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  • State Lawmakers Enacted 21 Censorship Bills in 2025

    State Lawmakers Enacted 21 Censorship Bills in 2025

    Fourteen of last year’s 21 enacted bills contain gag orders, which PEN defines as direct censorship.

    Last year was a record-setting one for education censorship; more than half of U.S college and university students now study in a state with at least one law or policy restricting what can be taught or how college campuses can operate, according to a new report from PEN America, a nonprofit that advocates for campus free speech and press freedom.

    Last year, lawmakers in 32 states introduced a combined 93 bills that censor higher education. Of those, 21 bills were enacted across 15 states: Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.

    “Censorship is, sadly, now an intractable reality on college and university campuses, with serious negative impacts for teaching, research, and student life,” Amy Reid, program director of Freedom to Learn at PEN America, said in a news release. “With threats of formal sanctions and political reprisals coming from both state and federal governments, campus leaders and faculty feel they have no choice but to comply, and are increasingly acting preemptively out of fear. Politicians are expanding a sweeping web of political and ideological control over higher education in American campuses, reshaping what can be taught, researched, and debated to fit their own agenda. That’s dangerous for free thought in a democracy.”

    The report highlighted Ohio’s Senate Bill 1, a sweeping higher education bill that mandated institutional neutrality on “any controversial belief or policy,” established a post-tenure review policy, banned DEI initiatives and required institutions to demonstrate “intellectual diversity.” It also called out Indiana’s House Bill 1001, Ohio’s House Bill 96 and Texas’s Senate Bill 37, which all curb or eliminate faculty senates’ decision-making power.

    Fourteen of last year’s 21 enacted bills contain gag orders, which PEN defines as direct censorship. Seven of those laws apply to higher education (the others apply only to K–12 education). In addition to the enacted laws, PEN documented five gag-order policies set by state or university system boards, including Texas Tech’s rules that effectively ban teaching on transgender topics and Texas A&M’s weaponized ban on teaching race or gender “ideology.”

    Most of the proposed bills introduced last year contained some kind of indirect censorship, the PEN report states. It divides such bills into six categories: curricular control; tenure restrictions; institutional neutrality mandates; accreditation restrictions; diversity, equity and inclusion bans; and governance restrictions.

    “Our research shows that legislators are more frequently adopting indirect means to achieve their end goal of censoring higher education, effectively expanding their web of control over the sector in numerous directions,” the report states. “Indirect censorship measures exploded in popularity, with state legislators introducing more than twice as many of them as they did educational gag orders (78 vs 33).”

    In total, state lawmakers passed 20 out of 78 bills that contained indirect censorship—some of which also included gag orders. The 26 percent rate of passage is “remarkably strong,” the report states. Among the new laws are Indiana’s aforementioned HB 1001; Idaho’s Senate Bill 1198, which prohibits faculty from making “critical theory” courses a requirement for majors or minors; and Kansas’s Senate Bill 78, which allows institutions to sue their accreditor if punished for following state law—useful primarily because several of Kansas’s state laws violate accreditors’ academic freedom standards.

    The PEN report also covers federal pressure to censor colleges and universities. In 2025, the Departments of Justice and Education launched more than 90 investigations into alleged Title VI violations. The Trump administration targeted $3.7 billion in research funding and Trump signed 19 executive orders related to education, including an order to end DEI initiatives at colleges and universities. Also last year, the administration suggested 38 universities should be suspended from federal research partnerships because of their hiring practices.

    “The administration frequently justifies its actions in the name of protecting free expression, but the record shows its aim is to censor speech and exert control over the circulation of ideas,” Jonathan Friedman, the Sy Syms managing director of U.S. free expression programs at PEN, said in the news release. “The ‘viewpoint diversity’ they are pushing is not a value-neutral proposition about true debate or diversity of thought, or even free speech. It’s just a coded phrase being used to censor certain progressive ideas, while promoting conservative ones. The apparent aim is to turn colleges and universities into mouthpieces for the government. That’s not what our higher education institutions are supposed to be.”

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  • Poll shows most teens oppose classroom cellphone bans

    Poll shows most teens oppose classroom cellphone bans

    Dive Brief:

    • Only 41% of teens support cellphone bans in middle and high school classrooms, according to polling by Pew Research Center released Tuesday. That contrasts with most surveyed adults — 74% — who are supportive of similar prohibitions, earlier Pew research found.
    • Fewer teens (17%) are supportive of all-day cellphone bans, compared to 44% of adults. White students were more receptive to classroom and all-day cellphone bans compared to their Black and Hispanic peers, and students from families with higher household incomes favored school cellphone restrictions at a higher rate.
    • Separate research by Rand Corp. last year found school principals touted several benefits to cellphone restrictions in schools, including improved school climate, less inappropriate cellphone use and reduced cyberbullying.

    Dive Insight:

    Other research released last year by Phones in Focus, a nonpartisan research project supported by the National Governors Association, found that stricter cellphone policies, such as prohibiting students from carrying their cellphones during the school day, were associated with higher teacher satisfaction. 

    According to Ballotpedia, 38 states have enacted laws or policies on K-12 classroom or school cellphone usage as of Jan. 13. About 29 states have policies banning or limiting cellphones in classrooms.

    The exact policies differ state-by-state and even district-by-district.

    New Jersey, one of the most recent states to approve a school cellphone law, is requiring districts to adopt policies restricting the use of cellphones and other internet-enabled devices in K-12 schools.

    “With today’s bill signing, we are ensuring New Jersey schools are a place for learning and engagement, not distracting screens that detract from academic performance,” said Gov. Phil Murphy in a Jan. 8 statement. The state’s initiative includes $3 million in grants to schools that implement bell-to-bell cellphone bans. The funding will go toward purchasing equipment like cellphone storage pouches, training and engagement sessions.

    Andrew Matteo, superintendent of New Jersey’s Ramsey School District, said the district’s phone-free policy has “fundamentally transformed the daily experience for our students,” in the statement released by the governor’s office.

    “By removing the distraction of the cell phone, we have reclaimed the classroom as a space for deep academic focus and critical thinking,” said Matteo, adding that teachers have reported a significant increase in student engagement during instructional time. 

    But while cellphone restrictions in schools have garnered support from school administrators, policymakers and other adults, some in the disability rights community have raised concerns that these practices could conflict with education civil rights laws for students with disabilities who rely on assistive technology to access learning.

    Several state and local policies have incorporated language that provides exceptions for certain student groups, such as students with disabilities, English learners and parents of young children who may require access to their personal cellphones during the school day. 

    Additionally, Rand Corp. research published in October shows principals reported concerns from parents about cellphone bans due to having less access to their children during an emergency.

    A bill in Congress to create a national school cellphone ban also makes exceptions for students with disabilities, English learners and others who require the devices for learning or for medical reasons.

    The most recent Pew findings are based on an online survey of 1,458 U.S. teens ages 13 to 17, conducted from Sept. 25 to Oct. 9, 2025, through Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel.

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  • Cutting costs without cutting corners

    Cutting costs without cutting corners

    Key points:

    With the end of federal COVID-19 emergency funding and the inherent volatility of state income tax revenues, California school districts are in an era of financial uncertainty. Fortunately, Jurupa Unified School District is already several years into the process of finding ways to track and control expenses while still supporting teachers and staff so they can provide the best possible educational experience for our students. Here’s how we’re making staffing and payroll processes more efficient, starting with the perennially challenging extra duty.

    Getting a handle on extra duty

    In addition to our salaried staff, we have a number of part-time, hourly, and what we call “extra duty” assignments. Because a significant amount of our funding comes from grants, many of our assignments are temporary or one-time. We fill those positions with extra duty requests so we’re not committed to ongoing payroll obligations.

    For many years, those extra duty requests and time cards were on paper, which meant the payroll department was performing redundant work to enter the information in the payroll system. The request forms we used were also on paper, making it very difficult to track the actual time being used back to the request, so we could be sure that the hours being used were within the limitations of the request. We needed a better control mechanism that would help school sites stay within budget, as well as a more formal budget mechanism to encumber the department and site budgets to cover the extra duty requests.

    Budgeting can get very complicated because it’s cross-functional. It includes a position-control component, a payroll component, and a financial budgeting component. We needed a solution that could make all of those universes work together. The mission was either to find a system or build one. Our county office started a pilot program with our district to build a system, but ultimately decided against continuing with this effort due to the resources required to sustain such a system for 23 county districts. 

    Our district engaged in a competitive process and chose Helios Ed. Within six months, our team developed and launched a new system to address extra duty. Since then, we have saved more than $100,000 in staffing costs, time expenses, and budget overruns because of the stronger internal controls we now have in place.

    A more efficient (and satisfied) payroll department

    Eliminating redundant data entry and working with data instead of paper has allowed us to reduce staffing by two full-time equivalents–not through layoffs, but through attrition. And because they have a system that is handling data entry for them, our payroll department has more time to give quality to their work, and feel they are working at a level more aligned to their skills.

    Finding efficiencies in your district

    While Jurupa Unified has found efficiencies and savings in these specific areas, every school district is different. As many California district leaders like to say, we have 1,139 school districts –and just as many ways of doing things. With that in mind, there are some steps to the process of moving from paper to online systems (or using online systems more efficiently) that apply universally.

    1. Sit down and identify your objectives. What are the critical components that you must have? 
    2. Make the decision to make or buy. When COVID first hit, Jurupa Unified created its own invoice-routing system through SharePoint. We’ve also built an excursion request process in PowerApps that handles travel, conferences, and field trips. As our county office found out, though, when you’re bringing a number of functionalities together, it can make more sense to work with a vendor you trust.
    3. If you choose to buy software, be certain that it can do precisely what you need it to. If a vendor says they can develop a functionality along the way, ask to see the new feature before you buy.
    4. Be certain the vendor will be responsive. When it comes to a function such as payroll, you’re dealing with people’s livelihoods, and you need to know that if there’s something wrong with the system, or if you need help, that help is just a phone call away.

    Putting in a new payroll management system has made an enormous difference for our district, but it’s not the end of our cost-cutting process. We’re always looking at our different programs to see where we can cut back in ways that don’t impact the classroom. Ultimately, these changes are about ensuring that resources stay focused where they matter most. While budgets fluctuate and funding streams remain unpredictable, my team and I come to work every day because we believe in public education. I’m a product of public education myself, and I love waking up every day knowing that I can come back and support today’s students and teachers.

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  • DOJ Report Compounds MSI Advocates’ Worries

    DOJ Report Compounds MSI Advocates’ Worries

    Minority-serving institutions sustained another blow after the U.S. Department of Justice released a December legal report declaring funding to many of these institutions as unconstitutional. That memo could reach further than the Education Department’s move to defund some of these programs, ramping up uncertainty for the institutions.

    Much like the Education Department in September, the DOJ argued these programs are unconstitutional because they require colleges to enroll a certain percentage of students from a particular racial or ethnic background to qualify, among other criteria. ED ultimately redirected hundreds of millions of dollars intended for Hispanic-serving institutions and other MSIs for fiscal year 2025; it remains unclear whether the DOJ memo will result in more of the same.

    But the 48-page document offers new insight into the dangers a wide range of MSI grant programs could be facing and how the administration is legally justifying its stance against the institutions.

    The Trump administration seems to be “doubling down” on its attacks on MSIs, offering some “legal justification for what they’ve already done, and in light of that justification, extending it to some additional programs that they did not pursue in the first go-around,” said John Moder, interim CEO of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities.

    Mandatory Funds at Risk

    Similar to ED, the report by the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel uses an expansive interpretation of the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard that barred considering race in admissions.

    But the DOJ went further and called into question not just discretionary dollars but also congressionally mandated funds to MSIs, said Amanda Fuchs Miller, former deputy assistant secretary for higher education programs in the Biden administration and now president of the higher ed consultancy Seventh Street Strategies. The Education Department left mandatory funds alone in September, acknowledging in a news release that those funds “cannot be reprogrammed on a statutory basis,” but it would continue “to consider the underlying legal issues associated with the mandatory funding mechanism in these programs.”

    The DOJ implied that “they don’t have to give out the mandatory money as required anymore—in their opinion,” Miller said. But as far as she’s concerned, “the executive branch has to enforce statutes,” including discretionary and mandatory funding authorized by Congress.

    “They don’t have the authority to declare a statute unconstitutional,” she added.

    In contrast, the legal memo argued that the president may be able to reject statutes altogether “even if only parts of them are noxious.” And it concluded that “the race-based portions” of various programs—including funds for Hispanic-serving institutions, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian–serving institutions and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander–serving institutions—are “inseverable,” meaning the unconstitutional parts, according to the DOJ, can’t be removed.

    The DOJ did, however, make some exceptions, including competitive grants to predominantly Black institutions (but not mandatory funds) and the Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program; the department claimed these programs could be stripped of “race-based provisions.” The memo also scrutinized two TRIO programs, the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program and Student Support Services, but ultimately considered them constitutional, provided the grants aren’t used “to further racially discriminatory ends.”

    This approach raises questions, Miller said. For example, the Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program was specifically designed to bolster engineering and science programs at MSIs, so what would it mean to continue the program without MSI status as a factor? She also stressed that Native Americans aren’t a racial category, according to federal law, which the administration has acknowledged in the past. But the DOJ memo seems to muddy the administration’s take on the issue, she said, by arguing that Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian–serving institutions and Native American–Serving nontribal institutions rely on “racial and ethnic classifications rather than political classifications.”

    Ultimately, “Congress needs to stand up and fight back for these schools that play key roles in their districts” and make sure its statutory authority is respected, Miller said.

    Some members of Congress have called out the DOJ and ED for stepping out of bounds. Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat and ranking member of the House education committee, called the DOJ memo “deeply at odds with the fundamental goal of the [Higher Education Act] to ensure all students, regardless of their background, can access an affordable, quality degree.” Sen. Alex Padilla, chair of the Senate Congressional Hispanic-Serving Institutions Caucus, said the DOJ opinion “ignores federal law.” But lawmakers have yet to share a game plan on if or how they plan to push back.

    Next Steps

    What happens next is unclear.

    Moder said the administration might withhold new funding for the flagged programs, rescind funds already given, or both.

    In that case, institutions could sue, he said, but that’s an expensive ordeal for colleges and universities that, by definition, are underresourced. To qualify for most of the programs targeted by the DOJ, institutions are required to have low per-student expenditures compared to similar institutions, meaning they have relatively few resources to spend on students. They also need to serve at least half low-income students, in addition to a certain percentage of students from a particular racial or ethnic background.

    “It’s an expensive proposition and a time-consuming proposition,” Moder said. Although MSIs could have already sued over their lost discretionary funds, “it’s not surprising that there hasn’t been a flurry of legal challenges presented to date.”

    HACU has been defending HSIs against a legal challenge from the state of Tennessee and the advocacy group Students for Fair Admissions, after ED declined to stand up for the institutions. The lawsuit argued that Tennessee institutions don’t meet the requirement for HSIs—enrolling 25 percent Hispanic students—and miss out on federal funds; therefore, the federal criteria are discriminatory based on race. HACU has since asked the court to dismiss the case, arguing it’s a moot issue now that ED took away the discretionary funds Tennessee protests.

    The hope is “it will leave the possibility of … Congress voting for renewed funding,” and eventually “a new administration to continue to administer it,” Moder said.

    Deborah Santiago, co-founder and CEO of Excelencia in Education, an organization focused on Latino student outcomes, believes the DOJ report could have a positive twist: It offers more insight into how the administration is thinking about MSIs—and more fodder to fight back, she said.

    The DOJ memo “went a little bit deeper on examples, and in doing so, created opportunities to understand where they’re coming from,” and to “challenge some of the basic framing and concepts that are in dispute,” said Santiago, who previously worked as deputy director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics.

    Notably, she said, the report didn’t take issue with the idea that “there is a clear federal policy goal in providing capacity-building for underresourced institutions.” Instead, it took aim at “racial quotas” and quibbled with whether “individual discrimination” against particular students or types of students occurred. But Santiago said it’s easy to argue back that MSI grants support underserved institutions, not individual students, and there’s a difference between racial quotas and enrollment thresholds.

    “MSIs are about institutional capacity-building and not about redressing individual student discrimination. I think that was a false framing that they put out there,” she said. “At the core, this is about persistent structural disadvantages of institutions and how the federal government can fund them.” And when the federal government has limited funds to invest, “you can make the case” that increasing academic quality at institutions with a persistent lack of resources and a disproportionate number of historically underrepresented students “is a clear federal role and responsibility.”

    She also pushed back on the idea that institutions that don’t get the money are discriminated against. By the same logic, “students who are not enrolled in military academies are being discriminated against because they’re not getting access” to investments in military academies, she said.

    She believes that the DOJ memo will help hone how MSIs and their supporters advocate for the institutions to members of Congress and others.

    “I think we need to reframe and make the case to our colleagues on the Hill,” she said.

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  • N.C. Elections Board Rejects Campus Polling Centers

    N.C. Elections Board Rejects Campus Polling Centers

    Some students protested the decision.

    David Walter Banks/The Washington Post/Getty Images

    Ahead of the 2026 primaries, the North Carolina State Board of Elections rejected a plan Tuesday to open an early-voting center on the Greensboro campus of North Carolina A&T State University, according to NC Newsline. 

    The Republican-controlled board also voted to close the existing early-voting centers at Elon University and Western Carolina University. 

    After the vote, a group of N.C. A&T students who traveled to Raleigh for the board meeting gathered in the boardroom, protesting the decision. But Francis De Luca, chair of the board, threatened to call the cops if they didn’t leave, according to the news outlet. 

    De Luca, who voted against the early-voting sites, said he’s not in favor of them for numerous reasons. “There’s no parking,” he said. “They may set aside parking; if it’s filled, you’re going to get a ticket. We don’t put sites where there’s no parking anywhere else.”

    But Siobhan Millen, a Democratic member of the board who voted for the voting centers, said the move puts “student voting is in the crosshairs.”

    Without voting sites on campus, students—including many who don’t own cars—will have to travel to off-campus precincts, though some in favor of axing campus polling centers have described them as redundant. Zayveon Davis, a voter engagement leader at N.C. A&T, said the HBCU would provide shuttles to take students to the nearest polling place. 

    Nonetheless, he called the decision “disappointing” and reflective of broader Republican-led efforts to restrict voting access, especially for marginalized communities. 

    “I hope that everybody leaves here knowing that your voice does matter. Your vote does matter,” he told NC Newsline. “And if it didn’t, they wouldn’t be working this hard to take it away.”

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  • Questions About Youth Perceptions of Access to American Dream

    Questions About Youth Perceptions of Access to American Dream

    An impressively brilliant African American 14-year-old sent a thoughtful response to the column I published yesterday on the policing of Black men in America. He began by characterizing what I had written as “fascinating,” which could have meant a multitude of things coming from a teenager. He then explained that his eighth-grade English class included recent discussions about immigrant pursuits of the American dream. Accordingly, one major takeaway from those conversations with his teacher and peers was that many people come to the U.S. because it is perceived as a land of opportunity. My article complicated this presumption for him.

    In addition to the racial profiling, harassment, abuse and police killings of unarmed Black Americans that I wrote about yesterday, this middle schooler’s perspective has me wondering how other youth his age, as well as collegians in the U.S. and abroad are thinking about the possibility of the American dream at this time for themselves and others. I am especially interested in knowing how attainable it feels among Asian, Black, Latino and Indigenous youth here and elsewhere across the globe. Juxtapositions of their perspectives with those of their white counterparts also fascinate me.

    The Trump administration includes few people of color in leadership roles—certainly much, much fewer than in the Obama and Biden administrations. Programs and policies that were designed to ensure equitable opportunities for citizens who make our nation diverse have been ravaged (in some instances outlawed) during Donald Trump’s second presidential term.

    Black, Latino and international student enrollments at Harvard University and other elite institutions have declined since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled race-conscious admissions practices unconstitutional. Immigrants are being threatened, terrorized and deported. It is possible that these challenges and realities have done little to erode immigrants’ and prospective international students’ faith in U.S. structures and systems. This is a researchable topic.

    It would also be good for social scientists and education researchers to study how students in K–12 schools and on college campuses across the U.S. are appraising the equitable availability of the American dream to all citizens. Results collected via surveys and other research methods should be disaggregated by race, socioeconomic status, gender and gender identity, citizenship and documentation status, sexual orientation, religion, state and geographic region, political party, and other demographic variables. Those findings should be compared within and across groups. Furthermore, sophisticated analyses should be done at the intersection of identities (for example, perceptions of Asian American transgender immigrant youth).

    In another column published earlier this week, I wrote about what I teach students in my classrooms. One statement therein seems worthy of amplification here: “To be absolutely sure, I have never instructed [students] to hate or in any way despise America.” I do, however, teach them truths about our nation’s racial past and present. Those lessons are not based on my opinions or so-called divisive ideologies, but instead rigorous statistics and other forms of high-quality, trustworthy data substantiate my teachings. As a responsible educator and citizen, I understand that the problem of inequitable access to the American dream requires a lot, including but not limited to consciousness raising, truth telling, reparations and restorative justice, and the implementation of equity-minded public policies, to name a few. 

    I want youth of color to love our country. I want immigrants who believe in the availability of the American dream to come here. But I also want access to the American dream to be fair and equitable. I want our nation to disable and permanently destroy structures and systems that cyclically reproduce disparate outcomes that disadvantage people who make our country beautifully diverse. I got a very real sense that the Black teenage boy who thoughtfully responded to what I wrote yesterday wants the same thing, too. Again, I think it would be “fascinating” to know how other adolescents and young adults, including those who are white, are thinking about who has full access to the American dream at this time.

    Shaun Harper is University Professor and Provost Professor of Education, Business and Public Policy at the University of Southern California, where he holds the Clifford and Betty Allen Chair in Urban Leadership. His most recent book is titled Let’s Talk About DEI: Productive Disagreements About America’s Most Polarizing Topics.

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  • Indiana University Cancels MLK Celebration Dinner

    Indiana University Cancels MLK Celebration Dinner

    The Black Student Union held an annual dinner, first convened in 1969, honoring Martin Luther King Jr., that has been canceled this year.

    Indiana University in Indianapolis canceled a dinner in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. hosted annually in January by the Black Student Union, Mirror Indy reported. This year’s would have been the 57th consecutive annual MLK dinner, which was first convened in 1969.

    Officials in the Division of Student Affairs told the Black Student Union the event was canceled at the end of the fall semester, citing “budget constraints,” according to a letter the Black Student Union executive council posted on Instagram.

    “For months prior, we had been diligently seeking guidance and confirmation on whether the dinner would be approved, funded and supported,” the executive council wrote. “This is not just about a dinner. This is about the erosion of Black traditions under vague justifications. This is about institutional decisions being made without Black voices at the table.”

    In a letter to campus Tuesday, IU Indianapolis chancellor Latha Ramchand said, “The MLK Dinner is not going away—rather we are in a moment of transition,” and described a new task force that will “help us reimagine our affinity dinners and related events.” The task force will complete its work by April 10, she said.

    In their response letter to the Division of Student Affairs, the Black Student Union’s executive council questioned whether the current political climate may have influenced administrators’ decision to cancel the dinner. The university in May closed its diversity, equity and inclusion office, which included the Multicultural Center and the LGBTQ+ Center; student organizations within the office were transferred to the Office of Student Involvement. A student with the Queer Student Union told Mirror Indy that the Harvey Milk Dinner, typically held in October, was also canceled this academic year. 



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  • China Aims for “Quality” Overseas Students With Entry Exam

    China Aims for “Quality” Overseas Students With Entry Exam

    China’s introduction of a standardized admissions exam for international students shows that efforts to build a world-class university system matter more to the country than increasing enrollments, according to experts.

    Beginning with the 2026 intake, most international applicants will be required to take the China Scholastic Competency Assessment (CSCA), a centrally designed test intended to benchmark students from different education systems against a common academic standard.

    The exam will be compulsory for recipients of Chinese government scholarships starting this year and later phased in more widely, becoming mandatory for all international undergraduate applicants by 2028.

    It will be delivered primarily as an online, remotely proctored test, with some countries also offering off-line test centers.

    Richard Coward, CEO at Global Admissions, an agency that helps international students apply to universities, said the policy was “one of the biggest changes” he had seen for international students studying in China.

    “This is more about the shift in focus away from quantity to quality, which is happening all over the world. Previously China had the target of 500,000 students; now the target is towards world-class universities by 2050 with the double first-class initiative.”

    “There is a great deal of variation in students with different academic backgrounds and it can be challenging to assess,” Coward said. “There are also many countries that don’t have the equivalent level of maths compared with China. This change aims to make all international applicants have the same standard so they’ll be able to follow the education at Chinese universities and so they are at least at the same level as local students.”

    Under the new framework, mathematics will be compulsory for all applicants, including those applying for arts and humanities degrees.

    Coward said this reflected “the Chinese educational philosophy that quantitative reasoning is a fundamental baseline for any university-level scholar.”

    Those applying to Chinese-taught programs must also sit for a “professional Chinese” paper, offered in humanities and STEM versions. Physics and chemistry are optional, depending on program requirements. Mathematics, physics and chemistry can be taken in either Chinese or English.

    Gerard Postiglione, professor emeritus at the University of Hong Kong, said the CSCA should be understood as part of a broader shift in China’s approach to internationalization.

    “The increasing narrative in China in all areas is to focus on quality,” he said. “That also means in higher education. If China has the plan by 2035 to become an education system that is globally influential, there’s going to be more emphasis on quality.”

    Postiglione added that the move also reflected how China approaches admissions locally.

    “If you look at how China selects students domestically, there is no back door,” he said, pointing to the importance of the gaokao, China’s national university admissions test taken by local students. “The gaokao is the gaokao, and I don’t think there will be much of a back door for international students, either.”

    He cautioned, however, that the framework may favor applicants with certain backgrounds.

    “Language proficiency and subject preparation will inevitably advantage some students over others,” he said. “Students who have already studied in Chinese, or who come from systems with stronger mathematics preparation, may find it easier to meet the requirements.”

    While the exam framework is centrally set, Postiglione said, individual universities are likely to retain autonomy over admissions decisions.

    “The Ministry of Education will provide a framework and guidelines,” he said, “but it would be very difficult for a central agency to make individual admissions decisions across the entire system.”

    Pass thresholds have not yet been standardized, and Coward said that in the future, universities may set minimum score requirements, but this is not in place yet.

    He added that the additional requirement was unlikely to reduce demand. “Some more casual students may be deterred,” he said. “But for top-tier universities, it reduces administrative burden by filtering for quality early.”

    In the longer term, though, “it signals that a Chinese degree is becoming more prestigious, which may actually increase demand from high-caliber students.”

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  • The Karateka vs the Sumo Wrestler: what REF 2029 means for research leadership in UK universities

    The Karateka vs the Sumo Wrestler: what REF 2029 means for research leadership in UK universities

    This blog was kindly authored by Dr Antonios Kelarakis, Reader in Polymers and Nanomaterials, University of Lancashire

    UK universities increasingly reward size, visibility and institutional influence. Yet many of the discoveries that underpin scientific progress come from researchers whose work is slow, specialist and largely invisible – the academic karateka, whose precision contrasts sharply with the highly visible, institution-shaping sumo wrestler. With reforms to the Research Excellence Framework (REF) for 2029 confirmed in December 2025, there is now an opportunity to rebalance what we value in research leadership and to better align institutional incentives with how knowledge is actually produced.

    In today’s academic world, two very different research styles are stepping onto the mat.

    The karateka is defined by focus and precision. They dedicate themselves to mastering a single research field, refining a theory, improving a method or laying the foundations for a new diagnostic or experimental technique. Every publication is carefully considered, every contribution is incremental but cumulative. Their ambition is depth rather than scale, and they aim to reach previously inaccessible insights. These researchers often form the invisible engine of scientific progress. Their work may attract little attention beyond specialist communities, yet its influence is long-lasting and foundational.

    The sumo wrestler, by contrast, plays a broader game. Their strength lies in size, coordination and visibility. They lead large research groups, oversee multiple interdisciplinary projects and accumulate titles, affiliations and advisory roles. Their calendars are filled with conferences, policy briefings and media engagement. They shape research agendas as much as individual ideas and act as the public face of modern academia. While the karateka advances knowledge through precision, the sumo wrestler moves institutions through mass and momentum.

    A shifting balance of power

    For much of scientific history, the karateka was the primary driver of discovery. The laws of physics, advances in chemistry and the development of new materials and analytical techniques have typically emerged from decades of focused work by scholars deeply embedded in a single domain.

    In recent years, however, the balance in UK academia has tilted. Universities increasingly reward visibility, scale, collaboration and institutional contribution – metrics that naturally favour the sumo wrestler. Funding requirements emphasise partnerships, pathways to impact and the management of large consortia. Universities respond rationally by supporting researchers who can deliver coordination, profile and strategic alignment.

    The karateka, meanwhile, often struggles to justify slow, methodical work in systems dominated by short-term indicators. Their contributions are essential, but they are not always easily captured by institutional performance metrics or institutional narratives.

    Why REF matters now

    The REF has always been a powerful signal of what universities should value. Decisions taken as part of the REF 2029 reforms strengthen the emphasis on research culture, long-term contribution and the environments that sustain excellence, alongside continued recognition of impact.

    Under the revised framework, assessment is weighted across three elements: Contribution to Knowledge and Understanding (55%), Engagement and Impact (25%) and Strategy, People and Research Environment (20%), assessed at both disciplinary and institutional levels. This represents a clear shift from REF 2021, where the role of environment was more limited.

    This change matters. By strengthening the role of research environment and contribution, REF 2029 creates an opening for universities to recognise how excellence is actually sustained; through deep expertise, stable methods, supportive cultures and long-term institutional investment. Research outputs remain central, but they no longer crowd out other forms of contribution to the same extent.

    Karateka-style scholarship has often struggled to fit neatly into REF narratives. Breakthroughs take time, develop incrementally and may not translate into demonstrable impact within a single cycle. Yet many celebrated impact case studies ultimately rest on foundational research generated by specialist researchers whose work is less visible and harder to narrate.

    From critique to policy

    The reforms give universities greater scope and responsibility to act differently. REF 2029 does not dictate outcomes, but it reshapes the conditions under which institutions define excellence.

    In practical terms, universities can now use the framework to reaffirm the value of:

    • deep, specialist expertise, even when audiences are narrow
    • long-term, foundational inquiry that underpins later impact
    • precision scholarship that strengthens methods and disciplines
    • small, focused teams that are often more intellectually productive than large consortia

    REF 2029 offers a chance to rebalance the contest without lowering the bar for excellence. Protecting space for karateka-style research is not a retreat from impact; it is a precondition for it. When depth is preserved, leadership has something genuinely worth amplifying: impact that endures rather than merely dazzles.

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  • Fall 2025 enrollment increased 1% — but the devil is in the details

    Fall 2025 enrollment increased 1% — but the devil is in the details

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    Dive Brief:

    • Overall college enrollment ticked up 1% in fall 2025 compared to the previous year, a gain of 187,000 students, according to the latest data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. 
    • Undergraduate enrollment drove overall growth with a 1.2% year-over-year increase, as community colleges and four-year public institutions saw 3% and 1.4% bumps, respectively. In contrast, undergraduate enrollment declined 1.6% at private four-year nonprofits and 2% at four-year for-profits.
    • Other parts of the sector also dipped. Graduate enrollment sagged 0.3%, pushed by a 5.9% decline of international students in these programs, the clearinghouse found.

    Dive Insight:

    The higher education sector entered 2026 with a nervous eye on the international student pipeline, as the Trump administration continues to pursue policies limiting their ability to study at U.S. colleges.

    Polling conducted mid-fall found that most surveyed colleges reported a drop in international enrollment, particularly in graduate programs.

    The clearinghouse’s latest fall enrollment report aligns with those findings. In fall 2025, about 10,000 fewer international students enrolled in U.S. graduate programs compared to the prior year, it found. 

    The loss came after international enrollment experienced several years of strong growth, according to Matthew Holsapple, the clearinghouse’s senior director of research. 

    According to Holsapple, international enrollment has increased about 50% since fall 2020 — when the sector experienced a significant decline in these students amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

    During a Wednesday call with reporters, Holsapple described this past fall’s downturn as “a pretty meaningful shift after that long period of expansion.”

    Undergraduate international enrollment still grew in fall 2025 but at less than half the rate it did in fall 2024 — a 3.2% year-over-year increase compared to an 8.4% uptick.

    Dual enrollment students are another key group for college leaders.

    Of the fall enrollment increase at community colleges, 38.4% came from students age 17 years or younger, according to Sarah Karamarkovich, a research associate at the clearinghouse. The clearinghouse uses this age range as a proxy for dual enrollment students — those taking college classes in high school.

    The bump translates to 66,000 more students under the age of 18 who took community college classes in the fall compared to the previous year, Karamarkovich told reporters.

    Community college enrollment increased overall by about 173,000 students.

    Among different types of academic programs, shorter-term offerings such as associate degrees and certificates continued to outpace the growth in four-year degrees.

    Enrollment in associate degree programs rose 2.2% compared to fall 2024, while the number of students seeking undergraduate certificates increased 1.9%. 

    Bachelor’s degrees saw more modest year-over-year growth, of 0.9%.

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