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Emirates Aviation University graduates to feed directly into aviation industry

The graduates were conferred by His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, chairman and chief executive of Emirates Airline and Group, and chancellor of EAU. Addressing the ceremony, he highlighted the growing importance of digitally skilled professionals as the sector undergoes rapid transformation.

Held at the EAU campus in Dubai, the latest cohort brings the university’s total number of graduates to more than 26,500 – with the institution reporting a 94% employability rate, underlining its role in supporting the aviation industry’s evolving talent pipeline.

“As the industry enters a new era driven by digital transformation and innovation, the next generation of talent will play a defining role in charting its course,” said Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum.

“The graduates of EAU embody this momentum in the industry. They are equipped with the insight, resilience, and ambition needed to navigate an increasingly complex global landscape. Their achievements reflect our commitment to supporting an industry that remains vital to the world’s progress and prosperity. We extend our warmest congratulations to this exceptional cohort as they begin their journey into the future of aviation.”

The ceremony was attended by senior Emirates Group executives, EAU leadership and faculty, alongside graduates’ families and guests, as graduating students celebrated their completion of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees across aviation management, aeronautical engineering, aircraft maintenance engineering, logistics and supply chain management, aviation safety and security, and other key disciplines that support the aviation ecosystem.

The graduates of EAU embody this momentum in the industry. They are equipped with the insight, resilience, and ambition needed to navigate an increasingly complex global landscape
^{_{His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum}}, ^{_{Emirates Airline and Group}}

“This year’s graduating class reflects the depth of talent nurtured at EAU,” stated Professor Ahmad Al Ali, vice chancellor of EAU.

“Our programs are developed in close alignment with the evolving needs of the aviation and technology sectors, ensuring our students graduate with industry‑relevant expertise and a forward‑looking mindset,” he added.

In addition, as part of the Emirates Group, EAU integrates industry exposure into its academic model. In 2025 alone, the Group trained 130 EAU interns, while more than 3,000 students have completed placements at Emirates and dnata over the years, gaining practical industry experience alongside their studies.

Of the 379 graduates, 296 completed bachelor’s degrees and 83 completed postgraduate qualifications. The cohort included 121 UAE nationalists, with 28 engineering students fully sponsored by Emirates Engineering. 20 students were recognised for outstanding academic performance across disciplines.

EAU also highlighted its emphasis on experiential learning, with students presenting engineering and artificial intelligence projects through the NextGen Leaders Program and Dubai Airshow 2025, offering exposure at one of the world’s leading aerospace events.

Founded in 1991, EAU is the education arm of the Emirates Group. It has established itself as the leading university for aviation studies in the region.

The university offers a comprehensive range of undergraduate, postgraduate, and research programmes in aeronautical engineering, aviation management, logistics and supply management, AI & data science, aviation safety, and aviation security studies. EAU also provides a one-semester internship programme with the Emirates Group for undergraduate students.

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January 16, 2026
Hawaiian Language Schools Grow As DOE Shrinks. There’s One Big Problem – The 74

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At a time when local schools are facing shrinking enrollment and talks of closure, Hawaiian immersion programs are bucking the trend.

Enrollment in schools that teach primarily in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi — collectively known as Kaiapuni schools — has increased by 68% over the past decade, with the number of campuses run by the state education department growing from 14 to 26. But students tend to have fewer immersion options in middle and high school, and the pool of qualified teachers isn’t keeping up with families’ growing demand.

Recruiting qualified teachers is one of the largest barriers to expanding Kaiapuni programs, Office of Hawaiian Education Director Kau‘i Sang said in a recent education board meeting. The Department of Education needs to find a balance between adding more classrooms to meet families’ needs and hiring enough teachers to support existing Kaiapuni schools, she said.

DOE plans on opening two new Kaiapuni programs at Haleʻiwa Elementary on Oʻahu and Kalanianaʻole Elementary on the Big Island.

“We cannot open classrooms unless we have qualified staff,” Sang said.

Currently, DOE has three unfilled Kaiapuni teacher positions, Communications Director Nanea Ching said in an emailed statement. The department also employs 25 unlicensed Kaiapuni educators who still need to fulfill their teacher training requirements, she said.

But the number of additional teachers needed to fully staff Kaiapuni schools could be closer to 100, said Kananinohea Mākaʻimoku, an associate professor at the University of Hawaiʻi Hilo’s College of Hawaiian Language. Some Kaiapuni teachers are taking on larger-than-average class sizes because of staffing shortages, she said, meaning the annual vacancy rates underestimate the number of educators schools need.

DOE will need 165 more Kaiapuni teachers in the next decade to fully staff its classrooms and meet families’ growing demand, according to ʻAha Kauleo, an advisory group of Hawaiian language schools and organizations. The projection doesn’t account for a large group of teachers who are expected to retire in the coming years, Mākaʻimoku said.

Last year, UH Mānoa and Hilo produced a total of 12 licensed Kaiapuni teachers.

It’s difficult to find candidates who are both fluent in Hawaiian and interested in teaching, Mākaʻimoku said, especially because Hawaiian language speakers are in high demand in many careers. But a lack of teachers doesn’t mean schools should stop expanding Kaiapuni programs, she said, especially when the movement has so much family support and momentum.

‘No Option But To Leave Their Home District’

The Hawaiʻi Supreme Court has previously ruled that the education department has a constitutional duty to provide families with access to Hawaiian immersion education. Two lawsuits filed in August argued that DOE has fallen short of this responsibility by creating unique barriers for immersion families, such as waitlists for enrollment and limited immersion programs in some school districts.

One of the lawsuits was dropped over the summer, but the second remains active.

Currently, families are pushing for more immersion options in Pearl City, which has no middle or high school for Kaiapuni students. Children can attend the Kaiapuni program at Waiau Elementary until the sixth grade but then need to transfer to immersion programs in Kapolei or Honolulu for middle school or switch to an English-language program.

A petition to add Kaiapuni programs at Highlands Intermediate and Pearl City High School received more than 100 signatures over the past three weeks.

“Our keiki start their educational journey in Hawaiian immersion programs, but upon reaching intermediate and high school levels, they find themselves with no option but to leave their home district,” parent Chloe Puaʻena Vierra-Villanueva said in written testimony to the Board of Education.

The department is planning to add more grade levels to existing Kaiapuni schools next year and provide families with more information on how to enroll in immersion programs, Sang said. Her office also plans on tracking the number of open seats and waitlists across the state to determine which communities have the greatest demand for Kaiapuni classrooms.

Since 2020, the state has also offered a $8,000 salary bonus to Kaiapuni teachers to attract more people to classroom positions.

Kahea Faria, an assistant specialist at UH Mānoa’s College of Education and a Kaiapuni parent, said she would like to see more DOE campuses solely dedicated to serving immersion students across all grade levels. Creating environments where Hawaiian is the only spoken language is critical to students’ development, she said, and could possibly encourage more kids to pursue teaching careers in Kaiapuni schools.

“Right now, with a growing number of students, they have very limited opportunities to grow their language abilities,” Faria said.

The state also needs to look beyond Kaiapuni graduates to expand the potential pool of immersion teachers, Mākaʻimoku said. For example, she said, offering more Hawaiian language classes to families and community members could encourage more people to earn their Kaiapuni teaching credentials.

“That’s definitely a conversation that all communities in Hawaiʻi should have,” she said.

This story was originally published on Honolulu Civil Beat.

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January 16, 2026
The unlikely formula behind a sold-out international education summit

If you’ve scrolled through LinkedIn lately, you may have seen something that looks more like Eurovision than a typical education conference: university staff singing, recruitment agents dancing, and national teams battling it out for ‘best in show’ on a brightly lit stage in China’s tropical Sanya.

The annual summit of global recruitment and international education consultancy HUATONG International‘s (Hti Edu) has been running since 2014, originally under the iae China banner before continuing under Hti’s own branding from 2023.

The final night of the conference features performances by Hti staff, university representatives and country teams from the UK, Australia, Canada and other destinations. Acts range from institution-led and mixed national groups to collaborations with professional musicians.

“The social bonding aspect is a strong focus of the event as we strive to forge cross cultural understanding and friendships that transcend pure business. Hti has always espoused that relationships make partnerships,” explained Mark Lucas, Hti’s senior vice president of global partnerships and business development.

“It is hugely popular with the attendees and very competitive between the country-based acts in a ‘frenemies’ way, as each country tries to take the honours of the ‘best in show,’” said Lucas.

“The event is held near the end of the year and all attendees from Hti’s amazing team to the channel partners, institutions and service providers work incredibly hard throughout the year – this is chance to unwind, meet people from around the world and embrace the diversity and talent that is so evident and present in the world of International education.”

For Lucas, the entertainment is not a distraction from business – it is part of it.

This is chance to unwind, meet people from around the world and embrace the diversity and talent that is so evident and present in the world of International education
_{^{Mark Lucas, HUATONG International}}

“We are very good at blending a serious, relevant and very full educational and business format with meaningful and fun social events. We are unusual in the fact that the social and performance aspect of the summit has become a very pivotal part of the whole event,” said Lucas.

Alongside the spectacle sits a packed program of policy and professional content, from embassy-led visa briefings and destination updates to sessions on transnational education, AI, employability and wider sector shifts.

The summit now draws around 1,000 delegates – including 600 hand-picked recruitment partners from across China, alongside universities, service providers and government officials from major study destinations.

“For our channel partners, an invite to the summit is awarded based on their efforts. It is very competitively sought after and as they tell us each year, often the highlight of their year.”

The same applies to institutions: because total attendance is capped, only around 150 institutions, service providers, and commercial partners are invited to the summit. As a result, many lock in their place for the next event as soon as the current one ends.

According to Lucas, the event seeks to provide a platform to allow for the organisation’s priority partner institutions to directly engage with its channel and recruitment partners in a “controlled training and social context” – noting that this approach was “not the norm for B2B businesses.”

“Hti takes a very different approach and trusts that our priority partner institutions will not seek to work directly with our extensive network of channel partners and creating an opportunity to bring their key advantages and sector positioning directly to a select group of 600 channel partners.”

Alongside universities, the summit also brings together the wider service ecosystem that supports international students, including finance, health insurance, testing and accommodation providers.

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January 16, 2026
Bringing back birds from the brink of extinction

Bringing back birds

Vallocchia’s work has also taken her to Malta and Mexico. She’s been with Maui Forest Bird Recovery for four years. As avian research field supervisor, she works on honeycreeper surveys, counting the relatively few remaining birds from what was once a thriving bird paradise with more than 50 species of honeycreeper.

On Maui, Vallocchia says, six species of honeycreeper remain. Three of these are endemic to Maui, found nowhere else. Vallocchia and her colleagues track populations of Kiwikiu (Maui parrotbill) and ʻĀkohekohe (crested honeycreeper).

Vallocchia and her colleagues camp out in various locations on Maui, tracking birds and their activities at predetermined spots or transects on a specific line through a forest. This gives them a consistent scientific way to count the birds.

Right now, fewer than 150 kiwikiu remain, Vallocchia says.

“The native birds, you see how special they are here,” Hebebrand says. “When I saw a kiwikiu in the wild for the first time, I cried.”

The soundscape of Hawaii

Some native birds are spotted closer to the project’s home office. A Hawai’i ‘amakihi was spotted recently feeding on a hibiscus plant in the yard, delighting the staff.

Program manager Hanna Mounce describes the work of Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project as an investment in ecosystems, cultural connections and the next generation.

“I’m hopeful that our work today will help ensure these birds are still here for our children and grandchildren,” Mounce says. “Every day, I work alongside a team deeply committed to protecting something bigger than themselves.”

Hawai’ian birds often make the sounds of their names. The kiwikiu might screech keee-eee-eee or tree-tree or kiwi-kiwi-kiwi-kiwi.

“It’s so varied,” Vallocchia said.

What tourists don’t see or hear

These songs most likely won’t be heard by visitors coming to the islands on vacation. People relaxing at resorts may not know they’re missing the native wildlife and birds of the Hawai’ian islands.

“Millions of people visit Hawaiʻi every year,” says Chris Warren, forest bird program coordinator at Haleakalā National Park, “and only a fraction of those get a chance to see an ʻiʻiwi or other fabulous native birds. People can grow up here and never experience a native forest.”

Warren worked for MFBRP for more than a decade and continues to partner with the organization.

“The project has always been driven by passion and a deep desire to save these species from extinction,” Warren says. His own understanding of extinction dates back to his work at the Joseph Moore Museum of Natural History in Indiana. He encountered specimens of extinct birds like passenger pigeons and Bachman’s warblers.

“There is something profound about holding an animal in your hand that will never be seen alive again,” Warren says. “And to know that that extinction was preventable made a deep impact on me.”

Protecting without disturbing

Warren says one of the biggest challenges to forest bird recovery involves educating the public, who may not know these birds exist. People care more deeply about things that they’ve personally experienced, he says.

Vallocchia agrees. She invites visitors to explore accessible areas of Maui, hiking into its fragile forests with awareness and care.

“For people to want to protect something, they need to see it, experience it, understand the beauty of it,” Vallocchia says. “Being part of nature is not disturbing nature if it’s done in the right way.”

Camping with permits is possible in places like Haleakalā National Park.

“You could wake up to the song of the honeycreeper,” Vallocchia says.

Recommended:

The award-winning documentary “Vanishing Voices” combines interviews with bird recovery workers and animation to explain the science being used to save birds from extinction.

Questions to consider:

1. What are some threats to the honeycreepers on Maui?

2. How are conservationists trying to restore the population of alalā?

3. What birds can you spot where you live?

Want to see and hear some honeycreepers? Check out the video below:

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January 16, 2026
Imagining otherwise: how students practise political agency

by Anu Lainio and Anna Sofia Salonen

“I also feel that the sense of hopefulness…is essential. Without it there isn’t much concrete to hold on to. At least I see that this kind of outlandish dreaming and utopian imagining is, in a certain way, also reflected in the actions taken toward it. Or that nothing moves anywhere if you don’t envision it.”

This quotation illustrates how a group of higher education students understood outlandish dreaming as essential for social and political change. It also connects directly to our main argument: that political imagination is a form of political agency. The shared recognition in the quote, that imagining itself matters, shows how utopianising is potentially already a political act.

Political imagination can be characterised as a collective and open-ended process of envisioning how the world and ourselves could be otherwise. Utopias, in turn, are tools for political imagination. Together, political imagination and utopias expand the horizon of what can be thought of as possible and desirable.

The scholarship on students’ political agency has mainly explored traditional and conventional forms of political participation, such as protests, student governance, and voting behaviour. Yet, political agency is not limited to these forms of participation; it also takes place in various everyday practices. By studying political imagination, we can explore how students relate to politics in everyday life: how they think, feel, speak, and act politically.

We explored higher education students’ political imagination as part of an ongoing project, Breadline Utopias. We invited students from social sciences, education, social services, and healthcare to participate in workshops on alternative futures of food assistance. These students are likely to work in roles connected to food assistance (directly and indirectly), which makes their perspectives especially relevant. Altogether, 86 students participated in seven workshops across four higher education institutions. Our analysis draws on 21 small-group discussions in which students discussed the current state of food assistance and imagined alternative futures for it.

Food assistance in Finland is a contested practice that sits between Nordic welfare state ideals and charity-based logics. Over the last 30 years, it has become an institutionalised part of Finnish society. Because food assistance is intertwined with broader societal issues, such as poverty, justice, food, and social policy, it offers a rich site for examining how students navigate and relate to political questions.

Constraints, conditions and cracks of political imagination

Our research shows that political imagination is shaped by a dynamic between three elements: constraints, conditions and cracks. This dynamic suggests that political imagination is a fragile yet meaningful mode of political agency.

Constraints block imagination

Constraints are moments where students’ political imagination becomes blocked. They act as barriers for imagination – like the dead-end of a labyrinth. Constraints relate to who is seen as able to imagine and what legitimate imagining should look like. For example, some students felt that they don’t have the “right” knowledge or experience to envision alternative futures for food assistance. As one student put it:

“Since I’m not an expert on the issue at all, it’s [difficult] to predict it or to develop it in general, because I’ve never been part of it myself.”

This lack of perceived expertise reduces students’ sense of agency, leading them to position themselves outside the political sphere. Another constraint, solution-orientation, also blocks political imagination. With this mindset, societal questions are approached as technical problems to be fixed, reflecting an internalised sense of what kinds of discussions are acceptable and meaningful.

Conditions limit imagination

Conditions shape what students imagine by acting as boundaries that limit how far imagination can extend toward contesting taken-for-granted logics of the topic in question. We identified three conditions: the ethos of helping, resource efficiency, and market-drivenness. All three stem from the charity economy frame, which means that students’ visions focused on improving helping practices, maximising existing resources (volunteers, surplus food and money) or finding market-compatible solutions. Within these boundaries, both food assistance and poverty are depoliticised, as imagination remains anchored to the existing system rather than questioning or transforming it.

Cracks reveal fractures and open up alternatives

Cracks are moments that reveal fractures in the current system and in students’ experiential worlds: openings through which alternative futures become visible or thinkable. Cracks took different forms in students’ discussions. At times, conversations drifted onto sidetracks that disrupted linear and solution-oriented talk, allowing new questions and possibilities to surface. In other moments, students paused to consider the perspectives of food assistance recipients. Such reflexive stumbles invited empathy, vulnerability and relational awareness, opening space for politicisation. There were also critical pushes in which seemingly neutral features of the system were recognised as politically constructed. These instances opened cracks through which alternative social and institutional arrangements were imagined. Finally, as the quotation in the beginning shows, outlandish dreams are moments when students collectively affirm that hope and utopias themselves matter, even though the process of imagining alternatives is difficult and involves constraints and conditions.

Political imagination as a democratic capacity

The dynamic between constraints, cracks and conditions highlights that ‘the political’ in political imagination appears unevenly – sometimes blocked, sometimes strengthened, sometimes catalysed. Thus, political imagination is not a linear process but unfolds within the dynamics of these three elements (see Picture 1). Despite its fragility, we suggest that political imagination is a meaningful mode of political agency: it is visible in how students critique existing conditions, propose alternative futures and reposition themselves in relation to the political. Political imagination makes the openness of the future visible. It is precisely this openness that gives imagination its value as a form of agency: it keeps the alternative futures alive.

Picture 1. Constraints, conditions and cracks of political imagination

Recognising these everyday acts of imagining as political practices expands our understanding of what counts as students’ political agency. In doing so, it points to political imagination as a capacity for democratic citizenship, as the ability to envision alternatives is integral to democratic life. This capacity is all the more important given reports of young people’s reduced hope for the future and the global challenges we are facing (e.g., polarisation and climate change). Cultivating such capacity should be part of higher education’s democratic mission. In other words, outlandish dreaming is not trivial or escapism – it is a fragile, necessary political act.

Dr Anu Lainio works as a Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Eastern Finland. Her research focuses on higher education students’ political imagination and utopias, as part of the project ‘Utopias from the breadline’. Before her current position, she completed her doctoral research at the University of Surrey, UK, where she explored higher education students’ identities and media representations across different European countries. Her research interests include political imagination; media and higher education; and student identities, agency, and (in)equalities in the context of marketised higher education and a changing welfare state.

Dr Anna Sofia Salonen is a University Lecturer in Practical Theology at the University of Eastern Finland. Her research combines sociological and theological perspectives to explore issues related to food, religion, ethics, inequality and the food system. She is the principal investigator of the research project “Utopias from the breadline” (Kone Foundation 2023-2025) and leads a work package on nonreligion in research project “Religion, Meaning and Masculinity” (Research Council of Finland 2024-2028).

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Categories: Higher Education, Student Experience | Tags: imagination, participation, political agency, political discourse, political engagement, student, student attitudes, student politics | Permalink.

Author: SRHE News Blog

An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

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January 16, 2026
How Japan and India will shape the next decade’s workforce

Japan and India are entering a new phase of partnership, built not on formal communiqués but on the steady movement of people. Though they speak different languages, both share respect, reliability, and a quiet focus on getting things done, setting the tone for success.

Japan today is facing a demographic shift that’s changing its economy and workforce, with labour shortages affecting everything from technology and healthcare to manufacturing, construction, and advanced engineering.

In response, the Japanese government has introduced new pathways, including the SSW visa, more English-taught university programs, and stronger internationalisation policies led by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT).

While Japan has been actively reaching out to other countries for skilled talent, India is uniquely positioned to be the partner to bridge the gap at scale.

India, with its young, skilled, and increasingly global talent pool, is emerging as a natural partner to Japan. With the world’s largest youth population and a fast-growing base of STEM-trained graduates, India has the scale and capacity to make the goal of 500,000 Indian professionals working in Japan by 2030 realistic.

Against this backdrop, Japan and India are helping convert intent into outcomes by building a three-pillared, structured talent mobility bridge that works across the full continuum — from early awareness in schools to education, language acquisition, and workforce readiness — addressing the real frictions that often slow cross-border mobility.

Through Japanese language labs embedded in Indian schools and institutions, students are developing linguistic and cultural fluency early, reframing Japanese not as a barrier but as a long-term enabler.

This ecosystem approach is reinforced through joint initiatives with the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), which provides critical institutional linkage to Japan’s evolving workforce needs, and through the digital platform Navi Japan, the official platform for Study in Japan from South Asia. Together, these efforts are helping align India’s scale of talent with Japan’s demand, making mobility not episodic, but systemic and sustainable.

Moreover, in the last 11 months, interest in Japan is rising sharply among young Indians. Over 25,000 students have engaged with study-in-Japan initiatives through webinars, school interactions, and fairs, reaching more than 1,000 schools across 123 cities, from Tier 1 to Tier 3 locations. This early-stage outreach is vital to building the pipeline that will support Japan’s goal of welcoming half a million Indian professionals.

In just two months, Navi Japan attracted over 12,000 users, 11,000 of them from India, generating more than 125,000 engagements. These aren’t casual clicks — students are spending close to three minutes per visit, actively exploring degree programs, scholarships, English-taught options, and guidance on living costs, showing serious consideration.

What they’re searching for is just as telling: business programs top the list with more than 10,000 searches, followed by STEM at over 9,000, strong interest in AI and machine learning with more than 7,300 searches, and thousands more in robotics, computer science, and economics. These are exactly the skills Japan needs most, clearly showing how closely Indian student demand aligns with Japan’s workforce priorities.

What’s equally interesting is where this interest is coming from. While cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Kolkata remain highly active, momentum is quickly spreading beyond the major metros.

Education isn’t just about earning a degree; it is the most reliable pathway to long-term workforce integration

Students from cities such as Indore, Lucknow, and Bhopal are appearing in growing numbers, with engagement now seen across 142 cities in India — full coverage in Tier 1, around 50% in Tier 2, and a growing 20% in Tier 3. Students outside major cities increasingly see Japan as a realistic, future-focused option for education and upward mobility.

This is why student mobility has emerged as the real engine of the Japan-India relationship. Education isn’t just about earning a degree; it is the most reliable pathway to long-term workforce integration. Students who study in Japan gain more than academic knowledge — they absorb the culture, expectations, and work ethic — leaving them better placed to meet language requirements, qualify for SSW pathways, and move into the specialised roles where Japan’s talent shortages are most acute.

A critical part of this is what happens after education and how students move from the classroom into the workplace. Skills-focused initiatives are helping students prepare for Japan’s workforce through practical, Japan-relevant problem-solving, including programs such as the TechBridge challenge, which introduces learners to real-world domains and early exposure to Japan. These efforts connect education, skills, and career pathways seamlessly.

Both nations stand to gain considerably from the deepening of this mobility corridor. Japan secures the skilled workforce it urgently needs to sustain its economy, while India gains new avenues for global employment, technical upskilling and international collaboration.

If current momentum continues, the prospect of 500,000 Indian professionals working in Japan by 2030 is not only achievable but transformative. The real story, however, is not about numbers, it is about two nations building a long-term, mutually beneficial partnership anchored in talent, education, and opportunity.

There is a mobility anecdote that I love sharing. Indians grow up using Suzuki vehicles, listening to Sony music systems, or working with Panasonic technologies and yet few consciously think of them as Japanese; they are simply familiar and reliable, and that’s a powerful lesson for talent mobility.

When people move not as outsiders, but, as trusted contributors, integration becomes natural rather than negotiated, and that’s when mobility stops being a policy goal and becomes a lived reality.

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January 16, 2026
Senators discuss school tech limits amid youth mental health crisis

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Senators stressed the need for federal solutions to address a mental health crisis tied to social media and technology use among children and teens during a Thursday hearing held by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

Proposed solutions from senators and hearing witnesses spanned from completely ditching 1:1 devices and ed tech in schools to banning young children and teens from going on social media altogether.

The conversations in the Senate are developing with a sense of urgency as research continues to demonstrate the harmful social and emotional effects of social media use on youth and as more school districts and states seek to ban or limit cellphone use during the school day.

Additionally, the rapid spread of artificial intelligence tools could exacerbate these ongoing fears about technology’s impact on the youth mental health crisis, hearing witnesses said.

In the days leading up to the hearing, a coalition of education, library, and nonprofit leadership organizations sent a letter to Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Chair Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and ranking member Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. The coalition stressed the importance of federal support for ed tech and connectivity in schools.

Some members of the coalition include AASA, The School Superintendents Association, The Consortium for School Networking and national teacher’s unions including the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association.

“It is essential to distinguish between largely unsupervised, entertainment-driven technology use at home and the intentional, monitored, and carefully curated use of technology in schools — where digital tools are employed to support learning and prepare students for future academic and workforce demands,” the coalition’s Jan. 13 letter said.

Senators also brought up various pending bills in Congress that would address their concerns with children and teens’ excessive use of social media and technology. At the same time, nearly 20 bills looking to take on similar concerns about youth safety online are gaining traction after the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade advanced the package of legislation to the full Energy and Commerce Committee in December.

Cruz mentioned the Kids Off Social Media Act, a bipartisan bill he introduced last year that would prevent users under the age of 13 from accessing social media and prevent tech companies from using algorithms that feed addictive content to users under 17. Meanwhile, Cantwell highlighted other bipartisan Senate legislation such as an amendment to the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act and the Kids Online Safety Act that she said would update privacy protections for children online and limit “exploitative designs” by tech companies.

Ed tech and the youth mental health crisis

In Cruz’s opening remarks, he praised the Federal Communications Commission’s decision in September to roll back the Biden administration’s expansion of the E-rate program to offer schools and libraries federal discounts to purchase Wi-Fi on school buses and internet hotspots.

That expansion of E-rate, Cruz said, gave students “unsupervised internet access” while also undermining parental rights. The goal of the E-rate expansion under the Biden administration, however, was to increase internet access to students from low-income families so they can complete their homework and not fall behind in their classes.

Under the Children’s Internet Protection Act, which was passed in 2000, schools and libraries receiving E-rate funds must block harmful content on their devices both on and off campus. Those requirements include denying access to content that is obscene, pornographic or otherwise harmful to students.

CIPA also “requires districts to adopt internet safety policies, monitor online activity, and educate students about appropriate online behavior,” the Jan. 13 coalition letter said. “These longstanding requirements demonstrate both the seriousness with which schools approach online safety and the robust legal architecture to protect students that is already in place.”

Cantwell pushed back on comments against the E-rate program.

“Congress is obligated to act,” Cantwell said, but rather than “focusing on threatening E-rate connectivity for schools, I think we should be passing meaningful protections for kids’ online privacy, regardless of whether they’re accessing the internet from home or school.”

Cruz also questioned during the hearing “whether assigning personal devices to children is actually improving academic outcomes or doing more harm than good.”

Two witnesses supported eliminating 1:1 devices in schools, which became widespread during the COVID-19 pandemic when districts had to operate classes remotely for many months. The witnesses, Emily Cherkin, founder of The Screentime Consultant, and Jared Cooney Horvath, director of education professional development company LME Global, called for a return to traditional analog learning for younger students followed by the integration of technology into academic instruction during later years once key skills are understood.

Despite a surge in ed tech over the past several years, Horvath said students’ proficiency in digital literacy has dropped between 2018 and 2023 as seen on the global assessment known as the International Computer and Information Literacy Study. “So clearly, the secret to learning how to use tech is to not use tech,” Horvath said.

Education organizations in the Jan. 13 letter denounced the idea of banning all technology in classrooms, however, saying that the government instead would better serve the public by adequately funding schools with professional development and technical support to ensure schools have the most effective safeguards and online filters on their devices.

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January 16, 2026
Portland State agrees to reinstate 10 laid-off faculty members
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Dive Brief:
- Portland State University agreed to reinstate 10 non-tenure-track faculty members it laid off last year, though the institution’s president argued that officials still believe the reductions “were necessary and appropriate.”
- The decision follows a November ruling from an independent arbitrator that ordered the public university to reinstate the laid-off employees and concluded that the administrators had violated their collective bargaining agreement.
- However, Portland State President Ann Cudd said in Tuesday’s announcement that the university still must close a $35 million deficit over the next two years. “These reinstatements do not change that reality,” Cudd added.
Dive Insight:

University officials originally announced the layoffs in December 2024, notifying 17 non-tenure-track faculty members that they would be let go in June. At the time, officials said the changes were due to “changes in their departments’ programmatic and curricular needs.”

The announcement came as part of a larger effort to trim $18 million from the university’s budget by the end of the last fiscal year. Portland State also revamped administrative and academic structures and sent retirement offers to employees to plug the budget hole, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting.

In May, the executive committee of the American Association of University Professors’ Portland State chapter approved sending grievances from 10 laid-off faculty members to arbitration. The other seven did not contest their layoffs.

On Tuesday, Cudd pushed back on the arbitrator’s findings, asserting the layoffs were conducted in “good-faith” and complied with the employees’ collective bargaining agreement.

“Nonetheless, we’ve decided the best step forward for our campus at this time is to comply with the arbitrator’s order,” Cudd said.

A university spokesperson said in an email Thursday that details about the “timeline and back pay are under negotiation.”

The university has been attempting to remedy a budget shortfall following steep enrollment declines.

Portland State enrolled 19,951 students in fall 2024, down 21.2% from five years earlier. Along with the resulting decrease in tuition revenue, the university receives less money from the state because appropriations are partly based on the number of degrees and credentials it confers to Oregon residents.

According to the arbitrator’s findings, the driving force behind the layoffs was Portland State’s budget shortfall at the time. Because of that, the university was obligated to follow a “lengthy process” that includes declaring financial exigency.

But the university instead said curricular changes had driven the reductions — a reason that requires a less intensive process for layoffs. But the arbitrator said even if that had been the proper avenue, the university hadn’t followed the necessary steps to lay faculty off under that process either.

Moreover, the arbitrator found the university “redistributed” work performed by the laid-off faculty members.

For instance, the university offered some of the laid-off employees adjunct positions to teach the same courses they previously taught full time — but generally without benefits or the same level of pay. It also hired other adjunct faculty to cover their previous courses.

“This has reduced the employment cost to the university for the same, or expanded courses, to be taught,” the arbitrator said.

Portland State initially refused to reinstate the faculty members, arguing that the arbitrator’s decision exceeded her authority, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. Portland State employees had been pushing the university to comply with the order, with over 260 signing a petition for the laid-off faculty members’ reinstatement as of this week.

Recently, Portland State’s trustee board recently approved a plan to reduce spending by $35 million over the next two years through changes to academic programs, faculty composition and administrative structures.
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January 16, 2026
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January 16, 2026
Hampshire College faces closure risk if it can’t refinance debt, audit says
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Dive Brief:
- Hampshire College faces persistent operating pressures and potential closure risk if it can’t refinance its debt, according to the private Massachusetts institution’s latest audit.
- Hampshire breached the terms on a group of bonds last June, which could trigger a default, according to the college’s latest audit. Moreover, the college has been negotiating with a bondholder wishing to exercise an option on a separate bond group that would force Hampshire to pay the securities immediately.
- Lenders have extended a refinancing deadline until September as the college looks to “demonstrate the successful implementation of its strategic plan to potential investors,” said the audit for the year ending June 30.
Dive Insight:

Not long ago, Hampshire College was the poster child for a successful higher education turnaround, raising tens of millions of dollars in donations and adding hundreds of students to its student body after a close brush with closure in 2019. But as its fiscal 2025 audit shows, the institution is once again under heavy financial stress.

In addition to talks with bondholders, auditors cited recurring decreases in net assets and negative cash flow from the college’s operations. Given those woes, auditors once again added in the college’s financial statement “going concern” language, accounting terminology that signals an entity might not be financially able to continue operating beyond a year. Hampshire’s audits for fiscal years 2023 and 2024 included similar warnings.

Hampshire’s fiscal 2025 year ended in June with a 13.9% drop in total net assets, to $37.9 million, and an operating deficit of $3.7 million.

The college’s total debt stood at $24.9 million at the end of the fiscal year. More than $20 million of that moved from long-term debt to short term after Hampshire breached bond covenants in 2025 and years prior.

Since 2022, one of the college’s bondholders has been trying to exercise a put option, which gives the holder the ability to sell back the bond to the issuer at a given price. As of late November, Hampshire hadn’t come up with a way to refund or refinance the bonds. “Both lenders have extended the tender dates to September 2026,” according to the audit.

According to the institution’s audit, “The College has stated that its ability to continue as a going concern is contingent on securing financing for these bonds.” Along with refinancing, however, officials are also exploring ways to boost enrollment, reduce expenses and potentially sell real estate.

The college has faced the threat of closure before. In fall 2019, Hampshire opted to admit only a partial incoming class as it navigated deep financial distress.

By June 2020, the college had racked up a total operating deficit of $7.1 million, more than double from the year before. But a curriculum revamp and fundraising blitz helped bring the college back from the brink of closure.

Yet pressures remained. The college has continued to operate in the red while trying to chip away at its deficit. In 2024, the college cut 9% of its staff after lower-than-expected enrollment and as it continued working toward a balanced budget.

“We’re still growing, enrollment is still increasing,” then-President Edward Wingenbach told Higher Ed Dive at the time. “This is really more about ensuring that we can continue to be successful as the parameters of that growth change.”

Wingenbach left the college last January, as the college touted steep long-term rises in both applications and enrollment, which reached 844 by fall 2024 — up nearly 70% from two years earlier. Jennifer Chrisler, previously Hampshire’s chief advancement officer, replaced him as permanent president in October after stepping in as interim.

Hampshire’s enrollment ambitions hit another major speed bump last fall, when its new student enrollment of roughly 150 students missed the college’s goals — by half, MassLive.com reported last week.
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January 16, 2026