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The white paper is wrong – changing research funding won’t change teaching

The Post-16 education and skills white paper might not have a lot of specifics in it but it does mostly make sense.

The government’s diagnosis is that the homogeneity of sector outputs is a barrier to growth. Their view, emerging from the industrial strategy, is that it is an inefficient use of public resources to have organisations doing the same things in the same places. The ideal is specialisation where universities concentrate on the things they are best at.

There are different kinds of nudges to achieve this goal. One is the suggestion that the REF could more closely align to the government missions. The detail is not there but it is possible to see how impact could be made to be about economic growth or funding could be shifted more toward applied work. There is a suggestion that research funding should consider the potential of places (maybe that could lead to some regional multipliers who knows). And there are already announced steps around the reform on HEIF and new support for spin-outs.

Ecosystems

All of these things might help but they will not be enough to fundamentally change the research ecosystem. If the incentives stay broadly the same researchers and universities will continue to do broadly the same things irrespective of how much the government wants more research aimed at growing the economy.

The potentially biggest reform has the smallest amount of detail. The paper states

We will incentivise this specialisation and collaboration through research funding reform. By incentivising a more strategic distribution of research activity across the sector, we can ensure that funding is used effectively and that institutions are empowered to build deep expertise in areas where they can lead. This may mean a more focused volume of research, delivered with higher-quality, better cost recovery, and stronger alignment to short- and long-term national priorities. Given the close link between research and teaching, we expect these changes to support more specialised and high quality teaching provision as well.

The implication here is that if research funding is allocated differently then providers will choose to specialise their teaching because research and teaching are linked. Before we get to whether there is a link between research funding and teaching (spoiler there is not) it is worth unpacking two other implications here.

The first is that the “strategic distribution” element will have entirely different impacts depending on what the strategy is and what the distribution mechanism is. The paper states that there could, broadly, be three kinds of providers. Teaching only, teaching with applied research, and research institutions (who presumably also do teaching.) The strategy is to allow providers to focus on their strengths but the problem is it is entirely unclear which strengths or how they will be measured. For example, there are some researchers that are doing research which is economically impactful but perhaps not the most academically ground breaking. Presumably this is not the activity which the government would wish to deprioritise but could be if measured by current metrics. It also doesn’t explain how providers with pockets of research excellence within an overall weaker research profile could maintain their research infrastructure.

The white paper suggests that the sector should focus on fewer but better funded research projects. This makes sense if the aim is to improve the cost recovery on individual research projects but improving the unit of resource through concentrating the overall allocation won’t necessarily improve financial sustainability of research generally. A strategic decision to align research funding more with the industrial strategy would leave some providers exposed. A strategic decision to invest in research potential not research performance would harm others. A focus on regions, or London, or excellence wherever it may be, would have a different impact. The distribution mechanism is a second order question to the overall strategy which has not yet dealt with some difficult trade offs

On its own terms it also seems research funding is not a good indicator of teaching specialism.

Incentives

When the White Paper suggests that the government can “incentivise specialisation and collaboration through research funding reform”, it is worth asking what – if any – links there currently are between research funding and teaching provision.

There’s two ways we can look at this. The first version looks at current research income from the UK government to each provider(either directly, or via UKRI) by cost centre – and compares that to the students (FTE) associated with that cost centre within a provider.

[Full screen]

We’re at a low resolution – this split of students isn’t filterable by level or mode of study, and finances are sometimes corrected after the initial publication (we’ve looked at 2021-22 to remove this issue). You can look at each cost centre to see if there is a relationship between the volume of government research funding and student FTE – and in all honesty there isn’t much of one in most cases.

If you think about it, that’s kind of a surprise – surely a larger department would have more of both? – but there are some providers who are clearly known for having high quality research as opposed to large numbers of students.

So to build quality into our thinking we turn to the REF results (we know that there is generally a good correlation between REF outcomes and research income).

Our problem here is that REF results are presented by unit of assessment – a subject grouping that maps cleanly neither to cost centres or to the CAH hierarchy used more commonly in student data (for more on the wild world of subject classifications, DK has you covered). This is by design of course – an academic with training in biosciences may well live in the biosciences department and the biosciences cost centre, but there is nothing to stop them researching how biosciences is taught (outputs of which might be returned to the Education cost centre).

What has been done here is a custom mapping at CAH3 level between subjects students are studying and REF2021 submissions – the axis are student headcount (you can filter by mode and level, and choose whichever academic year you fancy looking at) against the FTE of staff submitted to REF2021 – with a darker blue blob showing a greater proportion of the submission rated as 4* in the REF (there’s a filter at the bottom if you want to look at just high performing departments).

[Full screen]

Again, correlations are very hard to come by (if you want you can look at a chart for a single provider across all units of assessment). It’s almost as if research doesn’t bring in money that can cross-subsidise teaching, which will come as no surprise to anyone who has ever worked in higher education.

Specialisation

The government’s vision for higher education is clear. Universities should specialise and universities that focus on economic growth should be rewarded. The mechanisms to achieve it feel, frankly, like a mix of things that have already been announced and new measures that are divorced from the reality of the financial incentives universities work under.

The white paper has assiduously ducked laying out some of the trade-offs and losers in the new system. Without this the government cannot set priorities and if it does not move some of the underlying incentives on student funding, regional funding distribution, greater devolution, supply-side spending like Freeports, staff reward and recognition, student number allocations, or the myriad of things that make up the basis of the university funding settlement, it has little hope of achieving its goals in specialisation or growth.

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October 27, 2025
From Task Completion to Cognitive Engagement: Making the Case for the Hourglass Paradigm of Learning – Faculty Focus

College students are mastering the art of “doing school” – but far too few are actually learning (Geddes et al., 2018; Stevens & Ramey, 2020; Weinstein et al., 2018). The widespread use of artificial intelligence tools among students complicates the learning process by blurring the line between genuine understanding and task completion (Gawande et al., 2020; Jie & Kamrozzaman, 2024). It is incumbent on faculty to design learning experiences that prevent students from mistaking a passing grade for a genuine education.

This hourglass paradigm, created by Western Kentucky University education faculty, outlines key stages of effective learning and aligns with current understanding of how the brain processes and retains information (Mahan & Stein, 2014). It functions as a conceptual guide, helping students contextualize instructional content within a broader framework of cognitive engagement. The hourglass shape represents the complexity and intellectual rigor inherent in genuine learning – an endeavor that far exceeds the passive acts of listening, reading, and rote repetition. Many students, shaped by their P–12 educational experiences, have developed habits that emphasize completing tasks over engaging deeply with the learning process. In high school, success often comes from passive methods like re-reading notes or even something as simple as listening attentively in class (Gurung & Dunlosky, 2023). These habits often persist into college, where students may misplace effort on checking boxes rather than meaningful engagement with the content. While this approach may yield favorable academic outcomes in the short term, it infrequently results in deep understanding.

Figure 1 – The Reading and Learning Hourglass
Note. This figure was created by the authors.

Top Half of the Hourglass

The top half represents what students are expected to do when first exposed to novel material – either in lecture or when reading.

Step #1 – Establish a Purpose

This requires students orient themselves toward finding specific information. What specific information are they expected to discern while listening or reading? What are they supposed to do with the information they find? Purpose establishes reason for attention – a key component in encoding the visual/auditory stimuli (Dubinsky & Hamid, 2024). Good teaching provides purpose and directs attention to the most important information.

Practical Application for Instructors

Clearly communicate the purpose of each lecture, reading, or activity. Assign reading surgically – not whole chapters at once. Frame lessons with guiding questions or objectives that help students focus their attention and recognize what they are expected to learn and apply.

As students encounter information meeting the established purpose, they deliberately document (extract) the evidence. This, too, is an important part of the encoding process. It focuses attention, moving students from a passive state during which the mind is prone to wander to an active state of responsibility requiring productivity.

Practical Application for Instructors

Assign students a specific task during lectures or readings (e.g., identifying key arguments, examples, or terms) and require them to record and reflect on these findings. This encourages active engagement and accountability during knowledge acquisition.

Step #3 – Make Sense

Sense and meaning are both necessary for long-term learning, but they are different constructs. Sense means that something is readily comprehensible and consistently applied (Sousa, 2011). After students have extracted the evidence, do they comprehend the material? This is a stopping point if the answer is “No.” They should either revert to the material to try to make sense of it or ask questions of the instructor/classmates (or even generative AI, as permitted) to ensure comprehension.

Practical Application for Instructors

Pause periodically to ask comprehension questions or pose simple checks for understanding. Encourage students to identify confusing parts and model how to work through confusion by thinking aloud or unpacking difficult concepts together.

Step #4 – Form Meaning

Meaning is about connections and relevancy. Once the information has been extracted and is comprehensible, the next step is determining how it connects to other information. To what other concepts is it related in the subject/discipline? How does it connect to something the student knows personally? Formation of meaning and sense making are both crucial steps in the process of consolidation – the second step in the formation of long-term memory/learning.

Practical Application for Instructors

Help students connect new content to prior knowledge by explicitly referencing past lessons or real-world examples. Use prompts such as “How does this relate to what we learned last week?” or “Where have you seen this concept applied outside of class?”

Bottom Half of the Hourglass

With the passage of time comes opportunity to study the information. Studying requires consolidation, retrieval, and active production. If students are simply re-reading information or listening again to recorded lectures, they are still in the top half of the hourglass and are not yet studying – they are simply revisiting the knowledge event. Sometimes review is necessary to ensure sense and meaning. However, students need to understand that unless they are producing something new through active retrieval, they are not studying.

Step #5 – Integrate Knowledge

After students have read multiple assignments and listened to numerous lectures, the resulting notes must be integrated into a cohesive body of knowledge. Students must synthesize this information rather than treating each reading or lecture as a discrete element – a process that supports deeper consolidation over time (Squire et al., 2015).

Practical Application for Instructors

Design cumulative tasks that require students to synthesize information into thematic essays, comparative analyses, or concept maps. Encourage students to revisit and reorganize their notes periodically to build coherence across topics.

Step #6 – Reproduce Knowledge

The best way to study to facilitate long-term learning requires active retrieval (Karpicke, 2012; Sosa et al., 2018). This process strengthens neural connections by repeatedly firing related pathways, leading to long-term potentiation – essentially, learning. Crucially, retrieval typically involves unaided recall; the value lies in the act of retrieval itself, not the product it creates. Reflection and verbal production counts as retrieval even though the product is intangible.

Practical Application for Instructors

Design assignments that require students to produce something from memory (e.g., timed short-answer questions, practice exams, or unprompted written explanations). Encourage use of retrieval-based study tools and de-emphasize passive review.

Step #7 – Share Knowledge

Students often do not know when to stop studying. Many are surprised when asked when studying should stop – the answer feels obvious: “When the test is on my desk!” In reality, studying ends when one can teach the material to someone else. As the final step of the process, the reproduction of knowledge should be so comprehensive and fluent that the students can teach the material to a peer or another individual unfamiliar with the subject matter.

Practical Application for Instructors

Create opportunities for students to teach each other. Incorporate peer instruction, study partnerships, or group teaching assignments where students must explain key ideas to classmates or create short instructional videos.

In a time when grades are often mistaken for understanding and AI tools tempt students to outsource cognitive effort, we must reclaim the purpose of education. The hourglass paradigm reframes learning as an active, metacognitive process – one that challenges students to move beyond passive habits and toward lasting intellectual growth. By designing instruction that aligns with how the brain learns best, we as faculty can help students learn how to learn and not just how to pass. This is not just a pedagogical preference; it is a professional obligation.

Dr. Daniel Super is a Clinical Associate Professor in the School of Teacher Education and director of the Barbara and Kelly Burch Institute for Transformative Practices in Higher Education at Western Kentucky University.

Dr. Jeremy Logsdon is an Assistant Professor in the School of Teacher Education and director of the Center for Literacy at Western Kentucky University.

References

Dubinsky, J. M., & Hamid, A. A. (2024). The neuroscience of active learning and direct instruction. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 163, 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105737

Gawande, V., Al Badi, H., & Al Makharoumi, K. (2020). An empirical study on emerging trends in artificial intelligence and its impact on higher education. International Journal of Computer Applications, 175(12), 43-47.

Geddes, B. C., Cannon, H. M., & Cannon, J. N. (2018, March). Addressing the crisis in higher education: An experiential analysis. In Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning: Proceedings of the Annual ABSEL conference (Vol. 45). Association for Business Simulation and Experiential Learning. https://journals.tdl.org/absel/index.php/absel/article/view/3188/3106

Gurung, R. A. R., & Dunlosky, J. (2023). Study like a champ. American Psychological Association.

Jie, A. L. X., & Kamrozzaman, N. A. (2024). The challenges of higher education students face in using artificial intelligence (AI) against their learning experiences. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 12(10), 362-387. https://doi.org/10.4236/jss.2024.1210025

Karpicke, J. D. (2012). Retrieval-based learning: Active retrieval promotes meaningful learning. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21(3), 157–163. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721412443552

Mahan, J. D., & Stein, D. S. (2014). Teaching adults – Best practices that leverage the emerging understanding of the neurobiology of learning. Current problems in pediatric and adolescent health care, 44(6), 141-149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cppeds.2014.01.003

Sosa, P. M., Gonçalves, R., & Carpes, F. P. (2018). Active memory reactivation improves learning. Advances in Physiology Education, 42(2), 256–260. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00077.2017

Sousa, D. A. (2011). How the brain learns. Corwin.

Squire, L. R., Genzel, L., Wixted, J. T., & Morris, R.G. (2015). Memory consolidation. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology, 7(8), 1-21. https://cshperspectives.cshlp.org/content/7/8/a021766.full.pdf

Stevens, R., & Ramey, K. (2020, January). What kind of place is school to learn? A comparative perspective from students on the question. In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference of the Learning Sciences: The Interdisciplinarity of the Learning Sciences.

Weinstein, Y., Sumeracki, M., & Caviglioli, O. (2018). Understanding how we learn: A visual guide. Routledge.

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October 27, 2025
From Task Completion to Cognitive Engagement: Making the Case for the Hourglass Paradigm of Learning – Faculty Focus

College students are mastering the art of “doing school” – but far too few are actually learning (Geddes et al., 2018; Stevens & Ramey, 2020; Weinstein et al., 2018). The widespread use of artificial intelligence tools among students complicates the learning process by blurring the line between genuine understanding and task completion (Gawande et al., 2020; Jie & Kamrozzaman, 2024). It is incumbent on faculty to design learning experiences that prevent students from mistaking a passing grade for a genuine education.

This hourglass paradigm, created by Western Kentucky University education faculty, outlines key stages of effective learning and aligns with current understanding of how the brain processes and retains information (Mahan & Stein, 2014). It functions as a conceptual guide, helping students contextualize instructional content within a broader framework of cognitive engagement. The hourglass shape represents the complexity and intellectual rigor inherent in genuine learning – an endeavor that far exceeds the passive acts of listening, reading, and rote repetition. Many students, shaped by their P–12 educational experiences, have developed habits that emphasize completing tasks over engaging deeply with the learning process. In high school, success often comes from passive methods like re-reading notes or even something as simple as listening attentively in class (Gurung & Dunlosky, 2023). These habits often persist into college, where students may misplace effort on checking boxes rather than meaningful engagement with the content. While this approach may yield favorable academic outcomes in the short term, it infrequently results in deep understanding.

Figure 1 – The Reading and Learning Hourglass
Note. This figure was created by the authors.

Top Half of the Hourglass

The top half represents what students are expected to do when first exposed to novel material – either in lecture or when reading.

Step #1 – Establish a Purpose

This requires students orient themselves toward finding specific information. What specific information are they expected to discern while listening or reading? What are they supposed to do with the information they find? Purpose establishes reason for attention – a key component in encoding the visual/auditory stimuli (Dubinsky & Hamid, 2024). Good teaching provides purpose and directs attention to the most important information.

Practical Application for Instructors

Clearly communicate the purpose of each lecture, reading, or activity. Assign reading surgically – not whole chapters at once. Frame lessons with guiding questions or objectives that help students focus their attention and recognize what they are expected to learn and apply.

As students encounter information meeting the established purpose, they deliberately document (extract) the evidence. This, too, is an important part of the encoding process. It focuses attention, moving students from a passive state during which the mind is prone to wander to an active state of responsibility requiring productivity.

Practical Application for Instructors

Assign students a specific task during lectures or readings (e.g., identifying key arguments, examples, or terms) and require them to record and reflect on these findings. This encourages active engagement and accountability during knowledge acquisition.

Step #3 – Make Sense

Sense and meaning are both necessary for long-term learning, but they are different constructs. Sense means that something is readily comprehensible and consistently applied (Sousa, 2011). After students have extracted the evidence, do they comprehend the material? This is a stopping point if the answer is “No.” They should either revert to the material to try to make sense of it or ask questions of the instructor/classmates (or even generative AI, as permitted) to ensure comprehension.

Practical Application for Instructors

Pause periodically to ask comprehension questions or pose simple checks for understanding. Encourage students to identify confusing parts and model how to work through confusion by thinking aloud or unpacking difficult concepts together.

Step #4 – Form Meaning

Meaning is about connections and relevancy. Once the information has been extracted and is comprehensible, the next step is determining how it connects to other information. To what other concepts is it related in the subject/discipline? How does it connect to something the student knows personally? Formation of meaning and sense making are both crucial steps in the process of consolidation – the second step in the formation of long-term memory/learning.

Practical Application for Instructors

Help students connect new content to prior knowledge by explicitly referencing past lessons or real-world examples. Use prompts such as “How does this relate to what we learned last week?” or “Where have you seen this concept applied outside of class?”

Bottom Half of the Hourglass

With the passage of time comes opportunity to study the information. Studying requires consolidation, retrieval, and active production. If students are simply re-reading information or listening again to recorded lectures, they are still in the top half of the hourglass and are not yet studying – they are simply revisiting the knowledge event. Sometimes review is necessary to ensure sense and meaning. However, students need to understand that unless they are producing something new through active retrieval, they are not studying.

Step #5 – Integrate Knowledge

After students have read multiple assignments and listened to numerous lectures, the resulting notes must be integrated into a cohesive body of knowledge. Students must synthesize this information rather than treating each reading or lecture as a discrete element – a process that supports deeper consolidation over time (Squire et al., 2015).

Practical Application for Instructors

Design cumulative tasks that require students to synthesize information into thematic essays, comparative analyses, or concept maps. Encourage students to revisit and reorganize their notes periodically to build coherence across topics.

Step #6 – Reproduce Knowledge

The best way to study to facilitate long-term learning requires active retrieval (Karpicke, 2012; Sosa et al., 2018). This process strengthens neural connections by repeatedly firing related pathways, leading to long-term potentiation – essentially, learning. Crucially, retrieval typically involves unaided recall; the value lies in the act of retrieval itself, not the product it creates. Reflection and verbal production counts as retrieval even though the product is intangible.

Practical Application for Instructors

Design assignments that require students to produce something from memory (e.g., timed short-answer questions, practice exams, or unprompted written explanations). Encourage use of retrieval-based study tools and de-emphasize passive review.

Step #7 – Share Knowledge

Students often do not know when to stop studying. Many are surprised when asked when studying should stop – the answer feels obvious: “When the test is on my desk!” In reality, studying ends when one can teach the material to someone else. As the final step of the process, the reproduction of knowledge should be so comprehensive and fluent that the students can teach the material to a peer or another individual unfamiliar with the subject matter.

Practical Application for Instructors

Create opportunities for students to teach each other. Incorporate peer instruction, study partnerships, or group teaching assignments where students must explain key ideas to classmates or create short instructional videos.

In a time when grades are often mistaken for understanding and AI tools tempt students to outsource cognitive effort, we must reclaim the purpose of education. The hourglass paradigm reframes learning as an active, metacognitive process – one that challenges students to move beyond passive habits and toward lasting intellectual growth. By designing instruction that aligns with how the brain learns best, we as faculty can help students learn how to learn and not just how to pass. This is not just a pedagogical preference; it is a professional obligation.

Dr. Daniel Super is a Clinical Associate Professor in the School of Teacher Education and director of the Barbara and Kelly Burch Institute for Transformative Practices in Higher Education at Western Kentucky University.

Dr. Jeremy Logsdon is an Assistant Professor in the School of Teacher Education and director of the Center for Literacy at Western Kentucky University.

References

Dubinsky, J. M., & Hamid, A. A. (2024). The neuroscience of active learning and direct instruction. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 163, 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105737

Gawande, V., Al Badi, H., & Al Makharoumi, K. (2020). An empirical study on emerging trends in artificial intelligence and its impact on higher education. International Journal of Computer Applications, 175(12), 43-47.

Geddes, B. C., Cannon, H. M., & Cannon, J. N. (2018, March). Addressing the crisis in higher education: An experiential analysis. In Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning: Proceedings of the Annual ABSEL conference (Vol. 45). Association for Business Simulation and Experiential Learning. https://journals.tdl.org/absel/index.php/absel/article/view/3188/3106

Gurung, R. A. R., & Dunlosky, J. (2023). Study like a champ. American Psychological Association.

Jie, A. L. X., & Kamrozzaman, N. A. (2024). The challenges of higher education students face in using artificial intelligence (AI) against their learning experiences. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 12(10), 362-387. https://doi.org/10.4236/jss.2024.1210025

Karpicke, J. D. (2012). Retrieval-based learning: Active retrieval promotes meaningful learning. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21(3), 157–163. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721412443552

Mahan, J. D., & Stein, D. S. (2014). Teaching adults – Best practices that leverage the emerging understanding of the neurobiology of learning. Current problems in pediatric and adolescent health care, 44(6), 141-149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cppeds.2014.01.003

Sosa, P. M., Gonçalves, R., & Carpes, F. P. (2018). Active memory reactivation improves learning. Advances in Physiology Education, 42(2), 256–260. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00077.2017

Sousa, D. A. (2011). How the brain learns. Corwin.

Squire, L. R., Genzel, L., Wixted, J. T., & Morris, R.G. (2015). Memory consolidation. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology, 7(8), 1-21. https://cshperspectives.cshlp.org/content/7/8/a021766.full.pdf

Stevens, R., & Ramey, K. (2020, January). What kind of place is school to learn? A comparative perspective from students on the question. In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference of the Learning Sciences: The Interdisciplinarity of the Learning Sciences.

Weinstein, Y., Sumeracki, M., & Caviglioli, O. (2018). Understanding how we learn: A visual guide. Routledge.

Source link

October 27, 2025
Fake News Brings Me to an Unusual Topic for this Blog – Teaching in Higher Ed
This post is one of many, related to my participation in Harold Jarche’s Personal Knowledge Mastery workshop.

The topic for this lesson is fake news. Jarche instructs us that there are four primary types of fake news and he asks us to find an example of each type. I don’t normally post overtly political content here on my blog, but when it comes to the topic of fake news, it seemed easier to focus on politics than teaching and learning.

The closest I could come off the top of my head in my normal topics was the Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning podcast, and the many podcasts I’ve done about grading and assessment. But I’m still going to stick with politics for now. Stop reading if you aren’t prepared to read examples of the current US presidential administration lying.

Four Types of Fake News
1. Propaganda – Ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause.” – Merriam WebsterExample – Snopes shares 12 times AI generated or doctored content was shared by Trump or the White House. These examples seem to fit under propaganda, since they attempt to influencing people’s attitudes and beliefs. Though that also sounds like disinformation to me and I’m still not clear I know the difference.
2. Disinformation – “False information deliberately and often covertly spread (as by the planting of rumors) in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth.” – Merriam WebsterExample – Trump states that there is no inflation in the US. There are some who say that Trump’s specific type of lying falls under the category of bullshit, as defined by Harry Frankfurt in his book, On Bullshit. Either way, it feels like shooting fish in a barrel to find examples of disinformation from this administration.
3. Conspiracy theory – “Persist for a long time even when there is no decisive evidence for them… Based on a variety of thinking patterns that are known to be unreliable tools for tracking reality.” – The Conspiracy Theory Handbook, by Lewandowski + CookExample – Ok. So this isn’t a genuine conspiracy, rather it was satirical from the start. But given how I feel after finding those examples of propaganda and disinformation, I needed a little break. The “birds aren’t real” satirical conspiracy scratches a certain itch for me, as someone who enjoys learning about birds.
4. Clickbait – “Text or a thumbnail that is designed to attract attention and to entice users to follow (“click”) that link and view, read, stream or listen to the linked piece of online content, being typically deceptive, sensationalized, or otherwise misleading… A defining characteristic of clickbait is misrepresentation in the enticement presented to the user to manipulate them to click onto a link.” – WikipediaExample – Bryan Tyler Cohen is rather notorious for using clickbait YouTube video titles on his main channel. I saw a video of him explaining that he knows they are frustrating to people, but that they really generate far more views, in his testing. He even created an alternate channel (Bryan Tyler Cohen News) with more toned down titles, which he suggests can be better to send to people who may be on a different side of the issues than him, politically.
My Muddiest Point

I’m having a hard time distinguishing between disinformation and propaganda. Jarche shared a quote from researcher Renée DiResta, who would prefer our focus be on the word propaganda, as it is more descriptive of the problem at hand.

El Pais: The problem is not misinformation

Q. Why do you prefer the word “propaganda” to “misinformation”?

A. Misinformation implies that the problem is one of facts, and it’s never been a problem of facts. It’s a problem of people wanting to receive information that makes them feel comfortable and happy. Anti-vaccine messages don’t appeal to facts, but to the identity of the recipient. They’re saying: “If you are a person on the right, you should not trust these vaccines.” It’s very much tied to political identity. Misinformation implies that if you were to say that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an absolute clown who knows absolutely nothing about vaccines or their relationship to autism, and that this has been researched to ad nauseam by scientists, if it were a problem of misinformation, you would assume that people would say, “Oh, here’s the accurate information, so I’m going to change my mind.” But that’s not the case. It’s a topic of identity, of beliefs, and that’s why propaganda is a more appropriate term.

But I’m still not entirely clear I can distinguish propaganda from disinformation at this time.

Handling Conspiracy Theories with Students

I have such a hard time navigating conspiracy theories with students who take business ethics with me. We have a whole section of the class where they learn how to use Mike Caulfield’s SIFT framework to fact check the articles they read about business ethics related news stories throughout our semester together. I’ve found it is practically useless to ask them the question from Mike’s mini course about if they or someone they’re close to has ever believed in a conspiracy theory before.

There’s so much of one’s identity that gets wrapped up in what we believe. Generally, they don’t view these beliefs as conspiracies if they or their loved ones believe in them.
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October 27, 2025
The white paper on regulation
The Office for Students is a creation of the 2017 Higher Education and Research Act, but this legislation was not the last word on the matter.

It has gained new powers and new responsibilities over the years, and – looking closely at the white paper – it looks set to expand its powers, capabilities, and capacity even further.

As the Department for Education, and as ministers and politicians more generally, make new demands of the regulator it needs to be given the power to meet these demands. And this generally needs to happen via the amendment of HERA, which almost always requires further primary legislation.

It is clear that much of the change that ministers expect to see in the higher education sector – as set out via the white paper – needs to happen via the action of the regulator.

Regulation, rebooted

The 2022 Skills and Post-16 Education Act gave OfS explicit powers to assess the quality of higher education with reference to student outcomes, protection from defamation claims based on regulatory decisions, and the duty to publish details of investigations.

The 2023 Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, alongside the various measures linked directly to freedom of speech and academic freedom, attempted to grant OfS the power to monitor overseas funding – this was, in the end, not enacted.

These decisions to give OfS new powers and new duties will have been influenced by legal embarrassment (the student outcomes and defamation issues) and perceived threats (such as on overseas funding or freedom of speech), but measures are generally finessed in conversation with the regulator and its own assessment of powers that it needs.

It is fair to assume that OfS – famously careful around legal risk – would largely prefer to have more powers rather than less. The diversity of the sector, and the range of political and public concern about what providers actually get up to, mean that the regulator may often feel pressured to act in ways that it is not, technically, permitted to. This is not a risk limited to OfS – witness the Department for Education’s legal travails regarding Oxford Business College.

Aspects requiring primary legislation

The white paper offers the Office for Students a number of new powers to do things which – on the face of it – it can already do and has already done. What we need to keep an eye on here is where the amping up of these existing powers happens in a way that overrides safeguards that exist to prevent arbitrary and unfair regulatory action. It is already troubling that, unlike pretty much anyone else, the Office for Students is legally unable to defame a provider (for example by posting details of an investigation including details that are later shown to be false).

Quality

The Department for Education seems to labour under the misconception that OfS cannot restrict a provider’s ability to recruit on the basis of “poor quality”. It can – and has done so four times since the regulator was established. Nonetheless, the government will legislate “when parliamentary time allows” to give OfS these powers again using slightly different words – and probably modifying sections 5 and 6 of HERA to allow it to do so (currently, the Secretary of State cannot give OfS guidance that relates to the recruitment and admission of students).

This would be part of a wider portfolio of new powers for OfS, allowing it to intervene decisively to tackle poor quality provision (including within franchise arrangements), prevent the abuse of public money at registered providers, and safeguard against provision with poor outcomes for students).

Again – these are powers, in the broadest sense, the OfS already has. It has already intervene to tackle low quality provision (including poor quality outcomes for students) via the B3 and other B condition investigations and linked regulatory rulings. And it has already intervened on franchise arrangements (most recently opening an investigation into the arrangement between Bath Spa University and the Fairfield School of Business).

There will be a strengthening of powers to close down provision where fraud or the misuse of public funds is identified – and here it is fair to read across to concerns about franchise provision and the work of (“unscrupulous”) UK recruitment agents. Condition E8 – which specifically addresses the wider issues of fraud and misuse of public funds, currently applies only to new registrants: it is fair to ask why extending this to currently registered providers is not under consideration as a non-legislative approach. Clearly the infamous powers of entry and search (HERA section 61) and the power to require information from unregistered providers (HERA section 62) are not cutting it.

Linked to these, OfS will be able to build capacity to carry out more investigations and to do so at greater speed – for which in the first part we should read that OfS will get more money from DfE. It already gets roughly £10m each year, which covers things like running TEF and administering the freedom of speech complaints scheme – this is on top of around £32m in registration fees from the sector (also public money) which sounds like a lot but doesn’t even cover staff costs at OfS. We are awaiting a consultation on OfS registration fees for providers for the future, so it is possible this situation may change.

OfS’ proposed new quality regime is centred around TEF, a “section 25” scheme in the language of HERA. Schedule 2, section 2, of HERA is clear that a section 25 scheme can be used to vary the fee cap for individual providers. Indeed, it is currently used to vary the cap – if you don’t have a TEF award (at all) you can only charge a maximum of £9,275 next year. So no fancy legislative changes would be required to make fee uplifts conditional on a “higher quality threshold” if you happened to believe that a provider’s income per student should be determined by outcomes data from a decade ago.

Not strictly speaking “quality”, but OfS will also get stronger regulatory power to take robust action against providers that breach their duties under the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act – beyond even fining providers (as it has recently done to the University of Sussex) and deregistering (or adding a condition of registration via conditions E1 and E2), a power it has had since HERA was passed. I’m not sure what would constitute more robust action than that.

Access and participation

The access and participation plan (APP) regime is a remnant of the work of the former Office for Fair Access (OFFA). The Higher Education Act 2004 gave this body the ability to call for and assess “access agreements”, with the approval of OFFA needed for a provider to charge higher fees. Section 29 of HERA gave the impression that handed these powers directly over to the Office for Students – but in actuality it gave a lot more direct power to the Secretary of State to specify the content of plans and the way they are assessed via regulations.

The proposals in the white paper look for a risk-based approach to APP, but at provider level – not the more general risks associated with particular groups of students that we find in the OfS’ current approach. Providers that do well at access and participation will benefit from streamlined regulation, for those that do not the experience may involve a little more pain.

The big change is that access and participation will now look in a lot more detail at postgraduate provision and the postgraduate student experience. And section 32(5)(b) of HERA specifically prohibits plans from addressing “education provided by means of any postgraduate course other than a course of initial teacher training”. So we could expect some kind of legislative action (it may be possible to do via regulations but if there is a bill coming then why not?) to address this issue. And besides that, there will be a load of regulations and guidance from the Secretary of State setting out what she would like John Blake or his successor to do.

Aspects requiring changes to the regulatory framework

Registration

In what is fast becoming a more closely coupled tertiary sector, OfS is set to become a primary regulator for every provider of higher education. There are three sets of providers that will be affected by this move:
- Further education colleges (FECs) delivering higher education (courses at levels 4 and above)
- Other providers delivering provision currently funded via Advanced Learner Loans (ALL)
- Other providers designated for student loan support, including those delivering courses via franchise and partnership arrangements.
In each of these cases, provision that is to all intents and purposes higher education is currently delivered without the direct oversight of the higher education regulator. This may be delivered with the oversight and approval of a higher education provider (franchise and partnership provision), or with the oversight of Ofqual (there are hundreds of these).

The regulation of this kind of provision within FECs is probably best understood – as things stand all of the fundamental regulation of these bodies (stuff like governance and financial planning) happens via the Department for Education, which took on this role from the Education and Skills Funding Agency when it was abolished on 31 March 2025. The Department then provides assurance to the Office for Students and data to HESA.

Designation for student support nominally happens via a decision made by the Secretary of State (section 84 of HERA) – in practice this happens by default for anyone delivering higher education. As we saw in the Oxford Business College case, arrangements like this are predicated on the assumption that what we might call regulation (quality and standards, and also – I guess – fit and proper person type stuff) is pushed onto the validating organisation with varying degrees of confidence

Advanced Learner Loan (ALL) funded provision, confusingly, is technically further education (level 3 and up) but the logic of the machinery of the Lifelong Learning Entitlement wants to bring the upper end of this provision into the ambit of OfS. There was initially supposed to be a separate category of registration for ALL provision with OfS, this plan has been scrapped.

We’ve known informally that it was unlikely to happen for some time, but it was actually the white paper that put the nail in the coffin. OfS will be consulting, this autumn, on the disapplication of certain conditions of registration for providers in the further education sector – though this shift will be a slow process, with current ALL arrangements extending through to 2030. But this consultation is very likely to extend much wider – recall that OfS is also tasked with a more robust approach to market entry (which, again, would be done via registration).

Likewise, OfS has been tasked with toughening up the (E) conditions on governance, and the (D) conditions on financial sustainability (which would include forming a system-wide view of sector resilience working with UKRI) – we’ve seen evidence of a rethought approach to governance in the new conditions (E7 and E9) for initial registration, and have suspected that a further consultation would apply this to more providers.

Degree awarding powers

The ability to award your own qualifications is an important reputational stepping stone for any provider entering the higher education sector. It has an impact on the ability to design and run new courses, and also brings a financial benefit – no need to pay capitation on fee income to your academic partners. While quality and standards play a role in OfS registration decisions, these two aspects of provision are central to assessment for degree awarding powers as expressed via:

An emerging self-critical, cohesive academic community with a clear commitment to the assurance of standards supported by effective (in prospect) quality systems.

The current system (as of 1 April 2023) is run by the Office for Students after the decision of the QAA to demit from the role of Designated Quality Body. There are aspects that deal with student protection, financial probity, and arrangements for progression dealt with as a precursor to a full assessment – and here OfS looks for evidence that courses have been developed and approved in accordance with sector recognised standards: currently copy-pasted from the QAA’s (2014) framework for higher education qualifications and the UKSCQA degree classification descriptions (2019).

When this arrangement was set up back in 2022 it was somewhat controversial. There was no sign of the sector recognised standard that is the QAA Quality Code, and seemingly no mechanism to update the official list of standards recognised by the sector as they are restated elsewhere. There is a mention of sector recognised standards in HERA, but these need to be determined by “persons representing a broad range of registered higher education providers” and “command the confidence of registered higher education providers”.

External examiners are not mentioned in the sector recognised standards (despite being a standard that is recognised by the sector), but are mentioned in DAPs criterion B3k on the quality of the academic experience, in C1g on allowing academics to be external examiners elsewhere to gain experience (which F1i clarifies should be a third of academic staff where research degrees are offered). If you are applying for full DAPs you need to send OfS a sample of external examiner reports.

In the white paper it is suggested that government is not convinced of the value of external examination – here’s the charge sheet:
- We will consider the extent to which recent patterns of improving grades can be explained by an erosion of standards, rather than improved teaching or assessment practices
- We will also continue to build the evidence base on the effectiveness or otherwise of the external examining system, which we will feed into the Office for Students’ programme for reform
- We will also seek employers’ views about whether the academic system is giving graduates the skills and knowledge they need for the workplace.
Of course, this sails worryingly close to devolved issues, as the external examiner infrastructure extends far beyond England: it is a requirement, supported by the sector, in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. External examiners do not often have any input into awarded degree classifications (that’s degree algorithms that are set internally by providers) so are not particularly likely to be a determining factor in more people getting a first.

Indeed, the sector came together (back in 2022) to publish a set of External Examining Principles which exist as an annex to the statement of intent on degree classifications that forms a part of the OfS’s “sector-recognised standards.” It’s a good read for anyone who does not have a full understanding of the role of external examiners, both within institutional processes and those of the many professional, statutory, and regulatory bodies (PSRBs).

This isn’t yet at the point of a consultation, just work the Office for Students is doing to update the process – a body of work that will also establish the concept and process of granting Higher Technical Qualification awarding powers. But we should watch some of the language around the next release of the OfS’ monitoring work on grade inflation – especially as the 2022 insight brief highlighted UUK work to strengthen the external examiner system as a key tool to address the issue.

Other new responsibilities

White papers generally try to make changes to the provision of applicant information – we have the 2004 white paper to thank for what is now known as Discover Uni, and the 2015 white paper put forward a simple precious metals based system that we have come to love as the Teaching Excellence Framework. Thankfully this time round it is a matter of incorporating Discover Uni style data onto UCAS course pages (which, and honestly I’m sorry to keep doing this) you can already find in a “student outcomes” section operated by the Office for Students. The white paper asks for continuation data to be added to this widget – I imagine not a huge piece of work.

It’s 2025, so every document has to mention what is popularly known as “artificial intelligence” and we more accurately describe as generative large language models. A few paragraphs tacked on to the end of the white paper ask OfS to assess the impact of such tools on assessments and qualifications – adding, almost in passing, that it expects that “all students will learn about artificial intelligence as part of their higher education experience”. In direct, but light-hearted I am sure, contravention of section 8 (a)(i) of HERA, which says that providers are free to determine the content of courses.

Which brings us to Progress 8 – a measure used in schools policy which adds together pupils’ highest scores from eight (hence the name I suppose) GCSEs that the government thinks are important (English and maths, plus “English Baccalaureate” subjects like: sciences, history, geography, languages) and produces a cohort average used to compare schools (here it is called “Attainment 8”) and compare average performance pupils in a given school cohort with how they did in simpler subjects at primary schools as a kind of value added measure (“Progress 8”). In other words, DfE looking in the white paper to work with OfS to build Progress 8 but for higher education is another stab at learning gain measures – something we’ve been investigating since the days of HEFCE and have never been shown to work on a national scale.

Trust and confidence

Regulation works via the consent of the regulated. Everyone from Universities UK down has been at pains to point out that they do see the value of higher education regulation, even if it was expressed in kind of a “more in sorrow than in anger” way at the primal therapy that was the House of Lords Industry and Regulator Committee.

But this agreement over value is determined by a perception that the actions of the regulator are fair, predictable, and proportionate. These qualities can be seen by inexperienced regulators as a block to speedy and decisive action, but the work OfS has done to reset what was initially a very fractious relationship with the sector (and associated bodies) suggests that the importance of consensual regulation is fully understood on Lime Kiln Close.

Every time the OfS gets, or asks for, new powers it affects the calculus of value to the sector. Here it is less a matter of new powers and more an issue of strengthening and extending existing powers (despite the occasionally confused language of the white paper). Everyone involved is surely aware that a strong power is a power that is perceived as fair – and is challengeable when it appears to be unfair. The occasional lawsuits OfS (and DfE) have faced have happened when someone is keen to do the right thing but has not gone about it in the right way.

The coming consultations – ahead of legislation and changes to the framework – need to be genuine listening exercises, even if this means adding the kind of nuance that slows things down, or reflecting on the powers OfS already has and looking for ways to improve their effective use.
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October 27, 2025
Canberra steps forward as ‘TAFE university’ – Campus Review

The University of Canberra will offer shorter courses to students who have completed a TAFE course in a bid to fast track tertiary harmonisation at the institution.

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October 26, 2025
Victorian inquiry into uni governance – Campus Review

Universities will face even more scrutiny in the coming months after a third government announced it will probe the governance and management of public higher education institutions.

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October 26, 2025
Giving students the microphone – Campus Review

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Martin BettsOctober 27, 2025Last Updated: October 27, 2025

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We asked 34 students from eight universities what they thought of higher education and what they would change. Their answers might surprise you.

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October 26, 2025
What to Know about NYC School Bus Companies’ Shutdown Threats – The 74

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New York City’s troubled yellow school bus system is in the spotlight once again, with threats of a service disruption and looming mass layoffs due to a contract dispute with the city.

The city’s largest school bus companies notified the state Department of Labor that they are preparing to shut down operations and lay off employees on Nov. 1 if they don’t receive a contract extension, the New York Post first reported Monday.

Lawmakers, advocates, and city officials immediately condemned the bus companies’ threat, with schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos calling the move “deeply upsetting and an act of bad faith.”

The timing of the bus company’s push, just before November’s mayoral election, for a five-year extension that would outlast the incoming mayor’s first term, “effectively bypassed the oversight of voters and elected officials who manage these vital services,” Aviles-Ramos said.

Mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani agreed, telling reporters at an unrelated Tuesday press conference that the oversight panel in charge of approving the contract “is right to not give in to the threats.”

The bus companies argue they have no choice because their temporary contract is expiring and they can no longer operate without a longer-term agreement.

The episode is the latest in a long history of conflicts over how to manage the sprawling yellow bus system, which relies on a patchwork of largely for-profit companies to ferry some 150,000 students across nearly 19,000 routes each day. All told, the city spent nearly $2 billion on school busing last year.

Parents and advocates hope this clash can draw renewed attention to problems in a system notorious for delayed and no-show buses, long rides without sufficient AC, and a lack of transparency.

“There’s this tug of war over the money,” said Sara Catalinotto, the executive director of the advocacy group Parents for Improving School Transportation. “But this is a service, and without it these kids are discriminated against.”

What’s the history behind these bus contracts?

The current dispute springs from a disagreement over how to handle the city’s “legacy” school bus contracts, which date back to the 1970s and are typically renewed every five years. They most recently expired in June.

In the months before the contracts expired, city Education Department officials signaled they were interested in rebidding the contracts, or soliciting offers from a new set of companies to more efficiently modernize buses, increase service, and strengthen sanctions for contract violations.

Simply renewing the existing contracts gives the city “far less negotiating ability … because we have to continue with this same set of vendors,” Emma Vadehra, the Education Department’s former deputy chancellor, told the City Council in May.

But city officials say they can’t move forward with rebidding without the option to offer something called the “Employee Protection Provision,” or EPP.

That protection — built into the legacy contracts for decades — ensures unionized bus workers laid off by one company are prioritized for hiring by other companies, at their existing wages. Drivers and union officials consider the provision a dealbreaker — and would almost certainly strike without it.

But city officials say a 2011 state court decision prohibits them from inserting EPP into new contracts if they rebid — and only allows them to keep EPP if they extend existing contracts. The only fix, city officials say, is changing state law — an effort that has so far stalled in Albany.

Without that state legislation, city officials faced a choice: inking another five-year extension or pushing for a shorter-term contract in the hopes state lawmakers quickly clear the way for a rebid.

Who is opposed to a five-year contract renewal?

While the city moved ahead with negotiations for a five-year extension, a growing number of advocates, parents, and lawmakers flooded meetings of the Panel for Educational Policy, or PEP — the body that approves Education Department contracts — to push for a shorter-term contract.

“Do not vote yes to extend for some long period of time,” said Christi Angel, a parent leader in District 75, which serves students with significant disabilities who disproportionately rely on busing, at the September PEP meeting. Roughly 43% of students who ride school buses have disabilities. “Don’t reward bad behavior,” Angel said. “This is a broken system.”

Their arguments quickly gained traction in the PEP, where multiple members expressed their opposition to a five-year extension at September’s meeting.

The panel is expected to vote on the five-year extension next month, after the mayoral election, said PEP Chair Greg Faulkner, though he would prefer to wait until the new mayor takes office in January.

“Shouldn’t the mayor-elect have some say in a billion dollar contract?” said Faulkner. “I just think that’s sound governance.”

Why are the city and bus companies at odds right now?

Over the summer, the city and bus companies agreed to two emergency extensions to keep service running, the second of which expires on Oct. 31.

Without a guarantee of an active contract after that date — since the PEP is not voting this month — the bus companies claim they have no choice but to consider layoffs.

The city, however, had “long planned” to offer an emergency extension for November and December, and officials delivered the agreement to the bus companies on Monday, Aviles-Ramos said.

The PEP only votes on those extensions after they’ve already taken effect, Faulkner noted.

The bus companies, he said, are attempting to “create confusion in order to hold us hostage for a longer term agreement.”

The bus companies reject that assertion and say they simply cannot survive any longer on emergency extensions, which don’t allow them the kind of long-term certainty they need to operate their businesses.

“Banks will not finance 30-day extensions, buses can’t be bought, payroll cannot be paid,” said Sean Crowley, a lawyer representing several companies. “Enough is enough!”

The companies claim that they have already worked out the contours of a new five-year contract extension with the city and are just awaiting the PEP’s approval, though Faulkner said the Education Department hasn’t yet presented the PEP with the contract.

What happens from here?

A spokesperson confirmed that several bus companies had received the city’s offer for another emergency contract extension and were reviewing the documents.

Aviles-Ramos said the city is working to get “alternative transportation services” in place if that falls through.

But even if the bus companies and city do manage to avoid a service shutdown Nov. 1, the episode raises larger questions about how to make lasting improvements in the troubled system. Ongoing driver shortages make that task even harder.

The bus companies argue that the five-year contract agreement they sketched out with the city would achieve many of those goals, including stricter accountability to ensure drivers use GPS tracking, more staffing to field parent complaints, and monetary penalties for companies that underperform, according to testimony submitted to the PEP in September.

But critics continue to push for a shorter-term extension to give the state legislature time to pass EPP legislation, and clear the way for a rebid.

Mamdani has not offered specifics about how he would manage the school bus system, but said Tuesday that given the many concerns about yellow bus service, any contract extension deserves a “hard look.”

Some reformers point to changes already underway. Under Mayor Bill de Blasio, the city bought out the largest bus company and turned it over to a nonprofit overseen by the city.

Matt Berlin, the CEO of that nonprofit, called NYCSBUS, and former director of the city’s Office of Pupil Transportation, believes the nonprofit model has “a lot to offer the city” and could expand.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

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October 26, 2025
TCU Dissolves Women and Gender Studies, Race and Ethnic Studies Departments

Texas Christian University Texas Christian University will shutter its women and gender studies department and comparative race and ethnic studies department at the end of this academic year, folding both programs into the English department in a move faculty members say reflects the institution’s response to political pressure.

The decision, announced earlier this month, comes as higher education institutions nationwide face mounting scrutiny over programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion—particularly those focusing on gender and race. TCU officials cited low enrollment as the primary rationale, though faculty members say the timing suggests otherwise.

Discussions about restructuring or renaming the departments began in February. Those conversations centered on how to address external pressure against anything perceived as related to DEI initiatives—pressure that has intensified since the Trump administration began efforts to eliminate such programs.

Faculty members report that university messaging has been inconsistent. Last spring, they were told the two departments would merge but could not include “race” or “gender” in the combined department’s name. By August, officials indicated the merged department could retain those terms. The October announcement revealed all three units would be absorbed into the English department, which will retain its original name.

University data shows undergraduate enrollment in both departments remains minimal this fall: two seniors are majoring in women and gender studies, while nine students major in comparative race and ethnic studies—five seniors, three juniors and one sophomore.

Women and gender studies at TCU traces its roots to 1979, when professors Jean Giles-Sims and Priscilla Tate began advocating for such a program. The university formally launched it in 1994. The comparative race and ethnic studies program emerged in 2017 amid student concerns about campus climate, with its founding director telling media the program would help foster cultural change and attract a more diverse student body.

In his email to English faculty, Provost Floyd Wormley Jr.said that the restructuring aims to “ensure a more efficient and effective use of faculty and administrative resources” while maintaining fiscal sustainability.

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October 26, 2025