Blog

  • Higher Education on the Frontlines of a Failing State

    Higher Education on the Frontlines of a Failing State

    Universities have long been bastions of freedom, democracy, and truth. Today, they find themselves operating in a nation where these ideals are increasingly under siege—not by foreign adversaries, but by policies emanating from the highest levels of government.

    The Department of War: A Symbolic Shift with Real Consequences

    On September 5, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order rebranding the U.S. Department of Defense as the “Department of War,” aiming to restore the title used prior to 1949. This move, while symbolic, reflects a broader ideological shift towards an aggressive, militaristic stance. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, appointed in January 2025, has been a vocal proponent of this change, asserting that the new name conveys a stronger message of readiness and resolve. 

    Critics argue that this rebranding prioritizes optics over substance, with concerns over potential high costs and effectiveness. Pentagon officials acknowledged the financial burden but have yet to release precise cost estimates. 

    Economic Instability and Global Alienation

    Domestically, the administration’s economic policies have led to rising unemployment, inflation, and slowing job growth. A recent weak jobs report showing a gain of only 22,000 jobs prompted Democrats to criticize President Trump’s handling of the economy, linking these issues to his tariffs and other controversial actions. 

    Internationally, Trump’s policies have strained relationships with key allies. Countries like Japan, South Korea, and several European nations have expressed concerns over U.S. trade practices and foreign policy decisions, leading to a reevaluation of longstanding alliances. 

    Authoritarian Alliances and Human Rights Concerns

    The administration’s foreign policy has also seen a shift towards aligning with authoritarian leaders. Leaked draft reports indicate plans to eliminate or downplay accounts of prisoner abuse, corruption, and LGBTQ+ discrimination in countries like El Salvador, Israel, and Russia, raising concerns about the U.S.’s commitment to human rights. 

    Immigration Policies and Humanitarian Impact

    On the domestic front, the administration’s immigration policies have led to the deportation of hundreds of thousands of individuals, including those with Temporary Protected Status. Critics argue that these actions undermine the nation’s moral authority and have a devastating impact on affected families. 

    The Role of Higher Education

    In this turbulent landscape, higher education institutions find themselves at a crossroads. Universities are traditionally places where freedom, democracy, and truth are upheld and taught. However, as the nation drifts away from these principles, universities are increasingly tasked with defending them.

    Faculty and students are stepping into roles as defenders of civic values, ethical scholarship, and truth-telling. But without robust support from government and society, universities alone cannot sustain the principles of freedom and democracy that once underpinned the nation.

    The current moment is a test: Can American higher education continue to serve as a bastion of truth and civic responsibility in an era where the country’s own policies increasingly contradict those ideals? Or will universities be compelled to adapt to a world where freedom, democracy, and truth are optional, not foundational?

    The stakes could not be higher.

    Sources:

    Source link

  • Weekend Reading: Provoking changes in higher education, some reflections on governance 

    Weekend Reading: Provoking changes in higher education, some reflections on governance 

    • This HEPI guest blog was kindly authored by Professor Nigel Savage. Nigel was awarded his PhD in 1980 for research into corporate governance and held several chief executive and non-executive posts in the public and private sectors, including Board membership of HEFCE and non-executive director of Fletchers solicitors.
    • On Tuesday, HEPI and Cambridge University Press & Assessment will be hosting the UK launch of the OECD’s Education at a Glance. On Wednesday, we will be hosting a webinar on students’ cost of living with TechnologyOne – for more information on booking a free place, see here. 

    Universities are facing the ‘perfect storm’ of challenges from several areas, not least financial and strategic sustainability, at a time when the government has many more competing priorities for scarce public resources. The situation is going to get much worse in the medium term as financial pressures rightly stimulate calls for greater accountability and a consequent erosion of the sector’s perceived and much-prized autonomy. The only way forward in the short term must therefore be for the sector itself to provoke change by Boards and non-executive directors (NEDs), assuming a more active role in challenging orthodoxy in much the same way as NEDs in the private sector. 

    The new Chair of the OfS, Edward Peck, has an unenviable in-tray. What the sector needs, alongside his appointment, is a greater degree of external insight to shake up the balance of power within the traditional governance model. I’ve worked for most of my life in higher education and the legal sector and have often been struck by the similarities in terms of management and governance issues. The legal services market has moved on somewhat from when it displayed an inherent resistance to change, a tendency to look to each other for solutions rather than externally and a blind faith that only lawyers operating within the partnership model could manage the business. Universities are still in a time warp typified by the fact that most of the organisations that purport to contribute to change by offering ‘partnerships’, guidance, consultancy or codes of practice are funded from within the sector and unlikely to recommend radical change or depart from sector orthodoxy.  

    Another lesson that could be learned from the legal services market is the greater use of external know-how and resources. Some thirty years ago, the Practical Law Company achieved considerable success by working with the best lawyers from a range of successful firms to create high-quality authored legal resources and software tools which were licensed to firms. Hitherto, that would have been regarded by the profession as relinquishing control over their crown jewels, eroding professional integrity, not to mention autonomy. The result was that lawyers were able to work more efficiently with enhanced productivity and greater confidence, focusing on providing solutions to clients’ complex problems. There is no reason why that model shouldn’t deliver similar outcomes within the higher education sector. Collaborative know-how would produce research outputs that inform teaching and learning with the added advantage that they are based on practice rather than recycled material from another academic in the form of a textbook. There are now over one hundred law schools in the UK each developing their own teaching and learning materials at a considerable cost and with varying degrees of quality. I see no reason why such a model could not deliver significant cost savings across disciplines and free staff time to focus on the delivery of teaching and learning innovation. 

    At one level there is no incentive to change, especially given the prevailing veil of protection provided by current interpretations of academic autonomy. I cannot speak for other disciplines, but given the stagnation in leadership of legal education, the legal services market is currently better served by employers than higher education. In part the issue is one of culture typified by the sector’s attitude to AI, as one commentator recently remarked, ‘universities are more concerned about AI, rather than with it …’. There is more debate about students using it as a vehicle for cheating or copyright issues than as a vehicle to enhance teaching and learning and create a seamless transition into the workplace. In general, technology in higher education is not embraced transformatively but defensively. 

    I was one of the few independent Board members of HEFCE (2002-08) and chaired the Audit and Risk Committee. As part of our engagement, we instigated a series of case study seminars for chairs and members of institutional audit committees with no members of their executive team present. The programme was much appreciated but we were surprised by the relatively low level of awareness of key risks, issues around internal audit and accountability and lack of engagement in terms of quality assurance. It’s interesting that many of the issues on the risk register then are a variation of the same issues that confront universities today. The impact of technology, an increasingly competitive environment, funding especially over-reliance on overseas income, changes in public policy, globalisation and students as consumers of higher education services.  

    Most of the above are issues that every global business model, regardless of ownership structure, sector, or location, has had to confront over the same timescale, without the level of resources available to higher education. Indeed, some universities have confronted them very well. So why is it that a growing number of universities are manifestly failing to address these issues when they should have been painfully aware of them for years? We are already seeing the likely next generation of entirely predictable risks in the growing number of institutions rushing to set up campuses in London and, worse still, in India and the Middle East at a time when they are barely sustainable. Will such initiatives deliver medium-term revenue growth, or are they merely off-balance-sheet Vice Chancellor vanity projects? And why are they not more aggressively challenged by NEDs? 

    Governance – culture change  

    There needs to be something of a culture change in the balance of power as between executive and non-executive roles. It is governance that dictates the rules of the game, especially in the relationship between the CEO (in most cases the Vice-Chancellor or Principal) and Chair. Government and the regulator need to be more prescriptive rather than rely on consultative services provided by those bodies that are part of a self-regulatory model. Anyone who doubts the need for change should read the Scottish Funding Council’s investigative report on Dundee University, which represents a massive failure of management and governance. Cultural issues were not the primary cause of the financial collapse at Dundee, but as observed in the report, ‘aspects of the culture of the institution … , may however have facilitated or been associated with a lack of transparency and of the limited challenge to the prevailing discourse on financial matters’ 

    Action in the following areas would assist in generating such a culture change: 

    1. There is significant evidence that smaller boards outperform larger ones. A study by Bain (some years ago) suggests the ideal size of a board should be seven and each additional member beyond that results in a decline in effectiveness. I am not sure where that leaves the higher education sector since most large university boards are approaching the early twenties and can have less to do with governance and become more a matter of crowd control. This issue must also be viewed in the context of the structure below the Board in terms of Senate and Academic Board which has substantial staff and student representation. Large boards are more expensive to service and absorb a greater degree of resource and complexity to manage. Size also creates the impression that the body is consultative rather than at the pinnacle of decision-making. In recent years, changes in management structures may have exacerbated the position with the trend towards the appointment of Presidents, Provosts and COOs with a wide range of reporting lines, all of whom aspire to a seat on the board. This trend has the capacity to blur the lines between the executive and non-executive functions and, worse still, further increase the size of the board. The Vice Chancellor should be the only formal member of the executive on the Board as opposed to attending as an observer. The Dundee review recognised that a University Secretary may have dual reporting lines to the Chair and Vice Chancellor, which can create conflicts of interest, ‘care should be taken to ensure the primary responsibility is always to the Chair’. 
    1. Reducing the size of Boards would also mean that resources could be released to remunerate NEDs. Some institutions already embrace this policy in respect of Board chairs and committees. The whole process, including appointments, should be professionalised to ensure that appointees have proven experience as a senior executive or non-executive. It’s not surprising that universities are failing to hold Vice Chancellors to account if membership of the Board is based, at least in part, on the criterion that ‘no previous experience is required’. In recent months it seems to be votes of no confidence from the staff rather than governing bodies which decide the fate of an incompetent Vice Chancellor. The larger institutions now have turnovers of over £1.5 billion plus. Membership of such a Board is not a role for the inexperienced using an appointment as ‘net practice’ to build a NED portfolio or an elder statesperson looking to top off their career with a gong. Should all else fail there is always the standard ultimate requirement to deter cross sector appointments ‘ideally we are looking for a candidate with a background in or closely related to higher education…’.  
    1. The increasing use of head-hunters may also be a factor. The appointment of NEDs, particularly a new chair, should be a matter entirely for the Nominations Committee. The Vice Chancellor should be consulted within the process but not be directly involved and the head-hunters should be accountable to the Nominations Committee. One of the fundamental roles of a NED is to contribute to holding the executives ‘feet to the fire’ when necessary. A distinguished Yale commentator observed some years ago ‘I’m always amazed at how common groupthink is in corporate boardrooms. Directors are, almost without exception … comfortable with power. But if you put them into a group that discourages dissent, they nearly always start to conform.’ This is particularly so if they have been recruited under the criteria that they are ‘team players’ which is normally code for they will not ‘rock the boat’ 
    1. Overseeing internal audit (IA) is a vital part of maintaining the integrity of a seamless governance model. The head of IA must be free from interference in determining the scope, process and communication of outputs. It is still the case that in some universities the head of internal audit reports directly to either the CFO or COO with a notional reporting line to the chair of the audit committee. This represents a classic case of marking your own homework and should no longer be tolerated. There is a real danger of undue influence when IA reports into the finance function, not the chair of audit committee. Unlike the external audit where there is a specified remit, internal audit can look at any area which is felt appropriate as directed by the board, including the prevailing culture and effectiveness of risk management. If the external auditor is satisfied that the IA is appropriately funded, competent and sufficiently objective and quality assured, they can rely on it.  I suspect however that this is another area clouded by the mists of institutional autonomy and external auditors will seldom feel sufficiently confident to place reliance on IA data. There would however be an additional cost placed on such reliance attached to the audit fee. 

    Conclusion  

    Although the Office for Students (OfS) is beginning to engage more directly with providers given the emerging financial environment, they are theoretically hide-bound by the statutory institutional autonomy that universities enjoy. They ‘will not provide advice to providers on how they should run their organisation. Providers should look to other sources, for example to sector bodies, for such advice and support.’ Surely in such circumstances a regulator should be suggesting that they seek advice from their own Board or externally rather than organisations that are not independent and consist largely of retired senior executives from the sector. I can imagine the outcry if such a model was replicated in the private sector if a board were asleep at the wheel. 

    Institutions are required to have ‘adequate and effective management and governance arrangements.’ Therein lies the problem. In a culture based on the presumption of autonomy, it’s very difficult to provoke change based on a standard so low as ‘adequacy’ and advice from the sector. There are many interpretations of autonomy, but the concept is too often used as a defensive comfort blanket to resist change or, worse still, justify the executives’ vanity projects.  

    The current regulatory regime, based in part on a self-regulatory model, is somewhat naïve and reminiscent of that which prevailed many years ago in respect of company regulation in the private sector and contributed to the debate on the ‘unacceptable face of capitalism’. For example, the Committee of University Chairs (CUC) code declares that the code ‘is not compulsory, governing bodies can determine based on the advice of the executive which parts of the code apply to them …’ There is no longer a need for an annual Head of Internal Audit Report and the OfS no longer require submission of the Annual Report of an institution’s Audit Committee. Indeed, there is nothing in the guidance any more compelling registered providers to have an Audit Committee. 

    Within this benign regulatory environment, the sector has received substantial funding on a headcount basis at a time when they should have been preparing for wholly predictable changes. Boards should be looking much more clearly on value for money issues. They continue to create massive Super Faculties which are unmanageable, stifle innovation and leave staff isolated. Decision-making processes are attenuated, and there is hostility to learning from external sources that are well ahead in confronting and managing change. There has been a proliferation of roles and reporting lines at the top with very little focus on efficient delivery at the coal face but fragmentation in terms of leadership. 

    Sadly, the position is even worse in Scotland where legislative changes in 2016 made the appointment process and composition of Boards even larger and more cumbersome and much less effective decision makers, hence the Dundee fiasco. 

    The current governance culture encouraged by the legislation and embraced by the sector and the regulators creates the impression that the sector should be treated differently from any other sector. In my experience, the fundamental role of NEDs is the same irrespective of the corporate status: to appoint and monitor the performance of the executive and to sign off on the strategy and rigorously monitor performance, delivery structures, risk and compliance. Legal status will shape strategy in terms of charitable status or shareholder value in the private sector but that’s no justification to deter NEDs from carrying out the primary role of holding the CEO’s feet to the fire and continuously monitoring and measuring executive performance. The way forward may be to engage them more directly within the structures of the institution, taking care that they don’t cross the line into the executive function.  

    I operated as a CEO in the sector for twenty years and a NED on both side of the fence. In my NED roles I have always operated by asking questions and seeking clarity on issues that I wouldn’t want raised if I were the CEO!  

    Nigel Savage    

    I am grateful to James Aston (BDO) the leading independent authority on HE governance, for a couple of stimulating conversations on some of the issues. 

    Source link

  • LAVC Media Arts Faculty Stripped of Administrative Roles Amid Fraud Scandal (LACCD Whistleblower)

    LAVC Media Arts Faculty Stripped of Administrative Roles Amid Fraud Scandal (LACCD Whistleblower)

    Faculty members in the Los Angeles Valley College (LAVC) Media Arts Department implicated in decades of fraud and misconduct have been removed from administrative positions, though they remain in teaching roles.

    Over the summer, longtime department head Eric Swelstad, who had led Media Arts since 2008, was replaced as chair by Chad Sustin, a full-time professor of Cinema and Media Arts. The change followed a notification from the LACCD Whistleblower Movement to new Chancellor Alberto J. Roman, alleging that Swelstad falsely claimed membership in the Writers Guild of America – West for more than 20 years and used this misrepresentation in official LACCD promotional materials.

    Sustin, a tenured faculty member since 2016 and a former Technicolor post-producer, now leads the department.

    The reshuffling comes amid years of internal turmoil. In 2022, full-time cinema professor Arantxa Rodriguez resigned and was replaced by Jonathan Burnett as assistant professor. Rodriguez had previously been implicated in department infighting and, alongside Swelstad, was named as a co-defendant in a 2008 case alleging failure to provide advertised technical training and education. Burnett’s hiring bypassed longtime adjunct and former grant director Dan Watanabe.

    Watanabe previously administered several Media Arts training grants, the last of which—ICT & Digital Media, LA RDSN—was reported as fraudulent in 2016. The 2013 grant proposal promised courses such as The Business of Entertainment, Advanced Digital Editing, Photoshop, and After Effects. Yet once funding was approved, The Business of Entertainment and Advanced Digital Editing were archived by LAVC’s Academic Curriculum Committee and Senate. Photoshop and After Effects were offered only minimally, with After Effects disappearing after 2015 and Photoshop shifting to online-only by 2017.

    Students reported the suspected fraud to the State of California in 2016, prompting a review of the grant. Renewal applications submitted by Watanabe in 2018 and 2021 were both denied.

    Grant Record (Denied Renewal, 2018):

    • Project Title: ICT & Digital Media – LA RDSN (Renewal)

    • Funding Agency: CCCCO EWD

    • Grant Amount: $165,000

    • Funding Period: Oct. 1, 2018 – June 30, 2019

    • Project Director: Dan Watanabe

    • Description: Proposed renewal of the Deputy Sector Navigator grant under the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, focused on curriculum development and alignment with universities and K–12 schools.

    https://services.laccd.edu/districtsite/Accreditation/lavc/Standard%20IVA/IVA1-02_Grants_History.pdf

    Despite this, Watanabe (who was also passed over for a full-time position at Los Angeles Pierce College) remains an adjunct faculty member slated to teach Cinema 111, Developing Movies – a field he reportedly last worked in twenty years ago. Arantxa Rodriguez and Eric Swelstad have both been scheduled to teach Fall 2025. Despite falsifying his credentials as a member of the Writer’s Guild of America – West, and implying he was a Primetime Emmy Winner (he in fact was the director of a movie that received a local Los Angeles Emmy in the 1990s), he is slated to teach Cinema 101 and screenwriting core class Media Arts 129. Rodriguez will a remote History of Film Class. 

    Reportedly the new full-time faculty in the department have started working to reverse the damage. Fall 2025 schedule includes Media Arts 112, Creative Sound Design Workshop. 

    Source link

  • FCC proposal would disconnect school bus Wi-Fi, hotspots from E-rate coverage

    FCC proposal would disconnect school bus Wi-Fi, hotspots from E-rate coverage

    This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

    Dive Brief:

    • An E-rate expansion that allowed schools to use the program’s funds for school bus Wi-Fi and hotspots for students could soon be reversed, pending a vote called for by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr on Wednesday.
    • The vote on the proposal to reverse the Biden-era expansions is currently “on circulation” as of Friday, according to an FCC spokesperson. That means commissioners can vote on the matter outside of their open monthly meetings at their discretion. 
    • With a Republican majority among the three commissioners, it’s possible the E-rate expansion could be reversed.  

    Dive Insight:

    Carr’s proposal comes at a time of high demand among school districts to expand students’ internet access through school bus Wi-Fi and hotspots.

    Schools and districts have requested a total of $15.3 million in E-rate funds to pay for school bus Wi-Fi and $50.2 million for hotspots so far in fiscal year 2025, according to federal data. 

    E-rate, also known as the schools and libraries universal service support program, helps connect schools to affordable broadband. The federal program is administered by the nonprofit private corporation Universal Service Administrative Co., or USAC, under the FCC’s authority.

    If Carr’s proposal is approved, the FCC will direct USAC to deny the pending FY 25 requests to use E-rate funds for hotspots and school bus Wi-Fi services. 

    Millions of students and older adults rely on the expanded E-rate services for homework and telehealth services, said FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, a Democrat, in a Wednesday statement. 

    “Now the FCC is moving to strip that connectivity away while doing nothing to make broadband more affordable,” Gomez said. “Their latest proposals will only widen the gap between those with access to modern-day tools and those left behind.”

    The commission approved the school bus Wi-Fi addition in 2023 and then voted to include hotspots the following year. Carr, a commissioner at the time, voted against both E-rate expansion measures.

    School bus Wi-Fi access is especially beneficial for students in rural areas with long commutes to school, said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, senior counselor at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, in a Wednesday statement. Carr’s push to reverse the use of E-rate funds for those services will “lock rural kids into dead zones,” he added.

    “Chairman Carr’s moves today are very unfortunate, as they further signal that the Commission is no longer prioritizing closing the digital divide,” Schwartzman said. 

    The Consortium for School Networking also released a statement Friday denouncing Carr’s plan. The expansion of the E-rate program has been “critical to closing the digital divide and ensuring every student can learn, both in school and where they live and learn.”

    In his announcement, Carr said the FCC violated Congress’ authority when it decided to broaden E-rate under the Biden administration. 

    “During COVID-19, Congress passed a law that expressly authorized the FCC to fund Wi-Fi hotpots for use outside of schools and libraries. When that program ended, so did the FCC’s authority to fund those initiatives,” Carr said. “Nonetheless, the Biden-era FCC chose to expand its E-Rate program to fund those initiatives long after the COVID-19 emergency ended.”

    Carr also praised Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for leading a Senate vote in May approving a repeal of the FCC’s decision to cover hotspots under E-rate. The bill is still awaiting action from the House.

    Source link

  • Left Forum: Critically Understanding Capitalism (Richard Wolff)

    Left Forum: Critically Understanding Capitalism (Richard Wolff)

     

    Source link

  • Education Department wants to streamline process for pulling federal funds from colleges

    Education Department wants to streamline process for pulling federal funds from colleges

    This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

    Dive Brief:

    • The U.S. Department of Education plans to propose regulations for “streamlining” the process for pulling federal funding from the colleges it determines have violated civil rights law. 
    • The notice of the forthcoming proposal was published in the Trump administration’s Spring 2025 Unified Agenda, which provides a glimpse of the federal government’s regulatory priorities and schedule for releasing new rules. 
    • The new proposal — which could be released this month — is intended to simplify the process for the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights to seek “termination of Federal financial assistance to institutions that intentionally violate Federal civil rights laws and refuse to voluntarily come into compliance,” the notice says. 

    Dive Insight: 

    Under the Trump administration, the Education Department and other agencies have opened a flurry of civil rights investigations into colleges and K-12 schools. Some have targeted their diversity efforts and policies that allow transgender students to play on teams and use bathrooms aligning with their gender identities. Others have accused colleges of failing to address antisemitism. 

    Amid these investigations, the Trump administration has pressured colleges to strike deals with the federal government by freezing or pulling vast sums of federal research funding. 

    The University of Pennsylvania, for instance, resolved an Education Department investigation in July by agreeing to bar transgender women from competing on women’s sports teams. Penn also agreed to give Division I titles and records to cisgender women who had lost against Lia Thomas, a transgender woman who last competed on the university’s swim team in 2022.

    The deal came after the Trump administration had pulled $175 million in federal contracts from Penn. Similarly, Columbia University and Brown University — which were both accused of failing to address campus antisemitism — have paid lofty sums to settle the administration’s allegations after the federal government froze hundreds of millions of dollars of their research grants.

    The notice in the Unified Agenda says the Education Department plans to align civil rights enforcement procedures better with statutory requirements. The agency’s new regulations would pertain to enforcement of Title IX and Title VI. Title IX bars discrimination based on sex, while Title VI prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin. 

    The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. 

    Not every college targeted by the administration has been pressured into striking a deal. 

    The Trump administration froze $2.2 billion from Harvard University after the Ivy League institution refused to yield to demands to make sweeping changes to its admissions, hiring and campus policies. Harvard took the administration to court over the frozen funds, with a federal judge ruling in the university’s favor this week. 

    The Trump administration had said it was pulling the funding because the university had not done enough to address antisemitism on campus. Yet the judge overseeing the case said the evidence does not “reflect that fighting antisemitism was Defendants’ true aim in acting against Harvard.” 

    The Unified Agenda also provides a look at the agency’s other regulatory priorities, with changes coming down the pike for rules governing accreditation, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, and colleges’ reporting requirements for foreign gifts and contracts. 

    The Education Department recently kicked off the process to craft regulations to implement the sweeping changes mandated by the massive domestic policy bill passed by Republicans this summer. 

    The legislation will phase out Grad PLUS loans, which allow graduate and professional students to borrow up to the cost of attendance. It also creates lifetime federal loan limits, with a cap of $100,000 for most graduate students and $200,000 for professional students. And it will consolidate a handful of federal loan repayment options into just two — one income-based repayment plan and one standard plan with fixed payments. 

    Additionally, the policy package threatens to cut off federal student loan eligibility to college programs that can’t prove they provide an earnings boost. Undergraduate programs, for example, must show that at least half of their graduates earn more than a typical high school student in their state.

    The American Council on Education and over 40 other higher education groups have urged the Education Department to work with Congress to delay implementing these changes until July 1, 2027. 

    The Education Department is currently on track to issue the rules no earlier than March 2026 — and likely later than that given the complexity of the law, according to the letter. As a result, the regulations would “impose major changes to financial aid and student loan repayment for millions of students and borrowers only months before they take effect,” the organizations said.

    Source link

  • East Carolina University eyes $25M in cuts

    East Carolina University eyes $25M in cuts

    This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

    Dive Brief:

    • East Carolina University is looking to cut $25 million from its budget over the next three years as it wrestles with declining enrollment and a changing higher education landscape. 
    • The cuts represent about 2% of the North Carolina university’s budget. It’s aiming for $5 million in savings for the 2025-26 academic year, of which administrators have identified $4.2 million, the university said Thursday in a news release. 
    • The public institution plans to reach its three-year savings goal “through permanent reductions, academic program optimization, and organizational adjustments,” it said.

    Dive Insight:

    Over just three years between 2020 and 2023, ECU’s fall head count declined 7% to 26,785 students. 

    Many colleges have faced such enrollment woes, and the university invoked that common experience, noting “shifting demographics, including fewer graduating high school students in the years ahead.”

    However, in North Carolina, as in much of the South, the population of high school graduates is actually expected to grow. In its latest estimates, the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education forecast a 6% increase in high school graduates in the state from 2023 to 2041.

    That said, ECU’s experience tracks with another national trend: regional public universities struggling while state flagships grow. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, for example, added about as many students — roughly 2,000 — as ECU lost between 2020 and 2023. 

    With growth in expenses outpacing tuition and fee revenue, the university’s operating loss in fiscal 2024 expanded by 43.2% year over year to $415.5 million.

    As it adapts, the university is looking to reallocate its resources to high-demand programs. ECU pointed to its nursing college, where it says it has a competitive pool of prospective students.

    “We have an opportunity to fuel an expansion through reinvesting resources,” the university said of its nursing programs. It’s also looking to grow its online programs. 

    Enrollment trends at ECU determine not just tuition revenue but also state funds. In its release, the institution noted that North Carolina’s state funding formula bases appropriations on the number of credit hours state residents take at a public college. 

    “Simply put, ECU could grow in total student population but see a reduction in appropriated funds because out-of-state students are not calculated in the funding model for credit hours,” the university said. 

    As ECU grapples with its budget, working groups at the university are reviewing the university’s academic programs as part of a fiscal health initiative. Provost Christopher Buddo is meeting with deans and department chairs to “discuss next steps for programs with low productivity,” ECU said in the release.

    The university is also trying to draw savings from operational and organizational restructuring. For instance, it plans to merge two libraries into one, and it is making changes to its information technology and employee-related units, including human resources.

    Source link

  • The New COVID Vaccine Rules Leave Parents with More Questions than Answers – The 74

    The New COVID Vaccine Rules Leave Parents with More Questions than Answers – The 74


    Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

    The federal government’s latest guidelines for COVID-19 vaccines make it difficult to know who, exactly, will be able to access shots this fall. While Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and some of his staff claim anyone will be able to access a shot in consultation with their doctor, medical groups are warning that the new guidance will impact a broad swath of people, including postpartum people and healthy children.

    “For children and young adults that I see, there are constraints, and they are significant,” said Dr. Molly O’Shea, a pediatrician in Michigan and a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).

    It might also take several more weeks to know who will be able to receive no-cost COVID-19 vaccines covered by health insurance. That decision partly depends on formal recommendations from a vaccine panel that isn’t scheduled to meet until mid-September. 

    Actions by the Food and Drug Administration last week mean that none of the COVID-19 vaccines that are slated to be on the U.S. market this fall will have an emergency use authorization that had allowed their quick (yet still rigorously tested) approval at the height of the pandemic. The removal of this designation means the drug company Pfizer will no longer offer COVID-19 vaccines to very young children, limiting parents’ brand options and potentially impacting supply.

    Moderna, Pfizer and Novavax, the three main COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers, have all shared news releases about what they’ve been approved to offer:

    • Moderna, Pfizer or Novavax will offer shots to anyone who is 65 and older, irrespective of medical history.
    • Pfizer will offer shots to anyone between the ages of five and 64 if they have at least one underlying condition that puts them at high risk for severe outcomes from COVID-19.
    • Moderna will offer shots to anyone between six months and 64 if they have at least one underlying condition that puts them at high risk for severe outcomes from COVID-19.
    • Novavax, the only company providing a non-mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, will offer shots to anyone between 12 and 64 if they have at least one underlying condition that puts them at high risk for severe outcomes from COVID-19.

    The vaccine panel known as the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) is expected to make formal recommendations on these FDA-approved vaccines, and those recommendations have historically determined whether insurance providers will cover a vaccine at no cost under insurance.

    An HHS spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for information and comment from The 19th, but in a post on X, Kennedy said: “These vaccines are available for all patients who choose them after consulting with their doctors.” Separately, USA Today reported on a document from HHS stating the FDA’s actions do “not affect access to these vaccines for healthy individuals. These vaccines remain available to those who choose them in consultation with their healthcare provider.”

    Dr. Marty Makary, FDA commissioner, added in a separate X post: “100% of adults in this country can still get the vaccine if they choose. We are not limiting availability to anyone.”

    But what that means practically for everyday people who want to access a COVID-19 shot — everything from whether their doctor will prescribe it, or if a pharmacy will be able to administer it, and whether there will be an out-of-pocket cost — is unclear for now. 

    How will it impact postpartum people?

    Pregnant people are expected to still have access to the vaccine because the CDC continues to list pregnancy as an underlying condition that puts an individual at high risk for severe outcomes from COVID-19. (The list of at least two dozen conditions also includes chronic health conditions and immunocompromised conditions.)

    But Kennedy, who has repeatedly questioned the safety of COVID-19 vaccines despite research that shows their effectiveness, announced in May that the CDC would no longer formally recommend such vaccines to pregnant people and healthy children, a move that seemed to contradict his own department. 

    Lactating and postpartum individuals must have an underlying medical condition to be eligible for one of the FDA’s approved vaccines, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG)’s understanding of the announcement. ACOG continues to recommend COVID-19 vaccination to people who are contemplating pregnancy, are pregnant, were recently pregnant or are now lactating.

    “We recognize that now, disappointingly, only lactating and postpartum individuals with an underlying condition will be eligible for vaccination. Still, it remains critical that pregnant patients receive the vaccines so that they are able to provide passive immunity from COVID-19 to their infants in those first few months of life before they can be vaccinated,” said ACOG President Steven J. Fleischman in an email.

    How will it impact healthy children?

    Healthy children will likely still be able to access the COVID vaccine, but the cost for a parent or guardian, as well as availability, will be impacted by these decisions.

    Charlotte A. Moser, co-director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said parents who want to get their kids the COVID-19 vaccine should still be able to do so through what is called shared clinical decision-making in consultation with their child’s health care provider, according to the CDC’s current vaccine schedule. But it’s unclear whether this will change when ACIP meets again.

    But physicians who prescribe a COVID-19 vaccine outside of the parameters of how the FDA approved them would be OKing use of the shot “off-label” — a designation that means a medical product is being used outside of how the FDA approved it. That raises questions about access and cost. Physicians might not be willing to prescribe off-label because of concerns about liability.

    “I think that there will be a substantially smaller number of pediatricians, pharmacies, etc., who will be comfortable taking that risk,” O’Shea said.

    Dr. Dial Hewlett, medical director of tuberculosis services at Westchester County Department of Health in New York and a spokesperson for the Infectious Diseases Society of America, said an off-label prescription might also not be covered by insurance.

    “A mother or father can go in with their child and say, ‘I’d like for them to have the vaccine,’ but they may be told, ‘Well we’ll give it, but you’re going to have to pay $200,’” he said.

    The science on COVID vaccines has consistently indicated they are safe for children to receive.
    (Joseph Prezioso / AFP / Getty Images)

    Depending on the circumstances, pharmacists may also not be able to provide off-label vaccines. Some states tie pharmacist immunization authority to FDA approval,which has the potential to create a hodgepodge of access. The New York Times reported that CVS and Walgreens, the country’s largest pharmacy chains, have begun restricting COVID-19 shots in some states to people with a prescription. 

    “There may be some variability from state to state, but it’s a big barrier if FDA approval is not there, and the FDA approvals have been pulled back from where they were previously,” Hewlett said.

    The FDA announcement is “concerning,” added Moser, who noted that limiting Pfizer’s vaccine will make it more difficult for all children to get a COVID-19 vaccine this year because of anticipated supply limitations.

    O’Shea, the pediatrician in Michigan, said her office is currently deciding how many COVID-19 shots to stock, and it’s proving tricky as they weigh the cost vs. demand — the percentage of children under 18 getting the shot is under 15 percent.

    “Figuring out how much we want to have at any one time, and how we are going to give it to people — this really makes it a lot more complicated,” she said.

    What happens next?

    Moser said the announcement adds confusion for providers and families, and noted that the unilateral approach by Kennedy so far when it comes to vaccine policy “removes hundreds of voices of clinicians and scientists that were part of the process.” Moser recently served on ACIP and is among the members that Kennedy removed. He has replaced the panel with people who do not have relevant experience.

    “That army of voices ensured a process informed by clinical experience and scientific expertise to which the small group making these decisions now cannot possibly compare,” she said in an email.

    The revamped ACIP panel is scheduled to meet over two days beginning on September 18. Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a doctor who is chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, is now questioning whether that panel has enough legitimacy to meet, especially amid a leadership shakeup at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

    “Serious allegations have been made about the meeting agenda, membership, and lack of scientific process being followed for the now announced September ACIP meeting,” he said in a statement. “These decisions directly impact children’s health and the meeting should not occur until significant oversight has been conducted. If the meeting proceeds, any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy given the seriousness of the allegations and the current turmoil in CDC leadership.”

    AAP called Kennedy’s latest COVID guidelines “deeply troubling” and urged COVID vaccine decision-making to remain between medical experts and families. 

    Dr. Susan J. Kressly, president of AAP, said in a statement that any barrier to COVID-19 vaccination as the nation enters the respiratory virus season creates “a dangerous vulnerability for children and their families.”

    “Any parent who wants their child vaccinated should have access to this vaccine,” she said, adding that HHS’ action “not only prevents this option for many families, but adds further confusion and stress for parents trying to make the best choices for their children.”

    This story was originally reported by Barbara Rodriguez of The 19th. Meet Barbara and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.


    Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

    Source link

  • ACLU warns districts not to display Ten Commandments amid legal battles

    ACLU warns districts not to display Ten Commandments amid legal battles

    This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

    Dive Brief:

    • Increasingly popular Ten Commandments laws and proposals in Republican-leaning states are being struck down in the federal court system, with multiple recent cases saying such statutes violate the separation of church and state. 
    • At least three states — Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana — have passed Ten Commandments laws requiring school districts to display them in classrooms, which have all been struck down in court in recent weeks. Several more states have introduced the laws in recent legislative sessions.
    • Civil rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, are warning districts in all three states with Ten Commandment laws not to display the religious edicts.

    Dive Insight:

    Ten Commandments laws are sweeping many of the same states that also passed “Don’t Say Gay,” parental choice and “anti-critical race theory” laws in recent years. 

    However, this particular wave of legislation has elicited ire from judges as lawsuits in all three states make their way through the court system. 

    The laws are “part of a coordinated strategy among several states to inject Christian religious doctrine into public-school classrooms,” said one Arkansas judge in August when blocking that state’s version in four school districts.

    “These states view the past decade of rulings by the [U.S.] Supreme Court on religious displays in public spaces as a signal that the Court would be open to revisiting its precedent on religious displays in the public-school context,” said U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Brooks of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas in his order.

    However, this issue was already addressed by the Supreme Court in the 1980s with Stone v. Graham. That decision said that a Kentucky statute requiring a copy of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom — similar to the laws being introduced now — violated the Constitution. 

    However, since that decision, the Supreme Court bench and its approach to the separation of church and state has changed — including the legal theory underlying the Stone decision, according to Supreme Court case experts.

    In the meantime, however, ACLU has warned districts to take a step back from the state laws as a result of Brooks’ and other judges’ decisions to block them.

    “Even though your district is not a party to the ongoing lawsuit, all school districts have an independent obligation to respect students’ and families’ constitutional rights,” an Aug. 21 letter from ACLU to Texas districts read. Any district that displays the Ten Commandments, even if the court order doesn’t apply to them, “will be violating the First Amendment and could be inviting additional litigation,” ACLU said.

    Source link

  • Range of Factors Spurred Campus Cutbacks in August

    Range of Factors Spurred Campus Cutbacks in August

    Multiple colleges and universities, including some ultrawealthy ones, have announced plans to cut jobs and academic programs, as well as implement other changes, due to financial challenges driven by a range of factors.

    For some institutions, belt-tightening measures are directly tied to the economic forces battering the sector as a whole: declining enrollments, rising operating costs and broad economic uncertainty. For others, financial pressure from the Trump administration, which has frozen federal research funding at multiple institutions, prompted cuts. State lawmakers have also forced program reductions at some public institutions.

    Here’s a look at job and program cuts and other cost-cutting efforts announced in August.

    University of Chicago

    Despite its $10 billion endowment, the private institution is slashing expenses by $100 million, shedding 400 staff jobs and pausing admissions into multiple graduate programs.

    Chicago president Paul Alivisatos wrote in a statement to faculty that the university’s financial woes are twofold, tied to a persistent operating deficit, with expenditures outpacing revenues, combined with the “profound federal policy changes of the last eight months [that] have created multiple and significant new uncertainties and strong downward pressure on our finances.”

    In recent years, UChicago has been squeezed by debt, which has ballooned to more than $6 billion as leadership continued to invest in building projects, prompting critics to question how well administrators have managed the institution’s finances.

    Middlebury College

    The private liberal arts college in Vermont is shutting down the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, across the country in California, officials announced last week.

    Middlebury president Ian Baucom said the university is winding down graduate programs at the campus over a period of two years. Managing such graduate programs was “no longer feasible,” said Baucom, who added that the decision was made for financial reasons.

    Earlier this year, the college announced it was taking action to close a budget deficit that was projected to be as high as $14.1 million. In that announcement, officials said the Middlebury Institute of International Studies was responsible for $8.7 million—more than half—of the shortfall.

    Middlebury plans to sunset programs at the California campus by June 2027.

    University of New Hampshire

    Officials at the public university in Durham last month announced the elimination of 36 jobs, 13 of which were vacant, and 10 employees had their hours reduced, according to The Portsmouth Herald.

    The layoffs are part of an effort to cut $17.5 million from UNH’s budget.

    University president Elizabeth Chilton also announced other cost-cutting efforts last month, including “scaling back professional development, student employment, building hours, dining hall hours, travel, printing, and other support services.”

    Carnegie Mellon University

    The private research university in Pittsburgh laid off 18 employees in administrative and academic support roles in early August, WESA reported, and more changes are on the horizon.

    Those cuts and other moves are part of an effort to reduce expenses by $33 million, President Farnam Jahanian wrote in a message to campus last month, noting that CMU is not operating at a deficit but is “facing significant constraints and unprecedented uncertainty.” Jahanian pointed to lower-than-expected graduate tuition revenues and federal research funding challenges.

    CMU has also paused merit raises and limited hiring. While Carnegie Mellon is undertaking a review of education offerings, Jahanian wrote that “we do not have broad layoffs planned.” Jahanian added that such measures remain “a last resort.”

    Bennington College

    The private liberal arts college in Vermont announced in mid-August that it was eliminating 15 staff jobs “as part of ongoing efforts to address budget challenges,” VT Digger reported.

    In an announcement, President Laura Walker called the cuts “a painful moment” but noted that, like its peer institutions, Bennington is “confronting an uncertain economy and a challenging overall environment for higher education.” She added that no “regular faculty positions” were cut and that the college is providing severance to affected employees.

    Utah State University

    The public institution laid off seven full-time researchers last month after the federal government terminated grants that supported those jobs, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.

    The layoffs precede what will likely be deep cuts across multiple public universities in the state, forced by new laws that require institutions to cut some programs and positions and reinvest in others that lawmakers argue are better aligned with workforce needs. So far eight institutions have proposed axing 271 programs and 412 jobs, though those cuts still await final state approval.

    Ohio University

    Fallout from the Advance Ohio Higher Education Act, which went into effect in June, continues as Ohio University announced plans to suspend 11 underenrolled programs and merge 18 others.

    The new law requires universities to take action on underenrolled programs, though Ohio University officials noted that they have submitted waiver requests to continue offering seven other programs that fall below the required threshold of at least five graduates, on average, across the past three years. The institution is seeking a waiver for undergraduate offerings in economics, dance, music therapy, nutrition science and hospitality management, among other degree programs.

    Officials cited state workforce needs or “the unique nature” of the programs in waiver requests.

    University of Connecticut

    Following a review that began last fall, trustees of the public system approved the closure of seven academic programs with low enrollment—four graduate certificate and three degree programs, CT Insider reported.

    Nearly 70 other programs are being monitored for enrollment and completion rates. Officials called the review process “good academic housekeeping.”

    Milligan University

    Citing the need to “exercise strong fiscal management,” officials at the Christian college in Tennessee announced they are suspending enrollment in six degree programs, WJHL reported.

    Milligan will no longer accept students in film, journalism, computer science, cybersecurity, information systems or a graduate coaching and sports management program. University officials pointed to falling enrollment in those programs when they announced the changes.

    University of Nebraska

    The public university system is offering buyouts to faculty members across all its campuses as part of an effort to address a $20 million budget shortfall, Nebraska Public Media reported.

    Tenured faculty members older than 62 with at least 10 years of service at Nebraska are eligible to opt in to the voluntary separation incentive program, which opened this week and closes on Sept. 30. Faculty members that opt in will receive a lump-sum payment amounting to 70 percent of their annual base salary and remain employed through June or August, depending on their contract.

    University of California, Los Angeles

    One of the wealthiest institutions on this list, UCLA announced last month that it has temporarily paused faculty hiring and is making other belt-tightening moves.

    Officials also said UCLA is looking to “streamline services,” starting with information technology.

    The public university’s move comes at least partly in response to its standoff with the Trump administration, which froze hundreds of millions in research funding to the university last month as it pressured administrators over alleged antisemitism on campus. (Some funding has been restored by a court order.) The Trump administration has also demanded a $1 billion payout from the university, which California governor Gavin Newsom called “extortion.”

    University of Kansas

    The public university announced last month that it was implementing a temporary hiring freeze as administrators aim to reduce spending by $32 million, The Lawrence Journal-World reported.

    “We are again navigating an uncertain fiscal environment because of external factors, such as disruptions to federal funding, changes in federal law, stagnant state funding, rising costs, changes in international enrollments, and a projected nationwide decline in college enrollment,” KU officials wrote in a message to campus.

    Source link