Recent “Beyond Transfer” articles have garnered a lot of attention and discussion among many in the transfer world, including those of us involved in transfer work in Virginia. The reactions to these articles demonstrate just how complex transfer is, and while we may not all agree, the importance of the work is undeniable. One state has taken steps to reduce the complexity and clarify transfer for students and colleges.
The article “The Transfer Credit Myth: How Everything We Know About Excess Credits May Be Wrong,” while narrow in scope, highlighted several important aspects of transfer that should be reiterated: Early and consistent academic planning support is imperative. Additionally, we know program changes, prerequisites and financial aid exhaustion can have serious implications to progress whether a student transferred or not. Furthermore, as highlighted in a response article, we cannot forget about state- and system-level policies that may impact these efforts, for better or worse.
In recognition of these complexities, Virginia passed legislation in 2018 to improve transfer, which addressed three elements: general education, transfer pathways and a state transfer tool. In response and through a collaborative effort between the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV), the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) and two- and four-year institutions, the Transfer Virginia initiative was born. Its goal is to remove barriers while improving credit efficiency, reducing time to transfer and boosting degree-attainment rates.
General education: A two-year institutional general education package, known as the Uniform Certificate of General Studies (U.C.G.S.), was created to apply to lower-level general education at all Virginia public four-year institutions and many participating private four-year institutions.
Transfer pathways: Common curricula have been developed to provide the foundation for the transfer pathways—or student-facing transfer guides—which are created with the goal of mapping associate degree curricula, including the U.C.G.S., to baccalaureate degrees to strengthen credit efficiency and applicability. Each guide includes a curricular section showing the student exactly what to take at both the two-year institution and the remaining requirements at the four-year institution for a true 2+2. There is also a “Transfer Guidance” section that includes information about the college/university, major, admission—including guaranteed admission—as well as important dates, deadlines and links, serving as a one-stop shop for transfer information. There are currently over 500 transfer guides, representing over 30 pathways to four-year institutions, with approximately 150 to 200 guides submitted each year. These work very well when a student has identified a transfer plan. For those who would like to explore further, these and many other resources are available in the portal.
State transfer tool: The Transfer Virginia portal, officially launched in 2021, is designed to be a robust repository to assist students at any point in their higher education journey, including dual enrollment. The portal provides standardized information for more than 60 Virginia colleges—two-year and four-year, public and private—all in one place. Users can compare institutions, explore program listings, find colleges offering their major, see how their coursework transfers, create a portfolio and connect with transfer specialists directly.
For states looking to effect change, a good place to start is identifying commonalities between general education curriculum at both two- and four-year institutions to craft a statewide pathway. However, the work cannot be done in silos. Collaboration and commitment from the two- and four-year institutions and state administrative agencies is vital. For Virginia, legislation ignited the initiative, but the teamwork between all stakeholders keeps the momentum going.
This blog was kindly authored by Vikki Welch, Associate Director Student Living, University of Nottingham.
It is the second blog in HEPI’s series with The Unite Foundation on how to best support care experienced and estranged students. You can find the first blog here.
When the University of Nottingham (UoN) launched its Care Leaver and Estranged Student support package in 2022, the ambition was clear: to remove financial barriers and create a genuine sense of belonging for students who often arrive without the safety net of family support. Today, it provides a comprehensive wraparound system, anchored by a one-year accommodation bursary that has changed lives.
Why accommodation matters
For care-experienced and estranged students, the cost of living on campus can be a major obstacle. UoN’s analysis revealed that these students were disproportionately opting for cheaper, off-campus housing – often in poorer conditions and far from academic spaces. This not only isolated them from student life but also correlated with lower degree outcomes compared to peers who lived on campus.
The solution was bold: cover 365 days of accommodation costs for the first year of study, whether in catered halls or self-catered options. By partnering with third-party providers and embedding strong support mechanisms, we were able to develop a comprehensive package of support for care experienced and estranged students. Critical to this was ensuring that the bursary was non-competitive and universally available to eligible students – we wanted to create the opportunity to welcome all care experienced and estranged students who met our eligibility criteria and wanted to study at the University of Nottingham. The goal was not just financial relief but a holistic transition into university life – setting our students up for success.
Beyond the bursary
The scheme goes far beyond paying rent. From pre-entry needs assessments and liaising with local authorities to welcome events and starter packs, we designed a programme that recognises the emotional and practical challenges care experienced and estranged students face. Initiatives like “NottingHome for the Holidays” during winter vacation and solidarity events during Estranged Student Week foster community and belonging.
Support continues throughout the year: exam preparation, wellbeing interventions, and help with second-year housing – including covering costs for guarantor services. The summer BBQ for care experienced and estranged students is a joyful and emotionally rewarding event to see a cohort come together to celebrate their first year.
This is underpinned by staff who really care and want the best for these students. None of this would be possible without such incredible people. The UoN models puts our people in theposition to make a difference.
Impact on recruitment and retention
The results speak volumes. Applications from care-experienced students have risen since the bursary’s introduction, and enrolment rates have improved significantly. Living on campus has been shown, through regression analysis by UoN’s Digital Research Service, to increase the likelihood of degree completion among bursary recipients. With a 92% increase in care experienced and estranged students choosing on campus accommodation we are confident in the success outcomes of these students once they graduate. This mirrors findings from the Unite Foundation scholarship programme, reinforcing the transformative power of secure, inclusive accommodation.
Financial stress remains a critical issue for care experienced and estranged students nationally – this was something we heard consistently in focus groups with this group of students. The recent analysis of HEPI’s Student Academic Experience Survey shows that this group of students work at least 2+hours more in paid work than their peers. At Nottingham, 98% of respondents said the bursary was essential to continuing their studies.
One first-year student summed it up:
I don’t have to worry about getting a job on top of my studies this year because of my accommodation bursary.
Wellbeing and belonging
The impact goes beyond numbers. Students report feeling part of campus life, joining societies, using sports facilities and building friendships. Reduced working hours mean more time for study and social engagement, which in turn supports mental health and academic success. UoN’s commitment was recognised with the NNECL Quality Mark, awarded “Exceptional” for both pre-enrolment support and student wellbeing.
Lessons for the sector
What can other universities learn from Nottingham’s approach? First, that accommodation is not a luxury – it’s a foundation for success. Second, that financial support must be paired with pastoral care and community-building. Finally, that schemes should be flexible, extending help to students who become estranged after enrolment.
As higher education grapples with cost-of-living pressures, Nottingham’s model offers a template and example for meaningful change. By investing in accommodation and wraparound support, universities can turn access into success for some of the most vulnerable students in our system.
You can find out more about accommodation scholarships and wider support for care experienced and estranged students through the Unite Foundation’s Blueprint framework – supporting your institution to in building a safe and stable home for care experienced and estranged students, improving retention and attainment outcomes.
by Jon Marcus, The Hechinger Report December 4, 2025
Brown University, one of the most selective institutions in America, attracted nearly 50,000 applicants who vied for just 1,700 freshman seats last year.
The Trump administration’s policies may soon end that advantage that has been enjoyed by men, admissions and higher education experts say.
While much of the president’s recent scrutiny of college admissions practices has focused on race, these experts say his ban on diversity, equity and inclusion is likely to hit another underrepresented group of applicants: men, and particularly white men — the largest subset of male college applicants.
“This drips with irony,” said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, or ACE, the nation’s largest association of universities and colleges, who said he expects that colleges and universities are ending consideration of gender in admission. “The idea of males, including white males, being at the short end of the stick all of a sudden would be a truly ironic outcome.”
Related: Interested in more news about colleges and universities? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter.
For years universities and colleges have beentryingto keep the number of men and women on campuses evened out at a time when growing numbers ofmen have been choosing not to go to college. Some schools have tried to attract more men by adding football and other sports, promoting forestry and hunting programs and launching entrepreneurship competitions.
Efforts to admit applicants at higher rates based on gender are legal under a loophole in federal anti-discrimination law, one that’s used to keep the genders balanced on campuses.
But the Trump administration has consistently included gender among the characteristics it says it does not want schools to consider for admissions or hiring, along with race, ethnicity, nationality, political views, sexual orientation, gender identity or religious associations. The White House has so far largely not succeeded in its campaign to press a handful of elite schools to agree to the terms and sign a wide-ranging Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education in exchange for priority consideration for federal funding.
“The racial parts have gotten a lot more attention, but I know from having spoken with practitioners who work in college admissions, they have read very clearly that it says ‘race and gender,’” in the administration’s pronouncements about ending preferences in admission, said Shaun Harper, founder and chief research scientist at the University of Southern California Race and Equity Center.
“What I think they don’t understand is that taking away the ability of colleges and universities to balance the gender composition of their incoming classes will ultimately have an impact on the college enrollment rates of white males,” Harper said. “It is likely to impact them the most, as a matter of fact.”
At some private colleges, male applicants are more likely to get in
School
% of males admitted
% of females admitted
Brown University
7.0
4.4
University of Chicago
5.6
3.7
Yale University
4.6
3.4
University of Miami
22.5
16.5
Middlebury College
12.2
9.6
Baylor University
56.8
47.9
Pomona College
7.6
6.7
Tulane University
14.9
13.4
Vassar College
20.4
17.6
SOURCE: Hechinger Report calculations from universities’ Common Data Sets
Agreements that the administration has reached with Brown, Columbia and Northwestern universities to settle allegations of antisemitism discrimination also include language about gender.
In a statement announcing the Brown deal in July, Education Secretary Linda McMahon promised that “aspiring students will be judged solely on their merits, not their race or sex.”
Asked if that meant male applicants would no longer be admitted at higher rates than female applicants — which has helped Brown keep its undergraduate enrollment at almost exactly 50-50, even with twice as many female applicants — spokesman Brian Clark said, “We have made no changes to our admissions practices in this regard.”
The Trump administration has also vowed to make all higher education institutions submit details about the students they admit, including their gender, to find out whether they’re “discriminating against hard working American” prospective students, McMahon said in another statement.
Spokespeople for the Department of Education did not respond to questions about whether advantages in admission based on gender will be scrutinized in the same way as purported advantages based on race.
Universities are looking at the administration’s edicts “and they’re saying, ‘Well, we’d rather be cautious than stick our neck out’” by continuing to give advantages to male applicants, said ACE’s Mitchell, who was undersecretary of education under President Barack Obama. “I think we will see people dropping gender preferences, even though it is still within the law.”
Colleges that have been accepting men at higher rates are trying to avoid a marketing problem they fear will happen if their campuses become too female,said Madeleine Rhyneer, who headed admissions offices at four private universities and colleges and is now vice president of consulting services and dean of enrollment management for the education consulting firm EAB. Colleges worry, “Will men look at that and think, ‘That’s essentially a women’s college, and I don’t want to go there’?”
“For the Browns and Columbias and highly selective and very competitive institutions, it is a problem,” Rhyneer said. “They want to create what feels like a balanced climate.”
The results of ending this practice could be dramatic, experts predict. In 2023, the most recent year for which the figure is available, 817,035 more women than men applied to universities and colleges, federal data show. Boys also have lower mean scores on the SAT in reading and writing, score lower overall on the ACT and have lower grade point averages in high school.
“If we were going to eliminate preferences for men, the undergraduate population would skew to 65 percent female overnight,” Mitchell said.
Rick Hess, director of education policy studies at the right-leaning think-tank the American Enterprise Institute, pointed out that similar predictions were made after the 2023 Supreme Court decision effectively ending affirmative action based on race.
At the time, he said, colleges spoke “in apocalyptic terms of the implications for the racial composition of student bodies.” But the number of Black and Hispanic students enrolled at universities and colleges the next year rose, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Then, said Hess, “there was a lot of, ‘Never mind.’”
The country’s top 50 private colleges and universities have 2 percentage points more male undergraduates than the top 50 flagship public universities, which do not consider gender in admission, according to research by Princeton economist Zachary Bleemer. He said this suggests that at least some are putting a thumb on the scale for male applicants.
Columbia took 3 percent of women applicants last year and 4 percent of men. At the University of Chicago, 5.6 percent of male applicants were accepted last year, compared to 3.7 percent of female applicants. The ratio at the University of Miami was 22.5 percent to 16.5 percent; and at Vassar College, 20.4 percent to 17.6 percent.
Besides Brown, none of these universities would respond when asked if they will continue to accept higher percentages of men than women, Neither would others that do it, including Yale, Baylor and Tulane universities and Pomona College.
Private institutions are allowed to consider gender in admission under Title IX, the federal law otherwise banning discrimination by universities and colleges that get federal funding. That’s due to a loophole dating from when the law was passed, in 1971.
At the time, the gender ratio was exactly reversed, and men outnumbered women on campuses by nearly three to two. One of the universities’ congressional allies, Rep. John Erlenborn, R-Illinois, successfully amended the measure to let private colleges and universities continue to consider gender in admission.
Erlenborn said at the time that forcing colleges to stop considering gender would be “one more giant step toward involvement by the federal government in the internal affairs of institutions of higher education.”
There’s little ambiguity for admissions offices now, said USC’s Harper.
“It says here, in writing, ‘no discrimination on the basis of race and gender,’” he noted. “It says that explicitly.”
Contact writer Jon Marcus at 212-678-7556, [email protected]orjpm.82 on Signal.
This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://hechingerreport.org/an-unexpected-target-of-federal-college-admissions-scrutiny-men/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://hechingerreport.org”>The Hechinger Report</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/hechingerreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/cropped-favicon.jpg?fit=150%2C150&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.
Dive Brief:
Among students who entered college in fall 2019,61.1% earned a credential within six years, according to a report released Thursdayby the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.That’s 0.3 percentage points lower than the rate seen among the fall 2018 cohort, according to the latest data.
The newest college completion data also showed that full-time students faced better odds of graduating than part-time students.Those attending college full time who started in fall 2019 were almost twice as likely to graduate within six years compared to part-time students — 67.1% versus 34.1%, respectively.
Whether students took college classes in high school also affected their likelihood of earning credentials.The six-year completion rate among prior dual enrollment students was 71.1%, compared to 57.2% among those who took their first postsecondary course in college.
Dive Insight:
Thursday’s report broadly shared good news for students, as the 2019 cohort becomes the fourth group in a row to see a completion rate above 61%.
Doug Shapiro, executive director of the research center,said that the recent stability in completion rates reflects “the day‑to‑day efforts of students and institutions to maintain progress toward credentials in a changing environment.”
“Students who started in fall 2019 faced the challenges of the pandemic beginning in their second semester, so the fact that their completion rates remain at recent highs underscores the remarkable strength of our higher education ecosystem,” he said in a Thursday statement.
Still, discrepancies remain in which students successfully make it over the finish line.
Along with full-time status and prior dual enrollment, students’ gender, age at the time of enrollment and economic background were linked to their likelihood of graduating, the clearinghouse found.
College women have consistently reported stronger completion rates, and the fall 2019 cohort continued the trend. Some 64.3% of them graduated within six years, compared to 58.1% of college men.
Among students who first entered college when they were 20 years old or younger, 63.8% earned a credential within six years. For those aged 21 to 24 when they enrolled, just 35.6% could say the same. The completion rate for students 25 and older was 36.6%.
And students from the top 25% wealthiest neighborhoods were nearly 26 percentage points more likely to graduate within six years compared to those from the bottom 25% of neighborhoods — 75.9% and 50.1%, respectively.
With tuition costs on the rise, it’s only natural to question whether the time, money and effort of graduate school will pay off. So, how do you determine if it’s worth the investment?
There is no one answer to that question. Your path to grad school — and the value you gain from it — can vary greatly. You may be set on going to a prestigious or renowned school that may come with a high price tag, or you may choose a more economical option. You may be eligible for a scholarship, or maybe your employer will sponsor part of your schooling.
Before you make the big decision, ask yourself the following big questions to determine if your desired grad school program is worth the investment for you.
Questions to Ask Yourself Before Going to Grad School
Why do I want to go to grad school?
Start by clarifying your motivation and prioritizing your reasons for attending grad school. After all, it’s hard to assess the value of a degree if you don’t first determine what you want to get out of that degree. Are you hoping to boost your earnings, pivot careers, deepen expertise, or gain more personal fulfillment? Your “why” will help you evaluate whether the investment makes sense.
Grad school may also be a requirement for the career you’ve chosen — such as becoming a doctor, a dentist, or a lawyer. Chances are if you aim to have one of these careers, you will need to attend a graduate program to become certified or credentialed to pursue that career path.
What will I do with my degree?
It’s one thing to earn an advanced degree — it’s another to have it align with a career path that pays off. Research your field’s demand, salary potential and required credentials. Some master’s degrees raise earning potential substantially, while others may not. According to the U.S. Social Security Administration, men with graduate degrees earn $1.5 million more in median lifetime earnings than those with a high school diploma, and $620,000 more than those with a bachelor’s degree. Women with graduate degrees earn $1.1 million more in median lifetime earnings than their peers with a high school diploma, and $430,000 more than other women with just a bachelor’s degree.
What will grad school cost?
It’s easy to get sticker shock when looking at tuition costs for grad school, but before you panic, remember that you aren’t likely to have to pay full price for many schools. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the average total cost of graduate school is roughly $43,620 per year. However, different programs could cost less or more depending on their specific requirements. Generally, dentistry programs will be more expensive than veterinary programs, for example.
Talk with the financial aid office at the university to see what they offer for scholarships, grants, and other “free” aid. Be sure to find out the criteria for maintaining that aid and whether that aid is renewable each year that you’re enrolled. Employer support may also be a viable option for paying for graduate school. Consider how long it takes to graduate, cost of living, and additional expenses you could incur during your time in grad school.
How soon do students graduate from my top school?
This will depend on what you’re attending grad school for. Medical school is typically four years, but you could be in a learning environment for longer if you pursue a specialization like surgery. On the other hand, an MBA program can typically be completed in two years. The time to graduation is determined by your program or field of study and your specific school. Check with specific grad schools you’re applying to about their program durations.
Is “prestige and fame” more important to me than a “good deal” when it comes to my grad school?
High price doesn’t always guarantee higher quality. Value can be found at less expensive schools, especially if they offer strong support, outcomes and networking. On the other hand, the reputation of the school may be more important to you. If you know what matters most to you personally, you can make the best decision for yourself.
What percentage of students are gainfully employed in their chosen field the year they graduate?
If you have student loans entering repayment, you may be especially interested in the job outcome rate of attending grad school. Each grad school should be able to provide some data on employment status and salaries for their graduates. These outcomes can help you evaluate return on investment.
What networks & connections will I gain through my time at the university?
Beyond coursework, your university’s reputation, alumni network, industry connections and experiential opportunities can make a big difference in how valuable your graduate degree and school of choice becomes.
When should I go to grad school?
Some choose to head straight into grad school after undergrad, while others recommend gaining a few years of professional experience first. Real-world work can make you a stronger applicant, help clarify your goals, and often enrich the value you’ll get from a program.
If you’re considering delaying graduate school, you might want to talk with the admissions counselor at the school you’re considering to discuss the pros and cons and think about when to apply. For example, there are some universities that will allow you to apply now and defer admission for one to two years.
The Value of Grad School Isn’t Just Financial
Getting a degree isn’t just about earning potential. Graduate school can deepen your intellectual curiosity, enhance personal growth, broaden your professional skills, and lead to greater satisfaction in your work and life.
In short: Make sure you’re clear on your goals, realistic about costs and outcomes, and attentive to both tangible and intangible benefits. If done thoughtfully, a graduate degree can absolutely be worth the investment — but it’s not guaranteed.
Ready to take the next step investing in grad school? If grad school feels like the right move, we can help you make it happen. Explore College Ave’s graduate student loans designed to fit your goals and budget — so you can focus on your future, not just the finances.
There was a time when enhancement was the sector’s watchword.
Under the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), concepts like educational gain captured the idea that universities should focus not only on assuring quality, but on improving it. Teaching enhancement funds, learning and teaching strategies, and collaborative initiatives flourished. Today, that language has all but disappeared. The conversation has shifted from enhancement to assurance, from curiosity to compliance. Educational gain has quietly declined, not as an idea, but as a priority.
Educational gain was never a perfect concept. Like its cousin learning gain, it struggled to be measured in ways that were meaningful across disciplines, institutions, and student journeys. Yet its value lay less in what it measured than in what it symbolised. It represented a shared belief that higher education is about transformation: the development of knowledge, capability, and identity through the act of learning. It reminded us that the student experience was not reducible to outcomes, but highly personal, developmental, and distinctive.
Shifting sands
The shift from HEFCE to the Office for Students (OfS) marked more than a change of regulator; it signalled a change in the state’s philosophy, from partnership to performance management. The emphasis moved from enhancement to accountability. Where HEFCE invested in collaborative improvement, OfS measures and monitors. Where enhancement assumed trust in the professional judgement of universities and their staff, regulation presumes the need for assurance through metrics. This has shaped the sector’s language: risk, compliance, outcomes, baselines – all necessary, perhaps, but narrowing.
The latest OfS proposals on revising the Teaching Excellence Framework mark a shift in their treatment of “educational gain.” Rather than developing new measures or asking institutions to present their own evidence of gain, OfS now proposes removing this element entirely, on the grounds that it produced inconsistent and non-comparable evidence. This change is significant: it signals a tighter focus on standardised outcomes indicators. Yet by narrowing the frame in this way, we risk losing sight of the broader educational gains that matter most to students, gains that are diverse, contextual, and resistant to capture through a uniform set of metrics. It speaks to a familiar truth: “not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts”.
And this narrowing has consequences. When national frameworks reduce quality to a narrow set of indicators, they risk erasing the very distinctiveness that defines higher education. Within a framework of uniform metrics, where does the space remain for difference, for innovation, for the unique forms of learning that make higher education a rich and diverse ecosystem? If we are all accountable to the same measures, it becomes even more important that we define for ourselves what excellence in education looks like, within disciplines, within institutions, and within the communities we serve.
Engine room
This is where the idea of enhancement again becomes critical. Enhancement is the engine of educational innovation: it drives new methods, new thinking, and the continuous improvement of the student experience. Without enhancement, innovation risks becoming ornamental: flashes of good practice without sustained institutional learning. The loss of “educational gain” as a guiding idea has coincided with a hollowing out of that enhancement mindset. We have become good at reporting quality, but less confident in building it.
Reclaiming the narrative of excellence is, therefore, not simply about recognition and reward; it is about re-establishing the connection between excellence and enhancement. Excellence is what we value, enhancement is how we realise it. The Universitas 21 project Redefining Teaching Excellence in Research-Intensive Universities speaks directly to this need. It asks: if we are to value teaching as we do research, how do we define excellence on our own terms? What does excellence look like in an environment where metrics are shared but missions are not?
For research-intensive universities in particular, this question matters. These institutions are often defined by their research outputs and global rankings, yet they also possess distinctive educational strengths: disciplinary depth, scholarly teaching, and research-informed curricula. Redefining teaching excellence means articulating those strengths clearly, and ensuring they are recognised, rewarded, and shared. It also means returning to the principle of enhancement: a commitment to continual improvement, collegial learning, and innovation grounded in scholarship.
Compass point
The challenge, and opportunity, for the sector is to rebuild the infrastructure that once supported enhancement. HEFCE-era initiatives, from the Subject Centres to the Higher Education Academy, created national and disciplinary communities of practice. They gave legitimacy to innovation and space for experimentation. The dismantling of that infrastructure has left many educators working in isolation, without the shared structures that once turned good teaching into collective progress. Reclaiming enhancement will require new forms of collaboration, cross-institutional, international, and interdisciplinary, that enable staff to learn from one another and build capacity for educational change.
If educational gain as a metric was flawed, educational gain as an ambition is not. It reminds us that the purpose of higher education is not only to produce measurable outcomes but to foster human and intellectual development. It is about what students become, not just what they achieve. As generative AI reshapes how students learn and how knowledge itself is constructed, this broader conception of gain becomes more vital than ever. In this new context, enhancement is about helping students, and staff, to adapt, to grow, and to keep learning.
So perhaps it is time to bring back “educational gain,” not as a measure, but as a mindset; a reminder that excellence in education cannot be mandated through policy or reduced to data. It must be defined and driven by universities themselves, through thoughtful design, collaborative enhancement, and continual renewal.
Excellence is the destination, but enhancement is the journey. If we are serious about defining one, we must rediscover the other.
The Budget and the introduction of DSIT’s new bucket framework mark a shift in how government wants to think and talk about research and innovation. With growth now central to the government’s agenda, it is a clear attempt to answer Treasury’s perennial question: what does the public get for its money?
At the centre of this shift sits the idea of R&D “buckets”: a four-part categorisation of public R&D funding into curiosity-driven research, government priorities, innovation support and cross-cutting infrastructure.
The logic behind the buckets is easy to understand. The UK system is complex, with budget lines stretching across a maze of research councils, departments, institutes, academies and government labs. Even seasoned insiders need a cup of coffee before attempting to decipher the charts on one of UKRI’s much-valued budget explainers.
From the Treasury’s perspective, the lack of clarity is a barrier to the value of government investment. DSIT’s response is the bucket model: a clearer way of presenting public investment that moves the conversation away from budget lines and towards outcomes that matter to citizens. If this helps build broader support for R&D across departments and with the public, as CaSE’s latest research suggests is needed, it could be hugely valuable.
The outcomes challenge
One consequence of an outcomes-driven model, however, is that different types of research will find it easier or harder to demonstrate their value. Basic and curiosity-driven research can be difficult to evidence through simple KPIs or narrow ROI measures.
In contrast, some forms of applied R&D lend themselves more easily to straightforward metrics. The Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) is a good example. It can demonstrate a return on investment of £14.80 to £1 in ways that are simple to communicate and easy for officials to interpret. In a system that places a premium on measurable outcomes, this kind of clarity is powerful.
If outcomes become the dominant organising logic, there is a risk that bucket one, which covers curiosity-driven research, could appear on paper to be the least “investable” – especially under a future minister who is less supportive of blue-skies research. The danger is not deliberate neglect, but an unintended shift in perception, whereby discovery research is viewed as separate from, rather than essential to, mission-led or innovation-focused work.
The challenge becomes even clearer when we look at quality-related research funding (QR). Few funding mechanisms are as versatile or as important to the health of the research ecosystem. QR supports discovery research, helps universities leverage private investment, underpins mission- and place-based activity, and fills the gaps left by research council and charity grants. It is the flexible connective tissue that keeps the system functioning.
Trying to code QR neatly into a single bucket, as bucket one, doesn’t reflect reality. It may make the diagrams tidier, but it also risks narrowing Whitehall’s understanding of how QR actually works. Worse, it could make QR more vulnerable at fiscal events if bucket one is cast as the “future problem” bucket, the category that can be trimmed without immediately visible consequences.
The trap of over-simplification
That brings us to a wider point about the buckets themselves. The intention with buckets is to draw a much more explicit line between priorities, investment and impact. This is a reasonable goal. But the risk is that it invites interpretations that are too neat. Most research does not sit cleanly in any one category. The system is interdependent, porous and overlapping. Innovation depends on discovery research. Regional growth depends on long-term capability. And capability only exists if the UK continues to invest in talent, infrastructure and basic research.
Rather than accepting a model that implies hard boundaries, it may be more helpful to embrace, and actively communicate, this interdependence. A Venn diagram might be a more honest reflection than three or four boxes with solid walls.
The aim is not to relabel the buckets, but to strengthen the narrative around how the types of research we fund reinforce each other, rather than competing for space in a zero-sum system. This kind of framing could also help government understand why certain funding streams look costly on paper, but yield value across a wide range of outcomes over time.
One argument is that by identifying curiosity-driven research as a distinct bucket, it will be harder for future governments to cut it without doing so publicly. There is some truth in this. Transparency can raise the political cost of reducing support for basic research. But the counterargument is also important. Once bucket one becomes a visible and discrete line of spend, it could also become more vulnerable during fiscal consolidations. Ministers looking to free up resources for missions or innovation-focused interventions may see it as an easier place to make adjustments, especially if the definition of “impact” narrows over time.
Shovel ready
This is why the narrative around the buckets matters as much as the buckets themselves. If they are understood as three separate spaces competing for limited resources, the system loses coherence. Discovery becomes something distant from growth, rather than the engine that drives it. Missions appear disconnected from the long-term capability required to achieve them. Innovation emerges as a standalone activity rather than as part of a pipeline that begins with public investment in fundamental science.
The bucket framework is not going away. It will shape how government talks about R&D for years to come. This makes the next phase critical: there is an opportunity now to influence how the buckets are interpreted, how they are used in practice and how the narrative around them is constructed.
If treated as rigid boundaries, the buckets risk weakening the case for long-term investment in capability. But if used as a way of telling a more coherent story about the interdependence of discovery, missions and innovation, they could help build stronger cross-government support for R&D. The challenge is to make sure the latter happens.
Professor Steven Jones on behalf of the Council for the Defence of British Universitie
Published:
HEPI’s new Policy Note finds striking consensus across the higher education community for more ethical, transparent and balanced university governance.
Summarising responses to the draft Code of Ethical University Governance from the Council for the Defence of British Universities (CDBU), this Policy Note finds that 81% of the 129 submissions received endorse the principle of a new ethical code. This signals a widespread recognition that governance structures must better reflect the educational and public missions that universities serve.
The revised CDBU Code directly responds to the concerns raised in the consultation and offers practical ways to reduce power imbalances, avoid insular decision-making and bring greater transparency to governor recruitment.
The author of this report, and the author of a second report HEPI is publishing on governance in the run-up to Christmas will be at a free webinar on governance issues running on Thursday, 11 December 2025 from 10am to 11am. Sign up now to hear our speakers explore the key issues.
The Education Department and its Office of Federal Student Aid typically hold a conference the first week of December each year.
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Caiaimage/Chris Ryan/iStock/Getty Images
Each year during the first week of December, the Department of Education has historically hosted the Federal Student Aid Training Conference to provide university administrators with updated education on regulations and technical systems. That hasn’t happened this year.
Now, many financial aid experts are expressing their frustrations on social media, attributing the lapse to the Trump administration’s majorreductions in force and calling it a shortsighted mistake.
“There is no conference. That’s what happens when you fire many of the staff who organized and conducted the training,” Byron Scott, a retired FSA staff member, wrote on LinkedIn. “Perhaps in ‘returning’ this Department of Education function to the states—where [it] never was—the Department forgot to tell the states about this new responsibility.”
Department officials have neither announced the event’s cancellation nor clarified whether and when it might take place. The conference website, where logistical information is traditionally posted, only says, “Information coming soon.”
One senior department official who spoke with Inside Higher Ed on the condition of anonymity said the conference is slated to occur in person in March.
“The announcement was queued up but the shutdown got in the way,” the source wrote in a text message. “I think the plan [will be released] in the coming days.”
An Education Department spokesperson did not respond to questions about the March date but blamed any delay on the government shutdown.
“The Democrats shut down the government for 43 days, and as you can imagine, planning a conference is not an exempted activity,” the spokesperson said. “We’ll have more updates on this in the coming weeks.”
If the conference is eventually held in person, it would be the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in 2020.
The senior department official said they hope that “returning the conference to in-person will make the wait worth it.”
But Heidi Kovalick, director of financial aid at Rowan University, responded to Scott’s LinkedIn post saying that right now is “a critical time.”
Financial aid officers have a lot to adapt to; the One Big Beautiful Bill Act mandated major changes to the student loan system, and the department issued regulations outlining new standards for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, among other significant shifts since Trump took office.
“Fin[ancial] aid administrators really need to hear from the experts,” Kovalick wrote. “Of course as others have mentioned, [it’s] kind of hard when they have been forced out. We miss you all.”
Regardless of whether staffing shortages or the government shutdown played a role in the delay, Melanie Storey, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, said one of her greatest concerns is the tight timeline financial aid officers will face if the department does reschedule the conference for spring.
“Truthfully, March is pretty soon—three months away. Institutional budgets are tight. People are going to have to book flights and hotels, and you know that that can be expensive,” she said. Still, the NASFAA president applauded the department for its effort to return the conference to an in-person event.
“The last few were virtual, which had mixed reviews. The sessions had to be prerecorded. They weren’t always as timely. And there wasn’t an opportunity for interaction. But those are all the things that financial aid professionals prioritize,” she said. “If March is when they can do it, well, we’ll be happy to see it in March.”
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.
Dive Brief:
S&P Global Ratings on Tuesday issued a negative 2026 outlook for U.S. nonprofit colleges, with analysts writing that institutions “will struggle to navigate through mounting operating pressures and uncertainty that will require budgetary and programmatic adjustments.”
The credit ratings agency pointed to federal policy changes, competition over enrollment, rising costs and financial disruption from new revenue-sharing arrangements with college athletes.
S&P analysts expect weak operating margins at nonprofit colleges as they balance rising costs with revenue pressures. Institutions will continue shutter at higher rates than usual in 2026 as they come under mounting financial struggles, with small, regional private colleges especially vulnerable, the analysts wrote.
Dive Insight:
S&P joins Moody’s Ratings in its gloomy view of higher education’s financial prospects in the new year.
Moody’s issued a negative outlook for the overall sector in November, citing similar woes: enrollment disruption from demographic changes, Trump administration policies, and continued— albeit slowed —operating cost increases.
Last year around this time, S&P analysts split their outlook for the sector in 2025, leaning negative for “highly regional, less-selective institutions that lack financial flexibility” but positive for larger colleges with ready demand and ample resources.
However, the Trump administration has since waged a painful campaign against many of those large, previously well-positioned institutions.
The federal government has frequently frozen the research funding of the high-profile colleges it is investigating. It has also broadly curtailed college research funding, long a source of revenue and jobs at universities and innovation and knowledge for the country.
Next year could bring more cuts to research funding as federal agencies push for limiting reimbursement for overhead research costs. However, federal courts have so far blocked those moves.
“We believe that a continued contraction in funding could not only threaten the financial health of institutions across the country, but could also jeopardize graduate and postdoctoral programs, and overall research capabilities,” S&P analysts wrote.They added that many of the large institutions navigating research cuts are financially strong overall and have “robust” liquidity, helping them to weather the disruption.
S&P expects additional challenges for the more regional and less selective colleges. The population of high school graduates has been forecast to peak in 2025, leaving fewer traditional-age students for colleges to compete over.
“Schools with a highly regional draw will likely face continued diminishing enrollment, unless they can attract students through expanded programmatic diversity — from master’s and doctorate programs to certificate programs,” analysts wrote. They noted, however, that it can take years for colleges to see the benefits of expanding academic offerings.
Add to all those disruptions a rapidly evolving financial landscape for college sports. This year’s House v. NCAA antitrust settlement paved the way for paying college athletes a portion of the revenue Division I institutions make from athletics. That, in turn, has created pressure for universities and athletics departments to raise money to support athletes and athletics operations.
“In a number of cases, this is also affecting academic budgets at a time of considerable stress in higher education,” S&P analysts wrote.
