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  • Budget WARs

    Budget WARs

    This is hypothetical, but the concept it’s illustrating is real.

    Let’s say you’re in charge of a college budget, and there’s money for a new staff position. You have multiple requests for positions, so you need to pick the winner.

    For the sake of the example, let’s stipulate that the salaries are close enough that they don’t tip the balance and that the relative staffing levels in each area are about equally suboptimal.

    The contenders are:

    • A math tutor
    • A librarian
    • An adviser
    • A financial aid staffer

    Which do you choose? And, more to the point, why?

    I hear a lot about “data-based” or “evidence-based” decision-making. But it’s not clear to me what data or evidence would settle the question. How would you know which one is the best choice?

    I assume that any of the four would make a positive difference in student outcomes. Students who fail math are much likelier to drop out than students who don’t, and tutors help students pass. Librarians are crucial for students to learn to do research, especially in the age of AI. Academic advisers help students avoid wasting time on courses that won’t help them. Financial aid staffers enable students to get the money they need to go to college. They’re all helpful, and they’re all important. But how do you weigh one against the others?

    In baseball, people with too much time on their hands came up with a single statistic to rule them all: wins above replacement. A player’s WAR score—seriously, that’s what they call it—indicates how many more (or fewer) games a team would expect to win in a given season if they used this player, as opposed to an average player at the same position. That way, a team could measure the value of a particular pitcher against the value of a particular outfielder.

    We don’t have a number like that. How much more, or less, would a new tutor affect our graduation rate than a new adviser? And how would we know?

    Any ambitious and quantitatively minded students in higher education administration graduate programs, you can have this research question pro bono. I’d love to see empirical evidence.

    Until the dissertations come rolling in, though, I’d love to hear from my wise and worldly readers. Is there a good way to weigh these positions against each other? If anyone comes up with something good, I’ll be happy to share it in a subsequent column. As always, send your thoughtful responses to deandad (at) gmail (dot) com. Thanks!

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  • Fewer International Students Came to the U.S. This Fall

    Fewer International Students Came to the U.S. This Fall

    One week after President Donald Trump contradicted his own policies by stressing how important international students are to sustaining university finances, there’s new evidence that his administration’s crackdown on visas and immigration is hurting international student enrollment and the American economy.

    While overall international student enrollment has declined only 1 percent since fall 2024, new enrollment has declined 17 percent, according to fall 2025 snapshot data in the annual Open Doors report, published Monday by the Institute for International Education. The 825 U.S.-based higher learning institutions that responded to the fall snapshot survey host more than half of all international students in the country.

    “It gives us good insight into what is happening on campuses as of this fall,” Mirka Martel, head of research, evaluation and learning at IIE, said on a press call last week. “Some of the changes we’re seeing in new enrollment may be related to some of the more recent factors related to international students.”

    Fewer New Graduate Students

    Those factors include cuts to federal research funding, which has historically helped support graduate students. Although graduate students made up roughly 40 percent of the 1.2 million total international students studying in the U.S during the 2024–25 academic year, they’re now driving the enrollment decline—a trend that started before Trump retook the White House.

    While the total number of new international students fell by 7 percent last academic year, new graduate enrollment dropped by 15 percent, according to the Open Doors report—a decline that was partially offset by new undergraduate enrollment, which grew by 5 percent.

    The fall 2025 snapshot data shows that pattern continuing.

    Colleges and universities reported a 2 percent increase in undergraduate students, a 14 percent increase in Optional Practical Training students and a 12 percent decrease in graduate students.

    The 2024–25 Open Doors report also includes more details about international students during the last academic year—broken down by country of origin, field of study and primary funding sources—though that data reflects trends from last fall, before Trump took office and initiated restrictions that experts believe have deterred some international students.

    It shows that international enrollment in the United States jumped 5 percent between fall 2023 and fall 2024, continuing to rebound from a 15 percent pandemic-induced drop during the 2020–21 academic year. That’s in line with the fall 2024 snapshot data, which indicated 3 percent growth in international student totals.

    However, the majority (57 percent) of colleges and universities that responded to IIE’s fall 2025 snapshot survey reported a decline in new international enrollment. And 96 percent of them cited visa concerns, while 68 percent named travel restrictions as the reason for the drop.

    Meanwhile, 29 percent of institutions reported an increase in new international enrollment and 14 percent reported stable enrollment. For those institutions that saw an uptick this fall, 71 percent attributed the growth to active recruitment initiatives, and 54 percent cited outreach to admitted students.

    The Open Doors data also confirms earlier projections from NAFSA: Association of International Educators and recent analyses from The New York Times and Inside Higher Ed about the Trump administration’s immigration policies leading to falling international student enrollment, as well as hardship for university budgets and the broader national economy.

    According to the report, international students accounted for 6 percent of the total population enrolled in a higher education institution last academic year and contributed nearly $55 billion to the U.S. economy in 2024.

    “International students come to the United States to advance their education and contribute to U.S. colleges and communities,” Jason Czyz, president and CEO of IIE, said in a news release. “This data highlights the impact international students have in driving innovation, advancing scholarship, and strengthening cross-cultural understanding.”

    Trump’s Changing Stance

    But since Trump took office in January, his administration has cast international students—the majority (57 percent) of whom come to the U.S. to study in high-demand STEM fields—as threats to national security and opportunity for American-born students rather than economic stimulants.

    International university students attending wealthy, selective universities are “not just bad for national security,” Vice President JD Vance said in March. “[They’re] bad for the American dream for a lot of kids who want to go to a nice university and can’t because their spot was taken by a foreign student.”

    But as the Open Doors data shows, it’s not just wealthy, private institutions that host international students. During the 2024–25 academic year, 59 percent attended public institutions. Meanwhile, among all institution types, community colleges experienced the fastest rate of international student growth, at 8 percent.

    And that’s despite the Trump administration’s concerted effort to deter them. So far this year, the federal government has detained foreign student activists, stripped students’ SEVIS statuses and visas, implemented social media vetting processes, paused new visa issuances, and moved to limit how long students can stay in the country.

    In May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio threatened to “aggressively revoke” Chinese students’ visas, including those “with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.”

    Although the Open Doors report shows that enrollment among Chinese students declined 4 percent between the 2023–24 and 2024–25 academic years, China is still the second-most-popular country of origin for international students, making up 23 percent of all international students; India—which surpassed China as the No. 1 source in 2023—produced 31 percent of all international students living in the U.S. during the 2024–25 academic year.

    But as of late, Trump has walked back some of his hostility toward international students. Over the summer, he proposed allowing 600,000 Chinese students into the country. And last week, he defended the economic benefit of international students during an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham.

    “We take in trillions of dollars from students,” he said. “You know, the students pay more than double when they come in from most foreign countries. I want to see our school system thrive. And it’s not that I want them, but I view it as a business.”

    Economic Consequences

    According to the Open Doors Report, roughly half (52 percent) of international students funded their education primarily with their own money during the 2024–25 academic year. And the 17 percent drop in new international enrollment this fall translates into more than $1.1 billion in lost revenue and nearly 23,000 fewer jobs, according to a new analysis from NAFSA, also published Monday.

    The report explained that the reasons for that vary but may be tied in part to the disproportionate decline in international graduate student enrollment and uptick in OPT students.

    The decline in graduate students on college campuses is “cutting into higher-spending populations that typically contribute more through tuition, living costs, and accompanying dependents,” the report said. Meanwhile, “the increased share of students pursuing OPT (up 14 percent) reduced the amount of campus-based spending [on] tuition, housing and dining.”

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  • Belonging Intervention Improves Pass Rates

    Belonging Intervention Improves Pass Rates

    Sense of belonging is a significant predictor of student retention and completion in higher education; students who believe they belong are more likely to bounce back from obstacles, take advantage of campus resources and remain enrolled.

    For community colleges, instilling a sense of belonging among students can be challenging, since students often juggle competing priorities, including working full-time, taking care of family members and commuting to and from campus.

    To help improve retention rates, the California Community Colleges replicated a belonging intervention developed at Indiana University’s Equity Accelerator and the College Transition Collaborative.

    Data showed the intervention not only increased students’ academic outcomes, but it also helped close some equity gaps for low-income students and those from historically marginalized backgrounds.

    What’s the need: Community college students are less involved on campus than their four-year peers; they’re also less likely to say they’re aware of or have used campus resources, according to survey data from Inside Higher Ed.

    This isolation isn’t desired; a recent survey by the ed-tech group EAB found that 42 percent of community college students said their social life was a top disappointment. A similar number said they were disappointed they didn’t make friends or meet new people.

    Methodology

    Six colleges in the California Community Colleges system participated in the study, for a total of 1,160 students—578 in the belonging program and 582 in a control group. Students completed the program during the summer or at the start of the term and then filled out a survey at the end.

    Moorpark Community College elected to deliver the belonging intervention during first-semester math and English courses to ensure all students could benefit.

    How it works: The Social Belonging for College Students intervention has three components:

    1. First, students analyze survey data from peers at their college, which shows that many others also worry about their academic success, experience loneliness or face additional challenges, to help normalize anxieties about college.
    2. Then, students read testimonies from other students about their initial concerns starting college and how they overcame the challenges.
    3. Finally, students write reflections of their own transition to college and offer advice to future students about how to overcome these concerns or reassure them that these feelings are normal.

    The goal of the exercise is to achieve a psychological outcome called “saying is believing,” said Oleg Bespalov, dean of institutional effectiveness and marketing at Moorpark Community College, part of the Ventura Community College District in California.

    “If you’ve ever worked in sales, like, say I worked at Toyota. I might not like Toyota; I just really need a job,” Bespalov said. “But the more I sell the Toyota, the more I come to believe that Toyota is a great car.” In the same way, while a student might not think they can succeed in college, expressing that belief to someone else can change their behaviors.

    Without the intervention, students tend to spiral, seeing a poor grade as a reflection of themselves and their capabilities. They may believe they’re the only ones who are struggling, Bespalov said. Following the intervention, students are more likely to embrace the idea that everyone fails sometimes and that they can rebound from the experience.

    At Moorpark, the Social Belonging for College Students intervention is paired with teaching on the growth mindset, explained Tracy Tennenhouse, English instructor and writing center co-coordinator.

    “Belonging is a mindset,” Bespalov said. “You have to believe that you belong here, and you have to convince the student to change their mindset about that.”

    The results: Students who participated in the belonging program were more likely to re-enroll for the next term, compared to their peers in the control group. This was especially true for students with high financial need or those from racial minorities.

    In the control group, there was a 14-percentage-point gap between low- and high-income students’ probability of re-enrolling. After the intervention, the re-enrollment gap dropped to six percentage points.

    Similarly, low-income students who participated in the intervention had a GPA that was 0.21 points higher than their peers who did not. Black students who participated in the exercise saw average gains of 0.46 points in their weighted GPA.

    To researchers, the results suggest that students from underrepresented backgrounds had more positive experiences at the end of the fall term if they completed the belonging activity. Intervention participants from these groups also reported fewer identity-related concerns and better mental and physical health, compared to their peers who didn’t participate.

    What’s next: Based on the positive findings, Moorpark campus leaders plan to continue delivering the intervention in future semesters. Tennenhouse sees an opportunity to utilize the reflection as a handwritten writing sample for English courses, making the assignment both a line of defense against AI plagiarism and an effective measure for promoting student belonging.

    Administrators have also considered delivering the intervention during summer bridge programs to support students earlier in their transition, or as a required assignment for online learners who do not meet synchronously.

    In addition, Tennenhouse would like to see more faculty share their own failure stories. Research shows students are more likely to feel connected to instructors who open up about their own lives with students.

    How does your college campus encourage feelings of belonging in the classroom? Tell us more here.

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  • Faith-Based Colleges Swept Up in Higher Ed Policy Changes

    Faith-Based Colleges Swept Up in Higher Ed Policy Changes

    Leaders of faith-based colleges and universities have spoken out on a slew of political issues in recent months, sometimes standing alongside secular universities and at other times differentiating themselves and defending their unique standing and missions.

    The Council for Christian Colleges and Universities and the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities signed on to an October statement from the American Council on Education opposing the administration’s higher education compact, for example. Over the summer, CCCU also came out with a statement on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that echoed those of secular associations and institutions, expressing concern that “it ultimately falls short in supporting student access and success.”

    ACE’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities was among the higher ed groups that lobbied hard against Pell Grant cuts, later dropped from the bill. At the same time, the University of Notre Dame and other faith-based institutions fought for an exemption for religious institutions from the higher education endowment tax, ultimately left out of the legislation’s final version.

    Like their secular peers, faith-based colleges and universities have been buffeted by the rapid-fire policy changes roiling higher ed this year. Some leaders of religious colleges say their institutions are enjoying renewed support that they hope sets a precedent for future policymakers across party lines. At the same time, some advocates fear religious colleges—and their missions—are suffering collateral damage in Trump’s war against highly selective universities, and they’re making careful decisions about when and how to speak out.

    “I knew change would be coming,” said David Hoag, president of CCCU, “but I never expected the pace to be this fast.”

    Raising Concerns

    Under any administration, CCCU’s job is to “make it possible for our institutions to achieve their missions,” Hoag said. But some recent policy changes pose an obstacle to that.

    Christian colleges—which tend to be small, enrolling about 2,500 students on average—can’t afford to join Trump’s proposed compact for higher ed, he said. He believes some of the compact’s demands, such as freezing tuition for five years, are a tall order with campus expenses on the rise. He also opposes the compact’s standardized test mandate when so many Christian colleges offer broad access, and he’s concerned by the possibility that government could have some control over curriculum, though he said the compact was unclear on that score.

    “On the curriculum side, most of our institutions are conservative. We have a solid Christian mission,” Hoag said. “I’m fine with civics being a part of some of the work that we do, but it, to me, starts to … step over academic freedom.”

    Christian colleges are also balking at the new $100,000 fee for H-1B visas, which these institutions use to bring in visiting professors from other countries.

    “Our institutions can’t afford anything like that,” Hoag said. Such a fee might be more easily affordable for tech or other industries that use H-1B visas to hire foreign employees, he said, “but for nonprofit colleges and Christian colleges, that’s a big financial burden.”

    He’s also alarmed by some of the provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, including the requirement that programs prove students will earn more than high school graduates in order to access federal loans. Hoag worries that won’t bode well for institutions where a significant portion of students go into ministry, social work or other public service jobs that don’t necessarily pay high wages. He said the end of the Grad PLUS program is also poised to hurt Christian colleges; graduate students borrowed about $460 million annually to attend CCCU institutions, he said. Now he expects many will struggle to pay. Caps on loans for professional school students are also going to affect those earning master’s degrees in divinity.

    Donna Carroll, president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, said Catholic institutions are hardly “immune” to the challenges rocking the rest of higher ed. She said her nonpartisan organization has decided to speak up on a particular set of policy issues, including financial aid and supports for low-income students, autonomy for faith-based institutions, and immigration policy and access for international students. For example, the association signed on to a statement by U.S. bishops condemning “indiscriminate mass deportation” as an “affront to God-given human dignity.”

    “There are some issues and situations where there is consensus and a unity across Catholic institutions,” Carroll said. “There are other situations where different institutions have different perspectives.”

    In a similar vein, Clark G. Gilbert, commissioner of the church educational system for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and chair of the Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities, said members of his coalition had mixed views on parts of the bill involving federal loans—he’d like to see colleges drop their prices—but they collectively pushed hard against proposed cuts to Pell Grants, which didn’t make it into the legislation.

    “We’re concerned about first-generation and low-income students. That’s not a partisan issue,” Gilbert said.

    ‘Not Like Some of These Ivies’

    A mounting frustration for some faith-based institution leaders is the blowback their campuses face from Trump administration policies targeting expensive, highly selective private universities, even though they view their missions as distinct.

    Hoag pointed out that, while some Christian colleges are pricier, the average tuition costs about $30,600 per year, not including room and board, and the average tuition discount rate is about 52 percent.

    “Christian schools are very affordable, and we’re not like some of these Ivies that have tuition from $80,000 to $100,000 a year,” Hoag said. Yet “I do feel that they’re … putting everybody in the same category.”

    Some faith-based institutions, led by the University of Notre Dame, sought to distinguish themselves from other higher ed institutions when they pushed for a religious exemption from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s endowment tax.

    Gilbert said Brigham Young University joined that effort because university leaders viewed the situation as a religious freedom issue.

    “We feel like there are public goods of faith-based schools that are often ignored,” such as research from faith-based perspectives, he said. “Without the internal funding at these schools, it wouldn’t happen. We feel like there is a religious liberty issue at stake there.”

    “I’m sure secular schools would feel their unique missions need that protection, too—that’s not my job to write and defend that,” he added.

    Gilbert said he feels a particular need to advocate on behalf of religious colleges, compared to higher ed as a whole, because he believes faith-based institutions are too often maligned. He said such institutions are doing research on topics ignored by their secular counterparts—like how family structures affect intergenerational poverty or how faith and religious community resources affect health outcomes—but these projects struggle to get federal funding or recognition from secular peers. He also stressed that these institutions provide a campus climate religious students can’t find elsewhere.

    “Many Jewish students do not feel safe at Columbia and at Harvard and at UCLA. Many LDS students do not feel welcome in certain programs,” he said. “Faith-based schools do feel like they need to preserve their rights.” He emphasized that doesn’t mean he wants to see any university lose out on cancer research funding, for example, but “faith-based scholars are doing things that no one else is doing, and why isn’t that getting the attention, the funding and the support, regardless of who the administration is?”

    Despite their policy disagreements, some leaders of faith-based institutions believe the Trump administration is offering them a warmer reception than they’ve perhaps received in the past. The president issued an executive order in February founding a task force on eradicating “anti-Christian bias” within government. In May, Trump’s Education Department also rescinded a $37.7 million fine levied by the Biden administration on Grand Canyon University, a private Christian institution, for allegedly misleading doctoral students about its cost. And the Trump administration recently partnered with Hillsdale College, a conservative Christian campus in Michigan, on a series of videos for the country’s 250th anniversary. The president of Yeshiva University, Rabbi Ari Berman, gave the benediction at Trump’s inauguration.

    Amid renewed outreach to faith-based institutions under Trump, Gilbert said he’s trying to walk a fine line, advocating for more attention and resources for faith-based institutions’ research but doing so in a way that remains apolitical.

    “We don’t care about party politics. We care about the American family. We care about alleviating poverty,” he said. “We’re going to continue to help shine a light on the contributions these schools make in the current climate, but not so overboard that when things may change, and they will, that we can’t make the same arguments using the same principles with a different administration.”

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  • Ky. Professor “Reassigned” After Call for War on Israel Sues

    Ky. Professor “Reassigned” After Call for War on Israel Sues

    The University of Kentucky’s administration building. A professor is suing the institution.

    BD Images/iStock Editorial/Getty Images Plus

    The University of Kentucky law professor who was removed from teaching amid his calls for a global war on Israel to end its existence as a state is now suing his institution and the U.S. education secretary.

    On his website, antizionist.net, Ramsi Woodcock asks fellow legal scholars to sign a “Petition for Military Action Against Israel.” He says Israel is a colony and war is needed to decolonize, and he calls for the war to continue until “Israel has submitted permanently and unconditionally to the government of Palestine everywhere from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.”

    In his lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, Woodcock asks a judge to order the university and top officials to restore his normal teaching and other duties, allow him back into the College of Law building, end the university’s investigation of him, and pay monetary damages. But he also asks the judge to order Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “refrain from requiring or using” the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism when enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

    The IHRA says antisemitism “might include the targeting of the state of Israel,” “comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” or claims “that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.” Earlier this year, Kentucky state lawmakers ordered public universities to use the IHRA definition in their policies combating antisemitism. Woodcock is also asking the judge to declare that that order violates the First Amendment.

    His lawsuit alleges the state and federal actions are related to his “suspension,” saying the university’s tolerance of his speech “ended in summer 2025” after the federal government threatened to withdraw funding from universities and moved to enforce the IHRA definition. He also cited the passage of the state legislation that “enabled and pressured administrators to suppress speech critical of Israel and Zionism.”

    The Education Department didn’t respond to requests for comment Friday. A university spokesperson said Woodcock hasn’t been suspended but was “reassigned pending the outcome of an investigation,” adding that the university will be “limited in our comments while that investigation is ongoing.”

    In an email to Inside Higher Ed, Woodcock responded, “Israel is a colonization project that practices apartheid and is currently exterminating two million Palestinians in Gaza. The scandal is not that I am calling for immediate military action to end Israel but that the university is willing to violate our nation’s constitution in order to preserve Israel. Every American scholar has a First Amendment right to oppose Israel and I look forward to holding the university accountable for breaking the law.”

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  • Hiring Flat for 2026 Grads

    Hiring Flat for 2026 Grads

    A quarter of employers said they plan to increase the number of hires, primarily citing a commitment to succession planning and the talent pipeline.

    fizkes/iStock/Getty Images Plus

    Forty-five percent of employers consider the job market to be “fair,” and they are projecting a 1.6 percent year-over-year increase in hiring for the Class of 2026, according to a new report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

    The last time a plurality of employers gave the job market a “fair” rating was in 2021, when hiring projections were also flat. During the four interim years, most employers rated the job market as “good” or “very good,” the report shows.

    About 60 percent of the 183 employers NACE polled for the 2026 Job Outlook Survey said they are planning to keep the number of people they hire stable next year. A quarter of employers said they plan to increase the number of hires, primarily citing a commitment to succession planning and the talent pipeline, as well as company growth, as key reasons. The top five industries for projected hiring growth are miscellaneous professional services; engineering services; construction; finance, insurance and real estate; and management consulting.

    About 14 percent of employers said they plan to decrease the number of people they hire next year, citing reductions in business needs and projects, an uncertain economy and budget cuts. These employers are primarily concentrated in the chemical pharmaceutical manufacturing, transportation, wholesale trade, food and beverage manufacturing, and miscellaneous manufacturing industries.

    NACE surveyed employers between Aug. 7 and Sept. 22 of this year for their thoughts on the job market, hiring trends and salaries. About 40 percent of employers plan to increase salaries for bachelor’s degree holders in 2026, and 28.3 percent will do the same for master’s degree holders. No employers reported plans to decrease salaries for either group next year, the report states.

    Skills-based hiring remains popular—69.5 percent of employers reported they use the approach. Asked how students can best prepare for a skills-based hiring process, employers primarily said applicants should “prepare for interviews that demonstrate their skills,” “participate in experiential learning or work during college” and “translate college coursework into a skills language.”

    Meanwhile, fewer employers care about applicants’ GPAs—only 42.1 percent of employers plan to screen GPAs in 2026, compared with 73.3 percent in 2019. Academic majors, industry experience and internships, and internships at the employer’s organization are top decision-making factors for employers that don’t screen for GPAs.

    Artificial intelligence is also top of mind, but many employers are still figuring out exactly how AI will integrate into their business, said Christine Cruzvergara, chief education strategy officer at the job and internship platform Handshake. NACE data reflects a similar sentiment toward AI among employers—nearly 59 percent said they are not planning to or unsure whether they’ll augment entry-level jobs with AI, and 25 percent said they’re currently discussing it. About 13 percent of jobs require AI skills, the report shows, and 10.5 percent of entry-level jobs include AI in their descriptions.

    “I think the majority of employers are still experimenting with how AI will supplement or augment the work that their employees are doing from entry level all the way to more senior folks,” Cruzvergara said. “And I think some functions have probably already started to figure that out a little bit more, like in some of the technical roles, or marketing is another big one, versus customer success or some of the other types of roles that people have. It’s a varied spectrum that you’re seeing at the moment.”

    The percentage of fully hybrid jobs has declined since spring 2025, from 47 percent to 42 percent, while the percentage of fully in-person jobs increased from 43 percent to 48 percent, the report shows. The percentage of fully remote jobs has held steady at 10 percent. More entry-level jobs are fully in-person—50 percent—and fewer are fully remote, 6 percent.

    Ashley Mowreader contributed to this report.

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  • International Students Deserve Better (opinion)

    International Students Deserve Better (opinion)

    I recently caught up with a former student pursuing her doctorate. Her project is timely. She is Cameroonian and a legal resident in the United States studying how pro-democracy movements succeed or how and when they fail. Students like her benefit our nation’s economy and our global ability to promote democracy and peace at home and abroad.

    As she and I chatted, I detected exhaustion in her voice. I asked her how she is holding up. She replied with unmistakable sadness: “In Cameroon, I felt like my voice was stifled. I thought I could finally use my voice in the United States. I no longer feel that way.”

    As a current international student, she lives in constant fear. Campus administrators have cautioned her against speeding or driving with a broken taillight. Her faculty adviser serves as her emergency contact if she is detained by federal immigration authorities.

    The extraordinary crackdown on international students enrolled at U.S. universities, including the more than 400 students in my state of Texas alone who learned that their visa status had been canceled in spring of 2025, has little precedent in recent history. While officials in Washington restored students’ visa statuses in response to court rulings, the Department of State has begun reviewing visa applicants’ social media accounts “for any indications of hostility towards the citizens, culture, government, institutions or founding principles of the United States.”

    As a university instructor, my classes have been enriched by the perspectives of international students. But their benefit to this country extends beyond their academic participation. Each year, upwards of 150,000 college-age youth participate in the little-known low-wage employment-based categories of the J-1 visa, including the Summer Work Travel, trainee, intern and au pair programs. Participants work in low-wage jobs at restaurants, in hotels and in homes providing live-in day care for thousands of American families.

    The J-1 Exchange Visitor Program began with modest enrollment in the 1960s to promote Cold War–era public diplomacy. But numbers have grown in recent decades, transforming these employment-based categories into a significant stream of temporary foreign workers. A major draw is the low cost of employing them. Employers avoid most payroll taxes and sidestep bureaucratic red tape. Since the State Department oversees the program, there is no labor market testing or commitment to public data as is standard with Department of Labor foreign worker programs.

    My multiyear findings and those of others—including the findings from a recent investigation by The New York Times—illuminate several J-1 program shortcomings: fraud in recruitment, inadequate and overpriced housing, and a failure of the State Department and designated cultural sponsors to address reports of abuse. In practice, sponsors amount to labor brokers who collect $1,000 to $5,000 to match a J-1 participant with an employer. I will never forget the Peruvian Summer Work Travel participant who wept as he described losing his job and housing amid COVID shutdowns. Neither his employer nor sponsor came to his aid. Instead, the Peruvian consulate sheltered and fed him until he found a way home. What his experience made clear to me was how weak J-1 protections are and how, amid a crisis like COVID, instead of building bonds of international friendship and goodwill, his J-1 cultural sponsor host and employer abandoned him in a crucial time of need.

    Similarly, the demand for work authorization through the Optional Practical Training program, available to international students here on the F-1 visa, has skyrocketed, growing from 154,522 in 2007 to 418,781 in 2024. Like for J-1 visas, the Labor Department has no formal regulatory role over the OPT program, which instead is administered by the Department of Homeland Security. The OPT program originated in 1992 as a pilot initiative, and after intensive corporate lobbying, the government tripled the maximum duration of the program.

    The resulting problems with the OPT program are obvious and preventable. Journalists and scholars have documented unchecked and underregulated growth, sham employment offers, and systematic underpayment, along with the proliferation of so-called body shops, staffing agencies that hire foreign workers and then rent them out to big-name tech firms—often at bargain-basement rates.

    Undoubtedly, the risks faced by international students on campus versus at work differ substantially. So do their causes: The threat to international students on campus results from a hard political turn against immigration in rhetoric and policy and an effort to censor free speech in higher education. The risks faced by J-1 and F-1/OPT workers stem from the ongoing demand among U.S. employers for cheap, compliant migrant workers. Yet, Congress legislated pathways for both to promote democracy and global understanding between U.S. and foreign citizens, aims from which we have drastically strayed.

    Prohibiting J-1 recruitment fees, shifting oversight of J-1 and OPT programs to the Labor Department, and making available comprehensive labor data for both would result in far better treatment and stewardship of international youth and more fairness to U.S. workers. It would also shed light on the opaque inner workings of U.S. temporary migrant worker policy at a time when mass deportation and the gutting of temporary protected status and refugee programs only heighten demand for new sources of low-priced and flexible labor, labor that immigrant populations have long been called upon by U.S. employers to do.

    Cate Bowman is an associate professor of sociology at Austin College, specializing in immigration and labor issues.

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  • Managing Change Is a Skill; Here’s How to Teach It (opinion)

    Managing Change Is a Skill; Here’s How to Teach It (opinion)

    In every sector, including higher education, change has become the defining condition of professional life. Budgets shift, opportunities change, teams reorganize and expectations evolve faster than most of us can keep up. Students, postdocs and seasoned professionals alike are being asked to adapt constantly, often without ever being taught how to do it.

    As directors of career centers, our job is to spot the skills tomorrow’s leaders will need and to design ways to help them build those skills now. At the top of that list is the ability to navigate change and to help others do the same. It’s not a “nice-to-have” skill anymore; it’s part of how one leads, collaborates and makes their own work sustainable.

    We’ve been discussing how to help trainees and professional colleagues negotiate change for a long time. Naledi developed the Straight A’s for Change Management framework through National Science Foundation–funded work focused on training biomedical professionals in people management and managing-up skills. Dinuka has used this approach in his own leadership practice and integrated its lessons into his work supporting trainees and professionals. Together, we wanted to share what this looks like in real life.

    What’s often missing in professional skill development isn’t the outcome; it’s the process. The Straight A’s for Change Management framework offers exactly that. Built on four steps—acknowledge and accept, assess, address, and appreciate achievement—it helps people build agency: the capacity to act skillfully even when they can’t control external events.

    Acknowledge and Accept

    Step one is to acknowledge reality and then accept what it means to and for you.

    Many people we work with, from first-year students to senior leaders, stop short of even this first step. They can acknowledge the problem—funding has been cut, hiring has slowed or their people are struggling with change—but they don’t take the harder step of acceptance.

    Acceptance means internalizing that your long-standing plan or approach may no longer be viable and that you will need to adjust your goals or strategies. It can also mean accepting that you might need support or community beyond your institution to help hold this heavy truth. But this is the inflection point where agency begins: not wishing conditions were different, but accepting the need for you to think and act differently, too.

    For a postdoc, acceptance might mean recognizing that a principal investigator’s funding constraints could shorten the timeline of their project. That realization could prompt them to seek alternative support, accelerate a job search or pivot their research scope. For a student, acceptance might mean realizing that since their adviser’s experience is limited to academic careers, they will need to proactively seek additional mentorship to position themselves for biotech careers.

    For Dinuka, acceptance came during a period of leadership transition. The role he had taken on had quietly shifted beneath him—new expectations, new reporting lines and values that no longer aligned with what drew him to the work in the first place. He agonized over whether to stay and adapt or to acknowledge that something essential had changed. The moment he admitted that reality, uncomfortable as it was, he could finally see a path forward. Acceptance meant reclaiming his agency.

    Reflection Prompts:

    • What change in your environment are you resisting acknowledging?
    • What might acceptance make possible that resistance is currently blocking?
    • Who can help you process this shift with honesty and perspective?

    Assess the Change

    Once you’ve acknowledged and accepted a situation, the next step is to assess it strategically. This is where you shift from emotional reaction to analytical clarity.

    A useful tool here is a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats). Ask yourself:

    • Strengths: What are your skills? Where can you leverage them in this situation?
    • Weaknesses: Where are you vulnerable?
    • Opportunities: What new directions might this open?
    • Threats: What could block your goals?

    Answering these questions encourages balance. Some start with weaknesses and threats; others begin with strengths and opportunities. What matters is that you consider all four dimensions.

    It’s also helpful to share your SWOT with a mentor or trusted colleague. Instead of laying out your situation and asking, “What should I do?” you can say, “Here’s how I’m assessing my situation. Can you help me identify what I might be missing?” Tools like a SWOT provide structure for both your reflection and your conversations with those who support you.

    When Dinuka reached this stage, he turned to trusted mentors, colleagues and family members to triangulate perspectives. His SWOT involved asking, what strengths could he draw on if he stayed? Where were the risks if he left? What opportunities might emerge if he stepped away? What threats might come from doing so? Speaking these questions aloud prevented him from getting stuck in his own echo chamber and restored clarity. Assessment gave his uncertainty a shape.

    Reflection Prompts:

    • How fully have you mapped the situation you’re in—emotionally and strategically?
    • Which perspective (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) do you tend to overemphasize or neglect?
    • Who could provide an outside view to help you see what you might be missing (trusted mentors, colleagues, friends or family members)?

    Address the Change

    To address change is to use what you’ve learned to respond skillfully.

    Sometimes it starts by envisioning your best possible outcome six to 12 months out and working backward from there. Other times it means short-term triage, only figuring out the next logical step rather than solving everything at once. That might mean updating your CV, signing up for job boards or reaching out to a mentor.

    One postdoc Naledi worked with wanted to keep his career options open. In response, he began carving out one hour a week to set up informational interviews with alumni in biotech and communication careers, learning which skills were in demand. With that insight, he added a side project that strengthened his technical skills, focused on service and leadership opportunities to communicate science, and kept his network apprised of his progress.

    In Dinuka’s case, addressing the change meant testing what was still possible before making a decision. He clarified expectations with new leadership, re-aligned priorities and gave the situation space to evolve. When it became clear that the trajectory no longer matched his values or goals, he made the intentional choice to step away. That decision, though difficult, came from a place of calm rather than crisis.

    Addressing change when the future is unclear means shifting from awareness to iterative forward motion, using your definition of integrity as your compass.

    Reflection Prompts:

    • What is one small, concrete step you can take this week to move forward?
    • If you imagine the best version of this situation a year from now, what would need to happen between now and then?
    • How can you act with integrity even when you can’t control outcomes?

    Appreciate Achievements

    The final step, often overlooked, is to appreciate achievements. Many wait for a situation to resolve before celebrating. But change often unfolds over a long arc, and there may never be a moment when everything “returns to normal.”

    That means recognizing that even small wins are a big deal. Did you talk to a friend to process your situation? Celebrate. Did you update your CV? Celebrate. Did you gain greater clarity about your direction? Celebrate!

    Shifting from celebrating only outcomes (a publication, a job offer, a raise) to also celebrating progress, milestones and effort helps sustain momentum and motivation.

    When Dinuka finally left that role, he felt grounded. He appreciated the mentors who guided him, the colleagues who supported him and the lessons learned in difficulty. He celebrated not the exit itself, but the growth that came with it. That sense of gratitude transformed what could have been resentment into renewal.

    Appreciating achievements is not self-indulgent; it is strategic. It focuses attention on what you have accomplished despite uncertainty, which builds confidence to keep going.

    Reflection Prompts:

    • What progress have you made in the past month that you haven’t acknowledged?
    • Whom can you thank or recognize for supporting your journey through change?
    • How do you remind yourself that growth often looks like struggle before success?

    Why Straight A’s Matter

    Taken together, the A’s—acknowledge and accept, assess, address and appreciate achievement—form a road map for agency. We may not control personal setbacks, professional disappointments, shifting organizational priorities, unfair practices or political turbulence. But with every new challenge, we can start responding intentionally, identifying where we can still move.

    Our experiences reinforced that agency is learned through practice. The Straight A’s provide both structure and language for something many of us attempt intuitively: turning uncertainty into direction. The framework accepts complexity and teaches us to meet it with clarity and integrity.

    By practicing the Straight A’s, we build the muscles of agency and leadership. If we teach the next generation of leaders these approaches as part of their training and development, they will be prepared to lead skillfully in a world where the only constant is change.

    Naledi Saul is director of the Office of Career and Professional Development at the University of California, San Francisco, She coaches and frequently presents on people management and managing-up skills for higher education and biomedical audiences.

    Dinuka Gunaratne (he/him) has worked across several postsecondary institutions in Canada and the U.S. and is a member of several organizational boards, including Co-operative Education and Work-Integrated Learning Canada, CERIC—Advancing Career Development in Canada, and the leadership team of the Administrators in Graduate and Professional Student Services knowledge community with NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education.

    They are both members of the Graduate Career Consortium, an organization that provides an international voice for graduate-level career and professional development leaders.

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  • 3 Steps for Re-Enrolling Adult Learners (opinion)

    3 Steps for Re-Enrolling Adult Learners (opinion)

    About 3.8 million new high school graduates are expected to enroll in higher education next fall. The number of former students with some college credits but no credential is, at nearly 38 million working-age American adults, 10 times larger. If institutions could re-engage just 1 percent of the some college, no credential (SCNC) learners, they would net nearly 400,000 additional enrollments.

    Stopped-out learners represent an enormous market—and colleges should be competing for them. But these former students and other adult learners require much different approaches from a postsecondary institution than do 18-year-olds straight out of high school. Here are three simple actions institutions can take to connect with adult learners and put them on a more direct path to enroll.

    Start With Your Own Stopped-Out Students

    The fiercely competitive market for adult students is dominated by national online universities that pump millions of dollars each year into sophisticated marketing campaigns. That makes it difficult for traditional colleges to make inroads with adult learners. But traditional institutions have a leg up on one subset of adult learners: their own former students.

    These students know their institutions. They might remember some classmates, professors or classes they took. And they probably still live nearby—if not in the same community, then in the same state.

    Institutions unsure about enrolling these students should look at the examples set by other nearby and national colleges that are successfully re-enrolling their own stop-outs. More likely than not, they’re emphasizing what they can do specifically for adult learners and offering a rapid and simplified admissions process. Successful institutions also apply credit for prior learning before a learner re-enrolls and can tell incoming students exactly how long a program will take and how much it costs. Institutions that can convince their former students to re-enroll can increase the odds of attracting other adults with no connection to the institution.

    Make It Easier for Former Students to Enroll

    Colleges should configure the re-enrollment process to address the particular situations of stopped-out students. That means colleges should map the start-to-finish re-enrollment process for stopped-out students just like they have for their first-time, first-year students, and then streamline it to meet the needs of returning adult learners. One key place to begin is identifying the academic, financial or procedural barriers that prevent adult learners from re-enrolling and then communicating options for remediation.

    Before students begin classes, institutions should be ready to illustrate the most direct pathway for students to complete a credential, one that accommodates the complicated lives of time-crunched adult learners and leads to a postgraduation job in a high-demand, high-paying field. Institutions should clarify pathways and credit requirements for learners looking to change from their original major.

    Institutions should also consider devoting a section of their website to their own stopped-out students. That webpage should contain detailed re-enrollment information tailored to the specific needs and support services that can assist with the transition back to college.

    Assist Them Financially

    Here’s a quiz for institutions: How does your tuition discount rate for re-enrolling students compare to that for first-time students? Chances are, it’s extremely low relative to other enrollment segments.

    Unlike first-time, first-year students, adult learners are financially independent and must squeeze college expenses into already tight household budgets. Even a small increase in the discount rate for returning learners can increase the likelihood that they’ll re-enroll. Even better, calling it an “academic scholarship” confers prestige on the recipient and can give a stopped-out student the boost they need to come back strong.

    If stopped-out students have outstanding balances from their previous enrollment, consider reducing or waiving those unpaid fees to eliminate one more barrier to re-enrollment. For institutions that spend millions of dollars annually to recruit and retain traditional-age students, small-dollar investments in adult learners can pay big enrollment dividends.

    Adult learners and stopped-out students are no longer a niche population in the higher education ecosystem, and the data suggests that they’re a worthwhile investment for institutions concerned about evolving demographics, enrollment cliffs and their precarious bottom lines. If institutions can reconnect with their own stopped-out students, make it easier for them to enroll and provide some financial assistance, they can begin to bring back more of these learners and stand a little taller in the crowded higher education marketplace.

    Scott Lomas is the chief strategy officer for ReUp Education.

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  • Why institutions must protect personal academic tutoring at all costs

    Why institutions must protect personal academic tutoring at all costs

    Join HEPI for a webinar on Thursday 11 December 2025 from 10am to 11am to discuss how universities can strengthen the student voice in governance to mark the launch of our upcoming report, Rethinking the Student Voice. Sign up now to hear our speakers explore the key questions.

    This blog was kindly authored by Dr Gary Jones, Dean of Student Success and Experience, Scholars School System, Dr Steve Briggs, Director of Learning, Teaching and Libraries, University of Bedfordshire, Professor Graeme Pedlingham, Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor for Student Experience, University of Sussex, Dr David Grey, UKAT Chief Executive Officer and Professor Abigail Moriarty, Pro Vice-Chancellor Education & Students, University of Lincoln.

    A recent analytic induction study (Grey & Bailey, 2020) defined personal academic tutoring in UK higher education as a “proactive, professional relationship between student and tutor sustained throughout the entire student journey.” This partnership involves “dialogue, metacognition, and a structured programme of activities” aimed at fostering student agency, self-efficacy, independent learning, and career and future goals.

    Personal academic tutors play a crucial role by supporting students to “assimilate to the university environment”, facilitating learning and decision-making, reviewing progress, and providing essential information. They enhance both academic ability and emotional well-being through holistic support during one-to-one or group meetings at key academic moments. Personal academic tutors are described as “knowledgeable, approachable, helpful, patient, caring, reliable and non-judgmental” staff members who possess the skills to actively listen, instruct, and advise. They play a crucial role in supporting student success and outcomes.

    HE size and shape is changing

    The increasingly perilous position of economic sustainability in the UK higher education sector has meant that a growing number of institutions are instigating reviews of their ‘size and shape’. In turn, many providers face some tough decisions around what should be prioritised. We anticipate that multiple university senior leadership teams may review academic workload plan allocations during the 2025/26 academic year to ensure that academic staff time can be optimised. As such, consideration may be given to changing time allocations to prioritise teaching preparation and delivery, assessment, and research over personal academic tutoring. We argue that teaching and research should not be treated as more important than personal academic tutoring when allocating time. Nor should teaching and research time be reduced in favour of personal academic tutoring. Rather, we argue for equivalency and that time allocation for personal academic tutoring is an activity institutions should seek to protect, not cut. 

    The value of university education has become a sharper and often more critical question in media narratives, as well as for people considering studying in higher education. With the increasing cost of living and studying at university, the question of how universities can make the benefits to students as visible as possible is understandably at the forefront of many of our minds. We argue that personal academic tutoring is a critical part of achieving this through a strategic, purposeful, proactive, and student-centred approach that is informed by data rather than risking falling into a reactive approach.

    The impact and benefit of personal academic tutoring

    Personal academic tutoring plays a fundamental role in enhancing attainment and impacts the Office for Students’ metrics, which determine institutional success (such as the Teaching Excellence Framework, National Student Survey and Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey). Effective tutoring can be measured in many ways, but not least of these is the positive benefits for helping students to stay on course and be successful, directly supporting those key B3 continuation and completion rates. Effective personal academic tutoring is therefore a virtuous circle for improving student outcomes and experience, and can help give direct evidence of value to both current students and potential applicants.

    Meaningful individualised relationships that encompass the entirety of a student’s learning journey are fostered through effective personal academic tutoring.  Successful tutors nurture a sense of belonging and mattering, aid in navigating the complexities of the higher education study experience, cultivate vital analytical and transferable skills, and impact student career aspirations and employability. At its best, personal academic tutoring transcends traditional teaching methods by facilitating purposeful, structured interactions outside of learning, empowering student agency and promoting the holistic development of all students. As highlighted by NACADA, teaching beyond the curriculum and discipline can help to bring together and contextualise students’ educational experiences in terms of extending aspirations, abilities and lives beyond campus boundaries and timeframes.  

    Academic workload planning and personal academic tutoring

    A recent UKAT senior leaders’ network group meeting provided a forum for discussions regarding allocating dedicated resources for personal academic tutoring in universities. Here, we explored the variation and inconsistencies across the sector regarding how universities operate their personal academic tutoring in terms of academic workload planning. Members reported that across institutions, resource allocation was often determined locally but was driven by central university policy. As the group engaged in thought-provoking dialogue, a critical question emerged: If we genuinely value the importance of learning beyond the traditional subject curriculum, why is personal academic tutoring often not prioritised to the same extent as other activities in the initial stages of academic workload allocation?

    The case for a personal academic tutoring first mindset

    Recognising there are institutional differences, possible common ways of addressing this challenge were discussed, considering the aforementioned financial constraints facing the HE sector. Abi presented to attendees a cup metaphor for academic workload planning based on her previous work. This suggests that, given the significance of personal academic tutoring on student outcomes, personal academic tutoring time should be the first thing built into an academic’s workload plan. She noted, however, that this is often not the case and time allocation for personal academic tutoring may be the last thing added into the workload ‘cup’ (behind teaching, assessment and research), in turn causing the cup to overflow and damaging the significance associated with personal academic tutoring. There was an overwhelming consensus that we should all adopt a personal academic tutoring first ethos in terms of academic workload planning. Accordingly, we encourage readers who will be undertaking academic workload plan reviews over the coming months to reflect on how they allocate personal academic tutoring time, particularly if personal academic tutoring has not historically been the first pour into the workload cup.

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