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Student Success Coaching Success Stories

For Chianti Grantham, her vocation in life crystallized the moment she started teaching.

“The first time I stepped foot in a classroom, I knew that that’s what I was supposed to do. I knew that was my happy place.”

Grantham works as an academic success coach at Houston’s University of St. Thomas, in the Kolbe School of Innovation and Professional Studies, an associate degree–granting arm of the university that supports nontraditional learners. In her role, Grantham assists students who are facing challenges that are impeding their academic progress, including those who have fallen below a 2.0 GPA.

In an interview with Inside Higher Ed, Grantham discusses how she does the work and effective strategies she’s used to support her students.

Q: What experiences or training have helped you establish your student success philosophy?

A: All of the experience that I’ve had over the years has taught me how to do what I do. I have a varied amount of experience from teaching, from being a tutor, and I think that it grew as I matured and grew as an educator. So did my skill level and paying attention to the needs of the students, and establishing those relationships with the students.

One of my very first classes that I taught, I had a student disclose in a paper that he had HIV. I learned quickly, like, “OK, this is about more than just teaching these students how to write. I have to be a mother. I have to be a support system. I have to be that person that they can go to.” Because if he felt comfortable enough in disclosing something like that with me, then I have a lot of power, and I can use that power for good, or I can use that power for bad. I decided that I wanted to use that power for good, and I specifically wanted to serve the nontraditional, underserved population.

I’ve been an academic success coach for going on four years at St. Thomas and then two years prior with Lone Star College. I have found that, once I reach out to a student and I’m like, “Hey, your instructor indicated that you have fallen behind. You haven’t turned in your assignments. Your assignments have been subpar. You’ve been unresponsive,” whatever the situation is—I always ask for very detailed information about what’s going on with the student—it’s like the floodgates open. Students are like, “Oh my gosh, somebody called me, somebody cares.” And that’s what I normally hear, like, “Yes, I’m sorry. I lost my job,” or “I’m overwhelmed with work,” or “I’m overwhelmed with life,” or “I’m depressed,” or “My husband and I have separated.” It’s generally an external factor that is impeding them from being successful in the classroom.

What I tell our instructors is: We have to get to the root of the issue, but we have to get to the root of the issue early. Early intervention is the best and most viable way to help a student to be successful. If I don’t know until a week before classes end, I can’t help that student, right? But if I know week one, they haven’t submitted any assignments within that first week, I tell the instructors to contact me, give me their information, tell me what’s going on and I’m reaching out. In that instance, I can help a student to turn it around.

Q: You recently started a program to support students on academic probation. Can you talk about where that idea came from and where you saw a need to improve processes for these students?

A: What we’re trying to do is find as many ways to support the students in their success. So, specifically, when they’re on academic probation—meaning that they’ve fallen below a 2.0 grade point average—at that time, they go under my wing.

They’re required to be in contact with me, either through phone call or meeting face-to-face or virtually, just to help them get back on track. We’re sitting down, we are creating a routine and a study schedule that also includes their personal lives.

What I tell a student is “Let’s look at your personal as well as your professional life. Let’s put all of those responsibilities in a calendar.” So whether it be a paper calendar or on a cellphone—I’m an old-school person, so I actually do paper and I do my cellphone—I help them in that way.

I also refer them to other resources. If they’re telling me they’re having some type of housing issue, I will contact our residence life department. I’ve also sought out shelters, other community resources. I have advocated for students to get scholarships so that they can pay their rent. It’s a gamut of things.

I’m in the process now with one of my colleagues to write an academic probation course that the students must take for an entire semester, and it focuses on time management, organizational skills and some mental wellness tips. All of these things that I have either seen myself in interacting with students or in my conversations with faculty and adjuncts, things that they’ve seen. We’ll be launching that this semester.

Q: How do you balance the complexity of student support work? Each student is going to need a different thing, so how do you keep yourself educated as to what those resources are and who’s going to help you and be a partner in this work?

A: What I found early on in this role is that it’s super important, actually, that I build relationships with other departments around the campus.

I have also learned that it’s super important that I build relationships within the community. So there have to be people within the community that I can have a conversation with about, like, “Hey, I have a student that is unhoused. Can you help me? They need food; they need somewhere to live. They need clothing.” Those relationships are key. If I didn’t have those relationships, I wouldn’t be able to support my students.

Q: How have you built up relationships with instructors as well, letting them know that you’re here to help with students’ success?

A: At the beginning of every semester and then midway through the semester, I always send an email to all of the instructors reminding them, “I’m here. These are the services that I offer. These are the hours that I’m available if the students are performing at a lower level, if they’ve inquired about additional resources, if they’re unresponsive, if they said, ‘Hey, I just need help.’” If faculty feel they can’t offer that, those are the kind of things that I tell the instructors that I am able to help the students with.

Also, I advocate for the students. Because I know these students very well, I’m copied on all emails that are sent to students when there is an external factor that’s going on that’s impeding them from being successful. I’m able to just keep a pulse on what’s going on. But yeah, my relationships with the faculty are great. It has to be, because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to support my students.

Q: Do you have any advice for other academic success coaches you’d like to share?

A: The one thing that I would say is the relationships that you build are so key. If you have relationships, if you reach across the aisle, so to speak, and you keep an open mind, just because someone doesn’t look like you, just because someone doesn’t share the same interests and beliefs as you, doesn’t mean that you can’t have a relationship with them.

Some of the most beneficial relationships that I’ve had with students have been with people that are not like me and don’t share similar interests as me, but we’ve been able to come together.

A perfect example is I had a student come to campus. He is local, but he didn’t ever come on campus because our programs are fully online. He’s really shy, so when he came to campus, I made a point to introduce him to one of my colleagues over at the peer-mentor program so that he could become a peer mentor. I took him over to career services because he was interested in an internship program, so I put him in touch directly with the person that handles that. Then he was like, “Oh, well, I also want to get involved in this particular club.” Well, it just so happened that the person in career services is also over [at] that particular club.

I didn’t just pass him off like he was a baton or a number. I took him to these specific people. We had a conversation. We determined what the need was. I already knew what the need was, but I also have to help students advocate for themselves, right? That is the biggest thing—those relationships have been key, because I’ve been able to go into spaces that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to, or maybe not effectively go into.

If your student success program has a unique feature or twist, we’d like to know about it. Click here to submit.

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August 15, 2025
It’s a Small World (After All)

These days, most faculty members are tired, sad and as anxious as our tired, sad students. We spend time doing things that aren’t what our advisers did, or what they trained us to do, or even really what we want to do.

We serve on too many committees, busy with work that’s unrewarded and mostly invisible, and we must explain to civilians that, no, we don’t have summers off—we just don’t get paid to do the research we have to produce to survive, even if no one ever reads it. Some of us juggle zillions of courses at multiple institutions and can barely afford dog food. Most people getting Ph.D.s these days can no longer expect to land a permanent job. And many of us who were lucky enough to get on that last gravy train to tenure are ready to hop off, if we could only think of something else we’re qualified to do.

As tired, sad and anxious as I am, I still find this gig a privilege: indoor work, no heavy lifting. And the academic world, with all its wacky quirks, is fascinating. Like other cultural niches, we have our own jargon, celebrities unknown to the wider public, rituals that make zero sense to outsiders (and to many of us) and a deeply entrenched caste system that keeps us humble. (Ha-ha.)

I’ve been in multiple rings in the academic circus. After I bailed out of scholarly publishing—first at Oxford University Press and then at Duke—I worked in undergraduate admissions at Duke. I wrote a snarky book about that experience, then published two more to atone for my sins. That experience fed into my next act: For a quarter century, I spouted off in columns for ~~The Chronicle of Higher Education~~ a rival publication, hoping to give academics permission to write for and like humans.

When I became a faculty member, I felt I’d won the lottery. Who else has this kind of job security and so many degrees of freedom? I try to remember how fortunate I am when I’m tempted to complain. (Doesn’t stop me.) It helps to remember that having tenure is luxurious compared to being staff, where I was sometimes treated as one notch above custodians and had to deal with almost as much shit.

Two years ago, I was asked by Inside Higher Ed’s co-founder, my old buddy Doug Lederman, to create a paywalled newsletter for industry leaders. I got a crash course in governance and learned how little I understood about how universities are run. In off-the-record chats with presidents, I’ve realized that rarely does anyone see the full picture, including faculty members like me who believe they know it all.

Those conversations opened my eyes to just how brutal the job has become—death threats, harassment by frat-boy trustees, vicious attacks from faculty senates, black mold in presidents’ houses and other crap that would make most of us run screaming. It’s enough to think presidents deserve those big honking salaries. Unless they suck. Which, undoubtedly, some of them do. Just not the ones willing to talk to me and write anonymously for no rewards other than the rare opportunity to be truthful and vulnerable on the page.

Of course, the problems in higher ed go far beyond presidential housing crises and governance theater. The sector’s challenges create genuine existential threats to a shocking number of the nearly 4,000 institutions that make up our ecosystem. And yet, we beat on, boats against the current, trying to figure out how to keep doing meaningful work in this strange, insular, endlessly complicated world we’ve chosen, one that’s always been isolated from what others call “the real world” (and not in a fun MTV way) and that is, in many ways, small.

Small World is, in fact, the title of the middle novel in David Lodge’s campus trilogy. Long ago in a galaxy far, far away (the ’80s, NYC), I read it after gulping down the first, Changing Places, which includes one of the best bits in academic fiction. In a game called Humiliation, each person in the English Department names a book he hasn’t read but assumes the others have. So caught up in wanting to succeed, a poor sap calls out Hamlet. He wins the game and is denied tenure.

Lodge’s fictional world captured something true about academic insularity, but even his juicy satire couldn’t anticipate the daily reality most of us don’t want to face today—the fact that we are no longer trusted and respected by the public, we’re going through leaders like Kleenex during flu season, the feds are taking a chain-saw approach to federal funding, previously dull topics like accreditation are now going to change all of our lives and ideas of inclusion and access we were naïve enough to think would change the world are being thrown into the trash heap

It’s a ~~shit show~~ big yikes. In some ways, though, academe is still a small world, even if the days of budgets for international conference hopping à la Lodge are not within the reach of most of us. But if you read The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, you might think higher ed consists of about 20 schools, plus another dozen or so when they’re trying not to be snobby.

Most of us do not live in that world.

Most of us don’t live in a world where a degree-seeking student is an 18- to 22-year-old whose only job is going to class.

Most of us don’t work at institutions where the six-year graduation rate is 90 percent. Or 80 percent. Or even 60 percent.

Most of us don’t work at places that will be hit hard by the rise in the endowment tax.

Most of our schools were in decline even before the recent upheavals, facing eroding public trust and not enough butts to put in our classroom seats. And each department plays a zero-sum game trying to attract majors, which are, if you speak with employers, as I’ve done for my most recent book, important to no one (save faculty and department chairs).

Yet many faculty, staff and students don’t pay enough attention to what goes on beyond their campus gates to notice that everything else in our society has changed while we remain ~~conservative~~ stolidly averse to adaptation. With so many colleges and universities circling the drain, “Don’t look up!” feels like a reasonable response.

In this space, each I’ll draw on my experience to explore corners of our small world that may be overlooked. What I can promise is ~~no bullshit~~ candor about both the disasters and the unexpected moments of grace. Because even as our world grows smaller and more precarious, it remains endlessly fascinating. And well worth fighting for.

Rachel Toor is a contributing editor at Inside Higher Ed and the co-founder of The Sandbox, a weekly newsletter that allows presidents and chancellors to write anonymously. She is also a professor of creative writing and the author of books on weirdly diverse subjects. Reach her here with questions, comments and ~~complaints~~ compliments.

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August 15, 2025
For Learning, You Have to Ride Up the Hill

On a recent vacation in the southwest portion of Ireland, as I was slogging away, trying to get the bicycle I was peddling up a reasonably daunting hill, I started thinking about generative AI.

I was thinking about generative AI because my wife, who is quite fit, but historically not as a strong a biker as I am, had disappeared into the distance, visible only because we were on twisting roads and she was several switchbacks ahead.

She also powered past my older brother, who competes in triathlons, and (I was told later) a French couple that muttered some apparent swears in their native language. Ultimately, she arrived only three or four minutes ahead of me at the top-of-the-hill way station, but as I huffed and puffed the final couple hundred yards, down to my next-to-lowest gear, moving at a just-above-walking pace, the gap felt enormous.

If you haven’t figured it out, my wife was riding an e-bike, while I was on a conventional (though very nice) bike. For the most part, the biking was very doable, but there were moments where I was not entirely sure I could or should keep peddling.

But I made it! Because we were touring with Backroads, an active vacation company, there was a delicious snack waiting for me at the top, which I enjoyed with great relish, knowing that I’d burned quite a few calories with many more to come that day.

I believe those French riders might’ve said something about “cheating” by using an e-bike, but this is obviously a case where what is cheating is in the eye of the beholder and significantly dependent on what you’re valuing about the experience.

If the point of our Ireland cycling vacation was to expend maximum effort on physical activities while cycling around the southwestern Ireland countryside, using an e-bike would prevent you from achieving your objective. But this is not the point of these kinds of trips. Yes, we have a desire to be active, outside and engaged, but the point is to use these methods to experience the place we’ve traveled to, and if—as happened to me a different day—you are perspiring so hard that the sweat dripping into your eyes has temporarily blinded you, it is tough to say that you are maximizing the experience.

Having the “best” vacation on this kind of trip is often a matter of balance. At times, I actively wished for the boost an e-bike could’ve given me. Other times, particularly on a day where we did 60 miles, and my brother and I were the only ones doing the whole itinerary, and we managed to go fast enough on the closing stretch to beat the Backroads van back to the hotel, I was thrilled with what it felt like to put my full physical effort behind the task.

I think my body paid for that big effort for a couple of days afterward, but I don’t regret it.

Like I said, it’s a matter of balance and values.

The e-bikes are great because they made it easier for my wife and me to ride together. The bottom-level boost had her toasting me up the hills, but on the flats, we were essentially the same speed, with us both working at levels we were comfortable with. The e-bike isn’t a motorcycle. You are still working plenty hard at the lower levels of boost.

But at the higher levels, you might find yourself speeding through the itinerary, as a group of four gentlemen in our group seemed to do, frequently arriving at our stopping points 20 minutes ahead of the rest of us.

I was thinking of generative AI because of the different lenses through which you can look at the use of an e-bike in the context of a bike-touring vacation.

You could see it as supplementary, allowing someone to experience something (like the view from a particular peak) that they wouldn’t otherwise unless they substituted something entirely nonbiking, like a car.

You could see it as substitutive, removing effort in exchange for feeling less tired and taxed at the end of the day.

You could see it as cheating, as those French riders did.

Because I don’t bike all that often at home, my primary “training” for the trip has been my regular Peloton rides, and for sure, those helped. My metrics on the stationary bike suggested I was well prepared. And I was, but well prepared doesn’t mean you aren’t going to face some very challenging moments.

There were several times—like that sweat-pouring-down-my-face period—where I would have gladly kicked in an e-bike boost in order to reduce my effort to conserve something for a different aspect of the trip, e.g., not being exhausted over dinner. But at no point did I need the boost to continue or finish the route, and if I was so inclined, Backroads is happy for you to hop in the van and get a ride the rest of the way.

I’m stubborn enough to not do that, but knowing myself, there were many times when an e-bike boost wouldn’t have been necessary or even desirable, when I would’ve switched it on in order to alleviate some measure of present discomfort. If it’s available, why not use it?

This would have signaled a shift in the values I initially brought to the trip. Whether or not it should be viewed as a betrayal or merely a change with its own benefits is a more complicated question, but at least for this trip, I was glad to not have the temptation.

I like to look at my opportunities to travel through the lens of experience. We aren’t going somewhere to check a box, but instead to literally spend time in a different place doing different things than our regular routines. I often know that I’ve had a good trip by the number of pictures I take—the fewer the better, because it means I was too absorbed in the experience to bother reaching for my phone to document something.

As we consider how to teach in a world where students have a superpowered e-bike instantly and constantly available, I’ve found looking at learning through the lens of experience is helpful, because focusing on the experience is a good way of identifying the things we should most value.

For my focus, writing, it seems almost irrefutable that if we want students to develop their writing practices, they should be doing the work without the assistance. The work must be purposeful and focused on what’s important in a given experience, but if that’s been achieved, any use of a boost is to miss out on something important. Learning is about riding up that hill under your own steam.

For writing especially, it’s axiomatic that the more you can do without the boost, the more you could potentially do with the boost.

Perhaps more importantly, the more you do without the boost, the greater knowledge you will gain about when the boost is truly an aid or when it is a way to dodge responsibility.

Figuring out where these lines must be drawn isn’t easy, and ultimately, because of the nature of school and the fact that students should be viewed as free and independent actors, the final choice must reside with them.

But we can act in ways that make the consequences of these choices and the benefits to opting for unboosted ride as apparent and inviting as possible.

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August 15, 2025
Stand Against the Leaky STEM Pipeline (opinion)

A couple of years ago, I got into a heated argument with a white male lab mate about whether racial and gender inequities still existed in science. He argued that, having both made it to our Stanford cancer biology lab for graduate school, the two of us, a white man and a Black woman, were functionally equal, and that attempts to distinguish us in future grant and fellowship applications were unfair. When I explained, among many differences, the unequal labor I took on by running a pipeline program for underrepresented aspiring physician-scientists, he replied, “If you gave a fuck about your academic career, you would stop doing that stuff.”

His attitude is not unique; it represents a backlash against baby steps made toward any form of equity that was also reflected in the 2023 Supreme Court decision to overturn affirmative action. But in recent months, as attacks on diversity equity, and inclusion have unfolded with shocking fervor from the highest office in the country, I have been confronted with terrifying questions: Was my lab mate right? Has DEI work become antithetical to advancement in science?

Science, as a seemingly objective craft, has historically not cared about the self. Science does not care if you couldn’t spend free time in the lab because you had to work to support your family. Science does not care that the property taxes in the low-income area where you attended high school couldn’t fund a microscope to get you excited about biology. Science does not care that I’ve never once gotten to take a science class taught by a Black woman.

Such experiences, and many, many more, contribute to the leaky pipeline, a reference to how individuals with marginalized identities become underrepresented in STEM due to retention problems on the path from early science education to tenured professorships. The gaps are chasmic. A couple years ago, Science published the demographics of principal investigators receiving at least three National Institutes of Health grants, so-called super-PIs. Among the nearly 4,000 of these super-PIs, white men unsurprisingly dominated, accounting for 73.4 percent, while there was a grand total of 12 Black women in this category.

Pipeline programs—initiatives aimed at supporting individuals from underrepresented groups—are meant to patch the leaks. They are rooted in the understanding that minorities are important to science, not just for representation’s sake, but because diverse perspectives counteract a scientific enterprise that, because scientists are human, has historically perpetuated racial, gender and other social inequities. Such programs range from early-stage programs like BioBus, a mobile laboratory in New York City that exposes K–12 students to biology, to higher-level pipeline programs like the one I run at Stanford, which provide targeted early-career support to aspiring scientists from diverse and marginalized backgrounds.

These programs work. Participants in the McNair Scholars Program, a federally funded pipeline program aimed at increasing Ph.D. attainment among first-generation, low-income and otherwise underrepresented students, are almost six times more likely to enroll in graduate school than their nonparticipant counterparts. These programs are designed to see the student’s full self, and they recognize the extra labor minorities and women disproportionately take on, like mentoring trainees or running their own pipeline programs.

Sadly, in deference to state laws and the current presidential administration’s attacks, more than 300 public and private universities have dismantled at least some of their DEI efforts. In February, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the nation’s largest private funder of biomedical research, killed its Inclusive Excellence Program, an eight-year-old, $60 million initiative that supported programming at universities to draw more underrepresented groups into STEM. As Science reported at the time, all evidence of the program disappeared from the Howard Hughes webpage. Shortly thereafter, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropic organization dedicated to supporting science, technology and (previously) equality, canceled the second year of its Science Diversity Leadership Awards, even though, as The Guardian reported, the process of selecting new awardees was already underway.

Researchers and academics have held rallies to stand up for science and have proposed bills for state-funded scientific research institutes, but many have remained silent on DEI. Meanwhile, after a pause to screen for DEI language, the NIH has resumed grant approvals (albeit not at its normal pace), and private organizations like Chan Zuckerberg continue to fund “uncontroversial” science. But science will never be whole without the inclusion of trainees from underrepresented backgrounds, who broaden and improve scientific questions and practice in service of a diverse human population. And without pipeline programs, the gaps will grow.

That is why I am calling on academics to stand up not just for science but also for DEI. Stand up against the leaky pipeline. Universities and private research institutes must reinstate language on diversity, equity and inclusion, particularly for pipeline programs. Faculty, students and community members should contact the heads of local universities and private organizations like Howard Hughes and Chan Zuckerberg, demanding reinstatement of diversity language and programs. Labs and research groups should adopt diversity statements reaffirming this commitment.

Given the financial jeopardy federal policy has imposed on pipeline programs, states should also step in. Sixteen state attorneys general recently sued the National Science Foundation for, among other things, reneging on its long-established, congressionally mandated commitment to building a STEM workforce that draws from underrepresented groups; states can take their advocacy further by filling funding gaps. Individuals and private organizations can donate either directly to nonprofits like BioBus or to universities with funds earmarked for pipeline programs.

Many minority students who have done DEI advocacy worry they can no longer discuss their work when applying for fellowships or faculty positions. To counteract this, universities and research organizations should proactively ask applicants about their leadership and advocacy work, to signal that these are the kinds of employees they want. And scientists who are not from underrepresented groups should leverage their privilege—volunteer for mentorship programs, serve on graduate admissions committees to fight for diversity, advise young scientists from underrepresented backgrounds.

Show my lab mate that he was wrong. Caring and succeeding are not mutually exclusive.

Tania Fabo, M.Sc., is an M.D.-Ph.D. candidate in genetics at Stanford University, a Rhodes Scholar, a Knight-Hennessy Scholar, a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow, and a Public Voices Fellow of the OpEd Project. She is the program leader for Stanford’s MSTP BOOST pipeline program.

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August 15, 2025
ANNE M. CIZMAR | Diverse: Issues In Higher Education

Anne M. Cizmar has been named associate dean of research administration at Eastern Kentucky University. This newly created role will support EKU’s strategic research initiative, aimed at building a holistic and scalable infrastructure to support the growth of sponsored research for faculty, staff and students across the university. Cizmar will oversee pre-award management, post-award administration and grant compliance. She will play a key role in enhancing EKU’s research environment through collaboration, transparency and innovation across all academic and administrative divisions.

Cizmar earned a Ph.D. in government and politics from the University of Maryland, College Park, where she specialized in American politics and quantitative research methods. She joined the Department of Government at EKU in 2011 and was promoted to professor of political science in 2022. She served as the Master of Public Administration program coordinator from 2020 to 2023. She serves as an active member of the university community through various committee roles, including vice chair of the Essential Education Transformation Committee.

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August 15, 2025
Trump Administration Proposes Restricting Public Service Loan Forgiveness for Organizations with ‘Illegal Purpose’

The Trump administration on Friday released a proposed rule that would exclude organizations deemed to have a “substantial illegal purpose” from the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, a move that could disqualify thousands of borrowers working for advocacy and legal aid organizations from having their student debt canceled.

The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, published in the Federal Register and scheduled to take effect July 1, 2026, follows President Trump’s March executive order directing the Department of Education to revise PSLF eligibility criteria. The proposed changes would give the Secretary of Education broad authority to determine which employers qualify for the program that has provided loan forgiveness to more than one million public servants.

Under the proposed rule, organizations could lose PSLF eligibility for activities including “aiding or abetting violations of Federal immigration laws,” “engaging in a pattern of aiding and abetting illegal discrimination,” or “engaging in violence for the purpose of obstructing or influencing Federal Government policy.” The Department would use a “preponderance of evidence” standard to make determinations, and employers found ineligible would face a 10-year waiting period before they could regain qualifying status.

The rule specifically targets several types of activities the administration considers problematic, including providing certain medical treatments to transgender minors, assisting with immigration cases, and various forms of protest activity that result in state law violations such as trespassing or disorderly conduct.

Kristin McGuire, President and CEO of Young Invincibles, characterized the proposal as “continuing its attacks on education, deliberately targeting advocacy organizations whose work doesn’t align with its ideological agenda.”

“By using a distorted and overly broad definition of ‘illegal activities,’ the Trump administration is exploiting the student loan system to attack political opponents,” McGuire said. “This is an illegal move by the administration; eligibility for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) is defined by law, not political ideology.”

The proposed rule emerged from a contentious negotiated rulemaking process that concluded in July without consensus. According to the Department’s documentation, the negotiator representing civil rights organizations dissented from the draft regulations, preventing the committee from reaching agreement.

The Department of Education estimates the rule would result in budget savings of $1.537 billion over 10 years by reducing the number of borrowers who achieve loan forgiveness. Administrative documents suggest the changes could affect borrowers in multiple sectors, including legal services, healthcare, social work, and education.

Organizations operating under shared federal tax identification numbers could see entire agencies lose eligibility if one component is found to engage in disqualifying activities. The rule includes provisions allowing the Secretary to separate organizations under shared identifiers, but grants ultimate authority to the Department to make such determinations.

The proposed rule draws heavily on the Internal Revenue Service’s “illegality doctrine,” which denies tax-exempt status to organizations with substantial illegal purposes. The Department argues this approach ensures consistency across federal agencies and prevents taxpayer funds from subsidizing activities the government aims to prevent.

Employers would be required to certify on PSLF application forms that they do not engage in activities with substantial illegal purpose. Those who fail to provide such certification would immediately lose qualifying status.

The rule includes safeguards requiring notice and opportunity to respond before final determinations, and allows employers to maintain eligibility if they submit approved corrective action plans before losing qualification.

According to the Department’s regulatory impact analysis, implementation would cost between $1.5 million and $3 million annually during the first two years. The analysis acknowledges that compliance costs for employers would vary significantly, with larger organizations potentially facing higher expenses for legal consultation and operational adjustments.

The Department projects reduced confusion among borrowers due to clearer eligibility criteria, though it acknowledges potential disruptions during the transition period. The analysis notes that borrowers working for disqualified employers would need to find new positions with qualifying organizations to continue progress toward loan forgiveness.

The proposed rule will undergo a 30-day public comment period following publication in the Federal Register on August 18. The Department must review all submitted comments before issuing a final rule.

If implemented as proposed, the new eligibility requirements would apply only to activities occurring on or after July 1, 2026. Borrowers whose employers lose qualifying status would receive notification from the Department and would no longer earn qualifying payment credit while employed by those organizations.

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, established in 2007, allows borrowers to have remaining federal student loan balances canceled after making 120 qualifying monthly payments while working full-time for eligible government agencies or qualified nonprofit organizations. The program has faced criticism and administrative challenges since its inception, with many borrowers initially denied forgiveness due to complex eligibility requirements.

Young Invincibles and other advocacy organizations indicated they plan to submit detailed comments opposing the rule and may pursue legal challenges if the final version proceeds as proposed.

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August 15, 2025
Dallas Mavericks Partner with Paul Quinn College for Groundbreaking Sports Management Program

Cynt Marshall The Dallas Mavericks and Paul Quinn College have announced a partnership that establishes the nation’s first NBA team-sponsored sports management major at a historically Black college or university. The innovative “Mavs Sports Management Major” officially launched Friday with an opening convocation featuring former Mavericks CEO Cynt Marshall as the keynote speaker.

The program, formally titled “Leadership, Innovation, Sports Management, Technology, Entrepreneurship, and Networking” (LISTEN), represents a significant investment in diversifying the sports industry pipeline while addressing educational equity in higher education.

Paul Quinn College, Dallas’s only HBCU, will integrate the new major into its existing curriculum structure, with students receiving comprehensive support that includes Target-sponsored care packages containing dorm essentials and other student necessities.

The program distinguishes itself through extensive real-world application opportunities. Students will engage with Mavericks executives through weekly guest lectures and participate in hands-on projects addressing actual business challenges facing the organization. The curriculum includes case study analysis, creative brief development, and student-led presentations proposing solutions to current Mavericks business scenarios.

Beyond classroom learning, the partnership includes campus engagement initiatives with sponsored events throughout the academic year, entrepreneurship support through integration into the Mavs Business Assist program, and a planned residence hall renovation featuring custom Mavericks-designed murals.

The collaboration aligns with the Mavericks’ “Take ACTION!” initiative, which specifically targets racial inequities and promotes sustainable change in North Texas. Sports management and administration have long struggled with representation issues, particularly in executive and leadership positions.

According to industry data, while Black athletes comprise significant portions of professional sports rosters, representation drops dramatically in front office and management roles. This program aims to address that pipeline gap by providing structured pathways from education to industry entry.

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August 15, 2025
Autistic College Students Face Dramatically Higher Rates of Mental Health Challenges, New Research Shows

Autistic college students are experiencing anxiety and depression at significantly higher rates than their non-autistic peers, according to new research from Binghamton University that analyzed data from nearly 150,000 undergraduate students across 342 institutions nationwide.

The study, published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, represents one of the most comprehensive examinations to date of mental health challenges facing autistic students in higher education—a population that researchers say has been historically underrepresented in academic research despite growing enrollment numbers.

“What we found is really staggering—autistic individuals endorse much higher rates of anxiety and depression compared to their non-autistic peers,” said Diego Aragon-Guevara, the study’s lead author and a PhD student in psychology at Binghamton University.

The research team analyzed data from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), which in 2021 became the first year that autism was included as an endorsable category in the survey. This milestone allowed researchers to conduct the first large-scale comparison of mental health outcomes between autistic and non-autistic college students.

“We were really excited to see what the data would tell us. It was a big opportunity to be able to do this,” said Dr. Jennifer Gillis Mattson, professor of psychology and co-director of the Institute for Child Development at Binghamton University, who co-authored the study.

The findings come at a critical time for higher education institutions as autism diagnoses continue to rise nationwide and more autistic students pursue college degrees. The research highlights a significant gap in support services that could impact student success and retention.

“We know the number of autistic college students continues to increase every single year,” Gillis-Mattson noted. “We really do have an obligation to support these students, and to know how best to support these students, we need to look beyond just autism.”

The study reveals that campus support systems may be inadvertently overlooking mental health needs while focusing primarily on autism-specific accommodations. Aragon-Guevara, whose research focuses on improving quality of life for autistic adults, said this represents a critical oversight in student services.

“Support personnel might address an individual’s autism and, in the process, overlook their mental health issues,” he explained. “More care needs to be put into addressing that nuance.”

The research underscores the need for institutions to develop more comprehensive support frameworks that address both autism-related needs and concurrent mental health challenges. The findings suggest that traditional disability services approaches may need significant enhancement to serve this population effectively.

“We want to provide the best support for them and to make sure that they have a college experience where they get a lot out of it, but also feel comfortable,” Aragon-Guevara said.

Dr. Hyejung Kim, an assistant professor in Binghamton’s Department of Teaching, Learning and Educational Leadership, noted that the complexity of factors affecting autistic students requires deeper investigation.

“This population often skews male, and interactions between personal factors and conditions such as anxiety and depression may shape overall well-being in college,” she said.

Kim also pointed to additional considerations that institutions should examine.

“Autistic students are also more likely to pursue STEM fields, and many report different experiences with faculty and staff across institutional settings,” she said. “We still have much to learn about how these and other contextual factors relate to mental well-being.”

The Binghamton team views this study as foundational research that confirms the scope of mental health challenges among autistic college students. Their next phase will investigate specific contributing factors, including social dynamics, faculty support, campus accessibility, and other environmental elements that influence student well-being.

“There are so many elements that go into being comfortable in the new environment that is college,” Aragon-Guevara explained. “We want to look into that and see if there are any deficits in those areas that autistic college students are experiencing, so that we know where we can help support them, or create institutional things to help improve quality of life as a whole.”

The research is part of a broader effort at Binghamton to better understand and support autistic students in higher education, with plans to collaborate with campus partners to develop targeted interventions based on their findings.

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August 15, 2025
UAE leads MENA surge as international study interest soars by 90%

Keystone search data reveals the UAE, along with other MENA destinations, is benefiting from shifts in global international study demand during 2025, with an increase of nearly 90% in search interest in June 2025 compared to last year.

Although the MENA destination is expecting growth, the UAE’s rise is particularly notable, drawing highly diverse audiences from South Asia (especially India and Pakistan), Southeast Asia (Singapore and Indonesia), East Asia (Hong Kong China), and Europe (France, Germany). There has also been a modest uptick in interest from US students.

Keystone’s data – which measures relative search interest from millions of monthly searches on Keystone websites – points to subject availability and tuition fees as the two leading factors influencing student decisions to study in the MENA region, as India remains the UAE’s largest source of international interest, with the fastest-growing audiences in 2025 being India, Singapore, France, the US, and Germany.

Ultimately, Dubai is not just offering education but a launchpad for global careers, with an ecosystem that is becoming increasingly difficult to replicate, given the current policy headwinds.
_{Suneet Singh Kochar, CEO of Fateh Education}

“The global landscape of international education is shifting, and traditional destinations like the US, UK, Canada, and Australia (the ‘Big Four’) are facing increasing pressure from visa constraints, immigration policy tightening, and affordability concerns. As global mobility patterns evolve, Indian and South Asian students are actively exploring alternative destinations that offer both quality and pragmatism, and Dubai is emerging as a frontrunner,” Suneet Singh Kochar, CEO of education consultancy, Fateh Education, told The PIE.

“Another trend that I see, when it comes to Dubai’s growing appeal, is the uptick in interest for undergraduate studies in addition to the students going there to pursue their masters. For Indian families, it provides the perfect balance – global education within a four-hour flight radius, cultural familiarity, and significantly greater parental access and peace of mind. Safety, quality healthcare, and multicultural inclusivity further reinforce Dubai’s appeal for families looking for a secure, supportive environment for these younger students.”

The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MoHESR) has announced that students applying to the higher education institutions based in the UAE for the upcoming Fall 2025-2026 intake must accept or reject their offers by August 11, 2025, via its electronic portal. All program acceptances and related steps must be completed by this deadline to ensure smooth processing.

With encouragement for students to regularly monitor their applications and promptly fulfil any additional requirements set by institutions, the MoHESR has significantly simplified admissions, reducing document requirements by 86%, cutting the application time and enabling registration at 59 higher education institutions across the country.

“Ultimately, Dubai is not just offering education but a launchpad for global careers, with an ecosystem that is becoming increasingly difficult to replicate, given the current policy headwinds. Today, over 42% of Dubai’s international student population is Indian – clear evidence of the region’s growing credibility and resonance with India,” Singh Kochar added.

“Dubai’s high graduate employment rate is backed by a system where universities are closely aligned with national priorities, offering programs in areas like AI, sustainability, logistics, and fintech that are directly connected to the country’s economic vision.”

Elsewhere, Singh Kochar commended Dubai’s institutions for their strong ties to industry – providing students with access to internships, live projects, and employer networks during their studies.

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August 15, 2025
Languishing at Senior Lecturer: Striving, Surviving, or Stuck?

This HEPI blog was kindly authored by Karen Lander, Senior Lecturer in Experimental Psychology at the University of Manchester

For many academics, reaching Senior Lecturer status is a milestone – but what happens when you stay there for years, unable to break through to the next level? Some see it as a respectable career achievement with an established role within higher education. Others feel stuck in an academic system that demands more but rewards less.

The reality? Academic promotions may be perceived as being increasingly difficult and the pressure to strive for professorship can feel both exhausting and unending. So, is Senior Lecturer a fulfilling end goal, a stage for resilience, or a sign of an academic system failing its scholars?

The UK vs. US Divide: Who Gets to Be ‘Professor’?

Unlike the UK, where professor is a distinguished rank, the US academic system grants the title more broadly. In the UK, academic titles typically follow a hierarchy: Lecturer (entry level) – Senior Lecturer (mid-career) – Reader – Professor (elite academic status). Reader is less common, as many academics make the leap directly from Senior Lecturer to Professor. In contrast, in the US, academics are referred to as Assistant Professor – Associate Professor – Full Professor. Confusingly, these terms are also sometimes used in the UK, mostly in some newer (post-1992) universities. Here, the distinction between ranks is still as important (certainly for those within this system) but the ‘Professor’ title is less exclusive. This more generic use of the term ‘Professor’ adds confusion for people looking in, less familiar with the way the Professor title is used and assigned.

In the UK, making Professor is usually only awarded to those deemed exceptional in their fields. Whereas in the US, being a Professor is standard, with tenure usually being a more pertinent marker of success. For UK academics, this transatlantic distinction may make career progression even more frustrating, given that their US counterparts are professors far earlier in their careers.

The Reality of being a Senior Lecturer

In UK academia, a Senior Lecturer will likely have demonstrated themselves in teaching, research, scholarship and university service (with the pattern of contribution depending on contract type) with many finding themselves stuck in this permanent middle tier. Indeed, according to HESA data, currently only about 10-12% of academics currently have the title of ‘Professor’ (see Figure 1). For the majority, then, career progression stalls at Senior Lecturer or Reader Level

Vertical axis: Number of academic staff

Figure 1: Stacked column bar chart showing the number of Higher Education academic staff by year (HESA data; see https://www.hesa.ac.uk/news/28-01-2025/sb270-higher-education-staff-statistics). The percentage of Professors are shown. Note: some ‘senior academic’ staff members may also have the title ‘Professor’ taking the estimated total up to a maximum of 12%.

Several factors contribute to this, including high competition, specific promotion criteria, and individual career choices. In addition, against the current economic background, a number of UK universities have paused all promotion applications and the focus on ‘surviving’ is increasingly important. Finally, gender disparities may prolong academic progression for women, who take, on average an additional 6 years to become Professor compared with their male counterparts (Harris et al., 2024).

So, while some Senior Lecturers remain content in their existing roles, others battle an uphill struggle for recognition.

Striving: The Fight for Professorship

For some, professorship remains the ultimate goal. This title typically functions as an external indicator of academic success, institutional prestige, and influence in one’s field. Yet, earning this title requires significant effort. Universities set demanding criteria for promotion, which – depending on your academic focus or contract type – is likely to include high-impact publications in leading academic journals; a track record of large-scale external research grant success; long term excellence in teaching, scholarship and mentorship; and educational leadership through committee work, departmental influence, and public engagement (Mantai & Marrone, 2023).

Yet, even meeting these criteria doesn’t guarantee promotion. In academia, the number of professors is generally not fixed and fluctuates over time due to institutional restructuring, shifts in student enrolment, budget allocations and evolving academic priorities (Gappa, Austin, & Trice, 2007). Some struggle with institutional biases, while others lack the confidence and mentorship necessary to push themselves forward.

Surviving: Satisfaction of Staying Put

Not everyone desires a professorial title, and for many, Senior Lecturer is a satisfying career stage. It allows for meaningful student interaction and continued research without the pressures that come with high-level institutional leadership.

Yet survival mode kicks in when people are being made redundant, expectations keep rising, workloads expand, and the pathway forward remains unclear. Senior Lecturers often absorb significant administrative burdens as universities assign management tasks onto mid-career academics (Bosanquet, Mailey, Matthews & Lodge, 2017). This administrative burden may also come with mentoring responsibilities without corresponding leadership recognition, and teaching-heavy roles, with less time for research advancement or scholarship. Without clear incentives for promotion, frustration builds.

In some extreme cases, long-serving Senior Lecturers may find themselves working harder yet missing out on funding, decision-making power, and institutional influence.

Stuck? The Changing Landscape of UK Academia

There are certainly more professors now than there used to be, but the road to becoming a professor is still long and confusing. Competition is fierce and promotion criteria are often somewhat vague. Coupled with shifts in universities’ funding models, many highly capable scholars never achieve Professor status.

Further with the shift toward managerial roles, professors are expected to handle greater administrative responsibilities, deterring some academics from pursuing promotion at all. For those in Senior Lecturer positions, this shift makes career progression feel more like an exception than an expectation. And as gender and age disparities persist, some find themselves wondering whether striving for Professor is even worth it anymore.

Is Striving worth It?

If you’re a Senior Lecturer, the key question is whether promotion matters to you. If professorship remains your goal, it requires strategic networking and institutional visibility, securing high-profile research funding, leadership or scholarship influence beyond your department and a clear narrative of impact.

Yet for those feeling satisfied where they are or exhausted by the pursuit, the alternative is to find meaning beyond titles. Some choose to focus on teaching innovation and mentorship or drive other aspects of their role without chasing formal recognition.

Ultimately, Professorship remains a highly selective process with evolving criteria. And for those who remain Senior Lecturers. It may be time to redefine success in academia. For me? I keep striving.

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August 15, 2025