving extra points for advanced classes, and others use an unweighted 4.0 scale, which makes comparisons messy. Other issues are equally thorny. Many schools no longer require applicants to report standardized test scores and some no longer ask them about race so the data that Trump wants doesn’t exist for those colleges.

“You’ve got this effort to add these elements without a mechanism with which to vet the new variables, as well as a system for ensuring their proper implementation,” said Cook. “You would almost think that whoever implemented this didn’t know what they were doing.”

Cook has helped advise the Education Department on the IPEDS data collection for 20 years and served on technical review panels, which are normally convened first to recommend changes to the data collection. Those panels were disbanded earlier this year, and there isn’t one set up to vet Trump’s new admissions data proposal.

Cook and other data experts can’t figure out how a decimated education statistics agency could take on this task. All six NCES employees who were involved in IPEDS data collection were fired in March, and there are only three employees left out of 100 at NCES, which is run by an acting commissioner who also has several other jobs.

An Education Department official, who did not want to be named, denied that no one left inside the Education Department has IPEDS experience. The official said that staff inside the office of the chief data officer, which is separate from the statistics agency, have a “deep familiarity with IPEDS data, its collection and use.” Former Education Department employees told me that some of these employees have experience in analyzing the data, but not in collecting it.

In the past, there were as many as a dozen employees who worked closely with RTI International, a scientific research institute, which handles most of the IPEDS data collection work.

Technical review eliminated

Of particular concern is that RTI’s $10 million annual contract to conduct the data collection had been slashed approximately in half by the Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE, according to two former employees, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation. Those severe budget cuts eliminated the technical review panels that vet proposed changes to IPEDS, and ended training for colleges and universities to submit data properly, which helped with data quality. RTI did not respond to my request to confirm the cuts or answer questions about the challenges it will face in expanding its work on a reduced budget and staffing.

The Education Department did not deny that the IPEDS budget had been cut in half. “The RTI contract is focused on the most mission-critical IPEDS activities,” the Education Department official said. “The contract continues to include at least one task under which a technical review panel can be convened.”

Additional elements of the IPEDS data collection have also been reduced, including a contract to check data quality.

Last week, the scope of the new task became more apparent. On Aug. 13, the administration released more details about the new admissions data it wants, describing how the Education Department is attempting to add a whole new survey to IPEDS, called the Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement (ACTS), which will disaggregate all admissions data and most student outcome and financial aid data by race and gender. College will have to report on both undergraduate and graduate school admissions. The public has 60 days to comment, and the administration wants colleges to start reporting this data this fall.

Complex collection

Christine Keller, executive director of the Association for Institutional Research, a trade group of higher education officials who collect and analyze data, called the new survey “one of the most complex IPEDS collections ever attempted.”

Traditionally, it has taken years to make much smaller changes to IPEDS, and universities are given a year to start collecting the new data before they are required to submit it. (Roughly 6,000 colleges, universities and vocational schools are required to submit data to IPEDS as a condition for their students to take out federal student loans or receive federal Pell Grants. Failure to comply results in fines and the threat of losing access to federal student aid.)

Normally, the Education Department would reveal screenshots of data fields, showing what colleges would need to enter into the IPEDS computer system. But the department has not done that, and several of the data descriptions are ambiguous. For example, colleges will have to report test scores and GPA by quintile, broken down by race and ethnicity and gender. One interpretation is that a college would have to say how many Black male applicants, for example, scored above the 80th percentile on the SAT or the ACT. Another interpretation is that colleges would need to report the average SAT or ACT score of the top 20 percent of Black male applicants.

The Association for Institutional Research used to train college administrators on how to collect and submit data correctly and sort through confusing details — until DOGE eliminated that training. “The absence of comprehensive, federally funded training will only increase institutional burden and risk to data quality,” Keller said. Keller’s organization is now dipping into its own budget to offer a small amount of free IPEDS training to universities.

The Education Department is also requiring colleges to report five years of historical admissions data, broken down into numerous subcategories. Institutions have never been asked to keep data on applicants who didn’t enroll.

“It’s incredible they’re asking for five years of prior data,” said Jordan Matsudaira, an economist at American University who worked on education policy in the Biden and Obama administrations. “That will be square in the pandemic years when no one was reporting test scores.”

‘Misleading results’

Matsudaira explained that IPEDS had considered asking colleges for more academic data by race and ethnicity in the past and the Education Department ultimately rejected the proposal. One concern is that slicing and dicing the data into smaller and smaller buckets would mean that there would be too few students and the data would have to be suppressed to protect student privacy. For example, if there were two Native American men in the top 20 percent of SAT scores at one college, many people might be able to guess who they were. And a large amount of suppressed data would make the whole collection less useful.

Also, small numbers can lead to wacky results. For example, a small college could have only two Hispanic male applicants with very high SAT scores. If both were accepted, that’s a 100 percent admittance rate. If only 200 white women out of 400 with the same test scores were accepted, that would be only a 50 percent admittance rate. On the surface, that can look like both racial and gender discrimination. But it could have been a fluke. Perhaps both of those Hispanic men were athletes and musicians. The following year, the school might reject two different Hispanic male applicants with high test scores but without such impressive extracurriculars. The admissions rate for Hispanic males with high test scores would drop to zero. “You end up with misleading results,” said Matsudaira.

Reporting average test scores by race is another big worry. “It feels like a trap to me,” said Matsudaira. “That is mechanically going to give the administration the pretense of claiming that there’s lower standards of admission for Black students relative to white students when you know that’s not at all a correct inference.”

The statistical issue is that there are more Asian and white students at the very high end of the SAT score distribution, and all those perfect 1600s will pull the average up for these racial groups. (Just like a very tall person will skew the average height of a group.) Even if a college has a high test score threshold that it applies to all racial groups and no one below a 1400 is admitted, the average SAT score for Black students will still be lower than that of white students. (See graphic below.) The only way to avoid this is to purely admit by test score and take only the students with the highest scores. At some highly selective universities, there are enough applicants with a 1600 SAT to fill the entire class. But no institution fills its student body by test scores alone. That could mean overlooking applicants with the potential to be concert pianists, star soccer players or great writers.

The Average Score Trap

This graphic by Kirabo Jackson, an economist at Northwestern University, depicts the problem of measuring racial discrimination though average test scores. Even for a university that admits all students above a certain cut score, the average score of one racial group (red) will be higher than the average score of the other group (blue). Source: graphic posted on Bluesky Social by Josh Goodman

Admissions data is a highly charged political issue. The Biden administration originally spearheaded the collection of college admissions data by race and ethnicity. Democrats wanted to collect this data to show how the nation’s colleges and universities were becoming less diverse with the end of affirmative action. This data is slated to start this fall, following a full technical and procedural review.

Now the Trump administration is demanding what was already in the works, and adding a host of new data requirements — without following normal processes. And instead of tracking the declining diversity in higher education, Trump wants to use admissions data to threaten colleges and universities. If the new directive produces bad data that is easy to misinterpret, he may get his wish.

Contact staff writer Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or [email protected].

This story about college admissions data was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Proof Points and other Hechinger newsletters.

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

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August 18, 2025
Shortage of Rural Private Schools Complicates Indiana’s Voucher Expansion – The 74

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Sitting on the Kentucky border, the Christian Academy of Indiana draws students from 56 different ZIP codes in southern Indiana. Some come from as far as 30 miles away and live in counties without private schools.

Families in those distant communities make the drive every day — sometimes carpooling — because they’re drawn to the school’s environment and extracurriculars, and especially its Christian teaching, said Lorrie Baechtel, director of admissions for the school, which is part of a three-school network in Indiana and Kentucky.

“There are lots of good public school options in Indiana. Families come to our Indiana campus more for that mission,” Baechtel said.

The school’s enrollment has boomed in the last four years, driven in part by the expansion of the Choice Scholarship, Indiana’s signature voucher program. That’s made tuition more affordable, Baechtel said. More than 1,200 students attended in 2024-2025, up from around 700 in 2021-22.

That reflects a statewide trend: Voucher use has surged in recent years as Indiana lawmakers loosened eligibility requirements. In 2026, the program will open to all families, regardless of income.

But the Christian Academy’s ability to attract students from far away tells another story too. Even as vouchers have become more accessible, Indiana’s rural students aren’t using them at the same rate as their urban and suburban peers. That’s in part because one-third of counties don’t have a private school that accepts vouchers within their borders, and distance is a factor in parents’ decisions on school choice.

The result is that students who live closer to an urban center — which typically have one or more voucher-accepting private schools — may use vouchers at rates up to 30 percentage points higher than those for students who live in a neighboring district.

That also means rural families may be at a significant disadvantage when the state opens the Choice Scholarship to all, and when private school scholarships funded by new federal tax credits also begin to roll out in 2027.

“If there are no schools there for you to attend it’s unlikely it’s going to be all that useful for you,” said Jon Valant, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution.

More than that, public education advocates say splitting state school funding with vouchers leaves less for the rural public schools these students do attend.

“We’re making the policy choice to fund a lot more choices than we used to,” said Chris Lagoni, executive director of the Indiana Small and Rural Schools Association, which represents public schools. “We’re inviting more and more folks to Sunday dinner. It’s a little bit of a bigger meal, but a lot more guests.”

But the state’s Republican lawmakers have dismissed the fears of a hit to public rural schools as a result of vouchers, saying that rural voters support choice and parents want educational options — whether that’s private, charter, or traditional public schools.

Meanwhile, school choice advocates say the latest expansion of the Choice Scholarship, along with a growing preference for smaller learning environments and the rise of voucher-accepting online schools, could mean more private school access for rural areas in the near future.

“I think we’re best when we have a robust ecosystem of private and public options,” said Eric Oglesbee of the Drexel Fund, a nonprofit venture philanthropy organization that funds new private schools in Indiana and throughout the U.S.

Location matters in accessing a private school

Across the state, around 76,000 students received vouchers for the 2024-25 school year — an increase of about 6,000 students from the year before. The program cost the state $497 million last year, and the average voucher recipient came from a household with just over $100,000 in income.

But around one-third of Indiana counties don’t have voucher-accepting private schools within their borders, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of state data, which also shows that voucher use is lower in rural areas than urban ones.

Voucher use can shift dramatically even between nearby areas. For example, around 16% of students who reside in the Madison school district in southern Indiana use vouchers, but that rate drops to as low as 1% in nearby districts that are more rural. Similar trends hold in other areas of the state, like Indianapolis, Evansville, Fort Wayne, and South Bend.

Location matters because driving distance has been shown to be a factor in how parents choose a school.

In a 2024 survey of parent preferences by EdChoice, an Indianapolis-based group that supports vouchers, around half of parents said they would drive a max of 15 minutes for their children “to attend a better school.” Just over a quarter said they would drive no more than 20 minutes, and the final quarter said 30 minutes would be their max.

Concerns about this issue have persisted in the state for years. Alli Aldis of the advocacy group EdChoice pointed to a 2018 report from her organization that called areas of rural Indiana as “schooling deserts.” It estimated that in the 2017-18 school year, around 3% of Indiana students, many in rural counties, lived more than 30 minutes from a charter, magnet, or voucher-accepting private school.

Starting a new school anywhere, but particularly in a rural area, comes with challenges like finding a building, said Oglesbee of the Drexel Fund.

A 2023 Drexel Fund report found that facilities in the state are “inadequate to meet the needs of new entrants to the market.” Though the report notes that real estate is both affordable and available, there are no public sources of facilities funding, and surplus facilities are not available to private schools.

But new laws in Indiana have the potential to change that. House Enrolled Act 1515 established voluntary school facility pilot programs open to both public and private schools to “allow for additional flexibility and creativity in terms of what is considered a school facility,” like colocating with schools, government entities, and community organizations.

Oglesbee said the organization is fielding an explosion of interest from potential new private schools in Indiana, possibly as a latent result of the 2023 expansion to voucher eligibility, which made the program nearly universal.

School succeeds ‘if the community asks for it’

Other challenges to opening a private school include hiring staff and recruiting students, which can be a particular issue in rural areas with both fewer children and licensed teachers, advocates said.

Opening a school also requires a team of people with both education and business experience, Oglesbee said. And they’re more likely to succeed if they have roots in the community they hope to serve.

“I see less of the ‘if you build it, they will come’ idea,” Oglesbee said. “A school is successful if the community asks for it.”

At a recent conservative policy conference, Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston said rural Indiana communities were “super excited” for school choice, and noted that no Republican lawmaker had been beaten in a primary for supporting the policy.

But Indiana voters haven’t voted on school vouchers, and don’t have a legal avenue to overturn the policy, said Chris Lubienski of the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy at Indiana University. Last year, voters in Kentucky and Colorado rejected ballot measures in favor of school choice, while Nebraska voters partially repealed a state-funded scholarship program.

“There’s resistance: ‘Why do I want to have my taxes fund a program I can’t use?’” Lubienski said.

In rural areas, support for school choice may actually mean support for transfers between public school districts, said Lagoni.

Ultimately, the Rural Schools Association believes any school receiving state dollars should be subject to the same expectations of transparency and accountability, Lagoni said.

Asked about concerns that rural students often have difficulty using vouchers, Huston said he expects voucher usage to continue to grow once the program becomes universal in 2026-27.

“We want to make sure our policies align with what works best for families,” Huston said.

Vouchers add to financial stress for rural schools

With more school options in Indiana, downward pressure on local tax revenue, and declining population, rural public schools feel pressure to compete. Sometimes that means closing and consolidating schools.

Vigo County schools recently announced plans to close two rural elementary schools as part of a plan to renovate facilities and offer more programming. The school corporation’s enrollment has declined slightly, due in part to an overall decline in the county’s total population, said spokesperson Katie Shane.

More students who reside in the district are using vouchers, although they’re not the biggest reason for the district’s falling enrollment. While 429 students used vouchers to attend private schools last school year, an increase from 252 the year before, around 870 Vigo students transferred to another public school district in the fall of the 2024-25 school year. That reflects a statewide trend.

Without their nearest public elementary schools, students may have to travel by bus for half an hour or more to the nearest school, according to community members who have started a petition to save one of the two schools marked for closure, Hoosier Prairie Elementary School.

“Hoosier Prairie isn’t just about going to school,” said Shyann Koziatek, an educational assistant at the school who also signed the petition to stop its closure. “Kids love to learn and love the routine we have.”

Rural schools also often function as large area employers and drivers of the economy.

“Schools are often the center and identity of the community, how people view who they are,” Lubienski said. “You go and cheer on your football team, it’s where you put on your school play.”

But private schools can serve the same role, choice advocates say.

“If people have stronger educational options, more choices, that only strengthens the community,” said Aldis of EdChoice.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

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August 17, 2025
L.A. Schools Telehealth Vendor Waited 8 Months to Report Breach – The 74
School (in)Security is our biweekly briefing on the latest school safety news, vetted by Mark Keierleber. Subscribe here.

It’s another hot summer Friday and another day with news about a data breach — this one jeopardizing both student health and campus safety data.

And once again, the development is unfolding in the country’s second-largest school district.

Kokomo Solutions, which the Los Angeles district contracts with to provide telehealth services to students during the school day and to track campus safety threats, disclosed a data breach after it discovered an “unauthorized third party” on its computer network. The discovery happened in December 2024, but the notice to the California attorney general’s office wasn’t made until Aug. 5.

It’s the latest in a series of data privacy incidents affecting L.A. schools, including a high-profile 2022 ransomware attack exposing students’ sensitive mental health records and last year’s collapse of a much-lauded $6 million artificial intelligence chatbot project.

In the news

Students at the center of Trump’s D.C. police takeover: In an unprecedented federal power grab, the Trump administration’s seizure of the D.C. police department and National Guard deployment is designed to target several vulnerable groups — including kids. | NPR
- The move comes at a time when crime in the nation’s capital is on the decline. But a deep-dive from June explores how the district’s failure to prevent student absences has contributed to “the biggest youth crime surge in a generation.” | The Washington Post
- Here’s what young people have to say about Trump’s D.C. takeover. | NBC 4
- City police will roll out a youth-specific curfew Friday in the Navy Yard neighborhood. | Fox 5
A new Ohio law requires school districts to implement basic cybersecurity measures in response to heightened cyberattacks. What the law doesn’t do, however, is provide any money to carry out the new mandate. | WBNS

News in Trump’s immigration crackdown: A federal judge in Minnesota has released from immigration detention a nursing 25-year-old mother, allowing her to return to her children as her case works its way through the court. | The Minnesota Star Tribune
- The Trump administration has revived one of its most controversial immigration policies from the president’s first term: Separating families. | The New York Times
- Federal immigration officials quizzed an Idaho school resource officer about an unaccompanied migrant student, part of a broader national effort to conduct “welfare checks” on immigrant youth who came to the U.S. without their parents. | InvestigateWest
- Leading Oklahoma Republican lawmakers have partnered with the Trump administration in a lawsuit challenging a state law allowing undocumented students to receive in-state college tuition. | InsideHigherEd
- Los Angeles community members have organized to create protective perimeters around the city’s campuses after immigration agents reportedly drew their guns on a student outside a high school. | Los Angeles Times
  
  The district announced new bus routes designed to improve student safety while commuting to school during heightened immigration enforcement. | NBC 4
- The nonprofit Southwest Key, which for years has been the federal government’s largest provider of shelters for unaccompanied migrant children, has laid off thousands in Texas and Arizona after losing federal grants. The Trump administration dropped a lawsuit in March over allegations the nonprofit subjected migrant children to widespread sexual abuse. | ABC 15
- A Texas court blocked the state attorney general’s request to depose and question a nun who leads Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, one of the largest migrant aid groups in the region. | The Texas Tribune
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Microphone-equipped sensors installed in school bathrooms to crack down on student vaping could be hacked, researchers revealed, and turned into secret listening devices. | Wired

‘These are innocent children, sir’: New video of the delayed police response to the 2022 mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, shows the campus police chief attempting to negotiate with the gunman for more than 30 minutes. | The New York Times

Kansas schools have become the latest target in the Trump administration’s campaign against districts that permit transgender students to participate in school athletics. | KCTV
- The Loudoun County, Virginia, school board has refused to comply with an Education Department order to end a policy allowing transgender students to use restroom facilities that match their gender identity. | LoudounNow
- The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has opened an investigation into allegations the Baltimore school district ignored antisemetic harassment by students and educators. | The Baltimore Banner
Lots of drills — little evidence: A congressionally mandated report finds that active shooter drills vary widely across the country — making it difficult to understand their effect on mental and emotional health. | National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

A federal judge has blocked a new Arkansas law requiring that public schools display the Ten Commandments in all classrooms. It’s the second state Ten Commandments law to be halted this year. | Axios

ICYMI: I did a deep-dive into the far-right Christian nationalists behind more than two dozen state Ten Commandments-in-schools bills nationally — each of which are inherently identical. | The 74

Is Texas up next? Civil rights groups will ask a judge on Friday to prevent a similar law from going into effect. | Houston Chronicle

ICYMI @The74

Despite Court Order, Education Department’s Civil Rights Staff Still On Leave

‘So Many Threats to Kids’: ICE Fear Grips Los Angeles at Start of New School Year

Emotional Support

Don’t sleep on this Bloomberg feature into “Doodlemania” — the billion-dollar industry for hypoallergenic (and floofy!) designer pups.

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August 16, 2025
Despite Skepticism, Parents Still Prioritize Four-Year College for Their Kids – The 74

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Six out of 10 parents hope their child will attend college, according to a new survey by Gallup and the Lumina Foundation.

The survey, conducted in June, comes out at a time when the value of a college degree is the subject of public debate.

“We hear all this skepticism of higher education,” said Courtney Brown, vice president of impact and planning for the Lumina Foundation, which advocates for opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. “We hear the narrative that people don’t value it.”

Just last month, the results of a Gallup poll showed that confidence in higher education among Americans has been falling over the last decade.

But the results of actually asking what parents want for their own children, Brown said, are striking. This is the first survey that Gallup has specifically asked parents for their views on the topic.

“When it comes down to it, it’s pretty clear that parents hope their children get a college degree,” Brown said.

Brown has found that parents’ biggest concerns about higher education tend to be the cost, whether it leads to a job, or increasingly, whether it is political.

This may explain why community colleges were a popular option among parents who responded. Community colleges tend to have a much lower sticker price than four-year colleges, and there is a greater emphasis on job credentials. Roughly 1 out of 5 parents of varying backgrounds said that they would like to see their child enroll at a community college.

But there were some notable differences in the survey among parents, depending on their own level of education, but especially their political orientation.

The strongest narratives against higher education come from the Republican Party. That is reflected in the responses, Brown noted.

Greater differences emerged around whether students should enroll in a four-year college immediately after high school; 58% of college graduates and 53% of Democrats preferred sending their children straight to a four-year college, compared to 27% of Republicans and 30% of parents without a college degree.

Republicans are more likely to say that their children should go straight into the workforce or job training or certification, followed by independents and those without a college degree. Other options include taking time off or joining the military.

But overall, 4 out of 10 parents want to see their child attend a four-year college or university, making it the most popular option by far. This is something that comes up repeatedly in surveys about higher education.

“We see that people value four-year [degrees],” Brown said. “We see that people have trouble accessing it and have some concerns about the system, but they do greatly value it.”

The survey also measured the preferences of non-parents. It asked respondents to think about a child in their life, whether a nephew or niece, grandchild or family friend under 18 who has not graduated from high school. Responses were remarkably similar: 55% said they wanted this child to attend either a four-year or two-year college, compared to 59% of parents.

This story was originally published by EdSource.

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August 15, 2025
No One Will Say Why School Lunch Costs Hawaii DOE $9 A Plate – The 74

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In January, the Department of Education released a shocking number: it now costs nearly $9 to produce a school lunch in Hawaiʻi. Lawmakers and advocates — after they recovered from the sticker shock — responded with a reasonable question: Why are school meals so expensive?

Eight months later, the public still doesn’t have an answer. Despite pressure from lawmakers, the department has yet to publish detailed information about why it costs so much to feed students.

The department doesn’t share — and may not even collect — campus-level data on how much individual schools are spending on meals. It has provided no breakdown of how much the state spends on items like milk or fresh produce that go into lunches.

But lawmakers say schools need to explain what’s driving up the costs, especially since the DOE is struggling to make ends meet with its lunch program and has requested an additional $40 million from the Legislature over the past two years on top of the state and federal funds it already receives for its meal program.

Hawaiʻi law requires the education department to charge families half the cost of producing school meals, although current lunch prices fall far below that threshold. In January, the DOE proposed gradually raising meal prices over the next four years, but state lawmakers stepped in with funds to avoid increasing costs for families.

Under the DOE’s proposal, lunch for elementary and middle school students would cost $4.75 by 2028. High schoolers would pay $5 for meals.

Breaking Down The Numbers

The DOE serves more than 18 million meals every year to students across 258 campuses. This spring, lawmakers set aside roughly $50 million to fund the school meal program over the next two years.

The department publishes quarterly financial reports for its food services branch, but the online reports only track the total amount of money coming in and out of the meals program. Through the third quarterof the 2024-25 school year, the program brought in $108 million in student payments and state and federal funds, but spent roughly $123 million on meals, salaries and other expenses.

In response to a Civil Beat public records request for school and state-level spending on lunches this spring, a representative from the superintendent’s office shared a one-page financial report breaking down the meal program’s spending and revenue in more detail. Roughly 40% of the 2023-24 budget went toward the salaries and benefits of workers, and the department spent roughly $81 million on food.

But there was little information explaining what goes into a $9 school meal — for example, how much the department spent on specific ingredients or juice, or what cafeteria supplies cost the department more than $5.6 million in 2024. The department provides more detailed estimates of its purchase of local ingredients in its annual report to the Legislature, but this spending makes up only 5% of the school meal budget.

In response to Civil Beat’s request, the DOE also said it didn’t have records of schools’ annual financial reports for campus meal programs. The department did not respond to requests for interviews about the availability of school meal data and the rising costs of lunches.

Jesse Cooke, vice president of investments and analytics at Ulupono Initiative, said he’s concerned about a lack of consistent tracking and reporting from schools. He said he hasn’t seen any data breaking down the costs of meal programs at individual schools on a regular basis, which makes it harder for the department and lawmakers to identify what’s driving up the costs of meals and understand how programs can operate more efficiently.

“When you’re trying to make decisions, trying to make something more efficient, you need pretty quick numbers,” Cooke said. “They’re not looking at specific schools and their numbers.”

The education department has also come under fire from the federal government for its lack of data collection. When Hawaiʻi sought an increase in federal funds for school meals in 2015, officials denied the request because the department wasn’t able to provide enough details on the costs of its lunches, said Daniela Spoto, director of food equity at Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice.

“Historically, the only thing they could provide is what they provided here,” Spoto said. “Here’s our cost, and here’s the total number of meals we provide.”

Lawmakers passed two resolutions this spring asking the department to produce a detailed breakdown of its meal programs, including the cost of ingredients, beverages and supplies. The DOE currently has no process of reporting and publishing such costs, the resolutions stated.

“It is essential to ensure that proper reporting processes are in place to provide transparency as to the costs of producing school meals,” one resolution said.

DOE leaders argued they publish enough information to justify rising lunch costs, but they’ve given lawmakers mixed messages on the data that’s readily available.

In one hearing, Interim School Food Services Branch Administrator Sue Kirchstein said the DOE already collects and publishes data on the costs of ingredients and other factors going into school meals. But another official said the DOE doesn’t collect data with the level of detail lawmakers were requesting, and the department’s communications team was unable to provide the report Kirchstein mentioned during the hearing.

Besides looking at rising inflation rates, the department hadn’t completed a detailed analysis of what’s increasing the costs of meals, former Deputy Superintendent Dean Uchida said in another hearing this spring, drawing strong criticism from lawmakers.

“You should be looking at it, and maybe there’s a different way that you can do things,” Sen. Troy Hashimoto said during the hearing. “But you won’t know that unless you do the analysis.”

The department has not said if it’s working on a cost analysis for the Legislature. Any report DOE submits to lawmakers won’t be published until late 2025 or early 2026 in the lead-up to the new legislative session.

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August 15, 2025
BPP Education Group expands portfolio with acquisition of Sprott Shaw College

BPP Education Group’s growth plan has been backed by the private equity firm TDR Capital, with a view to expand geographically into various sites around the world.

The group, which provides education and training in various fields of work like Law and Finance, hopes to increase the variety of ITS portfolio of courses through the acquisition of dynamic education businesses like Sprott Shaw College.

Sprott Shaw College (SSC), founded in 1903, is one of the largest regulated career colleges IN Canada and offers students connections with real-word opportunities to ready them for work in positions such as nursing and business.

Prior to the deal, it was a subsidiary of Global Education Communities Corporation (GECC), which is one of the largest education and student housing investment companies in Canada.

The college also places a large focus on cultural awareness and inclusivity – and its courses are designed with these in mind.

According to Graham Gaddes, CEO of BPP, the acquisition marks an “important milestone into BPP’s internationalisation”.

“The acquisition will support SSC’s plans to continue to be agile in meeting the needs of the domestic and international community, with programmes developed with cultural awareness and inclusivity in mind,” he added. “We admire what Sprott Shaw College has achieved to date and look forward to welcoming the team to the BPP Education Group.”

The college has grown substantially in size with integrity and has gained respect from the global education community
_{^{Toby Chu, GECC}}

This purchase opens doorways for BPP to offer a vast range of professional education programs due to an alignment with other institutions in its portfolio, such as Ascenda School of Management and Arbutus College.

The programs would range from certificates to degree levels, which would aid both domestic and international students.

Toby Chu, president and CEO of GECC, said that he is “confident that Sprott Shaw College will continue to flourish under BPP’s ownership”.

The college had weathered many difficulties in recent years, he said, including the Covid-19 pandemic and more recent study permit caps in Canada.

“Despite these challenges, the college has grown substantially in size with integrity and has gained respect from the global education community. I am confident that Sprott Shaw College will continue to flourish under BPP’s ownership,” he said.

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August 15, 2025
How Pakistani students are reshaping global mobility

A new study from ApplyBoard has shown the number of students leaving Pakistan to join universities in countries such as the UK and US has grown exponentially in the past few years, with student visas issued to Pakistani students bound for the ‘big four’ nearly quadrupling from 2019 to 2025.

“One of the most striking findings is just how rapid and resilient Pakistan’s growth has been across major study destinations,” ApplyBoard CEO Meti Basiri told The PIE News.

“The rise of Pakistani students is a clear signal that global student mobility is diversifying beyond traditional markets like India and China,” he said.

The question is, why?

A large factor is Pakistan’s young population – 59%, or roughly 142.2 million people, are between the ages of five and 24, making it one of the youngest populations in Asia.

Additionally, due to economic challenges faced by Pakistan, many young people see international education as a necessity in order to succeed financially, even with Pakistan’s economic growth and gradual stabilisation – which has a possibility of slightly decreasing the overall movement between countries in the future.

The UK has remained the most popular destination for Pakistani students even through Covid-19, with Pakistan rising to become the UK’s third largest source country in 2024.

Visas issued to Pakistani students have grown from less than 5,500 to projected 31,000 this year, an increase of over 550% from 2019 to 35,501 in 2024.

Some 83% of students chose postgraduate programs, with the most popular being business courses, but in recent years statistics show a shift towards computing and IT courses.

This trend aligns with the growth of the UK’s tech sector, which is now worth more than 1.2 trillion pounds, with graduates set to aid further growth in the coming years.

“In the US, F-1 visas for Pakistani students are on track to hit an all-time high in FY2025,” said Basiri, with STEM subjects the most popular among the cohort.

This aligns with the US labour market, where STEM jobs have grown 79% in the last 30 years.

Basiri highlighted the “surprising” insight that postgraduate programs now make up the majority of Pakistani enrolments, particularly in fields of IT, engineering and life sciences. “This reflects a deliberate and career-driven approach to international education,” he said.

Such an approach is true of students across the world, who are becoming “more intentional, choosing destinations and programs based on affordability, career outcomes, and visa stability, not just brand recognition,” said Basiri.

The rise of Pakistani students is a clear signal that global student mobility is diversifying beyond traditional markets like India and China

Meti Basiri, ApplyBoard

Canada, unlike the US and UK, has welcomed far fewer Pakistani students, most likely due to the introduction of international student caps. ApplyBoard also suspects Pakistani student populations to drop further in the coming years, it warned.

Similarly, the amount of visas issued to Pakistani students has also dropped in Australia after high demand following the pandemic.

Germany, however, has experienced rising popularity, a 70% increase in popularity over five years amongst Pakistani students.

One of the biggest factors for this is their often tuition-free public post secondary education, according to ApplyBoard, as well as the multitude of engineering and technology programs offered in Germany.

What’s more, though smaller in scale, the UAE has seen a 7% increase in Pakistani students in recent years, thanks, in part to “geographic proximity, cultural familiarity and expanding institutional capacity,” said Basiri.

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August 15, 2025