Back in the fall, StatsCan released a mess of data from the Labour Force Survey looking at education participation rates—that is, the percentage of any given age cohort that is attending education—over the past 25 years. So, let’s go see what it says.
Figure 1 shows total education participation rates, across all levels of education, from age 15 to 29, for selected years over the past quarter century. At the two ends of the graph, the numbers look pretty similar. At age 15, we’ve always had 95%+ of our population enrolled in school (almost exclusively secondary education, and from age 26 and above, we’ve always been in the low-tweens or high single digits. The falling-off in participation is fairly steady: for every age-year above 17, about 10% of the population exits education up until the age of 26. The big increase in education enrolments that we’ve seen over the past couple of decades has really occurred in the 18-24 range, where participation rates (almost exclusively in universities, as we shall see) have increased enormously.
Figure 1: Participation rates in Education (all institutions) by Age, Canada, select years 1999-00 to 2023-24
Figure 2 shows current participation rates by age and type of postsecondary institution. People sometimes have the impression that colleges cater to an “older” clientele, but in fact, at any given age under 30, Canadians are much more likely to be enrolled in universities than in colleges. Colleges have a very high base in the teens because of the way the CEGEP system works in Quebec (I’ll come back to regional diversity in a minute), and it is certainly true that there is a very wide gap in favour of universities among Canadians in their mid-20s. But while the part rate gap narrows substantially at about age 25, it is never the case that the college participation rate surpasses the university one.
Figure 2: Participation Rates by Age and Institution Type, Canada, 2023-24
Figure 3 shows college participation rates by age over time. What you should take from this is that there has been a slight decline in college participation rates over time in the 19-23 age range, but beyond that not much has changed.
Figure 3: College Participation Rates by Age, Selected Years, 1999-2000 to 2023-24
Figure 4 uses the same lens as figure 3 only for universities. And it’s about as different as it can be. In 1999, fewer than one in ten Canadians aged 18 was in university: now it is three in ten. In 1999, only one in four 21 year-olds was in university, now it is four-in-ten. These aren’t purely the effects of increased demand; the elimination of grade 13 in Ontario had a lot to do with the changes for 18-year-olds; Alberta and British Columbia converting a number of their institutions from colleges to universities in the late 00s probably juices these numbers a bit, too. But on the whole, what we’ve seen is a significant increase in the rate at which young people are choosing to attend universities between the ages of 18 and 24. However, beyond those ages the growth is less pronounced. There was certainly growth in older student participation rates between 1999-00 and 20011-12, but since then none at all.
Figure 4: University Participation Rates by Age, Selected Years, 1999-2000 to 2023-24
So much for the national numbers: what’s going on at the provincial level? Well, because this is the Labour Force Survey, which unlike administrative data has sample size issues, we can’t quite get the same level of granularity of information. We can’t look at individual ages, but we can see age-ranges, in this case ages 20-24. In figures 5 and 6 (I broke them up so they are a bit easier to read), I show how each province’s university and college participation rates in 2000 vs. 2023.
Figure 5: University Participation Rates for 20-24 Year-olds, Four Largest Provinces, 2000-01 vs. 2023-24
Figure 6: University Participation Rates for 20-24 Year-olds, Six Remaining Provinces, 2000-01 vs. 2023-24
Some key facts emerge from these two graphs:
The highest participation rates in the country are in Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia.
In all provinces, the participation rate in universities is higher than it is for colleges, ranging from 2.5x in Quebec for over 4x in Saskatchewan.
Over the past quarter century, overall postsecondary participation rates and university participation rates have gone up in all provinces; Alberta and British Columbia alone have seen a decline in college participation rates, due to the aforementioned decision to convert certain colleges to university status in the 00s.
Growth in participation rates since 2000 has been universal but has been more significant in the country’s four largest provinces, where the average gain has been nine percentage points, and the country’s six smaller provinces, where the gain has been just under five percent.
Over twenty-five years, British Columbia has gone from ninth to second in the country in terms of university participation rates, while Nova Scotia has gone second to ninth.
New Brunswick has consistently been in last place for overall participation rates for the entire century.
Just think: three minutes ago, you probably knew very little about participation rates in Canada by age and geography, now you know almost everything there is to know about participation rates in Canada by age and geography. Is this a great way to start your day or what?
During the Covid pandemic, nations realized they needed to work together to keep their people safe. That’s where the World Health Organization comes in.
The value of college endowments collectively grew 4% in fiscal 2024 thanks to a combination of strong investment returns and a rise in donations, according to the latest data from the National Association of College and University Business Officers and asset management firm Commonfund.
The total value of the endowments of the 658 institutions that participated in the study reached $873.7 billion for the year, with a median endowment value of $243 million. Of the survey respondents, 144 had endowments of $1 billion or more,comprising roughly 86% of the total value reported.
Gifts to endowments rose to $15.2 billion from $12.7 billion last year, according to the study. Draws on funds rose as well, by 6.4% year over year to $30.1 billion in spending at institutions.
Dive Insight:
Investment returns remained strong through 2024, supporting institutions’ spending from their endowments. Ten-year average annual returns stood at 6.8% for fiscal 2024,down slightly from last year but still robust enough to make spending with endowment money “possible and prudent,” NACUBO and Commonfund said in a press release. The average one-year return hit 11.2%, a 3.5 percentage point increase over 2023.
On average, endowments funded 14% of institutions’ operating budget, up from 10.9% in fiscal 2023, according to the NACUBO-Commonfund study.
Student aid represented the largest share by far of endowment spending, at 48.1%, followed by academic programs and research at 17.7%.
Colleges spend the largest share of endowment funds on student financial aid
Endowment spending distribution by function in fiscal 2024
“Faculty and staff certainly benefit from this philanthropy, but students remain the primary beneficiaries, as the bulk of these resources is used to maintain student aid and affordability,” NACUBO President and CEO Kara Freeman said in a statement.
The list of the largest endowments looks very similar to that of years past. In the No. 1 spot, once again, is Harvard University, with a value of about $52 billion, up 5% from last year. Harvard is followed by the University of Texas System ($47.5 billion) and Yale University ($41.4 billion).
Harvard University has the largest endowment — again
Endowment sizes in fiscal 2024 by total market value and value per student
Those wealthy endowments are once again in the spotlight as President Donald Trump and Republicans eye higher tax rates on colleges’ investment funds.
During Trump’s first term, he signed a tax bill containing a 1.4% levy against the investment income of private colleges whose endowments are valued at $500,000 or more per student. House Republicansthis year floated a plan to jack that rate up to 14%. Others have proposed yet higher rates, including 21%, to be in line with the same rates paid by for-profit corporations.
NACUBO addressed the politics around endowments in its release of the latest data.
Pointing to how institutions use their endowments on student aid and other core functions, Freeman said, “This is incredibly important work and demonstrates how short-sighted it would be to further tax these funds and divert them from their true purpose.”
Mark Anson, Commonfund CEO and chief investment officer, said at a Tuesday media briefing that institutions would have to take a close look at post-tax investment returns should higher rates become law. That could in turn push many to look at more aggressive investing strategies, while others would likely see the share of their operations financed by endowments fall, Anson added.
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The conservative-led fight against diversity, equity and inclusion efforts has been supercharged thanks to a powerful ally — the newly sworn-in President Donald Trump.
In recent years, many state legislatures have enacted anti-DEI laws, and even more have proposed these measures. But these attempts happened under the Biden administration, which supported diversity initiatives at colleges and sought to strengthen them at the federal level.
Trump has aimed to unravel that work.
He signed multiple executive orders attacking diversity efforts in the first couple days of his second term, including one declaring that college DEI policies and programs could amount to violations of federal civil rights laws. It also prompted federal agencies to identify organizations, including colleges with endowments over $1 billion, for potential civil compliance investigations.
Another executive order directed agencies to end all DEI programs and positions “under whatever name they appear.”It further sought to terminate federal “equity-related” grants and contracts, endangering massive swaths of college research funding.
Trump’s orders have incited confusion among higher education leaders and sparked legal challenges. However, colleges in states across the political spectrum are cutting DEI programs in response.
Below, Higher Ed Dive is rounding up the ever-growing list of colleges nixing DEI programs, pulling DEI language from institutional communications, and cancelling events aimed at supporting students from minority groups.
Arizona State University
On Jan. 27, the U.S. Office of Budget and Management released a memo calling for a massive freeze on federal funding to ensure government programs complied with Trump’s executive orders, including one targeting DEI. The news prompted Arizona State University to instruct its researchers to stop working on DEI-related activities on their federally funded projects and avoid using unspent funds allocated for DEI work.
Even after OMB rescinded the memo — and White House officials released conflicting messages on where the freeze stood — Arizona State told researchers to hold off.
“All Executive Orders remain in effect and will continue to be enforced,” the guidance said.
Arizona State has since placed that announcement — and its entire webpage dedicated to research operations news — behind a university login. The university did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Boston University
Boston University announced Jan. 30 that its Center for Antiracist Research would shutter on June 30.CAR’s 12 staff members will be employed through that time and “are receiving resources and support to assist with their transitions,” the university said.
The private nonprofit attributed the closure to the departure of Ibram X. Kendi, a prominent antiracist scholar and the center’s founder.
Kendi, who left to lead the Howard University Institute for Advanced Study in Washington, D.C.,acknowledged the challenge of opening the center during the pandemic and the “intense backlash over critical race theory” it faced. CAR opened in 2020,shortly after the murder of George Floyd and the resulting demonstrations against police violence.
“I feel honored to have been able to do this work with you over the last five years,” Kendi said in a statement. “I am departing for an opportunity I could not pass up, but what connected us at CAR remains, especially during this precarious time.”
CAR prompted concern in 2023 when it laid off more than half its staff — a total of 19 employees — citing a need to restructure. Boston University launched an investigation into CAR’s use of grant funds, though its final audit found “no issues” with how the center managed its money.
California Polytechnic State University
California Polytechnic State Universitywill eliminate its Office of University Diversity and Inclusion as an independent department and move it under the personnel division, the Mustang News, its student newspaper, reported in late January.
A spokesperson for the public minority-serving institution told Mustang News that the decision was “not in response to any outside influences.”
As of Tuesday, the university’s statement affirming diversity is still viewable online.
Michigan State University
Following Trump’s order against federal DEI programs, Michigan State University called off a webinar titled “The Future of DEI policy at MSU,” according to The State News, a student-run publication.
Officials postponed the event — which had been promoted to faculty and administrators — citing a desire among panelists to take time to familiarize themselves with the new order. They did not set a new date.
Michigan State’s College of Communication Arts and Sciences also canceled an event intended to celebrate the Lunar New Year, a holiday historically observed in East Asian and Southeast Asian communities.
Heidi Hennink-Kaminsk, dean of the college, cited community concerns over Trump’s executive orders “related to immigration and diversity, equity, and inclusion” when she announced the event’s cancellation.
“I ask you to view this decision not as a statement of policy, but rather as an appropriate on-the-ground response given a very short decision window and input from students who voiced concerns about gathering for this cultural celebration,” Hennink-Kaminsk said in an email obtained by The State News.
Missouri State University
On Jan. 29, Missouri State University announced it would shutter its Office of Inclusive Engagement and cut all campus DEI programming.
The public institution attributed the decision to both federal changes and “anticipated actions regarding DEI at the state level.”
“As a university, we value diverse thought and actions and support all our students, faculty and staff,” Missouri State President Richard Williams said in a statement. “However, 38% of our budget comes from the state. For us to continue providing a quality education to our students, we must align with the requirements laid out by state leadership.”
In Missouri, Republicans hold both chambers of the Legislature and the governor’s mansion. Lawmakers have unveiled bills that would ban state agencies from DEI spending and bar colleges from requiring job applicants to provide diversity statements.
Missouri State won’t terminate employees as part of the DEI office’s closure. Employees who previously served as faculty will return to their departments, while other staff members will fill other open positions, the university said.
Northeastern University
Northeastern University, in Massachusetts, has scrubbed its online presence of references to DEI following Trump’s executive orders. The private nonprofit also rebranded its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion as the Office of Belonging.
Students criticized the change, but Northeastern officials argued the new administration left it no choice.
“We have an obligation to the entire Northeastern community — and to society as a whole — to make sure our work can continue,” the university said in a regularly updated FAQ. “Failing to comply with the law could jeopardize student financial aid and federally funded research across a range of disciplines and projects.”
The individual DEI webpages for some Northeastern departments, including the computer science collegeand the social sciences and humanities college, have also been removed.
Rutgers University
On Jan. 23, Rutgers University’s Center for Minority Serving Institutionscanceled a conference about historically Black colleges and universities and apprenticeships.
“We have been instructed to cease all work under the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility HUB at Jobs for the Future, which is supported by the U.S. Department of Labor funds,” Marybeth Gasman, executive of the center and education professor at Rutgers, said in an email, citing Trump’s recent executive orders.
The nonprofit Jobs for the Future partners with colleges, schools and employers to boost equitable economic outcomes.
Gasman called the decision unfortunate but said the center has much more happening in the future.
The decision to cancel the conference drew criticism from local officials.
Ras Baraka is mayor of Newark, New Jersey, where Rutgers has a campus, and is running for New Jersey governor.
“Rutgers, and any other schools preemptively pulling DEI programming, is an utter failure of courage in the face of political foolishness,” he said on social media. “But Rutgers should not feel alone in the face of this bully. I call on all private sector partners, responsible corporations, and those who believe in democracy to stand with our institutions against the threat of defunding.”
Stanford University
Stanford University leadership expects to cut some of the campus’ DEI programs and modify others following a compliance review with Trump’s executive order.
During a Jan. 23 faculty senate meeting, Stanford President Jonathan Levin said that Trump’s dramatically different view of DEI compared with the Biden administration’s stance will necessitate changes.
“We’re going to need to review programs on campus that fall under the DEI heading, and it’s likely that some will need to be modified or sunsetted,” he said. “We’re going to do that thoughtfully in reviewing them, and not in a reactive way, but with a focus on whether programs contribute meaningfully to our academic purpose.”
However, Levin also said that the private university’s values and mission should not fluctuate in response to changes in political power.
“The university has an enduring purpose to foster knowledge and to educate students, and that purpose is not fundamentally political. It’s intended to endure through political changes,” he said.
In place of the DEI office, the university said it will create the WVU Division of Campus Engagement and Compliance.
“This is not a rebranding, but a shift in focus that will align with the Governor’s directive,” the university said in its announcement.
Morrisey celebrated the news on Jan. 31.
“We’re going to keep going – this is just the beginning of our effort to root out DEI,” he said in a video message. “That’s going to happen more and more in the weeks and months ahead.”
West Virginia State University, one of two HBCUs in the state, is also reviewing its DEI efforts to comply with Morrisey’s order, according to local news sources.
Every day brings revelations about how corrupt the US government is. Every day the Department of Government Efficiency ( DOGE) reports on one agency or another that they have taken over and plan to eliminate or downsize. The first targets were the USAID and the US Department of Education.
There is no telling how far this DOGE takeover will continue, but as long as folks are not protesting, we can expect it to last indefinitely. President Trump has recently mentioned corruption in the Department of Defense, which would be an interesting target to investigate.
You can watch the DOGE boys in action through the DOGE tracker. You can also follow crypto trading and prices, which appear to be a key part of the DOGE movement.
Des Moines Area Community College is planning to reintroduce to its website some materials related to diversity, equity and inclusion that it had removed in anticipation of anti-DEI legislation, The Iowa Capital Dispatch reported.
The college first removed information about DEI on Jan. 25 in response both to President Trump’s executive order banning DEI “preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities” and to a state bill that would have prohibited DEI offices at community colleges. That bill was later tabled.
The institution’s president, Rob Denson, told the Board of Trustees that the institution is now reviewing what information can be returned to its website. “What can come back, will come back,” he said.
Endowment returns climbed in fiscal year 2024, offering a boost to university coffers at a time when even the richest institutions have been gripped with financial uncertainty amid the Trump administration’s attempts to freeze federal funding and change research reimbursements.
One-year returns averaged 11.2 percent for FY 2024, according to the latest study by the National Association of College and University Business Officers and the Commonfund Institute—up from 7.7 percent in FY 2023 and negative returns in FY 2022.
The overall 10-year return averaged 6.8 percent, the study found.
In a press call Tuesday, Commonfund Institute executive director George Suttles noted that FY24 “was characterized by a strong U.S. economy, steady consumer spending, strong employment data, including higher wages, easing inflation accompanied by the prospect of lower interest rates, reasonable energy costs” and a prosperous technology sector, among other factors.
The endowment study also noted increased philanthropy in FY 2024. Donors contributed $15.2 billion in new gifts to university endowments included in the study—a nearly 20 percent bump from the $12.7 billion donated in FY23.
Altogether, 658 institutions with combined endowment values of almost $874 billion participated in the voluntary survey, with the median endowment value at $243 million. Nearly a third (30 percent) of the respondents reported an endowment valued at $100 million or less.
“While a handful of institutions receive wide public attention for the size of their endowments, the vast majority of colleges and universities are working with a much smaller set of resources,” NACUBO CEO Kara Freeman said on Tuesday’s press call. “And as we review the total market value, 86 percent was held by endowments with more than $1 billion in assets.”
NACUBO has conducted annual college endowment studies since 1974. This year’s iteration had slightly fewer participants than the 688 who responded last year.
Top Endowments
The nation’s richest institutions kept their status in this year’s study, with no changes among the top 10 and only minor fluctuations among the 25 universities with the largest endowments.
Harvard University is still the nation’s wealthiest institution with an endowment of almost $52 billion, followed by the University of Texas system ($47.4 billion), Yale University ($41.4 billion), Stanford University ($37.6 billion) and Princeton University, with just over $34 billion.
Endowment values grew at all of the five wealthiest universities except Princeton.
Though average annual one-year returns for FY 2024 were 11.2 percent, the nation’s top 25 wealthiest universities mostly missed that mark. The outlier among those was Johns Hopkins University, which had a nearly 24 percent one-year return in FY 2024.
In all, 149 of the 658 participating institutions reported endowments valued at or over $1 billion.
Endowment Performance
Like last year, smaller endowments performed better on one-year returns than large ones. Institutions with endowments valued under $50 million saw an average return of 13 percent, while those with endowments over $5 billion had the lowest one-year returns, with an average of 9.1 percent.
However, larger endowments outperformed smaller ones over the long term.
Across the 10-year mark, institutions with assets above $5 billion reported returns of 8.3 percent, compared to 6.5 percent for those with less than $50 million. Large endowments also fared better on 25-year returns, reporting 8.5 percent compared to 4.5 percent for those under $50 million.
On the spending side, endowments funded an average of 14 percent of the annual operating budgets at the institutions surveyed, up from 10.9 percent in FY23. That figure was slightly higher at institutions with multibillion-dollar endowments.
Study respondents spent a total of $30 billion from their endowments in FY24, up from $28.4 billion in FY23. The most common use of endowment dollars was for financial aid.
Issues Affecting Endowments
With the return of Donald Trump to the White House, college leaders have publicly and privately fretted about the likelihood that Republicans will ratchet up endowment taxes.
During his first term, the Trump administration passed an endowment excise tax of 1.4 percent on investment income at universities with endowment holdings of at least $500,000 per student and a minimum of 500 students. Earlier this month, Republican congressman Mike Lawler proposed raising that rate to 10 percent and changing the per-student endowment threshold from $500,000 to $200,000, which would affect more institutions. Another legislative proposal would raise that rate to 21 percent.
In a question-and-answer session on Tuesday’s press call, the tax issue was the first to arise.
Freeman said NACUBO “remains opposed to the endowment excise tax,” arguing that it “diminishes the charitable resources that would otherwise be available” to universities for financial aid, student services, academic support, research and innovation, among other uses.
Mark Anson, CEO of Commonfund, said the tax could hit some universities hard, including many Ivy League institutions whose robust endowments make up a higher percentage of their operating budgets.
On the press call, Inside Higher Ed asked about the fallout of last spring’s pro-Palestinian protests, in which students at numerous universities demanded divestment of their endowment holdings from Israel or companies profiting off the war in Gaza. While the study did not touch on that issue, experts noted the protests sparked questions from colleges; Anson said some asked for more information about their holdings.
“What’s come out of this is a continued push for transparency around how endowments are invested,” Suttles said. “Thinking about transparency for stakeholders is an important part of this work. I am encouraged by the calls for transparency, but in terms of actual investment or divestment strategies and a shift in that, we haven’t seen much from our perspective.”
The Common App allows students to submit applications to more than 1,100 higher ed institutions. But until now, none of its members were community colleges focused on granting associate degrees.
The organization announced a first-of-its-kind partnership with the Illinois Community College Board last week, adding Sauk Valley Community, Rend Lake, Carl Sandburg and Black Hawk Colleges to its ranks. Three more two-year institutions will join next admissions cycle: Lincoln Land Community, Oakton and Triton Colleges.
When the Common App launched 50 years ago, it offered high school students a streamlined application path to 15 private institutions. Since then, hundreds of others have signed on, most of them fairly selective four-year colleges and universities. The new move raises a question: What do open-access institutions, which accept all students, stand to gain from joining the application platform?
Brian Durham, executive director of the Illinois Community College Board, said most importantly, it boosts their visibility.
Starting this year, the Common App is partnering with the Illinois Board of Higher Education to support its direct admissions program to eight public universities in the state. As a part of the partnership, eligible high school students who apply to any college through the Common App will be notified of their direct admissions offers from these universities. Durham wants those students to receive notice about their local community college choices, too.
“We want to make sure that community colleges are seen as an option on that list”—even “potentially a first choice for students,” Durham said. “It’s ultimately about exposing them to that as an option.” He added that students who gain admission to universities sometimes realize later that “they can’t afford it, or it’s not right choice for them.” This way, if they come to that conclusion after filling out the Common App, they’ll know which community colleges are “right there” and ready to serve them.
Research suggests the move could offer community colleges an enrollment bump. The National Bureau of Economic Research published a paper in 2019 that found that institutions that joined the Common App enjoyed on average a 12 percent increase in admissions compared to the years before they joined, according to an analysis of Common App data from 1990 to 2015.
Durham hopes that eventually all 45 of the state’s public two-year colleges offer a Common App application route in addition to their in-house application systems.
A Decade-Long Effort
Jenny Rickard, president and CEO of the Common App, said that the organization has been working toward representing a broader swath of higher ed institutions for a decade.
In 2014, the organization stopped requiring member colleges to use a “holistic admissions” process—assessing students beyond test scores—in order to open up the platform to more institutions. The Common App also got rid of its requirement that applications include essays and recommendations. Then, in 2018, the organization launched a new application for transfer students applying to four-year universities.
All those moves “opened the door for us to be able to welcome two-year and four-year public institutions into the membership,” Rickard said. She noted that, as of the 2022–23 application cycle, 77 percent of current Common App members admitted over 50 percent of their fall first-year applicants, a sign that the organization has moved away from serving only more selective institutions.
The Common App also set a “moonshot” goal in 2023 to substantially increase its applicants from low- and middle-income communities, Rickard said. The organization aims to bring in 650,000 additional applicants from those backgrounds by 2030.
Rickard said teaming up with community colleges is the organization’s most recent step toward diversifying both its member institutions and its applicant pool.
“Bringing a greater diversity of college and university members into the Common App helps us pursue that mission, and it also helps students from all different backgrounds be able to see the great diversity of institutions in the United States and the world,” she said. “Most students go to more open-access and less selective institutions,” yet too often “we focus on the places that nobody can get into.”
Durham agreed that the move could expand the Common App’s “footprint,” given applicants to community colleges are disproportionately low-income and first-generation students.
“More underserved students are naturally going to go to community college for all the reasons we know: affordability, location,” he said. So, working with community colleges offers the Common App a new “opportunity to reach those students.”
Steps for the Future
As much as Durham would like to see more community colleges join the Common App’s ranks, he believes the platform will need to change to serve community colleges at a larger scale.
Currently the platform is designed for high school students, he said, but many community college applicants are adult learners or attend college part-time. Those types of students are more likely to enroll directly at a college rather than find themselves on the Common App platform like high school seniors applying to multiple institutions with guidance from college counselors.
“How do you get a 34-year-old guy who wants to go into welding to go through that application?” Durham said. For now, he expects participating Illinois community colleges will maintain their own “parallel” application systems “until we can work that out down the road.”
Rickard acknowledged the organization has work to do to optimize its platform for a more diverse set of institutions. She hopes that onboarding this initial cohort of community colleges will help the Common App figure out its blind spots.
“We know that we need to learn more about how our platform can continue to evolve to meet their needs more effectively,” she said.
In a conversation recently with someone whose presidency and mine overlapped (1992–2003), we talked about how even though we worked 24-7 and lost a fair amount of sleep, we mainly loved what we did and even had lots of fun doing it. That is not what I am hearing today from presidents I know, nearly all of whom use language like “I’m worn out” and “I can’t wait to retire.” It is therefore not surprising that the average presidential tenure, according to a recent American Council on Education survey, has decreased significantly in recent years (from 8.5 years to 5.9).
As I have often learned during my 18 years as a higher ed consultant, short presidential tenures take a toll on their institutions. Even in the best of circumstances, presidential transitions are time-consuming. Searches frequently take nine or more months, during which time planning and even implementation of previously approved plans often get put on hold. Departing presidents are frequently viewed as lame ducks, while interim presidents are often seen as placeholders, whose presence similarly delays institutional progress.
Then, too, during the first year of a new presidency, campus communities generally are trying to decide if the new president is trustworthy and capable. If the previous president left under negative circumstances, people on campus are likely to be especially skittish about new leadership. Moreover, many new presidents are so focused on learning about the institution and its people that they defer important decisions until their second year.
That used to make things difficult; now in these fraught times for higher education, it can be catastrophic.
Successful presidents simultaneously serve a variety of different groups (students, faculty, staff, alumni, the community, donors and the board), many of whom have conflicting interests and concerns. As I tell presidents I coach, their board has the responsibility to hire and fire them, so their board is inevitably their most important constituency.
Given the array and complexity of presidential responsibilities, many of which require confidentiality, it’s not surprising that a campus community doesn’t know all the ins and outs of how their presidents spend their time and the issues with which they deal. Indeed, on most campuses and even for some board members, the issues presidents must contend with are a black box.
In this context, the president’s connection to the board is typically opaque to the broader campus community. Indeed, as is also true for most marriages, it’s almost impossible for those not in the relationship to know what really happens inside it. And of course, if a board loses confidence in the president, the result is a divorce in which the president is the one who leaves. (Two personal confessions come to mind in this regard: First, as a former Faulkner scholar, I am mindful of the importance of narrative, am alert to unreliable narrators and am always aware that history, culture and memory affect perception. And second, despite the fact that I have never taken a course in clinical psychology, I sometimes believe that clients with unhealthy board-president relationships may need a marriage counselor in addition to a higher ed consultant.)
In any case, when the president-chair relationship is troubled, it is almost always presidents who find themselves on shaky ground. And although I am happy to say that the majority of president-chair relationships that I have observed are positive, I have been recently observed what seems to be an uptick in the souring of such relationships.
Specifically, a dozen presidents—at least half of whom were in a second contract—have described their relationship with their chair as deeply problematic. In a number of these instances, I should stress, the chair who was in place when the president was hired has rotated out of that position and the new chair is for various reasons less invested in the president’s success. (Note: In the interest of confidentiality, none of my examples derive from clients with whom I have begun to work in the last year. In fact, a number of these examples come from institutions with which I’ve not had a consulting relationship but where I know well the president and/or the chair.)
The most common complaint I hear is from presidents who characterize their chair as a micromanager who is inappropriately engaged in operational decisions—despite the fact that in every institution I know, board bylaws call for the trustees to delegate operational responsibility to the president. As a result, these boards often spend their time in the proverbial weeds rather than focusing on their primary fiduciary responsibility and their responsibilities for strategy and policies.
I also have heard about chairs who have—without presidential knowledge much less involvement—talked directly with faculty and staff (and sometimes even students), ignoring the best practice that all trustees, including the chair, who wish to interact with those on campus should work with and through the president or, if the president so specifies, the board secretary. (The exception to this is trustee committee chairs who have direct conversations about the work of their committee with their administrative liaison, typically a vice president. At the same time, in healthy institutions presidents are fully informed about and often participate in such conversations.)
Some examples:
A chair at a research university crossed the boundary from governance into management by inappropriately meeting with individual faculty members without the president’s knowledge in his quest to gain support for his personal belief that the provost should be let go, even though he knew the president wished to retain the provost.
The board chair at a liberal arts college met with individual faculty members without the president’s knowledge to dissuade them from addressing diversity or gender in their classes.
The board chair at a small comprehensive college met with members of the campus community off-site to seek reasons to let the president go.
The first two presidents subsequently left the institution they were leading, dismayed that their chair was ignoring the fact that as president, they were the board’s only employee and that all other employees essentially work for the president. The third president ended up being fired, based on the chair’s conversations.
Why has this happened? My suspicion is that it is related to the coarsening of discourse generally and the growing partisanship in this country and beyond. Until roughly the last decade, I was struck by how much those of us in the academy—faculty, staff, administrators and trustees—truly placed a high value on civil discourse, with colleges and universities typically priding themselves on being places where people could disagree passionately but with mutual respect, or at least the appearance of that respect. But in recent years, this is no longer the case. Instead, as we are seeing, families and friends are torn apart by differing points of views. Congress, which was once a place where people argued fervently with those with whom they disagreed but then spent congenial social time together, is now similarly torn apart. And although colleges and universities ideally should not be the playground for partisan politics, that is no longer the case.
I believe that in this context, particularly at a time when so many colleges and universities are vulnerable (think for example about the enrollment cliff), the president-chair relationship is even more critical than ever. Presidents and boards, especially their chairs, are entrusted in different ways with the health and integrity—financial and academic—of the institutions they serve. Successful presidents and chairs both have a clear understanding of and respect for their differing roles and responsibilities. In the most successful of these relationships, chairs see themselves as the president’s strategic partner and presidents see the board as a strategic advantage to the institution.
But in those instances where the relationship is strained, entire communities of faculty, staff, students, alumni, donors and others are often negatively affected even if few if any of them are aware of this problematic leadership dynamic. Indeed, members of the campus community in these cases are like families and friends of those in a fragile marriage—they don’t know what’s really going on, but they know enough to be unsettled.
So what do we do about all of this? Although I know enough now to know that we aren’t likely to change the larger culture, I do recommend that college and university boards set aside time—certainly in new trustee orientation and at least once a year for the entire board in an executive session—to address the question of how trustees interact with one another and with the campuses that they have committed to serve. I further recommend that boards commit to a regular process by which they are reviewed. For example, if a board has retained an outside consultant to do a 360-degree review of the president, I suggest that they ask that same consultant to make recommendations about the board’s functioning, particularly in terms of its behavior in relation to the president and the senior leadership team. But most of all, I hope that trustees, who at their best are focused on the health and integrity of the institution, will understand how important it is that they model respect for others and the civil discourse that is necessary not only for board service but for the health of our larger society.
Susan Resneck Pierce is president of SRP Consulting, president emerita of the University of Puget Sound and author ofOn Being Presidential(2011) andGovernance Reconsidered (2014), both published by Jossey-Bass and sponsored by Inside Higher Ed.
By Sean Brophy (@seanbrofee), Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Decent Work and Productivity, Manchester Metropolitan University.
A persistent challenge in UK higher education is the ethnicity degree awarding gap – the difference between White and ethnic minority students receiving top degrees (firsts or 2:1s). The Office for Students (OfS) aims to entirely eliminate this gap by 2030/31, but what if most of this gap reflects success in widening participation rather than systemic barriers?
Between 2005/6 and 2021/22, university participation grew 21% faster for Asian students and 17% faster for Black students compared to White students. This remarkable success in widening access might paradoxically explain one of the UK’s most persistent higher education challenges.
Figure 1 presents ethnicity gaps over time compared to a White baseline (the grey line constant at zero). The data for 2021/22 shows significant gaps: 21 percentage points for Black students, 9 for Asian students, and 4 for Mixed ethnicity students compared to their White peers. Traditional explanations focus on structural barriers, cultural differences, and potential discrimination, and much of the awarding gap remains unexplained after adjusting for prior attainment and background characteristics. However, a simpler explanation might be hiding in plain sight: the gap may also reflect a statistical effect created by varying participation rates across ethnic groups.
Here is the key insight: ethnic minority groups now participate in higher education at remarkably higher rates than White students, which likely then drives some of the observed ethnicity awarding gaps. Figure 2 presents the over-representation of ethnic groups in UK higher education relative to the White reference group (again, the constant grey line). The participation gap has grown substantially – Asian students were 22 percentage points more likely to attend university than White students in 2021/22, with Black students 18 points higher.
Over-representation of ethnic groups in HE compared to White baseline (2005/6-2021/22)
This difference in participation rates creates an important statistical effect, what economists call ‘compositional effects’. When a much larger proportion of any group enters university, that group may naturally include a broader range of academic ability. Think of it like this: if mainly the top third of White students attend university, but nearly half of ethnic minority students do, we would expect to see differences in degree outcomes – even with completely fair teaching and assessment.
This principle can be illustrated using stylized ability-participation curves for representative ethnic groups in Figure 3. These curves show the theoretical distribution of academic ability for Asian, Black, and White groups, with the red shaded area representing the proportion of students from each group accepted into higher education in 2021/22. It would be surprising if there was no degree awarding gap under these conditions!
Stylized ability-participation curves by ethnic group
This hypothesis suggests the degree awarding gap might largely reflect the success of widening participation policies. Compositional effects like these are difficult to control for in studies, and it is noteworthy that, to date, no studies on the ethnicity awarding gap have adequately controlled for these effects (including one of my recent studies).
While this theory may offer a compelling statistical explanation, future research pursuing this line of inquiry needs to go beyond simply controlling for prior achievement. We need to examine both how individual attainment evolves from early education to university, using richer measures than previous studies, and how the expansion of university participation has changed the composition of student ability over time. This analysis must also account for differences within broad ethnic categories (British Indian students, for example, show different patterns from other Asian groups) and consider how university and subject choices vary across groups.
My argument is not that compositional effects explain everything — rather, understanding their magnitude is crucial for correctly attributing how much of the gap is driven by traditional explanations, such as prior attainment, background characteristics, structural barriers, or discrimination. Only with this fuller picture can we properly target resources and interventions where they’re most needed.
If this hypothesis is proven correct, however, it underscores why the current policy focus on entirely eliminating gaps through teaching quality or support services, while well-intentioned, may be misguided. If gaps are the statistically inevitable result of differing participation patterns among ethnic groups, then institutional interventions cannot entirely eliminate them. This doesn’t mean universities shouldn’t strive to support all students effectively – but it does require us to fundamentally rethink how we measure and address educational disparities.
Rather than treating all gaps as problems to be eliminated, we should:
Fund research which better accounts for these compositional effects.
Develop benchmarks that account for participation rates when measuring degree outcomes.
Contextualize the success of widening participation with acknowledging awarding gaps as an inevitable statistical consequence.
Focus resources on early academic support for students from all backgrounds who might need additional help, particularly in early childhood.
Explore barriers in other post-16 or post-18 pathways that may be contributing to the over-representation of some groups in higher education.
