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  • College Uncovered: Tag, You’re In!

    College Uncovered: Tag, You’re In!

    What if colleges started applying to you instead of the other way around?

    The anxiety-inducing college admissions game is changing. With declining birth rates and growing skepticism about the value of a degree, higher education is facing an enrollment cliff, set to hit hard in 2026. That’s 18 years after the Great Recession, when many American families stopped having babies.

    As competition for students intensifies, more states desperate for workforce talent and schools dependent on tuition dollars are turning to direct admission – a system in which students receive college acceptance offers and scholarships before they even apply.

    Marykate Agnes was directly admitted to Western New England University, and also got a significant amount of financial aid. Credit: Kirk Carapezza

    In this episode, hosts Kirk Carapezza and Jon Marcus break down how we even got to the point at which the traditional college admission process required students to spend time and money with no guarantee of success. And they ask whether direct admission is the solution colleges and students need, or a Band-Aid on a bigger enrollment crisis. 

    Listen to the whole series

    TRANSCRIPT

    [Jon] This is College Uncovered. I’m Jon Marcus.

    [Kirk] And I’m Kirk Carapezza.

    In the basement of the Student Center at Western New England University in Springfield, Massachusetts, students play pool and ping pong. At a table in the back, Ndilei Lukulay is taking a break from her studies. She tells me her mother came to the U.S. from Sierra Leone. Growing up in Springfield, Lukulay felt nervous about applying to college.

    [Ndilei Lukulay] I was definitely feeling the pressure of being that my mom is an immigrant. She’s very big on going to college and making sure that you get a good career and complete all your studies and so I didn’t know where to start and I was very stressed out about the whole thing.

    [Kirk] Then this university in her hometown emailed to say she was admitted and would get a scholarship and she hadn’t even applied. So she was skeptical.

    [Ndilei Lukulay] I was, like, is this a scam? Is this real?

    [Kirk] It was real. Western New England, a private university with about 2,000 students, offered to admit her and more than 2,000 other students before they even applied. The university tells me the goal is to make college more accessible to low-income students, like Lukulay, who make up about a third of the school’s population.

    This is called direct admission, and we’re seeing a lot more schools doing this as they confront a steep decline in the number of 18-year-olds, something economists call the demographic cliff. That’s going to mean a lot fewer college students — or potential customers.

    [Jon] And, Kirk, schools in areas of the country like western Massachusetts are the hardest hit.

    Here’s how it works. The college tells students they’d get in based on a handful of criteria, like their GPA or intended major. For students like Ndilei Lukulay, that means getting to skip writing essays, going to interviews, and getting letters of recommendation.

    [Ndilei Lukulay] I think I received direct admissions offers from about 12 to 15 schools and I was actually very shocked. I just never heard anything about it and I’m like, is that easy?

    [Jon] This is College Uncovered, a podcast pulling back the ivy to reveal how colleges really work. I’m Jon Marcus with the Hechinger Report. …

    [Kirk] … and I’m Kirk Carapezza with GBH News. Colleges don’t want you to know how they operate, so GBH …

    [Jon] … in collaboration with the Hechinger Report, is here to show you.

    In this season, we’re standing on the precipice of the demographic cliff and exploring the changing higher education landscape. And one of the major changes is how people are getting into college. Applying to schools is really stressful. But what if all that went away and colleges applied to you?

    Today on the show” Tag, You’re In!”

    [Kirk] Direct admission is now used by hundreds of schools across the country. And more than a dozen state systems do this, too, including Oregon, Minnesota, and Connecticut. Idaho was the first state to create a direct admissions program.

    [Jennifer Delaney] In Idaho, it was actually the president of the flagship who tried to apply to his own college and found it really hard.

    [Kirk] Jennifer Delaney teaches higher ed policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and she studied the direct admissions program in Idaho, where every public institution in the state participates, as well as two private colleges.

    [Jennifer Delaney] It was about how do we simplify, how do think about increasing, as a state, overall college enrollment. So every kid in a public high school in Idaho gets a letter. You’re either in everywhere in the state if your GPA is high enough, or you’re into all the open-access institutions, which is every community college plus two public four-years.

    [Jon] This is a major shift, Kirk, in how colleges do business. For students, it helps ease the stress of the college search by letting them know they’re in before they even apply. For colleges desperate for students, it’s a way to fill their classroom.

    [Kirk] Yeah, and for states, Jon, it’s a way to keep talent close to home and develop a more educated workforce. Susan Makowski is director of admission at Rider University in New Jersey. We heard from her in our first episode this season.

    [Susan Makowski] The cliff is coming, so we just will have less students.

    [Kirk] At a college fair in Edison, New Jersey, she told me Rider was already admitting nearly 80 percent of those who applied when it decided to offer direct admission to students who’ve uploaded their applications through the Common App. That’s a single application accepted by more than 1,000 schools. So somebody applying to the University of Michigan suddenly gets accepted to other schools, like Rider.

    [Susan Makowski] These direct admission programs run the gamut of different ways that a student gets admitted. I may alert them that they look like a great fit for Rider, but they still need to decide — do they feel that way? Whereas the other options, really, I think, sometimes worry students. Like, is this real?

    [Jon] Interesting. But does direct admission really help colleges like Rider boost enrollment? And what if a college tags you? We’ll have more on that in a moment, so stay tuned.

    But first, how did we get to this point where the college admissions process requires students to spend a ton of time and money with no guarantee of success? And how did the whole process become so anxiety-inducing?

    [Kirk] Well, Jon, it wasn’t always this way.

    [Archival newsreel sound] There were a group of congressmen with long memories who were in the last war. They knew that when a man gets out of the Army or Navy or Marines, he’s worried most about a job, an education, and a home. And that’s why Congress, led by the president, passed the law, the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, better known as the G.I. Bill of Rights.

    [Kirk] Some quick history. After World War II, most of the students applying to college applied to a single school. And by the 1970s, it was maybe two schools. Today, one in three students applies to seven or more places. That shift has created a lot of uncertainty for colleges hoping to fill their seats and a lot anxiety for students and their families. To get a sense of why colleges push this system, I reached out to a long-time admissions insider.

    [John Burdick] My name is John Burdick. I was, until 2023, the vice provost for enrollment at Cornell University in New York.

    [Kirk] Burdick was in the game for nearly four decades. Since he left Cornell, he’s been working on international college access in Africa. So technically he’s still in the game. I asked him what drove us here?

    [John Burdick] This is basically just a classic arms race. The more rejection letters we can send, the more prestige we have, the more likely people will be willing to spend money on our services. And then students follow along behind that by a year or so and say, ‘I don’t know that I’m going to get in there or the other nine, 10, 19 prestigious places that I am applying to. So I better apply to all of them.’

    [Kirk] Burdick says everybody in the game has a perverse incentive — students to increase the number of applications they send, and colleges to increase the number of applications they get.

    [John Burdick] Now the Ivies will by and large say, ‘Oh, we don’t want more applications. We’re already only admitting 5 percent and it’s terrible and we’d just as soon not see applications.’ They’re lying through their teeth. They would freak out if they suddenly weren’t among the most selective universities on the planet.

    [Kirk] And on this planet, most colleges — 80% — admit more than half the students who apply. Still, selective or elite college admission drives the national narrative.

    Jon, you’ve reported on the fact that it’s getting easier to get into college and with the demographic cliff coming it’ll only get easier at certain schools, right?

    [Jon] Yeah, not at Princeton and Yale, but despite public perception, and for the first time in decades, acceptance rates at most colleges and universities are going up.

    [Kirk] Where are acceptance rates going up the most?

    [Jon] Well, Bucknell, George Washington, Marquette, Oberlin, Gonzaga, Brigham Young — the list goes on and on. These universities want you to think it’s impossible, or at least hard, to get in. But the fact is, on average, universities are admitting a larger proportion of their applicants than they did 20 years ago. In fact, the median acceptance rate at four-year universities was about 8 percentage points higher in 2022 than it was in 2012.

    [Kirk] Many students think it’s increasingly hard to get into college, and they see the whole process as a mystery. Even as you gather up your transcripts and test scores and then add some final touches on your personal essays, the question remains: Exactly what happens after your application goes out into the unknown? At the college fair in New Jersey, I asked high school juniors Masiambou Saysay and Harmony Roundtree what they think happens behind closed doors.

    [Masiambou Saysay] They just have a lot of applications, they’re like, declined, oh yeah, I don’t know.

    [Harmony Roundtree] I feel like a big pile of letters being stacked on top of each other and you just gotta pick, yeah.

    [Kirk] And what do you think it looks like?

    [Harmony Roundtree] Hmm. Like, a million emails and then, like, three different computers

    [Kirk] I got a glimpse into one of those computers and the black box that is the admissions process — the mystery of who gets in, the secrets of what really matters. After I reached out to a bunch of schools, the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester agreed to give me access and a behind-the-scenes look at the admissions processes. Full disclosure, Jon, I’m a graduate of Holy Cross.

    [Jon] Oh, really, Kirk? You never mention it. So the only school that would let you in is the only school that would allow you to observe the process?

    [Kirk] That’s pretty much how this went down. The college let me sit in on one early decision committee meeting. Behind closed doors, inside a tiny conference room, I saw how the process historically went down.

    [Woman’s voice] Nice program, good testing.

    [Man’s voice] Yeah, a lot to like.

    [Woman’s voice] People like him?

    [Kirk] What’s most surprising is how quickly the committee reviews the candidates, spending about two minutes on each before deciding whether to accept, hold, or deny. To speed things along, the committee uses a lot of jargon, like LBB — that’s ‘late blooming boy’ — and RJ for ‘rejection.’

    [Woman’s voice] Academically has everything. I wonder if a counselor call might be enlightening.

    [Woman’s voice] I mean, honestly, it sounds like maybe he could work on it or be cognizant of it. I mean I don’t know, and he’s strong academically, I think he’s okay.

    [Man’s voice] I think his classmates would bring him down to reality.

    [Jon] Kirk, that’s just one small private college. So to get a broader sense of the admissions landscape and how it’s changing, we reached out to Jeff Selingo.

    [Kirk] Yes, Selingo teaches higher ed leadership at Arizona State University, and he’s author of the book Who Gets In and Why. For his research, he spent a year inside three college admissions offices at Emory in Atlanta, Davidson in North Carolina, and the University of Washington in Seattle. So I asked him, how did he end up at those schools?

    [Jeff Selingo] In some ways, it’s a lot like admissions. I approached 24 schools and asked them to get inside their admissions process. And most said no. And only three said yes. So it’s kind of like I applied to 24 schools. I only got into three.

    [Kirk] And what do you think people imagine it’s like inside a college admissions office and what’s it actually like?

    [Jeff Selingo] First of all, I think they think that the admissions officers are spending a lot more time with college applications than they really are. Emory had something like 40,000 applications. And so as a result, they’re like looking at these applications sometimes in just a couple of minutes. Probably the most they would take with an application might be 12 or 13 minutes. And meanwhile, you know, these kids are putting their heart and soul into it for years.

    [Kirk] Selingo says the biggest change in the college admissions game is the lack of signals around what it takes to get in. Schools that used to require test scores, for example, have gone test-optional since the pandemic.

    [Jeff Selingo] You know, some colleges have gone back, But that lack of a signal, like, if I got a 1400 or 1300 on the SAT, I kind of knew where that would place me in a class and I would not even apply to most of these schools. But now with test optional, it gave me the opportunity to potentially apply and get in. And so every year now you see just increasing number of applications again to these highly selective schools. And then you hear stories, ‘Oh, I didn’t, you, know, my kid didn’t get in or my cousin didn’t get in,’ and so the following year, kids get really nervous. And what do they do? They apply to not only those same set of schools, but then they apply to five more at the same time. And so you just see this vicious circle that just keeps going around and around again, particularly around these top schools.

    [Kirk] How do you think the demographic cliff and the shortage of 18-year-olds will change this game?

    [Jeff Selingo] I think the competition for student is going to intensify. And so you’re seeing that already. You see programs like direct admission, where students are getting accepted to colleges without even applying. You’re going to see a lot more marketing to students even earlier than they do now, in terms of buying their names and sending them information. The other thing, though, is on the financial aid side. I think the discounts and the merit aid that [colleges] are going to give, I think they’re just going to lean even more into that. And you’re just going to see more and more money flowing to students to try to persuade them to come to school X instead of school Y.

    [Kirk] How else are these colleges handling these seismic shifts, and what’s the tone inside of the admissions office now? Is there a sense of desperation?

    [Jeff Selingo] It’s interesting around enrollment. Even though we’ve known this cliff has been coming forever, admissions is really, like, especially at most of these schools that are tuition dependent and are really enrollment driven, it’s about butts in seats tomorrow, not a year from now. So, I mean, they’re kind of short sighted. They haven’t been doing very much to prepare for this. No, they haven’t, because they basically think ‘I just need to, I need to make this class for next year. I need to come in on budget. I need to. Make enrollment.’ They’re not really worried about two years down the road.

    [Kirk] You mentioned direct admission. What do you make of this trend, and do you think we’ll see more schools and states adopt it?

    [Jeff Selingo]  Oh, I think you will, because there’s something in admissions where everybody kind of follows the leader. I’m a little skeptical of direct admission. Well, what happens when more and more schools adopt direct admissions and suddenly, now, Kirk, you’re getting, instead of, like, one or two direct admissions offers, now you’re get eight or nine, right? Like, how does that really help you, at the end of the day, make a decision, or from the college’s point of view, know who’s really interested and who’s coming?

    [Jon] So Jeff Selingo is pretty skeptical of direct admission. But does it help colleges boost enrollment?

    [Kirk] Well, sometimes, says Jennifer Delaney. She’s the researcher we heard at the top of this episode who looked at the first-in-the-nation program in Idaho.

    [Jennifer Delaney] It’s not always able to move the needle on the enrollment side of things.

    [Kirk] Delaney’s research found direct admission helped to increase full-time undergrad enrollment by at least 4 percent, and it boosted in-state enrollment by at least 8 percent.

    [Jennifer Delaney] Having a bird in the hand in Idaho meant that you stayed in Idaho for school, and you didn’t go out of state.

    [Kirk] And what about low-income students?

    [Jennifer Delaney] Admission isn’t enough. You’ve got to be admitted and be able to pay for it.

    [Kirk] And that’s why more schools are adding direct financial aid offers up front, too.

    [Jon] Kirk, to compete, more and more community and four-year colleges are offering — quote, unquote — free tuition. We have a whole episode about that called “The Real Cost of Free.” You can find it in our second season.

    At Western New England University, Marykate Agnes says she accepted the direct admission offer, but not before she reached out to increase her financial aid award. Agnes was admitted through direct admission, and she also received generous financial

    [Marykate Agnes] I got the $32,000 scholarship, then I got another $2,000 for early action, and then I asked for more money and I got it. So I think I’m paying around $10,000. I think that it’s just an awesome thing, and it takes stress off of the students.

    [Jon] Agnes says she doesn’t worry about attending a less selective school.

    [Marykate Agnes] I don’t think it reflects the value of the education at all. I mean, at the end of the semester, I have more work than my friends at more selective schools do, and it’s harder, more rigorous, and the professors are absolutely amazing, and it is so personable. And I think that’s what you’re not getting at the more selective schools.

    [Kirk] All of this change is putting pressure on colleges to develop a strategy. That’s where people like Kathy Ruby come in. She works with colleges to shape financial aid strategies to help them compete with other schools for students.

    [Kathy Ruby] It’s a competitive market, and it’s going to get more competitive depending on where you are and the type of institution you are. I think not all institutions will experience the cliff in the same way.

    [Kirk] Ruby says families are more cost-conscious than ever. Students and parents are more averse to debt, so schools are trying to make themselves seem cheaper. The goal is to attract middle-income families who don’t qualify for federal and state but also don’t have the means to pay the full price.

    [Kathy Ruby] Certainly institutions are starting to focus on what can we do for those middle students, because that also can often be a good place to build. But it can be more expensive for the institution, because there’s no federal dollars to help.

    [Kirk] Schools are focusing on scholarships that are offered up front and meet more students’ financial needs. Ruby’s advice to students and families? Shape a college list with your reach, target and safety schools, but also understand what that means for you.

    [Kathy Ruby] Because if you’re a very bright student and your likely schools might be actually still pretty selective and not offer much in the way of merit aid, you have to do your homework on understanding what the college actually offers. Use their website, use their net price calculator, talk to people.

    [Jon] And, as we always say on this podcast, ask questions and understand what your financial aid package might look like, even if you can’t get an exact figure.

    [Kirk] The reality is there are tons of solid schools and programs out there. So try not to worry so much about that bumper sticker on the back of your neighbor’s SUV. And remember, getting into those bumper-sticker schools is often not about you. It’s about the college’s agenda. Factors like building a class, budgets and yield. You know, whether a student will even enroll if they’re accepted. Students and parents have a lot to gain if they change their perspective on what really qualifies as a quote,unquote good college.

    [Jon] That’s right, Kirk. It’s easy to think a degree from a selective institution is the best insurance policy you can buy for your kid’s future. And if they’re not accepted, they’ll end up on the wrong side of this country’s economic divide.

    But as we approach the demographic cliff, in many ways, that is simply not true. For many students, it’s a buyer’s market now.

    [Kirk] This is College Uncovered. I’m Kirk Carapezza from GBH. …

    [Jon] … and I’m Jon Marcus from the Hechinger Report.

    [Kirk] This episode was produced and written by Jon Marcus …

    [Jon] … and Kirk Carapezza, and it was edited by Jonathan A. Davis.

    Our executive editor is Jennifer McKim.

    [Kirk] Our fact checker is Ryan Alderman.

    Mixing and sound design by David Goodman and Gary Mott.

    All of our music is by college bands. Our theme song and original music is by Left Roman out of MIT.

    The demographic cliff was set to sound for us by James Trayford of the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the University of Portsmouth in England.

    Mei He is our project manager. And head of GBH Podcasts is Devin Maverick Robbins.

    [Jon] College Uncovered is made possible by Lumina Foundation. It’s produced by GBH News and The Hechinger Report, and distributed by PRX.

    Thanks so much for listening.

    More information about the topics covered in this episode:

    Learn more about direct admission here.

    See what colleges and universities have direct admission through the Common App.

    College Uncovered: The Real Cost of Free

    A trend colleges might not want applicants to notice: It’s becoming easier to get in

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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  • States try to tackle child care shortages — by lowering standards

    States try to tackle child care shortages — by lowering standards

    When this year’s legislative session launched in Idaho, early childhood experts and advocates were hopeful that the state, which has a shortage of child care, would invest more in early learning programs. Instead, lawmakers proposed what may be the most extreme effort yet to deregulate child care in America: The bill called for eliminating state required staff-to-child ratios altogether, instead allowing child care providers to set their own.

    While the effort was met with fierce opposition in the state, it represents a trend gaining momentum in the country. Rather than investing in the struggling child care industry, more than a dozen states have proposed lowering the minimum age to work with children, easing education and training requirements, and raising group sizes and ratios. (Read my December story on this growing deregulation movement. I investigated such efforts in states including Kansas and Iowa.)

    The deregulation measures come at a time when many early childhood programs face federal funding and staffing cuts. Head Start programs were hit by a federal funding freeze and struggled to draw down payments even after the Trump administration announced Head Start was exempt from the freeze. Then, earlier this month, the Trump administration closed five of the Administration for Children and Families’ (ACF) regional offices and placed staff from those offices on leave, threatening support for Head Start, which is overseen by ACF, as well as programs that receive federal child care subsidies. Last week, USA Today reported that President Donald Trump is considering a budget proposal that would eliminate funding for Head Start altogether.

    At the state level, Idaho lawmakers are not the only ones to propose child care deregulation legislation this year. Minnesota lawmakers also issued similar proposals, including increasing family child care capacity limits and relaxing ratios in rural areas. Another bill in the state proposes lowering the age requirement of assistant teachers from 18 to 16. In Kansas, where a lawmaker proposed hiring 14-year-olds to help in child care classrooms in 2023, a new bill aims to reduce training requirements. An Indiana measure would loosen staff-to-child ratios based on the ratios set in neighboring states, and one in North Carolina would increase maximum group sizes for young children. And in Florida, lawmakers have called for an abbreviated inspection plan for some child care programs.

    While deregulation is more common in red states, there have also been some recent efforts to invest in early learning programs that transcend the red-blue divide. In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp proposed an additional $14 million aimed at reducing preschool class sizes and $5.5 million to address issues with the state’s child care subsidy program for lower-income families. Indiana Gov. Mike Braun called for more spending to eliminate the state’s waitlist for child care subsidies. And South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster proposed $20 million to continue a program that provides wage supplements to child care workers.

    In Idaho, the deregulation legislation was eventually amended to loosen the state-mandated ratios — without eliminating them altogether. It also forbids municipalities from setting more stringent child care regulations than the state, something that was allowed in the past and allowed cities to set a “higher standard” for programs, said Martin Balben, director of strategic initiatives for the Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children.

    “I think municipalities are still kind of reeling with how to confront that reality,” he said. “It remains to be seen how [they] are going to handle their lack of local control in this area moving forward.”

    Experts say while deregulation is nothing new, the recent momentum is troubling. “We absolutely want to make sure that states are not rolling back their health and safety measures,” said Diane Girouard, state policy senior analyst at Child Care Aware of America. “We want to make sure that they’re not compromising children. … There are no quick fixes.”

    Contact staff writer Jackie Mader at 212-678-3562 or [email protected].

    This story about child care services was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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  • College Uncovered: The Demographic Cliff

    College Uncovered: The Demographic Cliff

    Most Americans would probably rather forget the Great Recession that began in 2007. But as long ago as it may seem, it triggered something that is about to become a big problem: Americans started having fewer babies, and the birth rate hasn’t recovered since.

    That means a looming decline in the number if 18-year-olds. Since those are the traditional customers for universities and colleges, enrollment is projected to fall dramatically and campuses to close.

    In this episode, we tell you the surprising benefits of this for students and their parents — and the scary prospects for the economy, which will suffer shortages of workers just as baby boomers retire.

    Brody Scully is a high school student looking at colleges. “There’s a lot of pressure on me. I have to decide in these next two years that I’ve got to go to a specific college,” he says.

    Come with us to a college fair where recruiters line up to compete for applicants, and hear from enrollment consultants, economists, and the president of a school that has already closed.

    Listen to the whole series

    TRANSCRIPT

    [Kirk] This is College Uncovered. I’m Kirk Carapezza.

    [Jon] And I’m Jon Marcus. We’re going to start this brand-new season of the podcast by taking you back to a time most Americans would probably rather forget.

    [Archival news footage] Monday, Sept. 15, 2008. Lehman Brothers files the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, precipitating the global financial crisis. … The Dow tumbled more than 500 points.

    [Jon] What we now call the Great Recession started in 2008, and it left the world’s economy reeling.

    [Archival news footage] More than two million prime mortgages, traditional loans for people with good credit, are now delinquent.

    [Jon] The Great Recession did a lot of damage at the time, but it also caused something else most people haven’t noticed, and that’s about to affect us all.

    [Archival news footage] Birth rates in the USA have dropped to their lowest annual levels in three decades, falling for nearly every group of women. … It changed the game when it comes to job security, and it led many young adults to delay marriage and kids.

    [Jon] People stop having babies during economic downturns. That was a major but almost unseen impact of the Great Recession 18 years ago. And that means we’re about to run out of 18-year-olds. This is being called the demographic cliff.

    Hey Kirk, help me explain the deal with this demographic cliff.

    [Kirk] Yeah, so the demographic cliff is this big dropoff that’s about to hit the number of traditional-age college students. And the reason experts call it a cliff is that the number of students is going to go down, like you’re tumbling down a mountain and it never comes back up, Jon.

    [Jon] The demographic cliff is pretty much the focus of our new season of this podcast. There’s some surprising good news that we’ll tell you about for students and their families, and for the parents of prospective college students. But this demographic cliff is also a big, big problem in ways most Americans don’t realize yet, for colleges and universities — and for economy.

    [Nicole Smith] We are looking ahead down the road to circumstances, dire circumstances where we just can’t fill the jobs that are opening up.

    [Wes Butterfield] We are at the, I’m going to call it the crossroads. You know, we’re at the cross roads for many campuses where they’re going to have to think creatively.

    [Rachel Sederberg] We’re going to see issues across every occupation and every industry. There is going to be no one spared of this pain.

    [Jon] Those are the voices of some experts whose job it’s been to watch this coming crisis. Like the lookouts with binoculars on the deck of the Titanic.

    [Telephone ringing] Pick up, you bastards!

    Yes, what do you see?

    Iceberg! Dead ahead!

    [Jon] So forgive us for the mixed metaphors and come with us as we help you cross these icy seas and this pivotal crossroads. We’ll show you how the demographic cliff will affect you.

    [Kirk] This is College Uncovered, from GBH News and The Hechinger Report, a podcast pulling back the ivy to reveal how colleges really work. I’m Kirk Carapezza with GBH. …

    [Jon] And I’m Jon Marcus of The Hechinger Report.

    [Kirk] Colleges don’t want you to know how they operate, so GBH …

    [Jon] … in collaboration with The Hechinger Report is here to show you.

    [Kirk] In our fourth season, we’ll be looking at the many dramatic ways that college is changing right now and what it all means for you. Today on the podcast: “The Demographic Cliff.”

    [Sound from college fair] Hi, guys, welcome to the college fair. If you’d like a bag…

    [Kirk] To get a sense of what the demographic cliff looks and sounds like on the ground, I went to a national college fair in Edison, New Jersey.

    [Sound from college fair] Students, make sure you have your barcode ready so the colleges can scan your barcodes.

    [Kirk] Inside a massive convention and exposition center in an industrial park, a bunch of juniors and their families anxiously waited in the lobby before passing through turnstiles, and then they mingled with college representatives.

    [Sound from college fair] And do you have one of the scan cards so I can get your information?

    [Kirk] It’s kind of like speed dating, with most of the colleges here selling themselves.

    [Sound from college fair] What’s cool about it is that we’re currently building our brand new college of business building that’s a lot of these that will be the biggest academic building on campus, so honestly your degree is going to work tenfold by the time that you end up coming to FSU.

    [Kirk] There’s rows and rows of colleges. In some of those rows, it seems like there are more colleges than students.

    [Sound from college fair] And we’re 10 minutes from London Heathrow Airport as well, so for international students getting on is great.

    [Kirk] After the initial rush, the crowd thins out and those turnstiles stop turning.

    Welcome to a new era of college admissions.

    As you come to a fair like this, what are you looking for exactly?

    [Brody Scully] I’m looking for environmental sciences and eco-engineering.

    [Kirk] Brody Scully is a junior from West Milford, New Jersey. He says he knows exactly what he wants in a college: someplace where he can be active and maybe ski, and someplace small.

    [Brody Scully] Because I definitely learn where there’s probably a smaller group of people, so I’m looking for that.

    [Kirk] Is it anxiety-inducing for you guys, going through this process?

    [Brody Scully] I would say yeah, definitely, and, like, time intensive.

    [Kirk] Why is it so stressful?

    [Brody Scully] There’s a lot of pressure on me. I have to decide in these next two years that I’ve got to go to a specific college.

    [Kirk] But Brody may be in luck, because in the college admissions game, he was born at the right time: in 2008, just as birth rates in the U.S. started to decline. Remember Jon, that means there will be fewer 18-year-olds applying to college over the next few years. And except at elite schools like Harvard or Stanford and a few dozen other most selective colleges, the odds of getting in are going up. Eight out of 10 applicants to public universities and 7 out of 10 at private colleges are accepted now. That’s nearly 8 percentage points higher than 10 years ago.

    Brody was surprised and thrilled when I told him this. In fact, his eyes widened.

    [Brody Scully] I’m not aware of that at all and I’m kind of happy now that you told me that.

    [Kirk] As the fair winds down, college reps, some standing alone in the back of the convention center, keep smiling, making eye contact, and hoping for just one more student to come by.

    I mean, the reality is, this is a competitive landscape for many colleges, and for students, it’s increasingly a buyer’s market.

    Take Rider University, which is trying really hard to stand out in this sea of schools. Its reps are simply telling potential students what the school is all about. and where it is.

    [Susan Makowski] It is a small private school in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, which is about 15 minutes south of Princeton.

    [Kirk] Susan Makowski is director of admissions at Rider, and for the past 20 years, she’s helped organize this fair.

    This seems like organized chaos.

    [Susan Makowski] I think that’s a great way to describe it.

    [Kirk] This year, there are about 300 schools here looking for applicants. Colleges pay about $700 just to rent a booth. They think it’s worth it for a chance to connect with some of the nearly 3,000 registered students. And, of course, to scan their barcodes so they can follow up with endless reminders and marketing materials.

    [Sound from college fair] I think I’m all good, but I’m making some…

    Do you have one of the scans?

    Uh, yes I do.

    [Kirk] This year, Makowski tells me, Rider University is trying something a little different.

    [Susan Makowski] Tonight, to be honest, I’m in New Jersey school at a New Jersey fair. I bought two booths. That’s how I’m standing out physically tonight so that you see that I’m here, right? You can’t miss me.

    [Kirk] So you expanded your footprint.

    [Susan Makowski] Yes, I did.

    [Kirk] You can’t just walk, you can’t blow by you.

    [Susan Makowski] Right, but that’s a selfish thing that I’m choosing to do, because I want to make certain that I can capture as many students Who might not have heard of us or might be really interested in us

    [Kirk] Looking ahead and over the demographic cliff, Makowski tells me she knows things are about to change with fewer applicants.

    [Susan Makowski] I think that’s going to be a natural progression, simply because a cliff is coming.

    [Jon] Kirk, the seeds of this problem for colleges were planted back in 2008.

    [Archival news footage] It was a manic Monday in the financial markets. The Dow tumbled more than 500 points after…

    [Wes Butterfield] We were in a fairly dark place. And, again, that’s impacting us today.

    [Jon] That’s Wes Butterfield. He’s chief of consulting services at Ruffalo Noel Levitz, a consulting firm that helps colleges and universities recruit students.

    [Wes Butterfield] Anytime we reach those types of points in our history, birth rates go down. People just simply stop having babies. People were concerned about whether or not they’d have the resources to be able to start a family. And so those numbers backed off, and it takes a while for us to get to a point where it truly begins to impact us.

    [Jon] The decline in births that started 18 years ago is about to translate into fewer students coming out of high school and enrolling in college. By 2039, there will be 15 percent fewer 18-year-olds per year than there are now.

    The effect of all of this that you and I report about the most, Kirk, is what it will do to colleges and universities. It comes on top of a decline in enrollment that’s already been happening over most of the last 10 years. People have been questioning whether college is worth the high cost, and a relatively strong labor market drew a lot of high school graduates straight into jobs. Emily Wadhwani keeps a close eye on this as a senior director at Fitch Ratings, where she’s the sector lead for education. Fitch rates the financial health of institutions.

    [Emily Wadhwani] We’ve been seeing kind of a trending downward of demand in terms of enrollment, particularly on the undergraduate side. So this is definitely a longer trend that we’re seeing.

    [Jon] The pandemic only made things worse. And now the demographic cliff is here.

    [Emily Wadhwani] Where we are now climbing back out of this post-pandemic recovery period, we see the same challenges that schools were facing prior to the pandemic, only now it’s more pronounced because those demographic trends have only deteriorated since then.

    [Jon] That’s why colleges have started closing. Fitch categorizes the outlook for the higher education sector as deteriorating. Kirk, you and I have been seeing that a lot lately on abandoned campuses of colleges that have closed.

    [Bob Allen] This is sort of a movie-set college campus, and people say that as soon as they essentially walk in the front gate.

    [Kirk] That’s Bob Allen. He was the last president of a 185-year-old Green Mountain College in Vermont before it closed in 2019. By the time I visited the campus, it looked more like a ghost town.

    [Bob Allen] So, yeah, watch yourself on these. They aren’t, see normally all of this would have been cleaned up.

    One of the advantages of a small school is that it really was like an extended family. I knew not all of the students by name, but I knew most, and they knew me. They called me Bob, which was what I would prefer.

    [Kirk] To Allen’s right, the red brick dining hall and dorms. To his left, the empty swimming pool, a ghost-like symbol of dried-up enrollment.

    [Bob Allen] Increasingly students want to go to schools in cities and not rural areas. Poultney is a very tiny Vermont town.

    [Kirk] At the time, Allen told me he preferred to give tours like these when the college was still open.

    [Bob Allen] It was a lot more fun when we had students, all right.

    [Kirk] At its peak, Green Mountain had about 800 students. That was already pretty small. But by the end of the 2010s, there were only a little more than half that many left. So Allen and his board decided that the college had to close.

    [Bob Allen] It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do personally. I spent most of my career building businesses and to take a 185-year-old institution and have to shut it down was really tough.

    The demographics are working against all colleges, but in particular, small rural colleges. It’s tough for surrounding towns when colleges close too. Our payroll just for the college alone was $6 million. It has to, in the end, have an economic impact on the town. You know, some of the businesses had closed even long before we made our announcement.

    [Jon] Kirk, the demographic cliff means there will be a lot more colleges closing. Don’t take it from us. That’s the prediction of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Already, 21 colleges defaulted on their bonds last year, or were at risk of defaulting. That’s way up. Here’s Emily Wadhwani from Fitch.

    [Emily Wadhwani] We’ve seen the closure rate accelerate over the last few years. We expect to see that continue for the next few years. That has tended to be smaller, private, liberal arts, sometimes religiously affiliated schools with perhaps less than a thousand students. I’m generalizing; there are a couple outliers there, but broadly speaking, those are the types of schools that we’ve seen close.

    [Jon] That’s a pretty good list of the kinds of colleges that are in trouble, and consumers need to keep that in mind. No matter what schools you’re considering, you need to do more these days than look at their courses or the athletics program. You need to check out their finances.

    [Emily Wadhwani] The second place I would look is the strength of fundraising, often an indicator of the level of wealth the university has — the capacity to fund scholarships and other aid packages, less reliance on tuition as a primary means of operating revenue.

    [Jon] We’ve talked before in this podcast about how you can see if your college might be in financial trouble. And we’ll post the link to that in the show notes.

    Now, it’s obviously a sad situation when colleges close, for their employees and students and alumni, and for the towns that depend on them. But, Kirk, there are a couple of bright spots if you’re currently a college student or the parent of a college student, or have a child who’s considering college.

    [Kirk] Yeah, Jon, colleges teach this in Econ 101. It’s the simple law of supply and demand. As the number of students is falling, there’s less demand. And as demand goes down, two things are happening. First, most colleges are becoming easier to get into. And second, the price of tuition has actually started falling.

    [Jon] Now, Kirk, let’s be clear: College is still expensive, and to make up for keeping tuition low, colleges with dorms and dining plans are raising the price of food and housing. But increases in tuition are finally dropping when adjusted for inflation, after decades of exceeding the cost of almost everything else that Americans spend money on.

    [Kirk] Exactly, Jon. You’re also likely to be able to negotiate for more financial aid. We gave a lot of advice about this in the first episode of our second season, and we’ll link that in the show notes too.

    [Jon] We’ll have a lot more to tell you about the dramatic changes in admission in our next episode. So check that out.

    [Kirk] So that’s all pretty good news for future students and their families. But there’s more bad news. And not just for colleges, but for the economy and society. There will be fewer graduates coming out the other end with skills employers need, and fewer young people in general available to work in any kinds of jobs.

    [Jon] Right, and all of that, Kirk, is coinciding with the tidal wave of baby boomers who will be retiring at the same time.

    [Rachel Sederberg] We’re already well underway in this process where we saw vast retirements over the last few years.

    [Jon] That’s Rachel Sederberg, a senior economist and director of research at the labor market analytics firm Lightcast. Ten-thousand baby boomers are turning 65 every day. And Sederberg says there just aren’t enough workers coming up behind these retiring baby boomers to fill the jobs they’re leaving.

    [Rachel Sederberg] The generations that follow the baby boomers are simply smaller and cannot mathematically make up for that decline.

    [Jon] These shortages are already happening, Kirk.

    [Rachel Sederberg] We are losing people across every occupation and industry. So we’re going to need more workers across, and we don’t have enough of any kind.

    [Kirk] Okay, to tie this all together for you, we reached out to the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. It studies the connection between higher education and the economy. Chief Economist Nicole Smith connected these dots for us.

    [Nicole Smith] So if you’re a college president, one way to look at this is, you know, ‘I don’t have enough students.’ But as an economist, I’m also thinking of the impact on the economy. Young people and young labor and the labor force — it’s the lifeblood of our society.

    [Kirk] Smith says the decline in the number of traditional-aged college students will affect much more than whether a bunch of colleges close.

    [Nicole Smith] We just don’t have enough who are completing and going to college and finishing school at as fast a rate as the economy is creating jobs for people with college degrees.

    [Kirk] She’s not just talking about bachelor’s degrees, but all kinds of education after high school, including in manufacturing and the trades.

    [Nicole Smith] Seventy-two percent of all jobs over the next decade will require some type of education and training beyond high school. So even if you don’t need a full bachelor’s, we need something that’s beyond high school and everyone has to be prepared to go back to get that credential so that you are prepared for that particular job.

    [Kirk] So we’re all going to be falling down the demographic cliff together. In some parts of the country, labor shortages are already well underway.

    [Nicole Smith] Many communities are facing this already. Rural communities are already having problems filling vacancies for some of their medical fields. They’re offering all sorts of incentives for doctors to come and work in those locations. So we’re already there.

    [Jon] Kirk, as our experts have said, this demographic cliff is a dramatic turning point for higher education and it comes alongside questions about the value of college and a general decline in the proportion of high school students who are bothering to go.

    [Kirk] Right, Jon, and that’s on top of huge political pressure on colleges and universities under the Trump administration and massive funding cuts.

    [Jon] Throughout this season of the podcast, we’ll be looking at the ramifications of this unprecedented moment in the history of higher education. We’ll tell you how admissions is changing, why men in particular aren’t going to college, and the many new ways that are popping up, other than college, to train people for the workforce. and there’s much more.

    [Kirk] So keep listening to future episodes to hear more about what colleges and universities don’t teach you in class.

    This is College Uncovered. I’m Kirk Carapezza from GBH.

    [Jon] And I’m Jon Marcus from The Hechinger Report.

    [Kirk] This episode was produced and written by Jon Marcus …

    [Jon] … and Kirk Carapezza, and it was edited by Jonathan A. Davis. Our executive editor is Jennifer McKim.

    [Kirk] Our fact-checker is Ryan Alderman

    Mixing and sound design by David Goodman and Gary Mott. All of our music is by college bands. Our theme song and original music is by Left Roman out of MIT. We also used some music in this episode from the Stony Brook University Orchestra.

    The demographic cliff was set to sound for us by James Trayford of the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the University of Portsmouth in England.

    Mei He is our project manager and head of GBH podcasts is Devin Maverick Robbins.

    [Jon] College Uncovered is made possible by Lumina Foundation. It’s produced by GBH News and The Hechinger Report, and distributed by PRX.

    Thanks so much for listening.

    More information about the topics covered in this episode:

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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  • Rethinking our approach to maths anxiety

    Rethinking our approach to maths anxiety

    As higher education professionals, we encounter a wide spectrum of emotional responses to mathematics and statistics.

    This could vary from mild apprehension to teary outbursts, and often, it can also lead to complete avoidance of the subjects, despite their value in achieving success both in university and after.

    Behaviours such as procrastination can hinder student learning, and as such, it is imperative that students are taught to challenge these feelings.

    An analogy that we have used is fear of spiders – we may be likely to avoid places that house spiders, and in the same way, students may procrastinate or completely avoid maths-related tasks due to their “discomfort”.

    Additionally, cultural attitudes, gender, and past educational experiences can all influence how someone responds to mathematics.

    The term “maths anxiety” is commonly used to describe any negative emotion related to mathematics. However, when viewing it from a psychological viewpoint, we argue that there needs to be a distinction made between clinical anxiety and general apprehension.

    Most of us would feel worried if we were taking an exam that included mathematics or statistics – it is normal to feel some level of worry about being tested, and we can learn to manage this.

    Clinical anxiety, on the other hand, is more extreme, and significantly impairs the ability to manage daily tasks – it requires psychological support. By conflating these experiences, we run the risk of over-medicalising a typical reaction to potentially challenging material, and we might miss opportunities to provide appropriate support, or to help students to self-regulate their emotions.

    Various approaches have proven successful in our practices for dealing with worries.

    What works

    We’ve found that opening up the conversation about anxiety early on – creating a safe space where students can explore what it is, when it shows up, and how it affects them. With each new group, we try to start this discussion as soon as possible, framing it in broad terms to keep it inclusive and non-threatening. Students often respond well when asked to think about situations that make them feel nervous – things like sitting an exam, taking a driving test, or speaking in public.

    From there, we invite them to notice the physical and emotional effects anxiety has on them. Common responses include sweating, shortness of breath, feeling jittery or nauseous, difficulty concentrating, or an urge to get away. These are usually sensations they’ve experienced before, even if they haven’t named them. When we approach it this way – shared, grounded in real life, and without judgement—it tends to normalise the conversation. We’re always conscious of the potential for some students to feel overwhelmed by the topic, so we stay attuned and pause when needed, signposting to further support if things get too heavy.

    Asking students what they already do when they feel anxious helps too. Giving everyone a chance to reflect and share helps surface the small strategies – breathing deeply, taking a walk, positive self-talk – that they may not realise they’re using. It affirms that they do have tools, and that managing nerves is something within their control.

    Simply asking students how they feel about using maths or statistics in their studies can also help. More often than not, a few will admit to feeling nervous – or even anxious – which opens the door to normalising those feelings. From there, we can connect the strategies they already use in other situations to the challenges they face with maths, helping them build a toolkit they can draw on when the pressure mounts.

    Some strategies that students find helpful include mindful breathing, visualising a calming place, or even splashing cold water on the face to reset. Others involve filtering out negative messages that chip away at confidence, re-framing self-talk to be specific and encouraging – like swapping “I can’t do maths” for “I’ve learned before, I can learn again” – and, crucially, building skills and confidence through steady learning and practice.

    There may, however, be cases where a student’s anxiety is not assuaged by employing these techniques, and a level of clinical anxiety may be suspected, requiring further support from counsellors or other professionals. In these cases, ensuring the students are guided, even taken, to access the relevant support services is key. This may lead to requests for reasonable adjustments as well as prescribed treatments, thus enabling the student to face the challenge and hopefully emerge successfully on the other side.

    Prizes for all

    Of course, these are all interventions that are useful for students who are struggling with worries about maths – but there are also things we can do to support all of our students. Some students will be struggling quietly; some will have other learning differences that might impact on their ability to learn maths, such as ADHD.

    One approach we might consider is Universal Design for Learning, where we make learning accessible for all our diverse students, regardless of the specific issues that they might experience, or whether they tell us about those issues. Giving students choice in how they complete their assessments, allowing them access to resources or notes (open book) during test situations, and not imposing tight timescales on assessments can be one way to support students to achieve their best. Taking this approach also removes some of the administrative work involved in working out reasonable adjustments!

    Sometimes there are professional requirements that mean that such adjustments are not possible (for example, calculating doses in nursing where achieving 100% is a requirement), but often it can be helpful to consider what we are assessing. Do we need to assess a student’s ability to solve a maths problem from memory and under time pressure, or do we want to know that they can solve a problem they may encounter in a typical graduate role when they might be able to search how to approach it?

    Authentic assessment can be a useful tool for making maths learning and assessment less scary and more accessible.

    Differentiating between a regular level of apprehension and clinical anxiety will help us to be better placed to implement strategies to support students and staff in succeeding on their mathematical or statistical journey. This can begin at the curriculum design and development stage, extending beyond our work with individual students.

    Supportive relationships between learning development tutors, students and teaching staff enable us to implement tailored strategies for minimising maths anxiety. By working together, we can reframe maths learning to be seen as an opportunity for growth, and not something to fear.

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  • Inclusivity beyond the buzzwords | Wonkhe

    Inclusivity beyond the buzzwords | Wonkhe

    Universities highlight language support programs as proof of their commitment to inclusivity, yet these offerings are often expensive, overly prescriptive, optional, and poorly integrated.

    Pre-sessional provision comes with hefty price tags, making language support a privilege rather than a right. Students who cannot afford them are either excluded from higher education or forced to struggle in degree programs where linguistic preparedness is assumed rather than supported.

    I once supported a postgraduate student from East Asia who was excelling in her subject knowledge but consistently received vague feedback like “lack of critical engagement” on her assignments.

    She was deeply confused – she had addressed all the questions and provided detailed analysis. In our one-to-one tutorials, it became clear that the issue was not her understanding of the topic, but that she hadn’t been explicitly taught what criticality looks like linguistically in UK academic culture.

    No one had ever shown her how to signal argument structure or contrast ideas subtly in writing. Despite her intelligence and effort, she was left to decode these expectations on her own, and it affected both her grades and her confidence.

    What does it say about our commitment to inclusion when students are expected to navigate invisible academic norms alone?

    Supplementary or fundamental?

    To make matters worse, in-sessional provision, where available, is often treated as an afterthought rather than an integrated resource, leaving students struggling to meet academic demands or seeking help on their own time while managing intensive timetables, packed with lectures, assignments, and deadlines.

    This approach positions language support as a supplementary service rather than a fundamental component of academic success, reinforcing the notion that multilingual students must “catch up” instead of valuing their linguistic abilities as assets.

    In one programme I supported, attendance at in-sessional sessions was minimal at first – not because students didn’t need them, but because they didn’t know they existed. There was limited to zero visibility of these educational initiatives, and many students were unaware of how language development related to academic success.

    It wasn’t until we launched a more systematic approach to promotion – class presentations, VLE announcements, email campaigns, ads on campus screens, fliers, and peer recommendations – that attendance noticeably increased. Word of mouth became our most effective tool, which was both encouraging and telling. If in-sessional provision only gains traction through backdoor advocacy, how inclusive is that, really?

    Shortcomings, however, appear to extend far beyond language provision. Pedagogical practices in many institutions remain stubbornly monolingual, built on the assumption that a single teaching model can work for all students, regardless of their linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

    This one-size-fits-all approach, which assumes uniformity in learning needs and styles, disregards the diverse ways students engage with knowledge. Standardised teaching methods leave little room for flexibility, forcing students to conform rather than allowing for adaptability and meaningful engagement.

    Conformity or critical thinking?

    Nowhere is this more evident than in assessment. Universities continue to rely on rigid, English-centric evaluation methods including essays, presentations, and exams graded against standardised linguistic norms, disadvantaging multilingual students rather than valuing their perspectives.

    If inclusivity truly mattered, assessments would prioritise critical thinking, originality, and academic engagement over strict linguistic conformity. Instead, institutions uphold traditional models that often disadvantage students from diverse linguistic backgrounds. For example, I once co-marked a brilliant essay that presented a nuanced critique of policy frameworks. It was downgraded – not for weak argumentation – but for not aligning with “expected” academic language norms.

    Despite offering original insights and drawing on a range of interdisciplinary sources, the essay was penalised for its occasional non-standard syntax and limited use of discipline-specific vocabulary. Rather than recognising the intellectual rigour of the argument, the feedback focused almost exclusively on surface-level language issues. How does that reflect the critical thinking we claim to value?

    While universities struggle to create truly inclusive academic environments, the burden of making the system work falls on EAP practitioners and frontline educators, who are expected to foster inclusivity despite being overstretched, underpaid, and under-resourced. Many receive either little or no formal training in multilingual pedagogies, yet they are tasked with ensuring student success within a rigid system that resists adaptation. From personal experience, I can say that navigating this contradiction is emotionally and professionally draining.

    I’ve sat in staff meetings where the pressing need to be inclusive was discussed, only to return to classrooms with no budget for updated materials, no time allocation to work on such updates, and no training on how to implement the very principles being endorsed.

    At times, I’ve been expected to “embed inclusive practice” without any clear guidance on what that actually means in context, leaving me to interpret and apply vague directives on my own. This disconnect creates a sense of frustration and helplessness – wanting to support students meaningfully but lacking the structural backing to do so effectively.

    The disconnect is glaring – universities promote inclusivity in their policies while shifting the responsibility of implementation onto educators who lack the necessary resources, training, and structural support to make meaningful change. Institutions seek improvement without providing the means to achieve it.

    On top of this, accreditation bodies, which should act as enforcers of inclusivity, are complicit in this shortcoming. While they promote the idea of inclusivity as a core value, their competency frameworks remain vague and unenforceable, allowing institutions to check superficial boxes rather than implement meaningful change – without ever being truly held accountable.

    Instead of pushing institutions toward equitable assessment strategies, embedded language support, and multilingual pedagogies, accreditation bodies enable them to maintain the status quo while advertising themselves as champions of inclusion.

    Integrating EAP

    If universities and accrediting bodies are serious about inclusivity, they must dismantle their one-size-fits-all approach and invest in flexible, student-centered models. EAP should not be an expensive privilege but an embedded, fully integrated component of degree programs.

    Language support must be available without financial barriers and tailored to students’ actual needs rather than forced into a standardised mold that ignores their diverse experiences. Institutions must move beyond the outdated view that multilingualism is a problem to be fixed and instead embrace it as an academic strength that enhances learning for all students.

    For example, multilingual writing workshops, co-delivered by faculty and language specialists, have shown success in small-scale pilots. Why not scale them? Similarly, peer mentoring across language backgrounds fosters both inclusion and academic development. These are not costly solutions, but they do require intention and planning.

    Assessment practices must undergo reform. Universities should move beyond evaluating students solely through rigid linguistic norms and instead adopt translingual, context-sensitive assessments that measure intellectual engagement, not just English proficiency.

    Traditional assessment models often privilege students who are already proficient in standardised academic English, disregarding the depth of thought, creativity, and critical analysis that can be expressed through diverse linguistic resources.

    If higher education truly values critical thinking and originality, its assessment models must reflect that rather than simply rewarding those who conform to narrow linguistic standards. Practical steps might include offering multilingual glossaries during assessments, encouraging multimodal submissions (like presentations or podcasts), and designing rubrics that focus on analytical rigour rather than grammatical precision. These shifts do not dilute standards—they redefine them to reflect actual learning.

    Beyond reforming teaching and assessment, universities must stop offloading the responsibility for inclusivity onto individual educators. Institutions must invest in faculty development, providing structured training in multilingual pedagogies and equitable assessment models.

    Educators should not be expected to figure out inclusivity on their own – institutions must offer policies with clear, actionable steps that guide them in creating learning environments that serve all students, rather than relying on vague inclusivity statements that sound aspirational but achieve little. This might include mandatory training modules for new staff, collaborative spaces where educators can share inclusive teaching strategies, and formal incentives for inclusive curriculum design.

    At the same time, accreditation bodies must reimagine competency frameworks and accreditation schemes to ensure that inclusivity is not just encouraged but required. These frameworks should move beyond broad, generic statements and introduce enforceable, transparent standards that hold institutions accountable.

    Accreditation should no longer be granted based on superficial inclusivity measures but tied to real, measurable efforts in integrating multilingual pedagogies, equitable assessment strategies, and accessible language support. Regulatory bodies must stop allowing universities to simply claim inclusivity and start demanding that they prove it.

    The future of inclusive higher education hinges on institutions and accrediting bodies being willing to rethink not just their policies but their entire approach to teaching, assessment, and faculty support. Without structural change, inclusivity will remain more of a promise than a practice – a feel-good slogan that limits accountability while leaving students to navigate an inequitable system.

    And for those of us who teach, support, and listen to these students every day, that’s not just a policy failure – it’s a deeply personal one. So, the question remains: are universities truly committed to inclusivity, or are they merely preserving the status quo under the illusion of progress? If it’s the latter, then higher education is not meeting the needs of the very students it claims to support. It’s not enough to say the right things – it’s time to do the right things.

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  • IRS Plans to Revoke Harvard’s Tax-Exempt Status

    IRS Plans to Revoke Harvard’s Tax-Exempt Status

    The Internal Revenue Service is reportedly planning to rescind Harvard University’s tax-exempt status amid its showdown with the Trump administration over academic freedom, CNN reported.

    Citing two anonymous sources, CNN reported that a decision is likely coming soon. If Harvard’s tax-exempt status is revoked, the move would appear to be at the behest of President Donald Trump, who has railed against the private university in posts on his own Truth Social platform.

    “Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’ Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!” Trump wrote Tuesday.

    In a Wednesday post, the president said that Harvard should “no longer receive Federal Funds” because it “is a JOKE [that] teaches Hate and Stupidity.”

    Harvard is currently in a standoff with the Trump administration, which has demanded a series of wide-reaching changes it says are needed to address alleged antisemitism on campus related to pro-Palestinian protests. Those demands include reforms in admissions, hiring practices, student disciplinary processes and a facultywide plagiarism review, among other changes.

    Harvard, however, rejected Trump’s demands on Monday, calling them an affront to institutional autonomy.

    The Trump administration promptly retaliated, freezing $2.2 billion in federal grant funding and $60 million in contracts.

    Neither the IRS nor Harvard respond to requests for comment from Inside Higher Ed.

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  • Institute of Education Sciences cuts imperil high-quality research, lawsuits allege

    Institute of Education Sciences cuts imperil high-quality research, lawsuits allege

    This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

    Dive Brief:

    • “Dramatic, unreasoned, and unlawful actions” taken by the Trump administration to significantly downsize the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences are making it impossible to carry out education research, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday by the American Educational Research Association and the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness.
    • The funding and staffing cuts made to IES will hamper the institute’s ability to conduct impartial, high-quality research and share those findings with educators, researchers and policymakers, according to the federal lawsuit, which was filed in Maryland district court.
    • With this legal challenge, the pushback against the Trump administration’s actions to reduce the size of the federal government continues to grow. Another lawsuit disputing IES shrinkage was filed by the Association for Education Finance and Policy and the Institute for Higher Education Policy on April 4 in federal court in Washington, D.C.

    Dive Insight:

    Both lawsuits say the the Trump administration’s actions are preventing IES from carrying out its statutory duties. They ask that U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon and the Education Department end their efforts to eliminate IES and restore its contracts, staff and other resources.

    The Education Department did not respond to request for comment on Wednesday. 

    The challenge by AERA and SREE, which are represented in the lawsuit by Democracy Forward, a national legal organization, calls the February cancellation of $881 million in education research grants and the March 11 termination of 90% of IES staff “arbitrary” and “capricious” and a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. 

    Only about 20 staff remain at IES, and only three people are still employed at the National Center for Education Statistics, which is one of four centers within IES, according to the AERA-SREE lawsuit.

    NCES and its predecessor organizations have focused on data collection and analysis for more than 150 years. NCES’ demise will make it “impossible to track progress, assess learning, identify gaps affecting students, and set priorities for attention over time and across the country,” including for student proficiency trends from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the Nation’s Report Card, the complaint said.

    The AEFP-IHEP lawsuit adds that Congress has not repealed the Education Sciences Reform Act or eliminated statutory mandates that require IES to collect and analyze data, support research on specific topics, and provide access to research and data to the public. The organizations are represented in the lawsuit by Public Citizen Litigation Group, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization.

    Michal Kurlaender, president of AEFP, said in an April 4 statement that many of its members have “faced serious challenges to their research and work” because of the IES funding and staffing cuts.

    “We want to do all that we can to protect essential data and research infrastructure,” Kurlaender said. “This is fundamental to our mission of promoting research and partnerships that can inform education policy and improve education outcomes.”

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  • What Do Universities Use CRM Systems For?

    What Do Universities Use CRM Systems For?

    Reading Time: 7 minutes

    Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems have become essential tools in higher education, transforming how universities interact with prospective students, current students, alumni, and other stakeholders. Whether you’re trying to track your enrollment funnel, streamline your recruitment process, or boost retention, CRM systems offer many unique marketing benefits for your institution. 

    You may have already encountered discussions about CRM platforms, but understanding their full potential in an educational context is key to optimizing your institution’s outreach, recruitment, and engagement efforts. Keep reading to learn more about higher education CRM systems, the unique marketing benefits they offer, and how you can get started.

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    Understanding Higher Education CRM

    What is a CRM in higher education? It’s a powerful software solution that helps universities manage relationships at every stage of the student lifecycle. Traditionally associated with sales and customer service in corporate settings, CRM technology has evolved to meet the specific needs of educational institutions. In higher education, a CRM can track interactions with prospective students, automate communication, and analyze data to improve engagement and conversion rates.

    Unlike a standard student information system (SIS), which focuses on administrative tasks like enrollment and grades, a CRM is designed for relationship-building. It allows universities to personalize outreach, streamline marketing efforts, and nurture students from the moment they express interest until they become engaged alumni. By integrating CRM technology into your institution’s marketing strategy, you can enhance recruitment efforts, improve retention rates, and foster long-term alumni engagement.

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    Source: HEM

    Are you wondering how your university can unlock the benefits of a CRM? Reach out to learn about our tailored digital marketing solutions.

    The Benefits of CRM Systems for Universities

    What are universities using CRM for? Well, to be successful as an educational institution, building and maintaining positive relationships with prospective students is necessary. CRMs help schools manage those relationships at various stages of the enrollment funnel and offer valuable marketing benefits. 

    One of the most significant advantages of implementing a CRM in higher education marketing is the ability to centralize and manage vast amounts of student data efficiently. Rather than relying on disparate spreadsheets, email threads, and manual tracking, a CRM consolidates all interactions into a single platform, ensuring every team member has up-to-date information.

    A well-implemented CRM system helps streamline the recruitment process by automating lead nurturing. When prospective students submit inquiries through your website, attend a virtual event, or download a brochure, a CRM can trigger personalized email sequences, follow-up reminders, and targeted content recommendations based on their interests. This level of automation ensures that no lead is left unattended, allowing admissions teams to focus on high-value interactions.

    Beyond recruitment, CRM systems are crucial in improving student engagement and retention particularly when data from a Student Information System is integrated. Universities can use CRM and SIS analytics to monitor student behaviour, such as class attendance, engagement with academic advisors, or extracurricular activities. If a student begins to disengage, automated alerts can prompt intervention from faculty or student services, helping to improve retention rates and overall student satisfaction.

    Another key area where CRMs add value is in alumni relations and fundraising. By tracking alumni career paths, donation history, and event participation, universities can segment their alumni base and tailor communications accordingly. For instance, an alumni relations team can identify graduates likely to contribute to fundraising campaigns based on past engagement, ensuring that outreach efforts are strategic and effective.

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    Source: HEM

    Implementing a CRM System in Your University

    Integrating a CRM into your university’s operations requires careful planning and execution. The first step is selecting a CRM that aligns with your institution’s needs. Some CRMs, like Salesforce Education Cloud, HubSpot, or Slate, are specifically designed for higher education, offering features tailored to student recruitment, engagement, and alumni relations.

    Prioritize Data Integration 

    Data integration is another challenge that universities must address. Many institutions already have multiple systems for student records, financial aid, and course management. Ensuring that the CRM integrates seamlessly with these existing platforms prevents data silos and a smooth flow of information across departments. This might require working closely with IT teams or investing in middleware solutions to facilitate integration.

    Measure Results and Plan Accordingly 

    Once a CRM is chosen, establishing clear goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) is crucial. Universities should determine what they want to achieve with their CRM, whether it’s increasing application rates, improving response times for inquiries, or boosting alumni donations. Setting measurable objectives ensures that the CRM is used strategically.

    Example: A great way to measure the success of your marketing efforts using a CRM is to track the outcomes of your communications as pictured below. This data is extremely valuable as now, you know how many prospects you were able to reach, how they responded to your communications, and whether you need to obtain more accurate contact information. This is just one of the metrics you can track using our Mautic CRM system.

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    Source: HEM | Mautic

    Get Your Whole Team Involved 

    Staff training is another essential component of successful CRM implementation. A CRM is only as effective as the people using it, so ensuring that admissions teams, marketing departments, and student services personnel are comfortable navigating the system is paramount. Conducting regular training sessions, creating user guides, and designating CRM champions within each department can help drive adoption and maximize efficiency.

    Focus on Personalization

    To fully leverage the potential of a CRM, universities should also focus on personalization. With the data collected through a CRM, institutions can tailor communications to different student segments. For instance, a prospective student interested in business programs should receive targeted content about faculty research, alumni success stories, and upcoming application deadlines for the business school rather than generic university-wide messaging. Personalized engagement fosters stronger connections and increases the likelihood of conversion.

    Example: How do you personalize your university marketing efforts? A great place to start if you’re still learning about your ideal prospect is tailoring marketing communications for the stage of the enrollment funnel they’re in. Through segmentation, a CRM system like Mautic can divide your contacts into groups based on their current relationship with your institution. This approach ensures you reach each lead at the right time with the right message.

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    Source: HEM | Mautic

    Automate for Efficiency

    Another best practice for CRM implementation is utilizing automation for efficiency. Many CRM platforms offer workflow automation features that simplify tasks such as sending event reminders, scheduling advisor meetings, and managing follow-ups. Automating repetitive processes reduces the administrative burden on staff, allowing them to focus on more strategic initiatives.

    Example: A CRM system will enable you to craft automated email and SMMs to increase efficiency and ensure timely, carefully worded responses every time. Here, you can see how Mautic allows you to personalize your messages, time them, and tailor them to the purpose of your communication – to promote your university or to collect specific admission information.

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    Source: HEM | Mautic

    The Future of CRMs in Higher Education

    As technology continues to evolve, the role of CRMs in higher education will only expand. The rise of artificial intelligence and predictive analytics is already enhancing CRM capabilities, allowing universities to forecast enrollment trends, identify at-risk students before they drop out, and personalize outreach on a deeper level. Chatbots and AI-driven communication tools integrated into CRMs improve response times, ensuring prospective students receive instant answers to their inquiries.

    Moreover, the shift towards hybrid and online education models has made digital engagement more critical. Universities that effectively utilize their CRM systems can provide seamless virtual experiences, track online learning engagement, and maintain meaningful connections with students regardless of physical location.

    Choose a CRM Built for Higher Education

    Unique needs call for unique solutions. A CRM for universities offers specialized features such as student lifecycle tracking, automated admissions workflows, alumni engagement tools, and seamless integration with existing student information systems, ensuring a more efficient and personalized approach to student recruitment, retention, and engagement.

    One example of a CRM tailored specifically for higher education is Mautic by HEM. Developed from the Mautic open-source platform, Mautic by HEM offers a powerful combination of CRM and marketing automation designed to help universities streamline their lead management, supercharge their marketing efforts, and improve follow-up processes. 

    With tools for segmentation, automated workflows, email marketing, and analytics, Mautic by HEM enables institutions to track prospective students throughout the enrollment journey while optimizing team productivity. By leveraging this CRM, universities can enhance engagement, improve efficiency, and gain deep insights into recruitment and admissions efforts.

    For university marketers and administrators looking to stay competitive, embracing CRM is an absolute must. With the right approach, a CRM can transform how your institution engages with students, streamline processes, and ultimately achieve enrollment and retention goals.

    Example: For a complete view of how our CRM system can help you to reinvent your marketing strategy. In one of our previous webinars, we explored how Mautic can help you boost enrollment through effective relationship management.

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    Source: HEM | YouTube

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    Frequently Asked Questions

    Question: What is a CRM in higher education?

    Answer: It’s a powerful software solution that helps universities manage relationships at every stage of the student lifecycle.

    Question: What are universities using CRM for?

    Answer: Well, to be successful as an educational institution, building and maintaining positive relationships with prospective students is necessary. CRMs help schools manage those relationships at various stages of the enrollment funnel and offer valuable marketing benefits.

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  • Harvard’s resistance to Trump is a model for US universities

    Harvard’s resistance to Trump is a model for US universities

    This article was originally published on April 15, 2025, at UnHerd and is republished here with permission.

    They say that where Harvard goes, others follow. For the first time in a while, supporters of free expression on American campuses should hope that’s true.

    Late last week, the Ivy League university received a letter from the federal government demanding changes to its governance, leadership structure, hiring practices, and admissions processes, as well as a “discontinuation of DEI” and reform of “programs with egregious records of antisemitism or other bias.” If it failed to carry out these changes, Harvard would risk losing its government investment. In other words, “Nice school you’ve got there. It’d be a shame if something happened to it.”

    Thankfully, Harvard pushed back. Yesterday the university’s president Alan Garber published a response, firmly committing to the preservation of academic freedom and institutional independence on campus. The government’s mandates, Garber wrote, “[threaten] our values as a private institution devoted to the pursuit, production, and dissemination of knowledge. No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”

    In retaliation, the Trump administration moved to freeze $2.2 billion in funds to the university. That’s a high price to pay, but the costs of giving in would be far greater. For one thing, that sum is a drop in the bucket of Harvard’s $50 billion endowment. More importantly, if a school with such resources and influence doesn’t fight back against government strong-arming, it will send a chill down the spine of every other university in the Trump administration’s crosshairs.

    Columbia, for example, recently caved to similar pressures. But in the wake of Harvard’s pushback, the New York university published a statement rejecting “heavy-handed orchestration from the government that could potentially damage our institution” and “any agreement in which the government dictates what we teach, research, or who we hire.”

    This is a welcome development. How many other institutions, facing millions in contract cancellations, will stand up for themselves now that Harvard has set an example? There is good reason to push back against the excesses of DEI on campus, much of which amounts to bureaucratic ideological gatekeeping and a chilling of dissent. Combatting discrimination is also a worthy goal — but not by way of overly broad definitions of antisemitism which prohibit criticizing the state of Israel and wind up restricting campus speech.

    Among other issues, the government’s provisions ignore the existing process for adjudicating alleged violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act — the federal law banning discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in federally funded programs or activities. Under these demands, Harvard’s hiring and admissions processes would be forced to employ government-approved “ideological diversity” litmus tests that would rival, if not supersede, the DEI mandates many in this administration pledged to oppose.

    What’s more, the provisions are fundamentally at odds with the university’s First Amendment rights. If Harvard were to acquiesce, any free speech or academic freedom on campus would exist only according to the administration’s preferences. That is no way to facilitate the free exchange of ideas, which is at the core of any university’s mission.

    The principle is clear: the government cannot condition a school’s federal funding on giving up First Amendment rights. When the Obama and Biden administrations demanded universities restrict student free speech and due process rights under Title IX — the law prohibiting sex discrimination in federally funded educational programs or activities — this was clearly unlawful. The same argument applies now.

    There is no doubt that higher education needs serious reform. But the solution to censorious and discriminatory policies isn’t more censorious and discriminatory policies. It certainly shouldn’t involve allowing the federal government to hold US universities hostage to its own preferences. For better or worse, other universities have long followed in Harvard’s steps. Anyone invested in the future of American higher education should hope that this fightback inspires a further wave of copycats.

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  • April 17, 2025 National Day of Action for Higher Ed (Higher Ed Labor United)

    April 17, 2025 National Day of Action for Higher Ed (Higher Ed Labor United)

    On April 17, HELU is partnering with the Coalition for Action in Higher Education (CAHE) for the National Day of Action for Higher Education. There are more than 175 events planned in 44 states for April 17. We urge you to join us however you can, either in-person or online.

    As campus workers, students, and community members, we have a
    unique power and responsibility to exercise our collective voice in this
    moment of turmoil. It is our labor and our ideas which sustain higher
    education, and higher education sustains our economy and communities.

    The April 17 National Day of Action for Higher Education asserts our voice and our power, in a myriad of ways that reflect the diversity of our colleges and universities. 

    Learn more and find an action near you. 
     

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