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  • Community, Classroom, and Cake – Faculty Focus

    Community, Classroom, and Cake – Faculty Focus

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  • Community, Classroom, and Cake – Faculty Focus

    Community, Classroom, and Cake – Faculty Focus

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  • Working with our places will help us to spread the benefits of higher education more widely

    Working with our places will help us to spread the benefits of higher education more widely

    In the North East of England, fewer than one in three 18 year olds enter higher education, compared to a national average of 37 per cent.

    For higher education institutions, including my own, this is more than a regrettable statistic. It must be a call to action. The Sutton Trust’s Opportunity Index highlights that the North East ranks lowest of all English regions for social mobility prospects, with the poorest students in the region facing some of the most limited chances for progression into higher education and good employment.

    As a country we have undoubtedly made progress in widening participation, but as someone who spends their days thinking about such things, I worry: are we measuring that progress in the right ways? It’s not just about the gateway to university, it’s about the university journey and beyond. Or, to put it in more human terms: are people who previously wouldn’t have gone to university not only getting in, but thriving once they’re in?

    If we carry on measuring widening participation purely by entry stats and graduate salaries, we’ll miss the bigger picture, and what many of us went into higher education to try to achieve: deeper, transformative impact. A university education does more than prepare someone for a job. There is good evidence that links it to longer life expectancy, better health, and greater stability.

    The benefits of university go beyond the individual. Children of university graduates are much more likely to attend university and perform better once there. When a young person from a disadvantaged background earns a degree, it can spark a ripple effect that changes their family’s trajectory for good.

    There’s also a clear economic case for seeing success more broadly. Graduates typically pay more in tax, rely less on welfare services, and are more likely to engage in civic life. In regions like ours, where economic renewal and social mobility are deeply connected, that impact is amplified. A university education doesn’t just boost an individual’s prospects – it helps build stronger, more resilient communities.

    Whole-journey approach

    If we are truly serious about transforming lives and levelling up opportunity, especially in so-called “cold spots” like County Durham, then we need to dig deeper, beyond continuation rates and into attainment and the feeling of belonging. Financial strains, cultural barriers, wellbeing concerns, and more must be recognised and overcome. These are challenges not just for admissions, but across the entire student journey.

    Attainment gaps have a substantial impact, and disadvantaged students can be up to 22.7 months behind advantaged peers by the time they take their GCSEs. GCSE performance is strongly correlated with later life outcomes, including university attendance and employment quality. Early outreach is therefore pivotal in closing these long-standing gaps.

    It’s a challenge we take seriously. We’re not just widening the door – we’re reshaping the whole experience: investing nearly £1.5m in programmes for Key Stage 4 and 5 students, strengthening our foundation programme, and working with Sunderland AFC’s Foundation of Light to create a new health hub in one of our most deprived communities.

    One of the clearest messages of our new access and participation plan is how deeply place and perception are intertwined. Many young people in North East England don’t just lack opportunities – they’re not even sure those opportunities are meant for them. And, sadly, some still perceive Durham to be a place where they wouldn’t belong. Multiple studies show a strong link between a sense of belonging and academic success, particularly for underrepresented groups. So we’re investing in transition support and the Brilliant Club’s Join the Dots programme, which connects incoming students with peer coaches from results day onward.

    What we’re trying to achieve with our strategy cannot and should not be measured solely in continuation rates and degree classifications. Our evaluation strategy includes:

    • Sense of belonging as a core outcome: Building on Durham-led research, we are embedding a validated survey tool into our access and participation work. This tool captures students’ sense of belonging across multiple domains — from college life to academic confidence. These survey findings will help us identify and support groups at higher risk of exclusion.
    • Quasi-experimental design: Where sample sizes allow, we will use matched control groups and multiple regression analysis to compare outcomes between intervention participants and non-participants, tracking progress from outreach through to graduation. Intermediate metrics include not only continuation and attainment but also self-efficacy and engagement.
    • Pre/post measures: Our use of TASO’s validated access and success questionnaire enables pre- and post-intervention analysis of psychosocial outcomes such as academic self-efficacy and expectations of higher education.
    • Theory of change models: These have been developed for each intervention strand and will be regularly updated to ensure our work is aligned with evidence and outcomes over time.

    While our approach is rigorous, we anticipate several challenges. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds face cost-related pressures that may impact belonging and continuation. And persistent concerns about whether students from working-class or Northern backgrounds “belong” at Durham risk undermining recruitment and retention. We aim to confront this through co-designed interventions, but change in perception takes time.

    Co-development is key

    We believe that we can only succeed for the North East by working with others: through Universities for North East England – which includes Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, Sunderland, and Teesside; and the new Durham Learning Alliance partnership with four local colleges – we must expand educational opportunities and drive economic growth.

    When people see that their goals and dreams are genuinely realisable, they’re far more likely to engage. After all, who are we to define what success should look like for someone else?

    The government’s opportunity mission gives higher education a rare, and much-needed, moment to pause and reset. Let’s not waste it. We’ve got a chance to rethink what success means – not just for universities, but for the people and places we serve. Let’s broaden the conversation beyond who gets through the door. Let’s put co-development at the heart of everything we do. And above all, let’s keep listening – not just to what students need, but to what they hope for. In the end, the real test of progress isn’t just who gets in. It’s who gets on – and how far they go, with us walking alongside them.

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  • For some students, home doesn’t feel like home

    For some students, home doesn’t feel like home

    In Britain, we can be oddly squeamish when talking about class, whether known or implied through a person’s accent, appearance, or behaviour.

    But not having an honest conversation with ourselves and our institutions about it is actively harming our students, especially the ones who are from the area where our institutions sit.

    I was one of a team of authors that published a report at the back end of 2024 exploring the role of social class and UK home region at Durham University. Our research, which was supported by the university, found that students from North East England had a lower sense of belonging than their peers.

    This is in comparison to students from other northern regions, the rest of the UK, and international students. And it is true even if they are from more advantaged backgrounds.

    I’ll say that again – students from North East England feel excluded from Durham University, which is in… North East England. This highlights that a problem at Durham University is not only class, but preconceived stereotypes based on how a person speaks, acts, or their family background.

    This article explains how we built our evidence base, and how the university responded, including by integrating our recommendations into the new Access and Participation Plan, and resourcing new staff roles and student-led activity.

    From anecdote to evidence

    The student-led report came out of the First Generation Scholars group in the Anthropology department in 2022.

    Having heard repeatedly the issues that first generation students were facing, and feeling it ourselves, we decided to move beyond anecdotal stories which were known in the university, and produce something concrete and legible which couldn’t be denied.

    We devised a survey and sent it to every student, with a 10 per cent response rate. Follow up focus groups were conducted to add additional context to the quantitative findings and ensure the voices of those who had been let down were heard.

    The findings were grouped into seven areas – overall sense of belonging at Durham, peer relationships, experiences in teaching and learning, college events and activities, college staff relationships, experiences in clubs and societies, and financial considerations.

    Across all these areas, social class had the strongest and most consistent effect. Students from less privileged backgrounds were more likely to feel ashamed of the way they speak, dress, and express themselves.

    They students felt targeted based on their background or personal characteristics – and said they were:

    …being told countless times by a flatmate that I seem the ‘most chavvy’ and continuously refer to Northerners as degenerates.

    …at a formal dinner, students laughed at my North-east accent, they asked if I lived in a pit village.

    The irony is that due to rising housing costs, many students really are being forced to live in pit villages.

    These instances weren’t only present in peer interactions – but also took place in the teaching and learning spaces. One student said that during a lecture, the lecturer mentioned that they couldn’t understand what the IT staff member was saying due to his North East accent – which was the same as the students’.

    Another noted that their peers were “sniggering when I made a comment in a tutorial.” Comments like these have led to students self-silencing during classes and, in some cases, changing their accents entirely to avoid stigma.

    Anecdotally, I’ve heard students say that their families laugh when they hear their new accent. If we are implicitly telling students that they have to change who they are in their own region, their own city, amongst their own family in order to fit in, we are telling them that they are not safe to be authentically themselves. That message lingers beyond university.

    The report notes that other groups of students also experienced exclusion. These included women, LGBTQ+ students, and students with a disability – although only disability came close to the magnitude of effects explained by social class and region.

    It should be noted that these are protected characteristics, while class and region are not. But there was also an interaction between these characteristics, class, and region. Women from less advantaged backgrounds from North East England had a worse time than their southern peers – which they reported as being due to their perceived intelligence and sexual availability. One North East female student stated,

    I was a bet for someone to sleep with at a college party because ‘Northern girls are easy.’

    Tackling the sense of exclusion

    The report also highlights instances of real connections for students. It was often in the simplest gestures, such as having a cup of tea with their college principal, porters saying hello in the corridor, or a lecturer confirming that they deserved to be at Durham, despite the student’s working-class background.

    We were worried that the university might be quick to dismiss, bury, or simply ignore the report. However, they’ve stepped up. The report has been used in the new Access and Participation Plan (APP), underpinning an intervention strategy to increase students’ sense of belonging through student-led, funded activities.

    That builds on the creation of new, instrumental staffing positions. In discussions following the launch event for the report, there was a real buzz and momentum from colleagues who spotlighted the work they were doing in this area – but with an awareness that more needs to be done.

    A key issue is connecting this discrete but interconnected work. Many activities or initiatives are happening in silos within departments, colleges, faculties, or within the central university, with few outside those realms knowing about it.

    In a time when every university is tightening their belts, coordinating activities to share resources and successes seems like an easy win.

    It would be easy to dismiss the problem as unique to Durham – the university and its students have often been under fire for being elitist, tone deaf, or exclusionary. But it’s likely that students at other institutions are facing similar barriers, comments, and slights.

    I’ve spoken to enough colleagues in SUs to know that it isn’t just a Durham problem, not even just a Russell Group problem. There will be those who are afraid of what they might find if they turn over that particular stone, actually having a good look at how social class impacts students belonging.

    But I’d argue it’s a positive thing to do. Bringing it into the light and confronting and acknowledging the problem means that we can move forward to make our students’ lives better.

    Read the full report here, including recommendations, and the university’s comments.

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  • Education Department details plans to collect applicant data by race, sex

    Education Department details plans to collect applicant data by race, sex

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    Dive Brief:

    • Under a proposed plan from the Trump administration, colleges would have to submit six years worth of application and admissions data — disaggregated by student race and sex — as part of the 2025-26 Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System reporting cycle.
    • President Donald Trump last week issued a memo requiring institutions to significantly expand the parameters of the admissions data they report to the National Center for Education Statistics, which oversees IPEDS.
    • Colleges would need to submit a multi-year report “to establish a baseline of admissions practices” before the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against race-conscious admissions, according to a notice filed Wednesday in the Federal Register. 

    Dive Insight:

     The Trump administration has repeatedly charged that diversity efforts at colleges and elsewhere violate civil rights law.

    “DEI has been used as a pretext to advance overt and insidious racial discrimination,” according to the Federal Register notice, which was signed by Brian Fu, acting chief data officer of the department’s Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development.

    The additional student data questions — collectively titled the Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement, or ACTS — are meant to create “greater transparency” and “help to expose unlawful practices” at colleges, the notice said. It added that, with more information, the Education Department can better enforce Title VI laws, which bar discrimination based on race, color or national origin at federally funded institutions. 

    Under ACTS, colleges would have to report extensive demographic data for applicants, admitted students and those that ultimately enroll. And for the first year, they would have to do so for every academic year dating back to 2020-21.

    Colleges would also need to report on their graduation rates from 2019-20 to 2024-25, the notice said.

    Officials would be required to disaggregate student demographics by race and sex and cross-reference it with the following data points:

    • Admissions test scores.
    • GPA.
    • Family income.
    • Pell Grant eligibility.
    • Parents’ educational level.

    Previously, the Education Department only required colleges to submit data by race for enrolled students.

    Institutions would also have to report the numbers of their admitted student pool that applied via early action, early decision and regular admissions.

    Graduate student data would be required to be disaggregated by field of study, as applicants typically apply directly to departments, not to the college overall, the notice said.

    The Education Department is gearing ACTS at four-year institutions with selective admissions processes, which its notice said “have an elevated risk of noncompliance with the civil rights laws,” both in admissions and scholarships.

    The proposal says open-enrollment institutions like community colleges and trade schools are at low risk for noncompliance with Title IV in admissions.

    However, the department on Wednesday requested public comment on open enrollment colleges’ policies for awarding scholarships, an area it flagged as potentially providing “preferential treatment based upon race.” It also asked for feedback about the types of institutions that should be required to submit the additional admissions information.

    Public feedback could influence “whether we should narrow or expand the scope of institutions required to complete the ACTS component,” it said.

    The Education Department is also seeking feedback on how it could reduce the administrative cost of the increased data collection.

    It estimated that, across the higher ed sector, the change will create over 740,000 hours of new work.

    U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon fully endorsed Trump’s memo last week, saying the administration would not allow “institutions to blight the dreams of students by presuming that their skin color matters more than their hard work and accomplishments.” But it has yet to be seen how the agency will handle a dramatic increase in college data.

    The Education Department’s workforce has been greatly diminished since Trump retook office. The Trump administration laid off half of the department’s employees in March. Although a federal judge temporarily blocked the mass terminations, the Supreme Court lifted that order last month while the litigation proceeds.

    Peggy Carr, the ousted former commissioner of NCES, warned last month that the dramatic cuts to the department put it at risk of mishandling data and eroding the public’s trust in its data.

    “Accurate, reliable, nonpartisan data are the essential foundations of sound education policy,” the long-time NCES official said in a statement. “Policy that isn’t informed by good data isn’t really policy — it’s guesswork.”

    The Trump administration abruptly fired Carr in February. President Joe Biden had appointed her to the post for a six-year term in 2021. 

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  • Federal judge declines to block Alabama anti-DEI law

    Federal judge declines to block Alabama anti-DEI law

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    Dive Brief: 

    • A federal judge declined to temporarily block the enforcement of a state law that bans public colleges from funding diversity, equity and inclusion programs and from compelling students to affirm certain “divisive concepts.”
    • Earlier this year, a group of students and faculty members sued the state’s governor and the University of Alabama’s trustees over the new law, arguing that it violates their free speech rights by placing viewpoint-based restrictions on what can be taught in the classroom. They also contended that the law undermines due process by being so ambiguous that instructors and students don’t know what is prohibited. 
    • U.S. District Judge R. David Proctor — a George W. Bush appointee — pushed back on those arguments in his 146-page ruling Wednesday. Proctor denied their request for a preliminary injunction, writing that public colleges could reasonably control curricular content and rejecting assertions that the law’s language is impermissibly vague. 

    Dive Insight: 

    Last year, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a law known as SB 129, which bans public colleges and K-12 schools from having DEI initiatives. It defined those efforts as programs, training or other events where attendance is based on “race, sex, gender identity, ethnicity, national origin, or sexual orientation.” 

    PEN America noted last year that while this language doesn’t outright ban all DEI initiatives, the attendance restrictions could bar public colleges from activities like creating programming specifically for international students or recognizing a Black student union. 

    The law also barred public colleges from requiring students to affirm or adhere to a list of so-called divisive concepts. 

    Under the law, one of the concepts is that individuals “are inherently responsible for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin.” Another is that people are “inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously” based on their personal characteristics. 

    The law also contains carve-outs. It says that the language does not bar public colleges from teaching or discussing divisive concepts “in an objective manner and without endorsement as part of a larger course of academic instruction.”

    According to court documents, faculty members who sued over the measure said that while they do not require students to affirm or adhere to these concepts, they worry that their instruction on race and gender could be viewed as running afoul of the law — even with the carve-outs for teaching. 

    “I do not know what it means to discuss a divisive concept ‘in an objective manner’ and ‘without endorsement,’” plaintiff Cassandra Simon, a social work professor at University of Alabama, said in court documents. “There is robust empirical evidence of implicit bias, white privilege, and the absence of a colorblind meritocracy. I am unable to determine whether continuing to present these scholarly findings, and assigning readings on these subjects, would violate SB 129.”

    One of Simon’s class assignments — that students select a social issue of their choice and advocate for it — was abruptly canceled due to the law, according to court documents. 

    Her students chose to hold a sit-in to protest SB 129 for their project. The day of the sit-in, however, the social work dean told Simon to cancel the assignment in part over concerns that it would compel students to agree with one of the banned divisive concepts. 

    Another plaintiff raised concerns over teaching about topics such as structural racism, employment discrimination and health disparities by race. And another voiced concerns that the law potentially limits his ability to teach about eugenics. 

    However, Proctor wrote in his ruling that the law doesn’t prohibit the teaching of divisive concepts and pointed to the carve-outs provided. 

    The judge also cited an appeals court case that found a public college could “reasonably control the content of its curriculum, particularly that content imparted during class time.”

    “There is no legal basis for concluding that the First Amendment protects a university professor’s academic freedom in the way the Professors suggest,” Proctor wrote. 

    Referring to the canceled sit-in, Proctor wrote that it was “a reasonable exercise of control over course curriculum to ensure that students would not feel coerced into advocating for a belief with which they disagreed.”

    Proctor also dismissed Ivey as a defendant in the case, ruling that plaintiffs’ alleged injuries aren’t traceable to her. 

    The plaintiffs in the case slammed the decision on Thursday. 

    “SB129 created a culture of fear that has severely hindered the ability of professors to provide comprehensive instruction in our areas of expertise,” Dana Patton, a University of Alabama professor and plaintiff in the case, said in a statement. “The law infringes on our academic freedom and our duty to students to provide a truthful and comprehensive education.”

    Alabama state Sen. Will Barfoot, the sponsor of the legislation, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

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  • UChicago Freezing Ph.D. Admissions for Multiple Programs

    UChicago Freezing Ph.D. Admissions for Multiple Programs

    The University of Chicago’s Arts and Humanities Division is reducing how many new Ph.D. students it admits for the 2026–27 academic year across about half of its departments and completely halting Ph.D. admissions elsewhere. Multiple language programs are among those affected.

    In a Tuesday email that Inside Higher Ed obtained, Arts and Humanities dean Deborah Nelson told faculty, staff and Ph.D. students, “We will accept a smaller overall Ph.D. cohort across seven departments: Art History, Cinema and Media Studies, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, English Language and Literature, Linguistics, Music (composition), and Philosophy.” The university didn’t tell Inside Higher Ed how many fewer Ph.D. students would be accepted across those departments.

    “Other departments will pause admissions,” Nelson wrote.

    Andrew Ollett, an associate professor of South Asian languages and civilizations, said that means no new Ph.D. students for these departments: classics, comparative literature, Germanic studies, Middle Eastern studies, Romance languages and literatures, Slavic languages and literatures, and South Asian languages and civilizations, plus the ethnomusicology and history and theory of music programs in the music department.

    While the university didn’t provide an interview or respond to multiple written questions, a spokesperson did point out that the UChicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy and Practice is also pausing Ph.D. admissions, while the Harris School of Public Policy is pausing admissions for the Harris Ph.D., the political economy Ph.D. and the master of arts in public policy with certificate in research methods.

    “A small number of PhD and master’s programs at the University of Chicago will pause admissions for the 2026–2027 academic year while divisions and schools undertake comprehensive reviews of the programs’ missions and structures,” UChicago said in a statement. It said the aim is “ensuring the highest-quality training for the next generation of scholars” and the pauses “will not affect currently enrolled students.”

    UChicago, which faces debt issues, has become yet another example of well-known universities freezing or scaling back Ph.D. admissions and programs amid financial pressures and other factors. In November, before Trump retook the presidency, Boston University said it was pausing accepting new Ph.D. students in a dozen humanities and social sciences programs, including philosophy, English and history. In February, the Universities of Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh announced pauses, following other institutions. 

    But UChicago’s reductions for language programs also reflect a broader trend of universities scaling back foreign language education offerings. In 2023, West Virginia University became infamous in academe for its leaders’ decision to eliminate all foreign language degrees.

    “It’s sad and pathetic,” Ollett said of the pause at UChicago, “because it represents the domination of one set of values, which is money, over the values that we say that we are pursuing in our lives as faculty members, as educators and as researchers.”

    He argued that the university can’t say it’s committed to the humanities as a field for producing knowledge while turning away from Ph.D. programs.

    Nelson’s email said, “This one-time decision applies only to the 2026–2027 academic year.” But Clifford Ando, the Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Service Professor of Classics, History and the College, questioned whether this is just a pause.

    “I see no reason to think that we would resume doctoral education if we are simultaneously dismantling the curricula that sustain undergraduate training in these fields,” Ando wrote in an email sent to a classical studies Listserv. “Why would one have a doctoral program in a discipline that undergraduates can’t even study?”

    Ollett also said this comes as Nelson has pushed to consolidate smaller departments. He said a big question for the coming academic year was “Do we do Ph.D. admissions if we’re not sure that our department is going to exist?”

    Not Rule by Committee

    Ando provided Inside Higher Ed the “charge” UChicago gave to the Arts and Humanities Languages Working Group on June 17.

    “UChicago is known as a global leader in the instruction of ancient and modern languages,” the charge begins. “Language instruction and expertise is not simply a valuable object in its own right; it is an important foundation for the larger UChicago College education, for graduate education, and for the research and scholarship of our faculty.”

    But it then says, “language instruction at this extraordinary scope is also expensive.” It listed several questions for the committee to explore, including:

    • “Should there be a universal or suggested minimum number of students?
    • “Do we need to teach every class every year?
    • “Are there languages we no longer need to teach?
    • “Are there opportunities for partnerships with peer institutions (with similar standards and schedules) to share language instruction?
    • “How can we use technology more effectively to support and enhance language instruction?”

    Ollett said, “We teach more than 50 languages in the division, which seems to be too much because the committee was asked to find ways of getting that number down.”

    Tyler Williams, another associate professor in the South Asian languages and civilizations department and a member of the committee, said the committee members “unanimously declined to endorse any of the suggestions about cutting languages or outsourcing language teaching.” He said Nelson “did not wait for the committee to submit its report,” nor did she “consult with that committee before she made this decision.”

    Ando also provided the charge for a separate Ph.D. Working Group, which outlined a number of “existential challenges” for Ph.D. programs. Those include significantly reduced demand for entry-level faculty, increasing costs for the university and long times to degree, which can deter students.

    Additionally, the document notes that the programs are facing “heightened public skepticism about the value of what is taught in Arts & Humanities PhD programs, and how it is taught. Yet Ph.D. programs remain a critical part of the research university model, necessary to teaching, research, scholarship, and creativity.”

    Among other questions, that committee was asked to explore whether there should be a minimum size for Ph.D. cohorts in order to offer a program.

    Williams said that this committee indicated it wasn’t going to endorse an admissions pause, but said it should be divisionwide if it occurred.

    Nelson’s email announcing the changes stressed that “this decision is not the recommendation of any committee.”

    Williams said the Ph.D. admissions cuts are part of “a crisis manufactured by the university administration itself.” Ollett said he worries for the future of their field.

    “We are quite unique in that there’s not a lot of South Asia area studies departments in the United States, and especially ones that train the next generation of scholars,” he said. He said he’s “already turned away prospective Ph.D. students because of this, and that’s just going to keep happening.”

    He said he worries that “if we’re not doing it, no one will do it, and the field will wither and die.”

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  • Federal judge stands by order requiring OCR be restored

    Federal judge stands by order requiring OCR be restored

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    A federal judge is standing by his June decision requiring the U.S. Department of Education to restore the Office for Civil Rights “to the status-quo” so it can “carry out its statutory functions.” The order, which prevents the department from laying off OCR employees, comes despite a U.S. Supreme Court emergency order in a separate case allowing the agency to move forward with mass layoffs across the department.

    The case challenging the gutting of OCR, which included the shuttering of seven out of 12 regional OCR offices, was brought by two students who “faced severe discrimination and harassment in school and were depending on the OCR to resolve their complaints so that they could attend public school,” said Judge Myong Joun in his Aug. 13 decision. 

    Joun said Victim Rights Law Center v. U.S. Department of Education is separate from New York v. McMahon — the Supreme Court case that allowed the department to proceed with mass layoffs — because the students have “unique harms that they have suffered due to the closure of the OCR.”

    The Education Department appealed Joun’s ruling Thursday to the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals, asking the court to allow the department to move forward with its OCR closures. 

    The court battle prolongs the administrative leave of OCR employees that began in March, after the department laid off more than 1,300 staff across the entire Education Department. President Donald Trump and U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon pushed the layoffs as a way to “end bureaucratic bloat” and downsize the federal government, including its expenses. 

    However, according to American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, the union representing a majority of the laid-off Education Department employees, the federal government has been paying around $7 million a month just for employees to sit idle on administrative leave. 

    The employees’ administrative leave that began in March originally ended with their termination on June 9. However, court cases blocking the department’s gutting have prolonged their employment.

    According to the numbers released by the agency last year, OCR received a record number of complaints against K-12 and higher education institutions in 2023, the most recent year for which numbers are available, surpassing a previous all-time high set in 2022.

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  • Education Department proposes removing trans, nonbinary student categories from mandated data collection

    Education Department proposes removing trans, nonbinary student categories from mandated data collection

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    The U.S. Department of Education is proposing to abandon data collection on transgender and nonbinary students, including on whether they are victims of harassment and bullying and whether school districts have policies prohibiting those incidents, according to a Federal Register notice published this month. 

    The changes come as part of the Civil Rights Data Collection for the 2025-26 and 2027-28 school years, a mandated survey of all public school districts that has been administered for almost six decades. The department noted on its website that the CRDC has “captured data on students’ equal access to educational opportunities to understand and inform schools’ compliance with the civil rights laws enforced by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.” 

    The proposed changes to the upcoming collections also struck transgender students from the department’s definition of “rape” and “sexual assault.”

    Whereas previous collections defined rape as something that could be done to “all students, regardless of sex, or sexual orientation, or gender identity,” the proposed collection says, “All students, regardless of sex, or sexual orientation can be victims of rape” — explicitly striking “gender identity” from the older definition.

    The change “really sends a frankly terrible message to how schools should be responding to allegations of sexual assault and how they should be documenting that and bringing that data forward,” said Brian Dittmeier, director of LGBTQI+ equality at the National Women’s Law Center.

    The department, however, maintained in an email to K-12 Dive that “the definition of rape and sexual assault remains virtually unchanged.”

    “All students means all students, period,” said an Education Department spokesperson on Thursday.

    The department submitted the proposed changes to the Office of Management and Budget for review on Aug. 7 and is accepting comments on the notice until Sept. 8.

    The changes are being proposed to comply with the 2020 Title IX rule, which excludes LGBTQ+ students from sex-based discrimination protections. President Donald Trump’s Education Department told districts in January to follow that rule — published during his first term — as opposed to the 2024 rule finalized under the Biden administration, which protected LGBTQ+ students under the sex discrimination civil rights statute.

    The Education Department is also proposing a change in its Civil Rights Data Collection to exclude transgender and nonbinary students in light of Trump’s January 2025 executive order “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” That executive order directed federal agencies to only recognize two sexes, male and female, and said, “These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”

    The Education Department has since adopted that stance, and it has attempted to include the definitions “male” and “female” in state policies through its resolution agreements and to exclude transgender students from teams and facilities aligning with their gender identities.

    The decision to now strike those students from the CRDC means the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights — under the current administration and future ones — would have less data on how transgender and nonbinary students fared in the 2025-26 and 2027-28 school years.

    “OCR uses CRDC data as OCR investigates complaints alleging discrimination to determine whether the federal civil rights laws it enforces have been violated, initiates proactive compliance reviews to identify particularly acute or nationwide civil rights compliance problems, and provides policy guidance and technical assistance to educational institutions, parents/guardians, students, and others,” a July 22 statement from the U.S. Department of Education to the Office of Budget and Management said. Other federal agencies, researchers and policymakers also use CRDC data, the department said.

    Transgender and students questioning their gender identity showed higher rates of bullying and poor mental health, as well as the lowest rates of school connectedness, when compared to their cisgender peers, according to the first nationally representative survey data on transgender students released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year.

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  • Jin Huang, Higher Education’s Harry Houdini

    Jin Huang, Higher Education’s Harry Houdini

    Ambow CEO Has Repeatedly Slipped Through the Fingers of Shareholders and Regulators

    In the opaque world of for-profit higher education, few figures have evoked the mixture of fascination and alarm generated by Jin Huang, CEO—and at times interim CFO and Board Chair—of Ambow Education Holding Ltd. Huang has repeatedly navigated financial crises, regulatory scrutiny, and institutional collapse with a Houdini-like flair. Yet the institutions under her control—most notably Bay State College and NewSchool of Architecture & Design—tell a far more troubling story.

    Ambow’s Financial Labyrinth

    Ambow, headquartered in the Cayman Islands with historic ties to Beijing (former address: No. 11 Xinyuanli, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China), has endured years of financial instability. As early as 2010, the company pursued ambitious acquisitions in the U.S. education market, including NewSchool and eventually Bay State College, often relying on opaque financing and cross-border investments.

    By 2013, allegations of sham transactions and kickbacks forced Ambow into liquidation and reorganization. Yet the company repeatedly avoided delisting and collapse. Financial reports reveal a recurring pattern: near-catastrophe followed by minimal recovery. In 2023, net revenue fell 37.8% to $9.2 million with a $4.3 million operating loss. By 2024, Ambow reported a modest $0.3 million net income, narrowly avoiding another financial crisis. 

    Early Years: 2010–2015

    From 2010 to 2015, Ambow aggressively pursued U.S. acquisitions and technology projects while expanding its presence in China. The company leveraged offshore corporate structures and relied heavily on PRC-linked investors. Huang’s leadership style during this period prioritized expansion and publicity over sustainable governance, leaving institutions financially vulnerable.

    Despite claims of educational innovation, Ambow’s track record in these years included multiple warnings from U.S. regulators and questionable accounting practices that would later contribute to shareholder lawsuits and delisting from the NYSE in 2014.

    Bay State College: Closed Doors, Open Wounds

    Acquired in 2017, Bay State College in Boston once enrolled over 1,200 students. By 2021, enrollment had collapsed, despite millions in federal COVID-era relief. In 2022, the Massachusetts Attorney General secured a $1.1 million settlement over misleading marketing, telemarketing violations, and inflated job-placement claims.

    Accreditation probation followed, culminating in NECHE’s withdrawal of accreditation in January 2023. Eviction proceedings for over $720,000 in unpaid rent preceded the college’s permanent closure in August 2023. Bay State’s demise exemplifies the consequences of Ambow’s pattern: the CEO escapes, the institution collapses, and students and faculty are left in the lurch.

    NewSchool of Architecture & Design: Stabilization in San Diego

    NewSchool, Ambow’s other U.S. acquisition, has faced persistent challenges. Enrollment has dropped below 300 students, and the school remains on the U.S. Department of Education’s Heightened Cash Monitoring list. Leadership instability has been chronic: five presidents since 2020, with resignations reportedly tied to unpaid salaries and operational dysfunction.

    As of 2025, lawsuits with Art Block Investors, LLC have been settled, and NewSchool is now housed in three floors of the WeWork building in downtown San Diego. Despite receiving a Notice of Concern from regional accreditor WSCUC, the college remains operational but financially precarious.

    Questionable Credentials and Leadership Transparency

    Huang has claimed to hold a PhD from the University of California, but investigation reveals no record of degree completion. This raises further concerns about leadership credibility and transparency. Ambow’s consolidated executive structure—Huang serving simultaneously as CEO, CFO, and Board Chair—exacerbates governance risks.

    While headquartered in Cupertino, California, Ambow continues to operate with ties to Chinese interests. SEC filings from the PRC era acknowledged that the Chinese government exerted significant influence on the company’s business operations. Ambow has also expressed interest in projects in Morocco and Tunisia involving Chinese-affiliated partners.

    HybriU and the EdTech Hype

    In 2024, Ambow launched HybriU, a hybrid learning platform promoted at CES and the ASU+GSV conference. Marketing materials claim a 5-in-1 AI-integrated solution for teaching, learning, connectivity, recording, and management, including immersive 3D classroom projections.

    Yet there is no verifiable evidence of HybriU’s use in actual classrooms. A $1.3 million licensing deal with a recently formed Singapore company, Inspiring Futures, is the only reported commercial transaction. Photos on the platform’s website have been traced to stock images, and the “OOOK” (One-on-One Knowledge) technology introduced in China in 2021 has not demonstrated measurable results in U.S. education settings.

    Reports suggest that Ambow may be in preliminary talks with Colorado State University (CSU) to implement HybriU. HEI has not confirmed any formal partnership, and CSU has not publicly acknowledged engagement with the platform. Any potential relationship remains unverified, raising questions about the legitimacy and scope of Ambow’s outreach to U.S. universities.

    Ambow’s 2025 press release promotes HybriU as a transformative global learning network, but HEI’s review finds no verified partnerships with accredited U.S. universities, no independent validation, and continued opacity regarding student outcomes or data security.

    Financial Oversight and Auditor Concerns

    Ambow commissioned a favorable report from Argus Research, but its research and development spending remains minimal—$100,000 per quarter. Prouden CPA, the current auditor based in China, is new to the company’s books and has limited experience auditing U.S. education operations. This raises questions about the reliability of Ambow’s financial reporting and governance practices.

    Conclusion: The Illusion of Rescue

    Jin Huang’s repeated escapes from regulatory and financial peril have earned her a reputation akin to Harry Houdini. But the cost of each act is borne not by the CEO, but by institutions, faculty, and students. Bay State College is closed. NewSchool remains operational in a WeWork facility but teeters on financial fragility. HybriU promises innovation but offers no proof.

    Ambow’s trajectory demonstrates that a company can survive on hype, foreign influence, and minimal governance, while leaving the real consequences behind. Any unconfirmed talks with CSU highlight the ongoing risks for U.S. institutions considering engagement with Ambow. For regulators, students, and higher education stakeholders, Huang’s Houdini act is less a marvel than a warning.

    Sources

    • Higher Education Inquirer. “Ambow Education Facing NYSE Delisting.” May 2022.

    • Higher Education Inquirer. “Ambow Education and NewSchool of Architecture and Design.” October 2023.

    • Higher Education Inquirer. “NewSchool of Architecture and Design Lawsuits.” March 2025.

    • Boston Globe. “Bay State College Faces Uncertain Future.” January 3, 2023.

    • Inside Higher Ed. “Two Colleges Flounder Under Opaque For-Profit Owners.” October 18, 2022.

    • Inside Higher Ed. “Bay State College Loses Accreditation Appeal.” March 21, 2023.

    • GlobeNewswire. “Ambow Education Announces Full-Year 2024 Results.” March 28, 2025.

    • Ambow Education Press Releases and SEC Filings

    • Wikipedia. “Bay State College.” Accessed August 2025.

    • Wikipedia. “NewSchool of Architecture and Design.” Accessed August 2025.

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