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  • These 4 trends are shaping the 2025-26 school year

    These 4 trends are shaping the 2025-26 school year

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    A new school year is upon us — and as with any year, the return to the classroom brings with it an array of challenges both novel and familiar.

    Shifting enrollments alone present existential challenges for many school systems as declining birth rates result in lower student populations, which public schools are now in greater competition to attract and retain. Compounding those challenges are newer hurdles like artificial intelligence and a changing federal policy landscape that are impacting approaches to teaching and learning.

    To help you unpack the obstacles and opportunities on the table this fall, here are four trends to watch in the 2025-26 school year.

    Enrollment crucial as budgets tighten

    As the new school year begins, fall enrollment numbers will be crucial for district budgets, said Marguerite Roza, a research professor and director of Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab. 

    Due to federal COVID-19 emergency relief funds, many districts appeared to ignore the realities of their declining enrollment, she said. However, when relief funding dissipates and budgets tighten, districts need to keep a very close eye on their fall enrollment: Even if it’s just 1% lower or higher than forecasted, that will be “super important” for schools’ bottom lines, Roza said.

    For some districts, an influx of migrant students has offset declines in non-migrant student populations, Roza said. But that kind of enrollment growth is worth keeping an eye on, she said — especially amid the Trump administration’s heightened immigration enforcement policies. Though schools cannot record a student’s immigration status, a drop in English learners could be a signal of that change, she said.

    Additionally, districts should look for declines in kindergarten or at secondary grade levels, Roza said. If a district has fewer kindergarteners but strong high school enrollment, for instance, then it has a birthrate problem, she said. But if it’s a more widespread issue, it may be that people are moving out of the area.

    Growing school choice policies may also have an impact on enrollment down the line, Roza said.

    Some districts with significant and ongoing enrollment drops will also have to make tough decisions this school year about the future of their schools. For instance, district leaders in Atlanta, Austin and St. Louis public schools are all currently considering whether they should close or consolidate school buildings due to budget challenges and enrollment declines.

    Federal policy whiplash persists

    Schools continue to face the whiplash of the Trump administration’s drastic shift in and rapid enforcement of federal policies, which have included the withholding of federal funding in some cases. That’s especially true for districts’ policies related to LGBTQ+ issues as well as diversity, equity and inclusion.

    Whereas the Biden administration encouraged the inclusion and protection of transgender students, for instance, the Trump administration quickly and forcefully reversed course. Federal officials have so far made an example out of multiple education agencies — including in Maine, California, Minnesota and major districts in Northern Virginia — for what it says are violations of Title IX. Those violations have included allowing transgender students to play on women’s and girls’ sports teams.

    Schools have also been under the microscope for practices meant to level the playing field for Black and brown students, which the administration says are discriminatory against White and Asian students in some cases. In April, for example, the department launched an investigation into Chicago Public Schools for its “Black Students Success Plan.”

    Many civil rights organizations, teacher organizations and sometimes even school districts, however, have challenged the Trump administration’s policies, which they say have been made in some cases without going through the proper legal channels and violate students’ rights. As those cases work their way through the courts, policies continue to shift. In one case, key efforts by the administration to roll back DEI measures — including a requirement from the administration that asked districts to certify they are not incorporating DEI in their schools — were blocked by a judge in August, at the launch of the 2025-26 school year.

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  • 6 higher education trends to watch for in the 2025-26 academic year

    6 higher education trends to watch for in the 2025-26 academic year

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    This year has already brought big challenges to the higher education sector, from major shifts in federal policy to massive cuts in government research funding. 

    As college leaders gear up for the 2025-26 academic year, they’re staring down even more change ahead.

    The U.S. Department of Education is undertaking massive regulatory changes, the Trump administration is ramping up investigations into colleges, and Republican lawmakers are continuing their crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion. 

    Below, we’re rounding up six trends we’re keeping tabs on.

    Trump and Republicans usher in a new era of financial retrenchment

    Last year, colleges slashed spending on staff, faculty, programs and more in response to difficult enrollment realities and rising costs. The budget pressures have only intensified for many in the higher education world since President Donald Trump took office in January. 

    The Trump administration has targeted about $3.3 billion in grant funding for termination at public and private universities nationwide — about $206 per student — according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress. 

    In addition to contractions in research spending, institutions are juggling myriad changes to federal policy by Trump and congressional Republicans that could have significant effects on institutional budget planning. This includes a more fraught environment for international students, cuts to federal student lending and a higher endowment tax, to name just a few. 

    As they brace for a painful new era of higher ed, institutions of all kinds — from Stanford University to the University of Nebraska — are freezing hiring, offering buyouts, laying off faculty and staff, and pulling back on capital projects.

    The new legal minefield

    The Trump administration’s legal and financial warfare against Harvard University has grabbed an outsized share of headlines, and arguably for good reason. Harvard is the richest and oldest college in the U.S. If the administration succeeds in a multi-agency, omnidirectional attack on the institution, where does that leave the rest of the nation’s colleges? 

    Facing this question, some institutions have already made deals with the Trump administration as they attempt to maintain their federal funding and stay out of legal battles. Others are reported or confirmed to be in negotiations with the federal government. And many colleges are facing a difficult balancing act between mission and compliance.

    In its attacks on colleges, the Trump administration has introduced novel and aggressive readings of civil rights laws and U.S. Supreme Court cases, as well as threatened vast sums of funding for colleges it considers out of compliance with federal statute. 

    For instance, the Education Department deemed the University of Pennsylvania in violation of civil rights law for prior policies allowing transgender women to play on sports teams aligning with their gender identity. Penn became one of the first colleges to strike a deal with the administration rather than risk the sort of multi-agency attack — complete with prolonged litigation — being deployed against Harvard. 

    Meanwhile, federal agencies suspended nearly $600 million in funding from the University of California, Los Angeles over allegations that it violated civil rights law because it didn’t do enough to respond to a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on its campus in spring 2024. Police cleared the encampment at the university’s request after less than a week. 

    Among other legal risks under Trump, policies meant to support transgender students or diversity programs can now potentially prompt prosecution of a college under the False Claims Act, a federal law dealing with fraud in government contracting. That’s according to a May message from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche introducing the Civil Rights Fraud Initiative that specifically listed colleges as potential False Claims Act targets.

    New regulations coming down the pike

    The Education Department has its work cut out for it over the next year. That’s because the agency must craft regulations to carry out the higher education-related provisions of the sweeping domestic policy bill passed by Republican lawmakers this summer. 

    The changes under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — which has been slammed by many higher education advocates — are vast. 

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  • Where do states stand on college and career readiness metrics?

    Where do states stand on college and career readiness metrics?

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    Dive Brief:

    • While nearly every state has some form of college and career readiness criteria for high school students, there are still areas for growth in how data on students’ postsecondary readiness is collected, according to a July report from All4Ed and the Urban Institute. 
    • Though criteria vary depending on each state’s priorities and goals, 42 states currently use at least one college and career readiness indicator in their school accountability systems.
    • Accountability systems include both indicators and measures. The report defines indicators as offering information on a critical aspect of school performance, while measures are the data points used within an indicator to determine whether particular student inputs or outcomes were achieved.

    Dive Insight:

    “Forty-two states are using a college and career readiness indicator, that’s great progress,” said Anne Hyslop, All4Ed’s director of policy development and the report’s author. “All of these measures have been developed in the last decade or so.”

    The report found that 39 of the 42 states with indicators include both college and career readiness measures, and 20 of these states also measure military or civic readiness.

    Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate courses and exams are the most common measures of college readiness, used by 35 states. They are followed by dual or concurrent enrollment coursework (34 states) and college admission test scores, such as the SAT and ACT (26 states).

    For career readiness assessment, earning industry-recognized credentials or completing a career and technical education pathway are the most common measures. Some states also use work-based learning or internships.  

    Hyslop noted that not all states have a clear distinction between indicators for college, career and military readiness. Some states combine several measures into a single indicator, while others group different sets of measures into multiple indicators. 

    “This is where getting better transparency and data would be really helpful,” Hyslop said. “A lot of states may report readiness across all of the measures, but they don’t report how many students are ready for college, how many are ready for career, etc. They don’t report it separately.”

    The report highlighted North Dakota as a good example of this distinction. The state’s indicator, Choice Ready, has a list of essential skills required of all students that align with the state’s graduation requirements. Once students have demonstrated these essential skills, they need to show readiness in two of three areas: postsecondary ready, workforce ready or military ready. 

    For Hyslop, improving data collection is the “lowest-hanging fruit.” 

    “There is so much data that is being collected on student readiness, but the way that it is reported is not necessarily leading to the maximum value from that data, because it’s not always fully disaggregated by student subgroups,” said Hyslop. “It’s just a matter of packaging it in more useful formats.”

    The outlier states that do not currently have a college and career readiness indicator are Alaska, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oregon and Wisconsin, according to the report. Illinois is currently in the final stages of developing its indicator.

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  • Partnership? Students in Scotland need protection

    Partnership? Students in Scotland need protection

    It’s easy to trace differences in culture back much further – arguably right back to Bologna in 1088, and the Rectors of the Ancients in the 15th Century.

    But at the very least since 2003, students’ unions in England have looked North of the border jealously at a country so committed to student partnership that it created a statutory agency to drive it.

    Partnership at all levels thrives when there’s will, time, and frankly, money. It’s tougher to reflect the principles of students having power when times are tight – when the excel sheets no longer add up, when restructures have to be planned, and when cuts have to be crafted to the facilities and services that students have been inputting on for years.

    Beyond the potentially apocryphal stories of truly student-led institutions in ancient times, students in any system are bound to be treated as, and regard themselves as, at best junior partners – with, both at individual and collective levels, a significant power asymmetry.

    In such scenarios, when leaders spend their days choosing between any number of awful options, it’s often going to be the least institutionally risky path that’s taken. And the danger is that students – who previously might have relied on partnership to secure their interests – now really need protection instead.

    I spend quite a bit of time here lamenting the implementation of protection measures for students in England. But in conversations with students and their leaders in Scotland, I’m now finding myself repeatedly reflecting on the fact that at least, in England, there are some.

    3 months to open your email

    Take complaints. The Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) doesn’t always generate the answer that student complainants would like – it often feels too distant, and at least temporally, hard to access.

    It also has a tendency to seek resolution when it’s sometimes justice that should prevail – and increasingly feels like providers are paying students off (often with NDAs for non-harassment complaints) before they get there.

    But in Scotland, students have to use the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO). As I type, “due to an increase in the volume of cases” it is currently receiving, there is a delay of 12 weeks in allocating complaints to a reviewer.

    Some comfort that will be to the international PGT who has cause to complain in month 10 of their studies, only to have to encounter a complaint, an appeal, and then a further 12 weeks just to get the SPSO to open their letter. UKVI will have ensured they’re long gone.

    It’s clear that few get as far as the SPSO. When it investigates a complaint, it usually reports its findings and conclusions in what it calls a decision letter – and these findings are published as decision reports. Since May 2021, just ten have been published.

    Either students in Scotland have much less to complain about than their counterparts in England and Wales, or universities in Scotland are much better at resolving complaints, or this is a system that obviously isn’t working.

    Never OK

    Then there’s harassment and sexual misconduct. Just under a year ago Universities Scotland’s update on anti-harassment work suggested a system of protection that’s patchy at best.

    37 per cent of institutions weren’t working with survivors to inform their approach, 21 per cent didn’t have policies allowing for preventative suspension where necessary, and only 71 per cent of institutions had “updated their policies” following guidance from UUK on staff-student relationships – which could still mean all 19 universities are permitting staff to pursue students.

    Universities Scotland acknowledges that most identify funding as a barrier, but England’s regulator makes clear that providers “must” deploy necessary resources, with higher-risk institutions expected to invest more. If you can’t fund student safety properly, perhaps you shouldn’t be operating is the message in England.

    And there’s no sign that Scotland will be taking part in the prevalence research that’s been piloted in England.

    Cabinet Secretary Jenny Gilruth’s praise for Scotland’s “partnership approach” suggested either complacency or a failure to grasp that Scotland is sliding toward being significantly less robust than England in protecting students. When partnership fails to deliver safety, protection becomes essential – and on harassment, it feels like Scotland is failing to provide either adequately.

    Best practice should not be voluntary

    Or take mental health. While Wales has responded to parliamentary concerns about consistency by accepting recommendations for a “common framework for mental health support” backed by registration and funding conditions, Scotland continues to rely on voluntary approaches that deliver patchy outcomes.

    The Welsh government’s response to its Children, Young People and Education Committee shows what serious commitment looks like. New MEDR registration conditions will require clear expectations for student wellbeing, supported by data collection requirements, evaluation frameworks, and crucially, funding considerations built into budget allocations.

    There’s partnership rhetoric – but it’s partnership backed by regulatory teeth. Wales has grasped what Scotland appears to miss – that “best practice should not be voluntary” when student lives are at stake, as one bereaved parent told Westminster’s Petitions Committee.

    The Welsh approach is set to recognise that students need “parity of approach” and “consistency between departments, institutions, and academic teams” – something that purely voluntary frameworks cannot deliver.

    Scotland’s reliance on institutional goodwill for mental health provision increasingly looks naive. Maintaining flexibility for institutions to design services suited to their contexts, is one thing – but Wales will ensure baseline standards that students can depend on regardless of which university they attend.

    The contrast is stark – Wales will treat student mental health as a regulatory priority requiring systematic oversight, while Scotland appears content to hope that partnership alone in a context of dwindling funding will somehow deliver consistency. When partnership fails to protect the most vulnerable students, Wales will have built backup systems – Scotland has built excuses about funding pressures that Welsh universities face too.

    Promises promises

    Then there’s consumer protection – or, as I like to rebrand it, delivering on the promises made to students. It’s easy to assume that students in Scotland aren’t covered – but plenty do pay fees, and those that don’t are supposed to be protected too.

    But over two and a half years since the Competition and Markets Authority revised its guidance to universities on compliance, there seems to be a nationwide problem. Of the 16 universities I’ve looked at in Scotland, 15 still include contractual terms limiting liability in the event of a strike involving their own staff – something CMA has advised is unlawful, and which OfS is effectively enforcing in cases like Newcastle.

    In a year when strikes are more likely, why should students in Scotland not be afforded the same rights to the education they’ve signed up for than their English counterparts?

    The CMA also bans clauses that limit compensation for breach of contract to the total paid in fees – something that would be very attractive in Scotland for obvious reasons. Yet 14 of the country’s universities continue to publish contractual terms that apparently allow them to with impunity. Several have highly problematic clauses on in-contract fee increases too.

    And CMA’s guidance on “variation clauses” – that should not result in too wide an ability to vary the course or services that were offered when students signed up – looks like it’s been flouted too.

    I’m no lawyer, but most universities in Scotland seem to be affording themselves the right to pretty much change anything and everything – and when finances are as tight as they are, that means students and their complaints about cuts can be bottom of the risk register, if they feature at all.

    You’re the voice

    Or take student voice itself. The mandatory Learner Engagement Code required by the Tertiary Education and Research (Wales) Act 2022 could be transformative – moving from “should” to “must” with genuine comply-or-explain mechanisms, protected status for student representatives, and mandatory training on rights and responsibilities for all students. Or it could emerge as something weak and vague, disappointing everyone who fought to get student engagement into primary legislation.

    But at least there is one. At minimum, Wales recognises that student partnership requires legal backing, not just goodwill that evaporates when finances get tight. Scotland’s partnership model, for all its historical reputation, increasingly looks like an expensive way of avoiding the hard work of building systems that actually protect students when partnership fails.

    However flawed, students in England now have new rights over freedom of speech – including a right to not be stopped from speaking on the basis of “reputational impact” on the provider. Several Scottish universities seem to have extraordinarily wide exemptions for “disrepute” and “reputation” that are almost certainly in breach of the Human Rights Act.

    You could even, at a stretch, look at cuts and closures. For all the poor implementation and enforcement of a system designed to protect students when their campus, course, university or pathway is closed in England, at least the principle is in place. Student Protection Plans are required in Scotland by SAAS for private providers – but not of universities. Why?

    We voted against Brexit

    I could go on. Scotland regularly positions itself as more European than England, particularly in higher education where the “partnership approach” is often presented as evidence of continental-style governance. Scottish politicians invoke European models when defending their policies, suggesting Scotland’s collaborative approach mirrors sophisticated systems across the continent.

    Yet European student rights frameworks put Scotland to shame. In Serbia, students have the legal right to nutrition, rest and cultural activities. In Sweden, students enjoy the same workplace protections as employees under the Work Environment Act. In Lithuania, there’s a minimum amount of campus space allocated per student by law, and student representatives hold veto power over university senate decisions – if they use it, a special committee reviews the issue and a two-thirds majority is required to override.

    In Latvia, students’ unions receive at least 0.05% of the annual university budget by law, with legal rights to request information from any department on matters affecting students. In Poland, students have guaranteed rights to study programmes where at least 30 per cent of credits are elective, and universities must consult student governments when appointing managers with student affairs responsibilities. Student protests and strikes are specifically protected, with mediation rights.

    In the Netherlands, universities must inform the national confidential inspector whenever staff may have engaged in harassment involving students – and any staff hearing about allegations must report them to management. Spain mandates every university has an independent ombudsperson with statutory reporting duties. In Croatia, universities are legally obliged to provide students’ unions workspace, co-finance their activities, and offer administrative support. And Austrian students make up significant proportions of curriculum committees by statute, ensuring programmes remain flexible and career-relevant.

    Can I get the Bill

    It’s not as if there isn’t a legal vehicle that could improve things. The Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill is weaving its way through the Scottish Parliament as we speak – but it couldn’t be weaker in protections for students if it tried.

    • Section 8 allows the new Council, when conducting efficiency studies, to consider “the extent to which the needs and interests of students are being met” and then issue recommendations to universities and colleges. But recommendations are not binding.
    • Section 11 amends the 2005 Act to require the Council, in exercising its functions, to “have regard to the desirability of protecting and promoting the interests of current and prospective learners.” Again, this is a duty on the Council, not directly on universities, and is about regard rather than enforceable standards.
    • Section 18 allows Scottish Ministers to designate private providers so that their students can access public student support. That’s a consumer-style protection, but it’s about access to funding rather than quality or rights.
    • Section 19–20 updates the rules around how student support is administered and delegated — but again, that’s more about machinery than protections.

    There’s no new regulatory framework for how universities behave towards students (on contracts, teaching quality, complaints handling, etc.). There are no rights conferred directly on students — no duty of fair treatment, no consumer protection-style obligations, no statutory complaints rights.

    Universities themselves are not made subject to enforceable duties in the Bill, beyond existing general oversight via the Funding Council. And while the Council can give guidance (section 10) and issue recommendations (section 8), institutions are only required to “have regard” rather than comply.

    Cakeism in Scotland

    Models of student partnership have served Scotland well over the decades – and should continue to. After all, learning outcomes take two to tango – and that’s true from the classroom right up the boardroom.

    But right now here in 2025, partnership often feels like a luxury for when rivers of money start flowing back in – and even the most well meaning and moral SMT or Court has a duty to protect the institution before it protects its students.

    Ultimately, partnership and protection should not feel like mutual exclusives, or something a country should choose. It’s perfectly possible, and in the current funding climate, deeply desirable, for students to have both.

    Scottish ministers – through a new section of the Funding and Governance Bill – should legislate to make it so.

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  • New York Passes Law Requiring Title VI Coordinators

    New York Passes Law Requiring Title VI Coordinators

    Many institutions, including the SUNY system, have invested in Title VI coordinators in recent months.

    Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | howtogoto/iStock/Getty Images

    New York is mandating that all colleges in the state designate a coordinator to oversee investigations into discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin and shared ancestry, which is prohibited under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office announced Wednesday.

    According to Hochul, the state is the first in the country to pass such a law.

    “By placing Title VI coordinators on all college campuses, New York is combating antisemitism and all forms of discrimination head-on,” she said in the press release. “No one should fear for their safety while trying to get an education. It’s my top priority to ensure every New York student feels safe at school, and I will continue to take action against campus discrimination and use every tool at my disposal to eliminate hate and bias from our school communities.”

    Many colleges have begun hiring for Title VI coordinator roles in the past several months in response to the surge in reports of antisemitism and Islamophobia following Hamas’s fatal Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israeli civilians. In some cases, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights required institutions to add these roles after finding that they failed to adequately address complaints of discrimination on their campuses.

    The State University of New York system had already mandated each of its campuses to bring on a Title VI coordinator by the fall 2025 semester.

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  • Extremist Group Claims Responsibility for “Swatting” Calls

    Extremist Group Claims Responsibility for “Swatting” Calls

    The University of Colorado Boulder is one of more than a dozen schools to receive swatting calls over the past week.

    Aaron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post/Getty Images

    A person who goes by the name Gores online claimed responsibility for the flurry of so-called swatting calls made to colleges and universities over the past several days, Wired reported.

    Gores is the self-proclaimed leader of an online group called Purgatory, which is linked to a violent online extremist network called The Com, according to Wired. Alongside another Purgatory member called tor, Gores began placing fake calls to campus and local emergency services about active shooters about noon Aug. 21, the same day the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Villanova University received swatting calls. 

    As of Wednesday afternoon, Inside Higher Ed counted 19 confirmed swatting calls since Aug. 19, including at Mercer University, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the University of Utah and the University of New Hampshire.

    Not all of the calls placed by Purgatory have been successful. In some cases, authorities correctly identified the calls as hoaxes. When the group placed a call to Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa., a researcher listening in on the call was able to alert the university. The FBI is investigating the uptick in swatting calls and has not publicly confirmed Purgatory’s involvement. Gores told Wired that the swatting spree will continue for another two months. 

    Purgatory offers to make swatting calls for as little as $20, though the price has increased to $95 since this recent campaign of calls began, according to Wired. Three members of Purgatory were arrested in 2024 and pleaded guilty earlier this year for threats made to a Delaware high school, a trailer park in Alabama, Albany International Airport, an Ohio casino and a private residence in Georgia. 

    Ashley Mowreader contributed to this article.

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  • Are States Prepared for Workforce Pell?

    Are States Prepared for Workforce Pell?

    Thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act becoming law this summer, workforce Pell is now a reality and federal aid dollars are expected to flow to low-income students in short-term programs as soon as next July.

    But now comes the hard work of figuring out which programs are eligible—and some states aren’t ready, according to a new report from the State Noncredit Data Project, which helps community college systems track data related to noncredit programs. Not all states collect the data needed to make that determination, and some offer programs that wouldn’t make the cut, the report concluded.

    Under the legislation, short-term programs need to meet certain requirements to qualify for Pell money. For example, state governors need to verify they align with high-skill, high-wage or in-demand jobs. Programs also must be able to build toward a credit-bearing certificate or degree program and be “stackable and portable across more than one employer” unless preparing students for jobs with just one recognized credential. They have to exist for at least a year and meet outcomes goals, including completion and job-placement rates of at least 70 percent. And programs can’t charge tuition higher than graduates’ median “value-added earnings,” or the degree to which their income exceeds 150 percent of the federal poverty line three years out of the program.

    But some states collect more data than others on community colleges’ noncredit education, which encompasses many of the programs likely to qualify for workforce Pell, according to the report. It based its findings on course and program-level data from eight states: Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

    “What we’re going to see is varying degrees of difficulty” for different states, said co-author Mark D’Amico, a higher education professor at University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “States that have more robust data on noncredit community college education are going to be at a little bit of an advantage.”

    The report found that most states track basic metrics such as the length of a program. But two out of the eight states had no state-level data on noncredit credential outcomes. Half of the states didn’t collect any data on labor market outcomes like earnings and employment rates. And multiple states didn’t keep track of whether students completed credentials or went on to pursue credit-bearing programs. The report emphasized that while individual institutions might have more detailed data on their programs, gaps in statewide data could create challenges as states work with institutions to prove their programs’ eligibility for workforce Pell.

    “Most states have some of the fundamental data,” D’Amico said, “but I think when it comes to the credentials’ labor market outcomes, completion, stackability, those are going to be a little bit more difficult to identify.”

    The report predicted that some states, like Iowa, Louisiana and Virginia, may have an easier time proving which programs meet the criteria because they already have state funding for noncredit programs that requires colleges to report relevant data. For example, Iowa includes noncredit education in its state funding formula for workforce training programs, and Louisiana has a state scholarship for such programs.

    Co-author Michelle Van Noy, director of the Education and Employment Research Center at Rutgers University, said states’ data infrastructure for noncredit programs is still a “work in progress,” but she’s seen “quite a progression” in recent years. She’s optimistic they’ll continue to improve.

    “It is my hope that Workforce Pell implementation can be done in a way that will support the broader development of data and quality systems for noncredit education and nondegree credentials within states,” Van Noy wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed.

    But data isn’t the only issue. The report also found that typical noncredit programs weren’t necessarily long enough to meet the standards for workforce Pell. Except for lengthier workforce programs at the Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology, the median number of hours for occupational training programs ranged from 15 hours in New Jersey to 100 hours in Virginia, falling short of the 150-hour, eight-week threshold. Institutions could group their courses into longer programs in the coming months. But it’s not yet clear if making such a change would affect the requirement that programs exist for at least a year.

    “Anyone that may be thinking that all of a sudden, all noncredit programs are going to be eligible, the data show that’s not the case,” D’Amico said. “We’ll see what happens over time.”

    The report offered a set of recommendations for how states can ready themselves for workforce Pell. For example, it urged state officials to take stock of which metrics they still need to collect to fall in line with the policy’s guardrails and encouraged state and college officials to work together to start identifying programs that could be eligible. The report also suggested colleges consider reconfiguring programs so noncredit offerings serve as on-ramps to credit-bearing programs and meet other structural requirements.

    Further details about how workforce Pell will work are going to be hashed out in a negotiated rule-making process this fall, but D’Amico said states shouldn’t wait for that.

    “I would use the guardrails now, use the data that they have now, to begin to do that pre-identification” so they have “a little bit of time to begin to fill some of those gaps in existing data,” D’Amico said.

    He also hopes states’ preparation for workforce Pell pushes forward “a larger conversation” they’re already having about the quality of short-term noncredit programs over all.

    The overarching goal is “ensuring that noncredit programs are designed well, have credentials associated with them linked to further education and are really designed in a way that’s going to be beneficial to students and ultimately help the local and state economies that these programs are going to serve,” D’Amico said.

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  • “Happiness Effect” of Higher Ed “Fades in Richer Places”

    “Happiness Effect” of Higher Ed “Fades in Richer Places”

    In recent decades, the extra money that graduates earn has been touted as a good reason to attend university. But that has recently come under scrutiny with evidence suggesting the graduate premium has fallen.

    And now two separate papers have found that another supposed benefit of higher education—increased lifetime happiness—is also not quite as straightforward as thought.

    A new study, which analyzed data from 36 countries, reveals that both higher education graduates and the rest of the population experience a steady increase in well-being as a country’s social and economic prosperity gradually improves.

    However, the well-being gains associated with higher education were found to “level off” when a country becomes more economically developed.

    Therefore, the paper argues that graduates in countries with lower GDP per capita experience greater relative gains in terms of economic security, social mobility, higher social status and life satisfaction—leading to a higher sense of well-being.

    In contrast, the “happiness advantage” of a university degree in countries with a higher GDP per capita is less pronounced.

    The paper suggests that stress and dissatisfaction can be caused by rising expectations, increased competition and a “relentless emphasis on achievement,” particularly among highly educated individuals.

    “Highly educated individuals in more prosperous countries are generally much happier than their counterparts in less prosperous countries, although they may be less happy than less educated individuals within their own country,” writes author Samitha Udayanga, a doctoral candidate at the University of Bremen.

    This suggests that the happiness derived from higher education tends to weaken in wealthier countries, he adds.

    A separate study published in June found that the level of happiness associated with completing college has quadrupled since the mid-1970s.

    The study of over 35,000 people in the U.S. showed that higher education has shifted over this time from contributing to happiness through occupations to improving wages.

    The “happiness return” of higher education increased over the 45 years of the study and remains higher than the happiness linked to not studying for a degree.

    But the researchers discovered it “nosedived” in 2021–22 during the COVID-19 pandemic. And satisfaction linked to postgraduate degrees has stalled since the 2000s.

    “University graduates in contemporary America have a certain chance of gaining monetary rewards [by] bypassing occupations, resulting in a relatively higher probability of feeling happy,” they said. “Meanwhile, the same mechanism rarely operates for advanced degree holders, whose happiness largely depends on their occupational attainment.”

    The paper concludes that the overall happiness premium for higher education at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level may “vanish once their economic rewards become less pronounced.”

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  • Mary Baldwin President Suddenly Resigns

    Mary Baldwin President Suddenly Resigns

    Jeff Stein was the first male president of Mary Baldwin University since 1976.

    Liz Albro Photography/iStock/Getty Images

    Mary Baldwin University president Jeff Stein resigned Tuesday after two years in the role, The News Leader reported. Fall classes at the formerly all-women private university in Staunton, Va., started Monday. 

    A university spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed that Stein resigned for personal reasons, and the university has not shared any other information about his departure.

    Stein was the first male president at Mary Baldwin since 1976 and assumed the role in 2023 after former president Pamela Fox retired. The university’s Board of Trustees appointed Todd Telemeco, who was the vice president and dean of Mary Baldwin’s Murphy Deming College of Health Sciences, as Stein’s permanent replacement. 

    “We thank Dr. Stein and his wife, Chrissy, for their two years of service to the University, and we wish them the best in their future endeavors. We are especially grateful for Dr. Stein’s ability to reinvigorate the connection between the University and our alumni,” board co-chairs Eloise Chandler and Constance Dierickx wrote in a statement. “This renewed energy in alumni relations has also contributed to significantly higher alumni giving rates.”

    Prior to becoming president at Mary Baldwin, Stein served as vice president for strategic initiatives and partnerships and an associate professor of English at Elon University in North Carolina.

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  • Embracing Transparency After a Rankings Scandal

    Embracing Transparency After a Rankings Scandal

    It’s college rankings season again, a time of congratulations, criticism and, occasionally, corrections for institutions and the organizations that rate them.

    Typically U.S. News & World Report, the giant of the college rankings world, unranks some institutions months after its results are published over data discrepancies that are usually the result of honest mistakes. But in rare instances, erroneous data issues aren’t mistakes but outright fraud. And when that happens, it can result in soul-searching and, ideally, redemption for those involved.

    That’s what happened at Temple University, which was rocked by a rankings scandal in 2018, when it became clear that Moshe Porat, the dean of Temple’s Richard J. Fox School of Business and Management, had knowingly provided false data to U.S. News for years in a successful effort to climb the rankings. Temple’s online master of business administration soared to No. 1—until the scheme was exposed. U.S. News temporarily unranked the program, the U.S. Department of Education hit Temple with a $700,000 fine and Porat was convicted of fraud.

    Since then, Temple has worked hard to restore its reputation. In the aftermath of the scandal, officials imposed universitywide changes to how it handles facts and figures, establishing a Data Verification Unit within the Ethics and Compliance Office. Now any data produced by the university goes through a phalanx of dedicated fact-checkers, whether it’s for a rankings evaluation or an admissions brochure.

    A Culture Shift

    Temple’s Data Verification Unit was introduced in 2019 amid the fallout of the rankings scandal.

    At first, it gave rise to “friction points,” as university officials were required to go through new processes to verify data before it was disseminated, said Susan Smith, Temple’s chief compliance officer. But now she believes the unit has won the trust of colleagues on campus who have bought in to more rigorous fact-checking measures.

    “It’s been an incredibly positive thing for Temple and I think for data integrity over all,” Smith said.

    Initially, Temple partnered with an outside law firm to verify data and lay the groundwork for the unit. Now that is all handled in-house by a small team that works across the university.

    While Smith said “the vast majority of mistakes” she sees “are innocent,” her team is there “to act as a sort of backstop” and to “verify that the data is accurate, that there’s integrity in the data.”

    The Data Verification Unit also provides training on best practices for data use and dissemination.

    University officials believe placing the Data Verification Unit under the centralized Office of Compliance and Ethics—which reports directly to Temple’s Board of Trustees—is unique. And some say the process has created a bit of a culture shift as they run numbers by the unit.

    Temple spokesperson Stephen Orbanek, who joined the university after the rankings scandal, said running news releases by the Data Verification Unit represented a “total change” from the way he was accustomed to operating. And while it can sometimes slow down the release of certain data points or responses to media requests, he said he’s been able to give reporters more robust data.

    He also noted times when Temple has had to pull back on marketing claims and use “less impressive” statistics after the Data Verification Unit flagged issues with materials. As an example, he cited a fact sheet put out by the university in which officials wanted to refer to Temple as a top producer of Fulbright scholars. But the Data Verification Unit insisted that a caveat was needed: The statistic pertained only to the 2022–23 academic year.

    Ultimately, Orbanek sees the Data Verification Unit as a boon for a more transparent campus culture.

    “The culture has just kind of shifted, and you get on board,” Orbanek said.

    Other Rankings Scandals

    Other universities have been less forthcoming about fixing their own data issues.

    In 2022, a professor called out his employer, Columbia University, for submitting inaccurate data to U.S. News, which responded by unranking the institution for a short time. Following the scandal and accusations of fraud by some critics, Columbia announced the university would no longer submit data to U.S. News. Officials argued that the rankings have outsize influence on prospective students but don’t adequately measure institutional quality.

    Yet Columbia still publishes large swaths of data, such as its Common Data Set. Asked how the university has acted to verify data in the aftermath of the rankings scandal, a spokesperson wrote by email that data is “reviewed by a well-established, independent advisory firm to ensure reporting accuracy” but did not respond to a request for more details on the verification processes.

    The University of Southern California also navigated a rankings scandal in 2022. USC provided faulty data to U.S. News for its Rossier School of Education, omitting certain metrics, which helped it rise in the rankings, according to a third-party report that largely blamed a former dean.

    U.S. News temporarily unranked Rossier; graduate students sued the university, accusing officials of falsely advertising rankings based on fraudulent data. That legal battle is ongoing, and earlier this year a judge ruled that the case can proceed as a class action suit.

    Officials did not respond to a request from Inside Higher Ed for comment on whether or how USC has changed the way it verifies data for use in rankings or for other purposes.

    U.S. News also did not respond to specific questions about if or how it verifies that information submitted by institutions to be used for ranking purposes is accurate. A spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed, “U.S. News believes that data transparency and internal accountability practices by educational institutions are good for those institutions and good for consumers.”

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