Based on the latest HEPI data, the Institute estimates the levy could “hamper universities’ ability to compete with institutions in other countries,” said independent researcher Mark Fothergill, who compiled the data.
The proposed 6% levy on international students’ tuition fees was first introduced in the government’s highly anticipated immigration white paper, coming as a surprise to many in the sector.
HEPI has warned that the policy will hit both large internationally engaged universities and smaller specialist institutions. According to the analysis, the largest financial losses are expected to hit big metropolitan universities with high proportions of international students.
Namely, University College London (UCL), which derives 79% of its fee income from non-UK students, could be faced with financial losses of £42m.
Meanwhile, Manchester University and King’s College London (KCL) could also be hit with heavy losses of £27m and £22m respectively, with 19 institutions paying at least £10m.
Stakeholders have pointed out that while the levy is intended to raise money for the “higher education and skills system”, it is unclear if all the money will come back out of the treasury, and how it will be spent if it does.
“International students are the backbone of our higher education system, contributing over £10 billion in fees to English universities – around £4.50 of every £10 of fee income,” Fothergill said.
“No wonder the 6% levy is seen as a tax on one of the country’s best-performing sectors,” he added.
With more details expected in the autumn budget, universities are left with two options: pass the cost onto students and become less competitive or absorb the costs and leave less funding for teaching and research, HEPI suggested.
While universities haven’t announced to what extent they would try to absorb the extra costs, a reduction in international student numbers – whose fees subsidise university research – would also hamper sector finances.
Speaking at a conference last month, the UK skills minister Jacqui Smith maintained the government was “not levying international students directly”, suggesting it would help show students’ economic contribution to local communities.
The levy is a shadow looming large over universities as they prepare for the next academic year
Nick Hillman, HEPI
“Threatening an expensive new tax on one of the country’s most successful sectors with only a rough idea of how the money will be used seems far from ideal,” said HEPI director Nick Hillman.
“Currently, the levy is a shadow looming large over universities as they prepare for the next academic year,” he added.
Amid policy volatility in other markets, the UK has increasingly been cited by students as the most stable of the ‘big four’ study destinations, with stakeholders keen to preserve this reputation.
“There are good reasons why Australia opted not to implement a levy when it was proposed there a couple of years ago,” warned Fothergil.
With the UK higher education sector already facing severe financial headwinds, Hillman said university leaders were worried the levy will be “yet another weight dragging them down in the struggle to remain globally competitive”.
According to OfS data, 72% of providers could be in deficit by 2025/26, with a sector-wide deficit totalling £1.6bn.
Alongside the levy, the government’s white paper proposed shortening the graduate route visa from two years to 18 months, and tougher Basic Compliance Assessments (BCA), with the latter set to be introduced in September.
Educators have sought to understand why some students persist in overcoming challenges, while others do not. We present an exploration of growth mindset initiatives as factors that promote persistence and student success in online courses. This exploratory review focuses on the relevant literature, includes practical suggestions for classroom applications in online courses, and indicates avenues for future research.
Online college courses have surged post-COVID-19, but attrition rates remain high. Research highlights resilience, course design, institutional support, and faculty interaction as key factors in student persistence. Yang, Baldwin, and Snelson (2017) found that personal goals, community, family support, and time management were crucial for graduate students, while first-year students had different needs. Despite challenges, universities continue expanding online programs. Building a sense of community and supporting a positive mindset can help students manage stress and persist. Colleges are encouraged to integrate mindset and coping strategies into curricula to support online learners’ success.
This review examines how a growth mindset helps students persist despite challenges. Practical strategies are discussed to support students in managing stress and completing online classes. Research highlights the role of mindset, grit, and resilience in achieving long-term goals, though further study is needed. A growth mindset acts as a protective factor during stressful times, fostering confidence and adaptability. Crum et al. (2017) found that viewing stress as enhancing, not debilitating, improves positive affect and cognitive flexibility.
Literature
Selecting credible sources requires considering peer-review status, impact factor, publication date, and current trends. This exploratory review examined scholarly articles for accuracy, credibility, and methodological soundness, using databases like PubMed, Google Scholar, ABI Inform, and EBSCO. Including related works provides context, helping readers understand the connection between a growth mindset and college student persistence.
Mindset
Students with a growth mindset believe intelligence can improve through effort rather than innate talent (Dweck 2000, 2017; Hudig et al. 2022; Tirri and Kujala 2016; Yeager and Walton 2011). Dweck (2006) established a clear link between mindset and achievement, emphasizing that a growth mindset requires support from educators to develop necessary skills. Faculty can enhance motivation by reinforcing mastery, normalizing struggles, and providing resources (Dweck and Leggett 1988; Dweck 2017).
A fixed mindset is the belief that intelligence is unchangeable, leading to feelings of inadequacy and limited problem-solving abilities (Jegathesan et al. 2016; King 2017; Lee et al. 2018; O’Keefe et al. 2018). Karwowski (2014) found that a fixed mindset correlates with lower problem-solving skills. According to Yeager et al. (2019, 364), “the brain is like a muscle that grows stronger and smarter when it undergoes rigorous learning experiences.” This provides a relevant picture of the importance of a growth mindset.
Theoretical
A growth mindset, linked to student persistence, enables learners to set realistic goals and overcome challenges, viewing intelligence as malleable through effort rather than innate talent (Dweck 2006). This mindset encourages risk-taking and learning from mistakes rather than fearing failure. Research shows that resilience, grit, and a growth mindset positively impact learning (Calo et al. 2019). Fostering a growth mindset in college supports persistence by promoting adaptive, exploratory behaviors. A growth mindset can be a protective factor that enables college students to succeed during their educational journeys.
This exploration was an attempt to determine how growth mindset can help students persist in college online classes. Online classroom implications are significant. Regardless of what traits students bring to the classroom, instructors have an opportunity to facilitate and promote a growth mindset in their interactions with students. By focusing on opportunities to embrace change, normalize struggles, foster growth, and improve processes, instructors can help students to feel motivated, empowered, and able to overcome obstacles.
Instructors should provide resources such as tips on approaching tasks or advice about searching for solutions when stuck. This helps foster independence by teaching problem-solving skills that can be applied more broadly throughout life’s challenges and generalized outside of academia. Additionally, open communication between students and instructors allows for questions and comments without judgment. Students feel safe expressing themselves, leading to greater understanding and acceptance that struggle is part of the growth process, fostering a culture of belonging and inclusion in the classroom. Online instructors must be mindful as they compose feedback to promote a sense of purpose and potential growth.
Instructors promote growth mindset by helping students find meaningful value in what they are doing. They can encourage students to overcome obstacles and be resourceful. Ultimately, instructors can steer students away from the tendency to accept a fixed mindset and be willing to embrace challenges as opportunities to expand student thinking and accept that difficulties are part of learning. Instructors should emphasize that mistakes are necessary to achieve success. Sharing personal struggles and stories allows students to see that everyone has challenges in college, even their instructors. Acknowledging setbacks as opportunities instead of focusing on forms of perceived punishment reinforces the idea that effort will ultimately pay off with tangible results down the line, even if it does not happen immediately.
Recommendations for Future Research
Future research should examine other variables to determine the impact of creating a growth mindset culture in the classroom. Exploring how faculty mindsets mediate students’ success has been demonstrated in middle school (Schmidt et al. 2015). Haimovitz and Dweck concluded, “We also know little about how children themselves may affect socializers’ theories and behaviors. Examining these bidirectional processes will benefit our understanding of how a culture of growth can be developed and sustained” (2017, 1856). Little is known about the bidirectional processes of online instructors with their adult students.
Conclusions and Limitations
Since this review was exploratory, the findings were not generalized. The existing research may not represent all college students; that was not the goal. However, scholarly, primary, peer-reviewed studies were carefully selected for methodological soundness, validity, strength, and currency. Although research on growth mindset has been studied across domains and countries, few studies have included faculty mindsets. Another limitation is the lack of statistical strength.
Another limitation of this review is that past research may or may not apply to future students. Recent developments regarding COVID-19 and how it may have impacted students in online college education are just beginning to appear in scholarly databases. Many students who prefer traditional classrooms may opt to enroll in online programs because they view such programs as safer, healthier alternatives. Researchers need to learn how this change in a student’s sense of “normal” impacts the mindset of future students, at least for the foreseeable future.
Instructors forced into online education may have brought new ideas and/or confusion that could impact how online students were taught. It can be argued that there is limited or no research that has studied the impacts on students when the instructor and the students find themselves in an unexpected situation, like the unexpected worldwide pandemic.
Technology has allowed online education to grow and expand in ways that were not expected 20 years ago. Students start college with great expectations, and many of those expectations have been changed by the reality of college in an online environment. This exploratory review has presented some considerations for instructors to encourage students to develop and sustain a growth mindset and remain in their academic program. This may provide ways to help students grow as individuals while addressing the multiple demands of work and family since the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
Dora C.D. Finamore joined Purdue University Global in 2004 and currently serves as a full-time instructor in the School and Business and Information Technology. She has 25 years’ experience in private practice as a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor. Dora earned her EdD in Counseling Psychology from the University of Sarasota and has been a professor of Business and Psychology for 21 years. She serves as a contributing editor for Journal of Education and Learning. Dora’s current research interests are in the areas of motivation, learning strategies, LGBTQ+ cultures, belonging, resilience, and growth and fixed mindset in business and education.
E. Valerie Hewitt joined Purdue University Global, in 2007 and currently is an adjunct instructor in the School of Business and Information Technology. She has over 30 years’ combined online and traditional classroom teaching experience. Valerie holds a Master’s Degree in Education from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and a Master’s Degree in Higher Education with a secondary in psychology from Kaplan University. Her current research interests are in the areas of the retention of first-year online students and early engagement strategies.
Loretta “Laurie” A. Millam joined Purdue University Global in 2002 and currently serves as a Department Chair in the School of Business and Management. She has over 25 years’ combined experience in education. Prior to entering the education field, Loretta worked in Business Management for over 11 years. Loretta holds an MBA from St. Ambrose University and an EdS from Northcentral University. Loretta’s current research interests are in the areas of first-term student retention and early engagement learning strategies.
Michelle M. Reinhardt joined Purdue University Global as a full-time instructor in 2003 and currently serves as a course lead and faculty mentor in the school of Business and Information Technology. Michelle has over 25 years of combined online and traditional classroom teaching experience. She has designed courses, served on various college and university committees, and conducted online faculty workshops as well. Michelle holds a Master’s Degree in Communication Arts/English from Western Colorado University. Her current research interests are in the areas of entrepreneurship, motivation, and student learning and engagement.
Linda S. Watson joined Purdue University Global in 2006 and currently teaches First Term Experience classes in the School of Business and Information Technology. Linda has an MBA from Baker College with a double major in Leadership Studies and Human Resource Management. Her current research interests include the areas of student success and engagement, particularly for first-term students.
References
Calo, Marlena, Casey Peiris, Lucy Chipchase, Felicity Blackstock, and Belinda Judd. 2019. “Grit, Resilience and Mindset in Health Students.” The Clinical Teacher 16(4), 317-322. https://doi.org/10.1111/tct.13056.
Crum, Alia J., Modupe Akinola, Ashley Martin, and Sean Fath. 2017. “The Role of Stress Mindset in Shaping Cognitive, Emotional, and Physiological Responses to Challenging and Threatening Stress.” Anxiety, Stress, & Coping 30 (4): 379–95. doi:10.1080/10615806.2016.1275585.
Dweck, Carol S. 2000. “Self-theories: Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Development.” Psychology Press.
Dweck, Carol S. 2006. “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.” Random House.
Dweck, Carol S. 2017. “From Needs to Goals and Representations: Foundations for a Unified Theory of Motivation, Personality, and Development.” Psychological Review 124(6), 689–719. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000082.
Dweck, Carol S., and Ellen L. Leggett. 1988. “A Social-cognitive Approach to Motivation and Personality.” Psychological Review 95(2), 256–273. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.95.2.256.
Haimovitz, Kyla., and Carol S. Dweck. 2017. “The Origins of Children’s Growth and Fixed Mindsets: New Research and a New Proposal.” Child Development88(6), 1849–1859. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12955.
Hudig, Job, Ad W. A. Scheepers, Michaéla C. Schippers, and Guus Smeets. 2022. “Motivational Mindsets, Mindset Churn and Academic Performance: The Role of a Goal-setting Intervention and Purpose in Life.” Current Psychology 42 (27): 23349–68. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03462-8.
Jegathesan, Mithila, Yaffa M. Vitberg, and Martin V. Pusic. 2016. “A Survey of Mindset Theories of Intelligence and Medical Error Self-reporting among Pediatric House Staff and Faculty.” BMC Medical Education 16, 58. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-016-0574-8.
Karwowski, Maciej. 2014. “Creative Mindsets: Measurement, Correlates, Consequences.” Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 8(1), 62–70. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034898.
King, Ronnel B. 2017. “A Fixed Mindset Leads to Negative Affect: The Relations between Implicit Theories of Intelligence and Subjective Well-being.” Zeitschrift Für Psychologie 225(2), 137–145. https://doi.org/10.1027/2151-2604/a000290.
Lee, C. Christopher, Jacqueline Trahan, Peter Maltby, Venessa Hemraj, and Heidi Hughes. 2018. “Mindset, Job Satisfaction and Employee Engagement at Workplace: Preliminary Results.” Proceedings for the Northeast Region Decision Sciences Institute (NEDSI) 640–659. https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=32621573-85d0-36bf-9aaa-7caf0d256b8b.
Tirri, Kirsi and Teija Kujala. 2016. ”Students’ Mindsets for Learning and their Neural Underpinnings.” Psychology 7(9), 1231-1239. https://doi.org/10.4236/psych.2016.79125.
Yang, Dazhi, Sally Baldwin, and Chareen Snelson. 2017. “Persistence Factors Revealed: Students’ Reflections on Completing a Fully Online Program.” Distance Education 38 (1): 23–36. doi:10.1080/01587919.2017.1299561.
Yeager, David S., Paul Hanselman, Gregory M. Walton, et al. 2019. “A National Experiment Reveals where a Growth Mindset Improves Achievement.” Nature 573, 364–369. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1466-y.
Yeager, David S., and Gregory M. Walton. (2011). “Social-psychological Interventions in Education: They’re not Magic.” Review of Educational Research81(2), 267–301.
Educators have sought to understand why some students persist in overcoming challenges, while others do not. We present an exploration of growth mindset initiatives as factors that promote persistence and student success in online courses. This exploratory review focuses on the relevant literature, includes practical suggestions for classroom applications in online courses, and indicates avenues for future research.
Online college courses have surged post-COVID-19, but attrition rates remain high. Research highlights resilience, course design, institutional support, and faculty interaction as key factors in student persistence. Yang, Baldwin, and Snelson (2017) found that personal goals, community, family support, and time management were crucial for graduate students, while first-year students had different needs. Despite challenges, universities continue expanding online programs. Building a sense of community and supporting a positive mindset can help students manage stress and persist. Colleges are encouraged to integrate mindset and coping strategies into curricula to support online learners’ success.
This review examines how a growth mindset helps students persist despite challenges. Practical strategies are discussed to support students in managing stress and completing online classes. Research highlights the role of mindset, grit, and resilience in achieving long-term goals, though further study is needed. A growth mindset acts as a protective factor during stressful times, fostering confidence and adaptability. Crum et al. (2017) found that viewing stress as enhancing, not debilitating, improves positive affect and cognitive flexibility.
Literature
Selecting credible sources requires considering peer-review status, impact factor, publication date, and current trends. This exploratory review examined scholarly articles for accuracy, credibility, and methodological soundness, using databases like PubMed, Google Scholar, ABI Inform, and EBSCO. Including related works provides context, helping readers understand the connection between a growth mindset and college student persistence.
Mindset
Students with a growth mindset believe intelligence can improve through effort rather than innate talent (Dweck 2000, 2017; Hudig et al. 2022; Tirri and Kujala 2016; Yeager and Walton 2011). Dweck (2006) established a clear link between mindset and achievement, emphasizing that a growth mindset requires support from educators to develop necessary skills. Faculty can enhance motivation by reinforcing mastery, normalizing struggles, and providing resources (Dweck and Leggett 1988; Dweck 2017).
A fixed mindset is the belief that intelligence is unchangeable, leading to feelings of inadequacy and limited problem-solving abilities (Jegathesan et al. 2016; King 2017; Lee et al. 2018; O’Keefe et al. 2018). Karwowski (2014) found that a fixed mindset correlates with lower problem-solving skills. According to Yeager et al. (2019, 364), “the brain is like a muscle that grows stronger and smarter when it undergoes rigorous learning experiences.” This provides a relevant picture of the importance of a growth mindset.
Theoretical
A growth mindset, linked to student persistence, enables learners to set realistic goals and overcome challenges, viewing intelligence as malleable through effort rather than innate talent (Dweck 2006). This mindset encourages risk-taking and learning from mistakes rather than fearing failure. Research shows that resilience, grit, and a growth mindset positively impact learning (Calo et al. 2019). Fostering a growth mindset in college supports persistence by promoting adaptive, exploratory behaviors. A growth mindset can be a protective factor that enables college students to succeed during their educational journeys.
This exploration was an attempt to determine how growth mindset can help students persist in college online classes. Online classroom implications are significant. Regardless of what traits students bring to the classroom, instructors have an opportunity to facilitate and promote a growth mindset in their interactions with students. By focusing on opportunities to embrace change, normalize struggles, foster growth, and improve processes, instructors can help students to feel motivated, empowered, and able to overcome obstacles.
Instructors should provide resources such as tips on approaching tasks or advice about searching for solutions when stuck. This helps foster independence by teaching problem-solving skills that can be applied more broadly throughout life’s challenges and generalized outside of academia. Additionally, open communication between students and instructors allows for questions and comments without judgment. Students feel safe expressing themselves, leading to greater understanding and acceptance that struggle is part of the growth process, fostering a culture of belonging and inclusion in the classroom. Online instructors must be mindful as they compose feedback to promote a sense of purpose and potential growth.
Instructors promote growth mindset by helping students find meaningful value in what they are doing. They can encourage students to overcome obstacles and be resourceful. Ultimately, instructors can steer students away from the tendency to accept a fixed mindset and be willing to embrace challenges as opportunities to expand student thinking and accept that difficulties are part of learning. Instructors should emphasize that mistakes are necessary to achieve success. Sharing personal struggles and stories allows students to see that everyone has challenges in college, even their instructors. Acknowledging setbacks as opportunities instead of focusing on forms of perceived punishment reinforces the idea that effort will ultimately pay off with tangible results down the line, even if it does not happen immediately.
Recommendations for Future Research
Future research should examine other variables to determine the impact of creating a growth mindset culture in the classroom. Exploring how faculty mindsets mediate students’ success has been demonstrated in middle school (Schmidt et al. 2015). Haimovitz and Dweck concluded, “We also know little about how children themselves may affect socializers’ theories and behaviors. Examining these bidirectional processes will benefit our understanding of how a culture of growth can be developed and sustained” (2017, 1856). Little is known about the bidirectional processes of online instructors with their adult students.
Conclusions and Limitations
Since this review was exploratory, the findings were not generalized. The existing research may not represent all college students; that was not the goal. However, scholarly, primary, peer-reviewed studies were carefully selected for methodological soundness, validity, strength, and currency. Although research on growth mindset has been studied across domains and countries, few studies have included faculty mindsets. Another limitation is the lack of statistical strength.
Another limitation of this review is that past research may or may not apply to future students. Recent developments regarding COVID-19 and how it may have impacted students in online college education are just beginning to appear in scholarly databases. Many students who prefer traditional classrooms may opt to enroll in online programs because they view such programs as safer, healthier alternatives. Researchers need to learn how this change in a student’s sense of “normal” impacts the mindset of future students, at least for the foreseeable future.
Instructors forced into online education may have brought new ideas and/or confusion that could impact how online students were taught. It can be argued that there is limited or no research that has studied the impacts on students when the instructor and the students find themselves in an unexpected situation, like the unexpected worldwide pandemic.
Technology has allowed online education to grow and expand in ways that were not expected 20 years ago. Students start college with great expectations, and many of those expectations have been changed by the reality of college in an online environment. This exploratory review has presented some considerations for instructors to encourage students to develop and sustain a growth mindset and remain in their academic program. This may provide ways to help students grow as individuals while addressing the multiple demands of work and family since the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
Dora C.D. Finamore joined Purdue University Global in 2004 and currently serves as a full-time instructor in the School and Business and Information Technology. She has 25 years’ experience in private practice as a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor. Dora earned her EdD in Counseling Psychology from the University of Sarasota and has been a professor of Business and Psychology for 21 years. She serves as a contributing editor for Journal of Education and Learning. Dora’s current research interests are in the areas of motivation, learning strategies, LGBTQ+ cultures, belonging, resilience, and growth and fixed mindset in business and education.
E. Valerie Hewitt joined Purdue University Global, in 2007 and currently is an adjunct instructor in the School of Business and Information Technology. She has over 30 years’ combined online and traditional classroom teaching experience. Valerie holds a Master’s Degree in Education from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and a Master’s Degree in Higher Education with a secondary in psychology from Kaplan University. Her current research interests are in the areas of the retention of first-year online students and early engagement strategies.
Loretta “Laurie” A. Millam joined Purdue University Global in 2002 and currently serves as a Department Chair in the School of Business and Management. She has over 25 years’ combined experience in education. Prior to entering the education field, Loretta worked in Business Management for over 11 years. Loretta holds an MBA from St. Ambrose University and an EdS from Northcentral University. Loretta’s current research interests are in the areas of first-term student retention and early engagement learning strategies.
Michelle M. Reinhardt joined Purdue University Global as a full-time instructor in 2003 and currently serves as a course lead and faculty mentor in the school of Business and Information Technology. Michelle has over 25 years of combined online and traditional classroom teaching experience. She has designed courses, served on various college and university committees, and conducted online faculty workshops as well. Michelle holds a Master’s Degree in Communication Arts/English from Western Colorado University. Her current research interests are in the areas of entrepreneurship, motivation, and student learning and engagement.
Linda S. Watson joined Purdue University Global in 2006 and currently teaches First Term Experience classes in the School of Business and Information Technology. Linda has an MBA from Baker College with a double major in Leadership Studies and Human Resource Management. Her current research interests include the areas of student success and engagement, particularly for first-term students.
References
Calo, Marlena, Casey Peiris, Lucy Chipchase, Felicity Blackstock, and Belinda Judd. 2019. “Grit, Resilience and Mindset in Health Students.” The Clinical Teacher 16(4), 317-322. https://doi.org/10.1111/tct.13056.
Crum, Alia J., Modupe Akinola, Ashley Martin, and Sean Fath. 2017. “The Role of Stress Mindset in Shaping Cognitive, Emotional, and Physiological Responses to Challenging and Threatening Stress.” Anxiety, Stress, & Coping 30 (4): 379–95. doi:10.1080/10615806.2016.1275585.
Dweck, Carol S. 2000. “Self-theories: Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Development.” Psychology Press.
Dweck, Carol S. 2006. “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.” Random House.
Dweck, Carol S. 2017. “From Needs to Goals and Representations: Foundations for a Unified Theory of Motivation, Personality, and Development.” Psychological Review 124(6), 689–719. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000082.
Dweck, Carol S., and Ellen L. Leggett. 1988. “A Social-cognitive Approach to Motivation and Personality.” Psychological Review 95(2), 256–273. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.95.2.256.
Haimovitz, Kyla., and Carol S. Dweck. 2017. “The Origins of Children’s Growth and Fixed Mindsets: New Research and a New Proposal.” Child Development88(6), 1849–1859. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12955.
Hudig, Job, Ad W. A. Scheepers, Michaéla C. Schippers, and Guus Smeets. 2022. “Motivational Mindsets, Mindset Churn and Academic Performance: The Role of a Goal-setting Intervention and Purpose in Life.” Current Psychology 42 (27): 23349–68. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03462-8.
Jegathesan, Mithila, Yaffa M. Vitberg, and Martin V. Pusic. 2016. “A Survey of Mindset Theories of Intelligence and Medical Error Self-reporting among Pediatric House Staff and Faculty.” BMC Medical Education 16, 58. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-016-0574-8.
Karwowski, Maciej. 2014. “Creative Mindsets: Measurement, Correlates, Consequences.” Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 8(1), 62–70. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034898.
King, Ronnel B. 2017. “A Fixed Mindset Leads to Negative Affect: The Relations between Implicit Theories of Intelligence and Subjective Well-being.” Zeitschrift Für Psychologie 225(2), 137–145. https://doi.org/10.1027/2151-2604/a000290.
Lee, C. Christopher, Jacqueline Trahan, Peter Maltby, Venessa Hemraj, and Heidi Hughes. 2018. “Mindset, Job Satisfaction and Employee Engagement at Workplace: Preliminary Results.” Proceedings for the Northeast Region Decision Sciences Institute (NEDSI) 640–659. https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=32621573-85d0-36bf-9aaa-7caf0d256b8b.
Tirri, Kirsi and Teija Kujala. 2016. ”Students’ Mindsets for Learning and their Neural Underpinnings.” Psychology 7(9), 1231-1239. https://doi.org/10.4236/psych.2016.79125.
Yang, Dazhi, Sally Baldwin, and Chareen Snelson. 2017. “Persistence Factors Revealed: Students’ Reflections on Completing a Fully Online Program.” Distance Education 38 (1): 23–36. doi:10.1080/01587919.2017.1299561.
Yeager, David S., Paul Hanselman, Gregory M. Walton, et al. 2019. “A National Experiment Reveals where a Growth Mindset Improves Achievement.” Nature 573, 364–369. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1466-y.
Yeager, David S., and Gregory M. Walton. (2011). “Social-psychological Interventions in Education: They’re not Magic.” Review of Educational Research81(2), 267–301.
Colleges will now be required to report additional admissions data to the National Center for Education Statistics, including data on the race and sex of their applicants, their admitted students and those who chose to enroll, per a memo from Trump to the U.S. Department of Education.Previously, institutions were only required to provide racial data for enrolled students.
Institutions must provide the data for undergraduate students and for certain graduate and professional programs, the Education Department said.
Separately, Trump signed an executive order directing his political appointees to review both grant awards and funding opportunity announcements. These appointees, along with subject matter experts, will evaluate grant decisions to align with the Trump administration’s policy priorities, according to a White House fact sheet.
Together, the two orders take aim at areas the Trump administration is attempting to tightly control — who colleges and universities enroll, and which research projects get federal funding.
In an announcement Thursday, theEducation Departmentsaid the additional admissions data is needed “to ensure race-based preferences are not used in university admissions processes.”
Along with data on applicants’ race and gender, colleges must also include the prospective students’ standardized test scores, GPAs and other academic qualifications. This data will also be collected about admitted and enrolled students.
At the same time, U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon is ordering the National Center for Education Statisticsto develop a process to audit the data to ensure its accuracy.
“We will not allow institutions to blight the dreams of students by presuming that their skin color matters more than their hard work and accomplishments,” McMahon said. “The Trump Administration will ensure that meritocracy and excellence once again characterize American higher education.”
The order comes two years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down race-conscious college admissions in a landmark case involving Harvard Universityand the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Since then, colleges have overhauled their admissions practices, and many selective institutions enrolled lower shares of Black and Hispanic students in the aftermath, according to an analysis from The New York Times.
A new landscape for grants
Trump’s executive order on grant funding castigated much of the current research landscape, decrying awards that went to projects such as developing transgender sexual education programs and training graduate students in critical race theory.
The directive accused other grants of promoting “Marxism, class warfare propaganda, and other anti-American ideologies in the classroom, masked as rigorous and thoughtful investigation.”
Researchers and other groups have sued over past Trump administration attempts to control grant funding,including the cancellation of vast swaths of National Institutes of Health awards to comply with the president’s orders against diversity, equity and inclusion.A federal judge has ruled against the NIH’s grant cancellations, and the U.S. Government Accountability Office has likewise determined they were illegal.
Still, Thursday’s order directs agency heads to revise the terms of existing discretionary grants, “to the maximum extent permitted by law,”to allow them to be immediately terminated, including if an award “no longer advances agency priorities or the national interest.”
When assessing grant applications, senior appointees should weigh if they advance Trump’s policy priorities, according to the directive.
The order says grants should not be used to deny that sex is binary — a view at odds with scientific understanding — or promote “anti-American values.”They also should not be used to promote racial discrimination by awardees, including by using race or proxies to select employees or program participants, the order stated.
In addition, the order says preference for discretionary grants should be given to institutions “with lower indirect cost rates” — all things being equal.
Under the Trump administration, several major agencies have attempted to impose a flat 15% reimbursement rate for colleges’ indirect research costs — which cover expenses like laboratory maintenance and information technology —though courts have either permanently or temporarily blocked those moves.
The White House’s fact sheet suggests the Trump administration may look beyond the research heavyweights in the higher education sector when awarding new grants.
The executive order “directs agencies to award grants to a wide array of meritorious grantees, not just the universities and nonprofits that have received awards year after year,” it said.
President Donald Trump issued an executive action Thursday directing colleges to prove they are not considering race in admissions.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
President Donald Trump issued an executive action Thursday afternoon mandating colleges and universities submit data to verify that they are not unlawfully considering race in admissions decisions.
The order also requires the Department of Education to update the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System to make its data more legible to students and parents and to “increase accuracy checks for data submitted by institutions through IPEDS,” penalizing them for late, incomplete or inaccurate data.
Opponents of race-conscious admissions have hailed the mandate as a victory for transparency in college admissions, but others in the sector have criticized its vague language and question who at the department is left to collect and analyze the data.
“American students and taxpayers deserve confidence in the fairness and integrity of our Nation’s institutions of higher education, including confidence that they are recruiting and training capable future doctors, engineers, scientists, and other critical workers vital to the next generations of American prosperity,” the order reads. “Race-based admissions practices are not only unfair, but also threaten our national security and well-being.”
It’s now up to the secretary of education, Linda McMahon, to determine what new admissions data institutions will be required to report. The administration’s demands of Columbia and Brown Universities in their negotiations to reinstate federal funding could indicate what the requirements will be. In its agreement with Brown, the government ordered the university to submit annual data “showing applicants, admitted students, and enrolled students broken down by race, color, grade point average, and performance on standardized tests.” Colleges will be expected to submit their admissions data for the 2025–26 academic year, according to the order.
What resources are in place to enforce the new requirements remains to be seen. Earlier this year the administration razed the staff at the Department of Education who historically collected and analyzed institutional data. Only three staff members remain in the National Center for Education Statistics, which operates IPEDS.
‘It’s Not Just as Easy as Collecting Data’
Since taking office, the Trump administration has launched a crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education, often using the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against race-conscious admissions as a weapon in the attacks.
Students for Fair Admissions, the anti–affirmative action advocacy group that was the plaintiff in the 2023 cases, called the action a “landmark step” toward transparency and accountability for students, parents and taxpayers.
“For too long, American colleges and universities have hidden behind opaque admissions practices that often rely on racial preferences to shape their incoming classes,” Edward Blum, SFFA president and longtime opponent of race-conscious admissions, said in a press release.
But college-equity advocates sounded the alarm, arguing that the order—which also claims that colleges have been using diversity and other “overt and hidden racial proxies” to continue race-conscious admissions post-SFFA—aims to intimidate colleges into recruiting fewer students of color.
“I will say something that my members in the higher education community cannot say. What the Trump administration is really saying is that you will be punished if you do not admit enough white students to your institution,” Angel B. Pérez, CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, told Inside Higher Ed.
Like many of Trump’s other orders targeting DEI, that mandate relies on unclear terms and instructions. It does not define “racial proxies”—although a memo by the Department of Justice released last week provides examples—nor does it outline what data would prove an institution is or is not considering race in its admissions process.
In an interview with Inside Higher Ed, Paul Schroeder, the executive director of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, questioned the government’s capacity to carry out the president’s order.
“Without NCES, who’s going to actually look at this data? Who’s going to understand this data? Are we going to have uniform reporting or is it going to be just a mess coming in from all these different colleges?” Schroeder said.
“It’s not just as easy as collecting data. It’s not just asking a couple questions about the race and ethnicity of those who were admitted versus those who applied. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of hours. It’s not going to be fast.”
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Brevard Country Public Schools will not rehire the veteran Florida English teacher at the center of an LGBTQ+ controversy over using a student’s preferred name, according to local news reports.
Melissa Calhoun, who taught at Satellite High School and had worked in Brevard County schools for over a decade, was initially reprimanded by the district in April for calling the student by the name they wanted to use.
Her case marked one of the first high-profile incidents of a teacher being disciplined for such a reason in a state that has led the charge for strictly applying anti-LGBTQ+ laws to K-12 classrooms. The rebuke led to her contract not being renewed and her professional certificate being placed under state review. Calhoun ultimately got to keep her teacher’s license under a recent settlement.
The situation arose from Florida’s 2023 law restricting the use in public schools of names and pronouns that don’t align with a student or employee’s sex assigned at birth.
However, by the end of July, the Florida Department of Education’s Education Practices Commission reached a settlement with Calhoun that allowed her to teach on probation for one year, fined her $750, and required her to complete an ethics and education course.
Nonetheless, Brevard County will not rehire Calhoun, according to a statement Superintendent Mark Rendell shared with local media outlets.
“Teachers hold a powerful position of influence, and that influence must never override the rights of parents to be involved in critical decisions affecting their children,” said Rendell. “This was not a mistake. This was a conscious and deliberate decision to engage in gender affirmation without parental knowledge.”
Calhoun, who taught the student before and after the 2023 law, told News 6 that using the student’s preferred name was a mistake. “There wasn’t any intention to subvert this parent’s wishes,” she said. “This happened out of habit and frankly was an unfortunate oversight on my part.”
Rendell said he expects Calhoun to complete the state’s one-year probation requirement “before any consideration of employment.”
Four months prior, Calhoun posted on LinkedIn that she was looking for work elsewhere, primarily in corporate training roles.
Calhoun’s situation comes as “Don’t Say Gay” and other anti-LGBTQ+ state laws raise questions for teachers on how to navigate relationships with students and parents while staying within legal bounds.
According to a survey conducted by RAND Corp. between April and May 2022, when some of the earlier laws were passed and implemented, about 1 in 4 teachers reported that local and state restrictions on race and gender topics had influenced their choices of curriculum materials or instructional practices.
Even outside of states with restrictions, teachers have reported feeling spillover impacts, according to the research.
Teachers told RAND that teaching students under the new laws made the job more difficult, including making it more challenging to engage students in learning, support their critical thinking skills, and develop their ability to engage in different perspectives and build empathy.
LanguageCert Academic, CELPIP General, and the Michigan English Test (MET) are now officially accepted for use in Australian visa applications.
With this update, a total of nine tests from eight different providers are now officially recognised for Australian visa purposes. These include previously accepted options such as IELTS, Pearson (PTE Academic), Cambridge English, TOEFL iBT, and OET. Notably, IELTS Academic and IELTS General Training are now registered as separate tests.
Commenting on the news, Sharon Harvey, CEO of Michigan Language Assessment, said: “We are proud that Michigan Language Assessment has been approved by the government of Australia for MET to be used for Australian visa purposes. This recognition is a clear acknowledgment of the validity and reliability of MET, and of its value in assessing and certifying English language skills.”
We are proud that Michigan Language Assessment has been approved by the government of Australia for MET to be used for Australian visa purposes
The company, which launched in 2009 and enhanced with a secure digital version in 2021, said that to earn this status, MET underwent an extensive validation process.
Meanwhile, LanguageCert‘s partnerships and recognitions director Fraser Cargill said the company was “excited to deepen our engagement in Australia, supporting individuals as they pursue opportunities in this dynamic country”.
“This contract reflects our ongoing commitment to supporting government departments with secure solutions and individuals worldwide in achieving their academic, professional or personal goals through accessible and trusted language assessment,” he added.
As of August 7, updated score requirements for certain tests have been implemented, with full details available on the Department of Home Affairs website.
For its part, CELPIP General said it was “pleased to announce” that its test was one of those accepted by the Australian government as proof of English langage proficiency for visa purposes.
“With this designation, we are pleased to provide test takers seeking to attain an Australian visa with the same dedicated assessment of English language proficiency that is tried and true for the government of Canada and other score users,” it said.
“Who am I? I’m one of the people that can see the future well before it’s created.”
Meet Taylor Shead, the athlete-turned tech entrepreneur who is on a mission to change the way students access and absorb education in the 21st century.
A former college basketball scholar, her original goal was to train as a reconstructive plastic surgeon alongside her sporting career.
But like many students, while sports held her attention, she found STEM subjects inaccessible due to the dense language of mathematical equations and chemical symbols.
“Frankly, I was a little annoyed,” Shead explains. “I was in the best private schools in Texas, and I thought: if I’m in this privileged position where I’m going to college level and I don’t feel prepared, then what about everybody else from all kinds of backgrounds?
“As an athlete, you have tutors [to help you succeed academically] and so I had a moment when I realised that the education system isn’t working.”
The statistics back up her hypothesis. In the US, approximately 86% of kids graduate from high school, but only about 37% of them graduate from college. Only 66% of US students reach Level 2 proficiency in mathematics and fewer than 30% of high school students feel prepared to pursue a postsecondary pathway.
“It was like, this isn’t a problem that’s black or white, it’s not male or female, it’s not rich or poor. This is a problem that impacts everybody,” says Shead.
“There’s a problem with the current system, the way schooling and college prepares you for each next step, even when it’s the best of the best – so what’s the solution?”
Building on a three-year stint as an Apple mentor and volunteering in inner city schools in Dallas and Fort Worth, Shead took the leap and founded Stemuli in 2016 as a platform to support kids in STEM subjects.
Shortly after, the pandemic hit and the world pivoted to online learning. The moment catapulted the business forward and Shead became only the 94th black woman in the history of the world to raise over a million dollars in venture capital.
The company raised over USD$10 million overall and won the prestigious United Nations AI for good competition in 2024.
The Stemuli mission is to gamify the curriculum to engage a generation of learners who have grown up on video games. This isn’t online learning for the sake of it; the aim is to create learning opportunities in the co-creative worlds that exist in games.
“There are 3.3 billion gamers around the world playing right now,” Shead explains. “Yet all the kids I meet in classrooms are bored. Games like Roblox and Minecraft have set the example of STEM learning crossing over to where kids want to be.”
Stemuli is currently beta testing the third iteration of the platform, a one-world gaming environment where there are infinite possibilities to explore and learn.
Only 66% of US students reach Level 2 proficiency in math and fewer than 30% of high school students feel prepared to pursue a postsecondary pathway
“We used to produce a lot of work simulation games but now nobody knows what the future jobs are going to be. Technology is moving so fast,” explains Shead.
“So we’ve created a much more entrepreneurial gaming experience where, together with an AI prompt assistant, you can test and learn all sorts of ideas in a safe environment. We’ve created a game for entrepreneurship.”
Shead is keen to stress that there is a misconception that entrepreneurship means that you must aspire to be the boss of your own company. She equates entrepreneurship to a curiosity skillset that builds problem solving and resilience in a fast-changing world.
“We are a Walton family funded organisation and they partnered with us at Stemuli to scale stimuli across 20 states in the heartland in order to make sure people in rural America have access to AI literacy skills through our video game,” she says.
“I am obsessed about the idea of a little boy or girl sitting in a rural, remote town that’s seeing with their own eyes the problems that need to be solved in their community. They’re going to create the best technology because they understand the problem, whereas somebody on the coast or Silicon Valley, they’re not even thinking about it.”
It is also is significant that Shead has achieved so much success in the edtech field, despite coming largely from an athletic background rather than a tech education.
“Most people think athletes are dumb, but maybe we’re stubborn and hardworking and relentless enough to be the ones that actually can endure the pressure to make something like this happen, right?
“I like to flip the narrative on its head to say it might take an athlete to go up against established systems and to believe that, in a world that is so structured, that education can actually change for the better. They don’t call athletes game-changers for nothing.”
There will be many people who feel the status quo in education should be preserved, but the great promise of technology is the potential for companies like Stemuli to open access up for the majority rather than the privileged few.
“It’s going to be hard, but there are people like me out there who feel inspired by this mission and that means it’s the best time to be alive” says Shead.
Having seen Shead in action at The PIE Live Asia Pacific, we are inclined to believe her.
Talor Shead was interviewed by The PIE’s Nicholas Cuthbert and took part in our conference debate – Will AI improve or damage higher education?at The PIE Live Asia Pacific.Watch Taylor explain why it’s the best time to be alive below.
LEXINGTON, K.Y., Aug. 7, 2025 — A University of Kentucky professor suspended for criticizing Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war now has legal representation thanks to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
Ramsi Woodcock had established a steady career as a law professor at UK, where he has taught for seven years. He earned tenure in 2022 and was promoted to full professor on July 1.
Less than two weeks later, the vice provost of the university informed the professor that the university received unspecified complaints about Woodcock’s criticisms of Israel outside the classroom on his personal website and at conferences.
The university failed to respond to Woodcock’s requests for copies of the complaints. On July 18, university officials removed Woodcock from teaching and banned him from campus. The university also sent a message to its campus condemning Woodcock’s views as “repugnant” and publicly announcing an investigation.
Specifically, the university took issue with a petition Woodcock circulated to other law professors across the country that called for military action against Israel because of its war in Gaza, as well as his arguments that Israel should cease to exist.
“This isn’t complicated,” said Graham Piro, FIRE’s Faculty Legal Defense Fund fellow. “Woodcock’s arguments about Israel are clearly protected speech on a matter of public concern, and as a faculty member at a public institution, he has the right to voice his ideas, regardless of whether others find them objectionable. And reprimanding a professor over one set of views opens the door to further restrictions on other opinions down the road.”
With the help of the FLDF, Woodcock is being represented by Joe F. Childers of Joe F. Childers & Associates. Childers will work to lift Woodcock’s suspension so he can return to teaching in the classroom and continue speaking freely outside of it.
“Punishing me for my views on Israel sends a terrifying message to students and colleagues: voice the ‘wrong’ opinion on a sensitive subject and face consequences from the university,” Woodcock said. “It’s not only my career that’s at stake — it’s about whether the University of Kentucky will continue to exist as an institution that encourages and permits free thought and expression.”
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought—the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE recognizes that colleges and universities play a vital role in preserving free thought within a free society. To this end, we place a special emphasis on defending the individual rights of students and faculty members on our nation’s campuses, including freedom of speech, freedom of association, due process, legal equality, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience.
CONTACT:
Karl de Vries, Director of Media Relations, FIRE: 215-717-3473; [email protected]
How SEO for Universities Powers Sustainable Enrollment Growth
There’s a good chance you landed on this article after typing a question or a set of keywords into a search engine. That’s because we optimized this article for said search using search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. As a university marketer, you should be doing the same thing to reach prospective students.
Today’s recruitment landscape is digital, and a search engine query is often the first and most critical step a prospective student takes toward enrolling. SEO for universities is a central driver of discoverability, engagement, and application starts.
By employing higher education SEO tactics and investing in strategic, search-focused marketing, institutions can build sustainable enrollment pipelines. But how do you build an SEO strategy that goes beyond plugging keywords into program pages?
In this article, we’ll cover:
Why search is the cornerstone of student decision-making.
How SEO aligns with every stage of the enrollment funnel.
How universities can improve their rankings, engagement, and lead quality.
Why higher education SEO efforts deserve long-term strategic investment.
Why Universities Use SEO Strategies for Enrollment Growth
In an increasingly competitive enrollment landscape, SEO offers higher education institutions a sustainable, cost-effective foundation for long-term growth. Unlike time-limited paid campaigns, SEO builds momentum and equity over time, positioning your institution in front of prospective students at the exact moment they’re looking for options.
Today’s Students Start With Search
Before a prospective student ever talks to an admissions counselor or clicks on an ad, they almost always begin with a Google search. In fact, a majority of students report using search engines as their first step in looking for college and university options, according to recent research from EAB and Modern Campus.
If your institution doesn’t show up organically on the first page of results, you’re not in the conversation.
What makes organic search results particularly powerful is the trust factor. While ads can drive visibility, organic rankings signal authority, relevance, and credibility, especially in the eyes of Gen Z prospects, who are increasingly ad-skeptical and research-savvy.
Additionally, mobile-first behavior and voice-assisted searches for terms such as “best online MBA program in Texas” or “affordable RN to BSN degree near me” raise the stakes for technical SEO. A university’s site must not only be optimized for keywords but also be fast, intuitive, and responsive to be able to meet students where they are: on their phones, on the go, and expecting answers immediately.
Long-Term ROI of Organic vs. Paid Media
SEO is an investment, not a line item. While a paid search ad can generate quick visibility, it’s fleeting, as your ad disappears the moment the budget runs dry. But SEO creates a compounding return. Each blog post, landing page, and FAQ that’s optimized for student search behavior becomes an evergreen asset that continues working long after it’s published.
Over time, this strategy leads to a lower cost per inquiry compared to paid media. And, more importantly, SEO brings in better-qualified leads from students who find your programs through specific, intent-driven queries. They are more likely to be engaged, aligned with your offerings, and prepared to convert.
Mapping SEO to the Student Enrollment Journey
To maximize the impact of SEO for your university, you need to guide prospective students through a decision-making journey that’s often long, nonlinear, and filled with questions. The most effective SEO strategies map content to each stage of the enrollment funnel, from first touch to final application.
Awareness Stage Content
At the top of the funnel, students are exploring their options. They’re not searching for your university by name. They’re asking broad, future-focused questions such as “What degree do I need to become a UX designer?” or “What are the best jobs in environmental science?” This is where search-driven blog content plays a critical role.
By creating optimized articles with titles such as “Top Degrees for a Career in UX Design” or “10 Top Environmental Science Jobs in the Next Decade,” an institution can capture early interest from prospective students who haven’t yet narrowed their choices. These types of pieces not only build organic traffic to your site but also establish your institution as a thought leader in career-aligned education.
SEO-optimized pages that provide detailed degree overviews and career outcome lists can further reinforce your institution’s relevance while helping students begin to connect their goals to your academic offerings. Remember: This stage is about visibility and value, not a hard sell.
Consideration Stage Content
Once students have a clearer sense of their path, they shift into the consideration phase, digging deeper into specific programs and comparing schools. They want evidence of factors such as faculty expertise, curriculum relevance, and positive student experiences.
This is where midfunnel content shines.
Detailed faculty bios, curriculum guides, and sample course descriptions — each optimized for key search phrases — can improve your search rankings while offering meaningful substance to prospective students. For example, a student researching “online master’s in public health with epidemiology focus” should land on a program page that mirrors those terms and provides them with real answers.
Video content, especially when paired with keyword-rich titles and descriptions, helps tell the story of your institution in a more human, engaging way. Students’ testimonials, day-in-the-life videos, and faculty spotlights can also help move students from interest to intent, especially if that content is discoverable via search.
Conversion Stage Content
As prospective students near a decision, they seek clarity and confidence. They’re looking for reassurance that they can take the next step, and that it’s the right one. Conversion-stage SEO content should answer students’ practical, high-intent queries about your institution, such as “how to apply to [University Name],” “[University Name] financial aid for graduate students,” or “[University Name] application deadlines for fall 2026.”
For institutions with campus-based programs, locally oriented SEO becomes critical at this stage. Optimizing for geographic search terms, such as “colleges in Chicago with data science programs,” ensures you show up in local map packs (the local business listings that appear with a map in location-based Google searches), directory listings, and mobile searches.
It’s about being visible and accessible right when students are ready to act.
Optimized admissions FAQs, application checklists, and explainers on cost, scholarships, and financial aid reduce friction and address students’ common concerns. These pages nudge students across the finish line.
Proven SEO Strategies for Universities
To truly move the needle on enrollments resulting from organic search results, universities need to go beyond the basics of content creation. SEO success in higher education relies on a layered approach that blends technical excellence, strategic content development, and an optimized student experience.
Technical SEO as a Foundation
No matter how compelling your content is, it won’t perform if search engines can’t access and interpret it. That’s why technical SEO is the critical first step in building your search visibility.
To help your site show up in search results, you need to fix problems such as broken links, too many redirects, slow-loading code, or pages that are hard for search engines to reach. Tools like Google Search Console and Screaming Frog can help you identify these hidden roadblocks.
One particularly valuable tactic for universities is adding schema markup — structured data tags — to your content, especially on pages with information designed to respond to high-intent queries, such as those containing academic program descriptions, faculty bios, and FAQs. With schema, search engines can better understand the structure and purpose of your content, making it eligible for rich results, such as showing up in featured snippets and accordions. That visibility boost often translates into higher click-through rates from searches.
Content That Matches Searchers’ Intent
Great university SEO content is as student-centric as it is keyword rich. The most effective universities use keyword research to inform their content strategy, ensuring that it aligns with the questions, concerns, and goals of prospective students.
This includes building program clusters, or content hubs, around key degree areas. For example, a hub for your Master of Science in Data Science program might include pages on career paths, curriculum breakdowns, faculty Q&As, students’ success stories, and downloadable guides — all linked together to establish topical authority.
Modern search results also reward content that demonstrates experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (EEAT). Universities are naturally well positioned to feature real instructors, cite data, and include named authors with academic credentials to increase their credibility with both students and algorithms.
Student Experience + SEO
The student experience is not separate from SEO. Google’s algorithm increasingly favors sites that provide clear, intuitive pathways to information, particularly on mobile devices.
For universities, that means streamlined site navigation and a logical content hierarchy that surfaces pages with key data such as program offerings, admissions steps, and tuition details within two or three clicks from the homepage. Critical content shouldn’t be buried beneath layers of institutional jargon or outdated menus.
Internal linking is another underrated but powerful tactic. By connecting related content — such as linking from a faculty bio to a program page, or from a blog post to an application checklist — you improve the crawlability of your site, increase the depth of information you provide on a topic, and keep students engaged longer.
The result? Higher page authority, better rankings, and more informed prospective students.
Treating SEO as a Strategic Enrollment Asset
In many universities, SEO is still siloed within the marketing team and treated as a narrow tactic for improving search engine rankings. But SEO should be reframed as a long-term, strategic asset that drives enrollment growth and informs data-driven decision-making.
Holistic Attribution Models
One of the biggest missed opportunities in SEO for universities is how it’s measured. Traditional models often rely on last-click attribution, a model that gives 100% of the credit for a conversion to the final touchpoint a student interacted with before taking action. This underrepresents SEO’s influence, particularly in a student journey that spans weeks or months and touches multiple channels.
Universities should adopt holistic attribution models that track assisted conversions, or interactions a student has with your marketing channels that contribute to their conversion, not just their final clicks. A search may not be the student’s last touchpoint, but it often plays a vital role in their early awareness or during their midfunnel research. Ignoring that role means underinvesting in a channel that silently drives consideration.
To see the full picture, it’s essential to align tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics with your customer relationship management (CRM) system. Mapping behaviors based on organic search results, like blog visits, program page views, or FAQ engagement, to downstream enrollment actions helps quantify SEO’s true impact and justify investment at the leadership level.
Collaboration Across Teams
Your SEO team shouldn’t live in a vacuum. They intersect with admissions, content strategy, web development, student experience, and even academic department teams. When these teams operate separately, SEO efforts stall. But when collaboration is intentional, the entire enrollment ecosystem benefits.
For example, admissions teams can surface real students’ questions to inform keyword targeting. Student experience teams can help optimize navigation for both search bots and prospective students. Academic departments can contribute subject-matter expertise to improve your pages’ EEAT and topical depth.
SEO-informed content planning — whether for a blog calendar, landing page update, or digital ad campaign — ensures every piece of your content is geared toward a discoverability goal. This strengthens your SEO’s performance and boosts the efficiency of your other marketing channels, from paid search ads to email nurture campaigns.
Preparing for What’s Next
The SEO landscape is evolving rapidly, and universities need to anticipate what’s coming, including search tactics driven by artificial intelligence (AI). With Google’s AI Overviews (also known as Search Generative Experience, or SGE), zero-click searches, and the growing prominence of featured snippets, institutions must rethink how visibility is defined.
Ranking No. 1 doesn’t guarantee clicks if the answer is shown directly in the search result. That’s why future-ready SEO strategies focus on content depth and authority. Winning in AI-driven search engine results pages requires comprehensive, well-structured content that answers layered queries, not just surface-level questions.
Institutions should also monitor how AI tools interpret their content and brand. Structured data, semantic markup, and content clarity all influence how your pages are represented in machine-generated summaries and voice search results.
Ready to Make SEO a Strategic Pillar for Your School?
SEO for universities isn’t a mere marketing tactic. It’s a foundational strategy for long-term enrollment growth, helping to future-proof your institution’s enrollment efforts in a volatile higher education market.
While SEO is critical, it’s also complicated, which is why Archer Education provides colleges and universities with the expert insights required to create a truly strategic SEO plan that integrates with other elements of your marketing strategy.
Contact us to learn more about how SEO can ignite your institution’s growth over the long haul.
