Tag: access

Why High School Counselors Hold the Keys to College Access
Opening the door to college starts with a knock on the counselor’s office

Ask a student who their guide to college was, and the answer depends a lot on their background. For some—especially those from higher-income families or with college-educated parents—the process might not involve a school counselor at all. But for students without those built-in supports, counselors can be the critical link to higher education—if they’re able to get help.

The problem is, in many lower-income or rural schools, counselors are stretched so thin that some students never get the guidance they need. The numbers show just how vital counselor guidance can be for those who receive it—and how much is at stake when that support isn’t available.

The data is clear: counselors make the difference

According to the forthcoming 2025 E-Expectations report, 86% of students said they used information from their high school counselor during their college search, and 84% found that information helpful. That trend holds across every subgroup:
- First-generation students use and benefit from counselor information at nearly the same rate as their peers (86% used; 85% found it helpful).
- Regional differences are small: 87% of students in the West and Rocky Mountains found counselor info helpful, compared to 77% in the Great Lakes and Plains.
- By grade, even 9th graders tune in early: 82% use counselor advice, and 88% find it helpful.
Counselors are the thread running through the entire college-bound student experience. For those without a family roadmap, they’re often the only guide through applications, financial aid, and deadlines.

Colleges are paying attention

School budgets are shrinking. Counselors are juggling massive caseloads. But many colleges are stepping up—recognizing that if they want to reach students, especially the ones who need it most, they must reach counselors first.

From the latest 2025 Marketing and Recruitment Practices for Undergraduate Students survey:
- Private four-year colleges meeting one-on-one with counselors jumped from 78% in 2020 to 95% in 2024.
- Email outreach has grown significantly, with reported effectiveness rising in tandem.
- Counselor events (banquets, receptions, campus gatherings) are increasing, especially when they include regional data, student outcomes, and virtual access for rural areas.
It’s not just a private college trend. Two-year institutions, public universities, and regional schools are embracing relationship-based outreach as well. Direct mail and newsletters still play a role—but only when the content is timely and relevant.

Why this matters for equity and access

For first-gen, rural, and underserved students, counselors are often the only bridge to college. They’re the ones who demystify financial aid, flag key deadlines, and identify opportunities a student might otherwise miss.

When colleges make it easier for counselors to get the right info, they’re not just supporting professionals. They’re opening doors for the students who need it most.

A counselor who’s in the loop about your new rural student program or local scholarship can be the difference between a student applying and a student giving up.

What works: outreach strategies that matter

According to the 2025 Marketing and Recruitment Practices for Undergraduate Students, the most effective strategies aren’t flashy. They’re personal, relational, and respectful of counselors’ time. To make these strategies even more impactful, here are some key considerations:
- One-on-one meetings: Still the gold standard. Allow for tailored advice and honest feedback.
- Counselor events: High-impact when they offer data, PD, and virtual options.
- Relevant, timely communication: Share tools counselors can use—deadlines, program updates, student success stories.
- Listening and partnership: Institutions that win trust treat counselors as collaborators.
Recognize the role of early college programs in strengthening partnerships

In many communities, especially those served by community colleges, Early College (EC) programs create additional layers of partnership between high school counselors and college admissions offices. Some colleges employ dedicated EC counselors who work directly with high school students, while others rely heavily on high school guidance counselors to help students and families navigate EC benefits, processes, and policies. Admissions teams should ensure that their outreach strategies are coordinated not only with high school counselors but also with their institution’s EC staff. This helps avoid confusion and ensures clarity in messaging, especially regarding dual enrollment, direct admissions, and transition pathways. A unified approach strengthens the relationship with the high school and better supports students and families.

Thoughtfully manage counselor turnover to maintain continuity

Admissions offices often experience higher staff turnover compared to other departments, which can disrupt relationships built over time with high school partners. To sustain trust and continuity, new admissions counselors should intentionally acknowledge the existing relationship between the college and the high school when introducing themselves. If appropriate, referencing the name of the previous counselor or the date of the last visit provides context and reassurance that the institution values the ongoing partnership. This small gesture helps counselors feel recognized as key partners and makes the transition from one representative to another feel seamless, keeping the focus where it belongs: on supporting students in their college journey.

The bottom line

If your institution wants to reach students, especially those who need college planning guidance and help the most, start by valuing their counselors.

The data is clear. The student voices are loud. Counselors are the backbone of college access. Supporting them isn’t just good practice, it’s the smartest move you can make.

Don’t make counselors an afterthought. Make them the center of your strategy. The future of college access runs right through their office, so knock on their door and bring something valuable to the table.

To learn more about the most impactful enrollment and marketing strategies, download our report.
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May 15, 2025
How commuter students show up in new access and participation plans

When the Office for Students included commuter students in the Equality of Opportunity Risk Register (EORR), it recognised the risk that commuter students may not always get the same experience as their “traditional” residential peers.

The second wave of access and participation plans (APPs) for 2025–26 to 2028–29 have slowly been published and in the wake of the EORR’s inclusion of commuter students, we’ve got a better sense of the steps providers are taking to make the experience more equitable.

Taking Universities UK’s member list as the sample and searching variations of the phrase “commuting student” in the currently available wave two APPs, 44 out of 81 APPs (at the time of writing) referred to commuter students in some form.

Sometimes this was a simple statement of demographics, for example, “over 86 per cent are commuters,” or a statement of intention – “increase… work with commuting and mature students.” Other plans detailed comprehensive work to reduce inequities with various interventions, projects and additional research to undertake.

Some plans referred to commuters broadly in a literature review but did not link this to their local contexts, and as such were not included in our analysis.

Definitions

As part of our ongoing series about commuter students, convened with Susan Kenyon at Canterbury Christ Church University, one challenge when discussing support for commuters is working out if everyone is talking about the same thing.

The EORR sets out that commuter students referred to students “based on the distance or time [students] take to travel from their accommodation to their place of study” – but it then goes on to note there are many definitions, referencing both time and distance and the fact of not having re-located for university.

In the absence of a sector-wide definition, providers have had to work this out themselves.

The majority of plans that referenced a definition identified commuters as students whose home address matches their term time address, who had been recruited locally or still lived in their family home. Some plans used a distance to identify commuters, for example 15+ miles into their main campus base. When using distance as a criteria it opens up the possibility of a commuting student also being a student who has relocated to university but lives further away due to cost and housing pressures.

As we’ve seen earlier in the series, there are differences in the experience based on those who chose to commute versus those who do so out of necessity.

St Mary’s University in Twickenham explored using the Office of the National Statistics’ Travel to Work Areas maps to define commuters and setting an average travel time of 15 minutes or more (using public transport) from a term time address. They explicitly noted they had investigated the impact of using different definitions of commuter students when analysing student outcomes which led them to identifying commuters as their sixth risk category.

When identifying commuters in APPs, ten plans went into detail about the intersecting characteristics of this demographic of students. One provider noted that “commuter students are more likely to be Asian, black or from IMD Q1+2 than non- commuter students” – this is something Kulvinder Singh looked at earlier in the series. There were several links between the association of being a commuter and being from an underrepresented group such as a mature student, carer or from a geographical area of deprivation.

One provider interrogated whether being a commuting student was a direct factor on student outcome metrics and opted that it, in fact, coincided with other risk factors.

Mind the gap

For plans that had identified a risk to the commuter student experience, a brief thematic analysis suggests continuation, completion and student outcomes metrics were most prevalent in the sample followed by cost (and transport costs) and its subsequent impact on belonging.

A lack of flexible timetabling was highlighted several times as a structural challenge for commuting students and plans honed in on the preciousness of commuters’ time.

Bridging the gap

Many universities plan to implement student centric timetables to tackle barriers to engagement and include plans to inform students as early as possible about scheduled classes. Flexible modes of learning, better communication methods and early timetables then further reduces peak-travel commuting costs, easing financial pressures.

A handful of universities offer pre-arrival events and bursaries, aimed at improving commuter student access. At Manchester Metropolitan University, for example, an introductory module to support students preparing for university was particularly valued by commuting students.

Interventions also emphasised the importance of space, with providers reviewing physical and virtual facilities, creating dedicated spaces to study and relax and improving the visibility of existing commuter spaces. The University of York’s APP suggested a provision of subsidised accommodation on campus to support commuters to engage in evening and social events.

Peer mentoring programmes, social prescribing, and the creation of commuter student networks are examples of belonging-based interventions. York St John University’s plan proposed social opportunities each month and drop-ins for commuters to be held as often as weekly on campus.

Many plans recognised a need to better understand the commuter student population. This often manifested as a commitment to engage or set up working groups and projects. Some providers viewed additional research as a first step toward supporting commuters, while others built on existing work and recognised that ongoing consultation offered the best way to deliver support.

As many of these plans have started to, counting commuters, recognising their experience is geographical and making them visible is the first step to service design with commuter students in mind. Our series has been exploring ways to support their experience through making space, pedagogy, data, shifting institutional thinking and transport agendas that may inspire providers ready to take the next step.

This blog is part of our series on commuter students. Click here to see the other articles in the series.

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May 14, 2025
NIH Speeds Up Implementation of New Public Access Policy

The National Institutes of Health is accelerating a Biden-era plan to make its research findings freely and quickly available to the public, the agency announced Wednesday.

The 2024 Public Access Policy was set to take effect Dec. 31, 2025, but will now take effect July 1 of this year. It updates the 2008 Public Access Policy, which allowed for a 12-month delay before research articles were required to be made publicly available. The 2024 policy removed the embargo period so that researchers, students and members of the public have rapid access to these findings, according to the announcement.

NIH director Jay Bhattacharya, who took over last month, said the move is aimed at continuing “to promote maximum transparency” and rebuilding public confidence in scientists, which has waned in recent years.

“Earlier implementation of the Public Access Policy will help increase public confidence in the research we fund while also ensuring that the investments made by taxpayers produce replicable, reproducible, and generalizable results that benefit all Americans,” Bhattacharya said in the memo. “Providing speedy public access to NIH-funded results is just one of the ways we are working to earn back the trust of the American people.”

Although the scientific research community is supportive of the policy itself, some are calling on the NIH to reinstate the original implementation date to give researchers time to effectively comply with this and other new agency regulations.

“This new effective date will impose extra burdens on researchers and their institutions to meet the deadline,” Matt Owens, president of COGR, which represents research institutions, said in a statement Wednesday. “Ironically, at the same time NIH is accelerating implementation of this policy, the agency is adding new burdensome certification and financial reporting requirements for grant recipients. This runs counter to the administration’s efforts to reduce regulations.”

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May 2, 2025
AmeriCorps Cuts Force College Access Groups to Reduce Staff

Brianne Dolney-Jacobs has spent the last year advising high school seniors in Bay City, Mich., on their options after graduation.

She met with 96 percent of the seniors at least once to talk about college applications, financial aid options, standardized tests and more. In doing so, she helped nearly 30 students access a countywide scholarship, up from under 10 in the previous year.

But now, she’s one of 32,000 people affected by sweeping cuts to AmeriCorps, a federal agency focused on service and volunteerism across the United States. At least 100 college-access groups, including the Michigan College Access Network, where Dolney-Jacobs works, rely on AmeriCorps funding or members to make the college application process more accessible to high school students, especially those in low-income areas and at schools with low rates of college attendance.

MCAN lost its grant funding this week and was ordered to cease all AmeriCorps work immediately, though the organization was able to use its own funds to buy staff members an extra month. Dolney-Jacobs will now wrap up her time at the high school at the end of May; she was supposed to stay on through late June.

Without someone in her position, Dolney-Jacobs told Inside Higher Ed, there is no one at her school who would have the bandwidth to meet with individual students as they navigate the college application process. Many students would never have heard about different scholarships that are available to them or know that community college—including both an associate’s degree and some trade certifications—is free for recent high school graduates in Michigan.

When her students heard that her position had been impacted, a group brought flowers to her office.

“They told me, ‘you are the Class of 2025’s hero,’” she recounted. “And I was just bawling.”

The National College Attainment Network, the association for MCAN and other similar organizations, is still taking stock of how many of its members have been impacted, said Elizabeth Morgan, NCAN’s chief external relations officer. But damage has been widespread.

“I think it’s safe to say probably our members that use AmeriCorps are serving hundreds of thousands of students across the country,” Morgan said. “They are devastated by this news for a couple of reasons: The students they are supporting right now, many are high school seniors who are just weeding through their [college] decision-making process … [and] the AmeriCorps members are being thrown out of work months early.”

A total of $400 million in AmeriCorps grants were axed, according to America’s Service Commission, a nonprofit that represents state and national service commissions, including funding for food pantries and disaster relief programs in areas impacted by recent natural disasters. The majority of AmeriCorps’ staff was also put on administrative leave in mid-April.

It’s just one of the many agencies that have faced funding cuts and grant cancellations as part of the Trump administration’s war on government spending. Its defenders say that the agency, which pays modest stipends to its members, is anything but wasteful: It provides both vital supports for American communities and professional development training to its members, all for a low price tag.

“I don’t believe Washington is really in tune to what is going on in the local communities,” said Grady Holmes, who works with a different MCAN AmeriCorps program that provides college success coaching to community college and tribal college students. “This is a program that is not government waste. It basically assists the government in making sure their productive citizens are being moved toward self-sufficiency and obtaining a college degree … When the powers that be decided this is wasteful spending—they don’t understand AmeriCorps.”

Twenty-four states sued the Trump administration over the cuts, calling the dismantling of the agency, which was created by Congress in 1993, “unauthorized.”

Advisers’ Impacts

MCAN is facing cuts to two student-facing programs: AdviseMI, which is focused on college readiness for high schoolers, and the College Completion Corps, which is geared toward students at tribal and community colleges. Both rely on AmeriCorps grants and are staffed by AmeriCorps members, who work in yearlong service positions in exchange for stipends and educational awards that can cover current educational expenses or pay off student loans. The organization employs over 100 AmeriCorps members across both programs.

Both programs have been successful, MCAN leaders say. In the 2023–24 academic year, students supported by AdviseMI advisers submitted 21,420 college applications and were awarded more than $32 million in financial aid.

The advisers “often interact with parents, as well, to help parents understand the role of FAFSA and help parents understand what’s happening with their student,” said Ryan Fewins-Bliss, the organization’s executive director. “And [they] engage the school in what we hope to be a schoolwide college-going culture … so when the juniors become seniors, they’re ready for this.”

After MCAN learned Friday night that it lost one of its AmeriCorps grants, the organization spent the weekend trying figure out how it could keep its AmeriCorps staff on board if the rest of the grants were also canceled. (In total, MCAN lost $2.1 million in AmeriCorps funds.)

Come Monday, MCAN found out its remaining grants, including funding for AdviseMI and College Completion Corps, were indeed cancelled, and that it had to stop operating those programs immediately. MCAN was able to find funding in the budget to continue those programs for an extra month, but the future beyond then is uncertain.

Other organizations had to lay off their AmeriCorps members entirely. Partnership 4 Kids, a Nebraska-based organization that works with students from prekindergarten through college, had two full-time AmeriCorps fellows working with high school seniors and three fellows working directly with college students. All five had to stop working Friday, immediately after P4K received word that its grants had been terminated.

“These two in the high schools had great relationships with their students. They were doing one-on-one case management; they were the driving force [behind] college applications, scholarship applications, helping students overcome barriers they might have, and really to get them to that finish line to graduate,” P4K president Deb Denbeck said.

This year, 97 percent of P4K’s senior cohort graduated and 80 percent of them are going to college—an impressive feat in a state where the college-going rate for high school graduates has been on the decline.

‘Brings Out the Best in People’

AmeriCorps members have worked in high schools as college advisers for at least two decades, starting with the College Advising Corps, an organization that began in Virginia and has since expanded to 15 states. It’s a model that college-access leaders say has been incredibly effective, helping thousands of students go to college and boosting the careers of the advisers.

It’s also been embraced by politicians on both sides of the aisle, according to Nicole Hurd, who founded the CAC and is now president of Lafayette College.

AmeriCorps members are a natural fit for college-readiness work, these leaders say. Because many are recent college graduates, they can remember what it was like to be in the high schoolers’ shoes, making it easy for them to empathize with and respond to the challenges their students are facing. The college adviser positions are relatively easy to train, meaning individuals from any background can take on these roles.

But perhaps most importantly, leaders of college-access nonprofits feel AmeriCorps’ long-standing ethos of volunteerism aligns perfectly with their missions to bring educational opportunity to all.

“AmeriCorps brings out the best in people, and it gives them an opportunity to learn as well—to learn how to be professionals in their field,” said Denbeck. “When you look at everything that AmeriCorps does, whether it’s working in education or mentoring or agriculture or disaster relief, they’re doing it because of their heart.”

The impacted organizations doubt they’ll be able to rely on AmeriCorps going forward. For now, they’re working to figure out how to continue their work and where they might get the funding necessary to deploy college advisers into the communities that need them most.

“In the future, it’s safe to say that there are countless students that won’t attend college because they’re not getting this kind of support,” Morgan said.

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May 2, 2025
Colleges, Students Prefer Inclusive Access Models for Books

College affordability is one of the chief concerns of students, families, taxpayers and lawmakers in the U.S., and it extends beyond tuition prices.

Costly course materials can impede student access and success in the classroom. Over half of college students say the high price of course materials has pushed them to enroll in fewer classes or opt out of a specific course, according to a 2023 survey.

A new report from Tyton Partners, published today, finds that affordable-access programs that provide necessary materials can save students money and improve their outcomes. The report pulls data from surveys of students, administrators and faculty, as well as market research on the topic.

The background: Affordable-access programs, also called inclusive-access programs, bill students directly for their textbooks as part of their tuition and fees. Through negotiations among publishers, institutions and campus bookstores, students pay a below-market rate for their course materials, which are often digital.

This model ensures all students start the term with access to the required textbooks and course materials, allowing them to apply financial aid to textbook costs, which removes out-of-pocket expenses at the start of the term. A 2023 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed found that over half of respondents have avoided buying or renting a book for class due to costs.

The first federal regulations for affordable-access programs were set in 2015 to help cap course material costs and spur utilization of inclusive access on campuses. In 2024, the Biden administration sought to redefine inclusive access by making models opt-in to provide students with greater autonomy, but the plan was ultimately paused. Most colleges have an opt-out model of affordable-access programs, requiring students to elect to be removed, according to Tyton’s report.

Critics of affordable-access programs argue that an across-the-board rate eliminates students’ ability to employ their own cost-saving methods, such as buying books secondhand or using open educational resources. Students often lose access to digital resources at the end of the term, limiting their ability to reuse or reference them.

Findings from Tyton Partners’ research point to the value of day-one course materials for student success, which can be provided through opt-out inclusive-access models.

The report: Affordable-access programs are tied to lower costs for participating students, according to the report. The average digital list price for course materials per class was $91, but the average price for course materials for students in an inclusive-access program was $58 per class. (A 2023 survey found the average student spent about $285 on course materials in the 2022–23 academic year, or roughly $33 per item.)

Opt-out affordable-access models have also placed downward pricing pressure on the market; the compound annual growth rate of course materials declined from 6.1 percent to 0.3 percent since the 2015 ED regulations.

A student survey by Tyton found that 61 percent of respondents favor affordable-access models compared to buying (13 percent), renting (11 percent) or borrowing (10 percent) course materials.

Another Angle

The Tyton Partners report identifies opt-out affordable access as one intervention that can ensure all students have access to course materials on day one, which is tied to better student outcomes.

Open educational resources, which are not mentioned in the report, are another method of ensuring students have access to digital course materials at the start of the term at no additional cost to the student.

Among students participating in inclusive access, 84 percent said they felt satisfied or neutral about their user experience, according to a survey by the National Association of College Stores. Students who had a positive view of inclusive access cited the convenience of not shopping for materials (80 percent), day-one access (78 percent) and knowing all their course materials are correct (71 percent) as the top benefits.

Among colleges that do offer inclusive access, those with opt-out models see higher student participation than those with opt-in models (96 percent versus 36 percent, respectively). Administrators report that some students, especially first-year and first-generation students, are less likely to engage in opt-in models and may then struggle because they lack the required materials, which researchers argue enables gaps to persist in student outcomes.

Researchers compared two community colleges and found that students who participated in an opt-out equitable-access program had higher course completion and lower withdrawal rates, compared to their peers who opted in. Learners from underrepresented minority backgrounds, including Black and multiracial students, saw greater gains as well.

While a majority of students indicated a preference for inclusive-access models, it’s still paramount that institutions help students fully understand the benefits of participation and offer them seamless opportunities to opt out, according to Tyton’s report.

After adopting inclusive access, institutions were likely to increase offerings and expand the number of courses within the model. A majority of surveyed faculty members (75 percent) said their institution should maintain or increase affordable-access model usage.

Report authors noted a higher administrative burden in an opt-in model, because costs are applied and resources given to each individual student who opts in, rather than simply removing students who opt out. “Since no technology currently automates the opt-in process, most institutions would need to expand their academic affairs, faculty affairs and information technology teams to handle the increased workload under opt-in models,” according to the report.

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April 28, 2025
Access and participation is a political question

The question of how we drive access to and participation in higher education among non-traditional groups is intimately linked to the broader question of why we are doing it.

Accordingly, there are different approaches across the UK. Whereas in the English system the focus is on outreach (partnerships between universities and schools), in Scotland and Wales there is a lot more interest in measuring and shaping university recruitment from underrepresented groups.

From a purely instrumental perspective there is clearly value in doing both. It is entirely possible that universities and schools could be doing more to encourage able young people to consider universities, and that there are barriers and complexities within the admissions and recruitment process (not to mention the financial, social, and academic challenges of being a student once you get in) that could be usefully addressed.

The politics of why different approaches have emerged in different places are fascinating. At first though, you might think that a right-of-centre approach would be tied in with the economic benefits of maximising workforce skills and a left-of-centre ideology might be considering utility beyond income generation. Or – for that matter – that the right would foster individual aspirations with the left focused on societal needs.

But it actually seems to come down to how you think people become intelligent.

Hardwired

In his recent book Hayek’s Bastards, Quinn Slobodian characterises the world view of what we might loosely call the postmodern right as “hard borders, hard money, and hardwired human nature”. It’s clearly a politics of status anxiety – but more specifically it has a bearing on higher education policy.

By “hardwired human nature”, Slobodian is pointing towards something that – at one outer extreme – underpins the confusing resurgence of beliefs in eugenics. These are beliefs in the primacy of nature (your genetic heritage) over nurture (the conditions under which you matured) in developing personal attributes, some of which may be described as “intelligence”. Actual scientists tend to agree that both nature and nurture are likely to have a bearing on your life chances, and empirical evidence tends to back this up. But this comes with a huge asterisk, in that it is very difficult to unpick the two experimentally or with any degree of accuracy.

If your personal viewpoint tends towards nature, it makes sense to argue that too many people are going to university in that there will be some people that will “naturally” not be able to benefit from the experience. You could point to a declining graduate premium (the “extra money” a graduate will earn over the course of their life) or a lower proportion of graduates working in “graduate jobs” if you wanted evidence that we are currently educating people to degree level who are not able to benefit from it.

That’s not to say that such evidence is compelling – a sustained and welcome rise in the value of the national minimum wage and rapid changes in the kinds of jobs graduates (and everyone else, for that matter) do offer a counternarrative that sees such “declines” as evidence of a more equitable society and the value of jobs beyond salary or personal benefit.

Tell them that it’s human nature

As a sector that is explicitly setting out to improve the skills and life chances of young people, most people working in education tend to lean towards nurture as the major contributing factor to observed intelligence. From this position stems any number of initiatives that aim to make university study accessible, livable, and achievable to people who would not have otherwise gotten involved. If anyone can benefit from university education, surely the right thing to do is to help them.

From a nature perspective this all looks very odd. Sure, there may be some people who don’t usually go to university that might benefit from such schemes – but applications are merit based anyway. You get in by getting good grades, or interviewing well, or having a good portfolio. When we start flexing these requirements, don’t we devalue the entire experience? Isn’t higher education what we need to be offering the top end of an intelligence hierarchy?

This might also have to do with the quality of our tools. How confident can we be that the tests we have are indicative either of innate talent or the potential to benefit from education? Indeed, there is cause to wonder whether intelligence itself is measurable (IQ tests being a superb measure of a person’s ability to complete IQ tests, A levels being a great indicator of how middle class your background is).

If we think our standard entry requirements are perfect, the focus should be on supporting people (both in terms of capability and aspiration) to achieve these before they apply to university. Indeed, recent English system efforts in widening participation have focused on programmes that do things like this (schools partnerships for example) rather than contextual admissions (where students from particular backgrounds are given different entry requirements reflecting their life chances thus far).

Other peoples children

Politically, contextual admissions are controversial because of where they sit on the nature and nurture spectrum. They explicitly recognise the difficulties that some groups face in achieving the standard requirements, and modify these requirements (alongside offering additional support).

The pushback on this seems to me to be because of the perception that university education – or education at certain kinds of university – is a scarce resource (perhaps it once was, but the last few UCAS cycles suggest otherwise). If people who do not hold traditional entry qualifications are allowed to enter universities, it stands to reason that others that do hold the qualifications may not be able to.

So we are back to status anxiety, in that the perception is that some young people who would otherwise be almost guaranteed access to a prestigious university may no longer have such access, and the addition of students with other backgrounds will change the experience (in academic, or – frankly – social ways) for the traditional students that do get there.

I say “perception” because in the main the expansion of many high tariff universities has been such that the idea of anyone with the right grades being unable to get in is not the threat that it once was. Again, to be blunt, there always will be people disappointed and confused about not getting into Cambridge, Oxford, medical school, or the more selective conservatoires.

The recent Universities UK and Sutton Trust statement on contextual admissions is about clarifying and documenting practices and processes – both to help those who may benefit access what schemes exist, and to reassure those with concerns about the validity of such programmes. It won’t assuage all the concerns, but shedding light on the issue can only help. Of course, for some the mere existence of such schemes – or any suspicion that universities should be encouraged to run them – will be anathema.

Enough?

The elephant in this particular room is, of course, the capacity of the economy to absorb graduates. I’ve often heard it argued that there are simply too many graduates – both in terms of how this “crowds out” the benefits of being a graduate in the job market, and in terms of whether we really need all those graduates to do the jobs they are doing.

For me, this reaches across to the hard borders end of modern right-wing political thought. If you think lots of people in online newspaper comment sections are upset about too many graduates, just ask them about how many immigrants we have! We import a vast number of graduates from overseas (and, indeed, overseas students) in order for them to take on graduate roles in the UK economy. NHS staff are the obvious example, but there are demands everywhere – from heavy engineering to biosciences, from the creative industries to staff working in professional sports.

And a highly skilled workforce is a more productive, and thus more valuable, workforce. The economics are clear.

There are wider benefits too. Graduates tend to be healthier and happier, meaning less pressure on public services. They disproportionally work in public services that benefit us all. They are more likely to develop high value innovations and scientific breakthroughs. More likely to start successful companies that employ others. They are generally paid more – so they spend more. They raise the value of property and businesses in their locality. They commit less crime.

Employers, then, are generally pretty keen on access to graduates. Policy makers, and the rest of us, probably should be too. The choice appears to be more UK people going to university or more immigration – the meaningful policy conversation becomes around what people study when they get there.

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April 26, 2025
Michigan promotes college access and skills training for men

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Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed an executive directive that instructs education and labor state agencies to actively reach out to men and inform them about tuition-free opportunities for college and skills training, according to an April 10 announcement from the governor’s office.

The directive is aimed at closing gender gaps in education and supporting Whitmer’s Sixty by 30 goal to increase the percentage of Michiganders with a post-secondary degree or certificate to 60% by 2030.

“Here in Michigan, we have been working hard to reduce costs and make it easier for folks to achieve their goals. But too many men don’t have the resources they need to succeed,” Whitmer said in a statement. “That’s why I’m proud to sign this executive order that will ensure more Michiganders are aware of and can access key programs that will lower the cost of education, ensuring more men can get a good paying job and put more money back in their pockets.”

Nationally, men are falling behind in education and employment, according to Whitmer’s office. Compared to 2004, the labor force participation rate for young men is 700,000 short.

Although most job growth has occurred in sectors where workers have degrees or training, undergraduate enrollment for men dropped by 10% in 2021. While about 55% of women nationwide hold an associate’s degree or higher, only 44% of men have reached the same level.

In addition, 45,000 fewer boys graduate high school each year, as compared to girls. Boys’ literacy rates are also falling, and boys make up about two-thirds of the bottom 10% of students.

Whitmer’s directive instructs the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement and Potential and the Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity to review programming related to job training and post-secondary education, with an aim to lower costs for education and open up more job opportunities.

Although men in the U.S. still earn more than women on average, young women now earn the same as or more than their male peers in 22 of 250 metro areas, according to a 2022 analysis by the Pew Research Center. The narrowing of the gender gap is tied in part to younger women outpacing men in college graduation, Pew said.

Other factors play a role as well. Prescription opioids, for instance, could account for 44% of the national decrease in men’s labor force participation between 2001 and 2015, according to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Optimizing health benefits to serve employees’ needs can help.

Creating effective learning and development programs can help as well, particularly executive-style training for all employees, according to a CYPHER Learning report. Flexible, engaging options can attract and retain talent, particularly if L&D opportunities match workers’ interests, enhance their skills and advance their careers, the report found.

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April 25, 2025
The Dismantling of ERIC and the Erosion of Educational Access

When teachers search for help with lesson plans, parents look for answers on school policies, or researchers dig into the roots of America’s education system, many unknowingly rely on a public treasure: ERIC, the Education Resources Information Center. Behind nearly every meaningful Google result about U.S. education lies this carefully curated public database, an open-access archive of more than 2.1 million education documents funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

But this essential public good—free, accessible, nonpartisan—is now on the chopping block.

Unless something changes in the coming days, ERIC will stop being updated after April 23, marking the end of a 60-year-old institution that has helped educators, researchers, and policymakers base decisions on evidence, not ideology. The shutdown is not the result of budget shortfalls or Congressional gridlock. It’s a deliberate act of sabotage by the Trump administration, hiding behind the bland bureaucratic label of “efficiency.”

Dismantling by Design

ERIC has been a mainstay of U.S. education since the 1960s, originally distributed on microfiche and now operating as a seamless, open-access website used by 14 million people each year. Think of it as the education world’s PubMed—a foundational, publicly funded resource that supports millions of decisions in classrooms and boardrooms alike.

The platform is funded through a five-year contract set to run through 2028. But that contract is now functionally dead thanks to DOGE, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, a newly created unit within the Trump Department of Education. Though Congress authorized the money, DOGE has refused to release it, effectively forcing ERIC into paralysis.

“After 60 years of gathering hard-to-find education literature and sharing it broadly, the website could stop being updated,” said Erin Pollard Young, the longtime Education Department staffer who oversaw ERIC until she was terminated in a mass layoff of more than 1,300 federal education employees in March.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t just about saving a database. This is about obliterating public access to knowledge—especially knowledge that challenges right-wing narratives about education in America.

The Anti-Intellectual Playbook

This is not an isolated incident. The Trump administration’s hostility toward public institutions, academic research, and intellectual labor has been a central feature of its governance. From banning diversity training to rewriting U.S. history standards, this White House has repeatedly attacked education systems that promote nuance, evidence, or inclusion.

ERIC is now the latest victim in a broader war on independent knowledge. It doesn’t just house peer-reviewed journal articles. It archives what’s known as gray literature—unpublished reports, independent studies, and school district evaluations that are often the only public record of how education really works in practice. These materials often tell inconvenient truths: about inequality, segregation, charter school corruption, and failed policies pushed by corporate reformers.

“Big, important RCTs [randomized controlled trials] are in white papers,” said Pollard Young. “Google and AI can’t replicate what ERIC does.”

But gray literature doesn’t fit neatly into Trumpworld’s political project. It can’t be weaponized into culture war talking points. And perhaps that’s why it’s being buried.

Defunding the Backbone of Evidence

Before being fired, Pollard Young was ordered by DOGE to cut ERIC’s budget nearly in half—from $5.5 million to $2.25 million—a demand she tried to meet, despite knowing the consequences. Forty-five percent of journals would have been removed from the indexing pipeline. The help desk would vanish. Pollard Young herself agreed to take over publisher outreach from contractors to keep the program alive.

Her plan was rejected with a single email in all caps: “THIS IS NOT APPROVED.” Then, silence.

“Without constant curation and updating, so much information will be lost,” she warned. And with her termination, ERIC has no federal steward left.

Make no mistake—ERIC is being suffocated, not because it failed, but because it succeeded too well. It made knowledge available to anyone with an internet connection. And for an administration that thrives on disinformation and division, that’s a threat.

Who Pays the Price?

Educators, researchers, and school leaders will lose the most. But the real tragedy is what this means for public education as a democratic institution. When vital information disappears or becomes inaccessible, it opens the door to policy based on myth and ideology, not reality.

“Defunding ERIC would limit public access to critical education research, hindering evidence-based practices and informed policy decisions,” said Gladys Cruz, past president of the AASA, The School Superintendents Association.

The Department of Education responded not with a defense of ERIC, but with a political attack on its parent agency, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). A spokesperson claimed IES has “failed to effectively fulfill its mandate,” echoing the administration’s now-familiar strategy: discredit the institution, defund it, then destroy it.

An Urgent Call to Action

Pollard Young, who is still technically on administrative leave, has chosen to speak out, risking retaliation from a vindictive administration to warn the public.

“To me, it is important for the field to know that I am doing everything in my power to save ERIC,” she said. “And also for the country to understand what is happening.”

We should listen.

ERIC is more than a database—it’s a record of our educational history, a safeguard against ignorance, and a tool for building a more equitable future. Killing it isn’t just reckless. It’s ideological.

This is what authoritarianism looks like in the 21st century. Not just book bans and curriculum gag orders, but the slow, quiet erasure of public knowledge—done in the name of “efficiency,” while the lights go out on truth.

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April 22, 2025
Half of Colleges Don’t Grant Students Access to Gen AI Tools

Transformative. Disruptive. Game-changing. That’s how many experts continue to refer, without hyperbole, to generative AI’s impact on higher education. Yet more than two years after generative AI went mainstream, half of chief technology officers report that their college or university isn’t granting students institutional access to generative AI tools, which are often gratis and more sophisticated and secure than what’s otherwise available to students. That’s according to Inside Higher Ed’s forthcoming annual Survey of Campus Chief Technology/Information Officers with Hanover Research.

There remains some significant—and important—skepticism in academe about generative AI’s potential for pedagogical (and societal) good. But with a growing number of institutions launching key AI initiatives underpinned by student access to generative AI tools, and increasing student and employer expectations around AI literacy, student generative AI access has mounting implications for digital equity and workforce readiness. And according to Inside Higher Ed’s survey, cost is the No. 1 barrier to granting access, ahead of lack of need and even ethical concerns.

Ravi Pendse, who reviewed the findings for Inside Higher Ed and serves as vice president for information technology and chief information officer at the University of Michigan, a leader in granting students access to generative AI tools, wasn’t surprised by the results. But he noted that AI prompting costs, typically measured in units called tokens, have fallen sharply over time. Generative AI models, including open-source large language models, have proliferated over the same period, meaning that institutions have increasing—and increasingly less expensive—options for providing students access to tools.

‘Paralyzed’ by Costs

“Sometimes we get paralyzed by, ‘I don’t have resources, or there’s no way I can do this,’ and that’s where people need to just lean in,” Pendse said. “I want to implore all leaders and colleagues to step up and focus on what’s possible, and let human creativity get us there.”

According to the survey—which asked 108 CTOs at two- and four-year colleges, public and private nonprofit, much more about AI, digital transformation, online learning and other key topics—institutional approaches to student generative AI access vary. (The full survey findings will be released next month.)

Some 27 percent of CTOs said their college or university offers students generative AI access through an institutionwide license, with CTOs at public nonprofit institutions especially likely to say this. Another 13 percent of all CTOs reported student access to generative AI tools is limited to specific programs or departments, with this subgroup made up entirely of private nonprofit CTOs. And 5 percent of the sample reported that students at their institution have access to a custom-built generative AI tool.

Among community college CTOs specifically (n=22), 36 percent said that students have access to generative AI tools, all through an institutionwide license.

Roughly half of institutions represented do not offer student access to generative AI tools. Some 36 percent of CTOs reported that their college doesn’t offer access but is considering doing so, while 15 percent said that their institution doesn’t offer access and is not considering it.

Of those CTOs who reported some kind of student access to generative AI and answered a corresponding question about how they pay for it (n=45), half said associated costs are covered by their central IT budget; most of these are public institution CTOs. Another quarter said there are no associated costs. Most of the rest of this group indicated that funding comes from individual departments. Almost no one said costs are passed on to students, such as through fees.

Among CTOs from institutions that don’t provide student access who responded to a corresponding question about why not (n=51), the top-cited barrier from a list of possibilities was costs. Ethical concerns, such as those around potential misuse and academic integrity, factored in, as well, followed by concerns about data privacy and/or security. Fewer said there is no need or insufficient technical expertise to manage implementation.

“I very, very strongly feel that every student that graduates from any institution of higher education must have at least one core course in AI, or significant exposure to these tools. And if we’re not doing that, I believe that we are doing a disservice to our students,” Pendse said. “As a nation we need to be prepared, which means we as educators have a responsibility. We need to step up and not get bogged down by cost, because there are always solutions available. Michigan welcomes the opportunity to partner with any institution out there and provide them guidance, all our lessons learned.”

The Case for Institutional Access

But do students really need their institutions to provide access to generative AI tools, given that rapid advances in AI technology also have led to fewer limitations on free, individual-level access to products such as ChatGPT, which many students have and can continue to use on their own?

Experts such as Sidney Fernandes, vice president and CIO of the University of South Florida, which offers all students, faculty and staff access to Microsoft Copilot, say yes. One reason: privacy and security concerns. USF users of Copilot Chat use the tool in a secure, encrypted environment to maintain data privacy. And the data users share within USF’s Copilot enterprise functions—which support workflows and innovation—also remains within the institution and is not used to train AI models.

There’s no guarantee, of course, that students with secure, institutional generative AI accounts will use only them. But at USF and beyond, account rollouts are typically accompanied by basic training efforts—another plus for AI literacy and engagement.

“When we offer guidance on how to use the profiles, we’ve said, ‘If you’re using the commercially available chat bots, those are the equivalent of being on social media. Anything you post there could be used for whatever reason, so be very careful,” Fernandes told Inside Higher Ed.

In Inside Higher Ed’s survey, CTOs who reported student access to generative AI tools by some means were no more likely than the group over all to feel highly confident in their institution’s cybersecurity practices—although CTOs as a group may have reason to worry about students and cybersecurity generally: Just 26 percent reported their institution requires student training in cybersecurity.

Colleges can also grant students access to tools that are much more powerful than freely available and otherwise prompt-limited chat bots, as well as tools that are more integrated into other university platforms and resources. Michigan, for instance, offers students access to an AI assistant and another conversational AI tool, plus a separate tool that can be trained on a custom dataset. Access to a more advanced and flexible tool kit for those who require full control over their AI environments and models is available by request.

Responsive AI and the Role of Big Tech

Another reason for institutions to lead on student access to generative AI tools is cultural responsiveness, as AI tools reflect the data they’re trained on, and human biases often are baked into that data. Muhsinah Morris, director of Metaverse programs at Morehouse College, which has various culturally responsive AI initiatives—such as those involving AI tutors that look like professors—said it “makes a lot of sense to not put your eggs in one basket and say that basket is going to be the one that you carry … But at the end of the day, it’s all about student wellness, 24-7, personalized support, making sure that students feel seen and heard in this landscape and developing skills in real time that are going to make them better.”

The stakes of generative AI in education, for digital equity and beyond, also implicate big tech companies whose generative AI models and bottom lines benefit from the knowledge flowing from colleges and universities. Big tech could therefore be doing much more to partner on free generative AI access with colleges and universities, and not just on the “2.0” and “3.0” models, Morris said.

“They have a responsibility to also pour back into the world,” she added. “They are not off the hook. As a matter of fact, I’m calling them to the carpet.”

Jenay Robert, senior researcher at Educause, noted that the organization’s 2025 AI Landscape Study: Into the Digital AI Divide found that more institutions are licensing AI tools than creating their own, across a variety of capabilities. She said digital equity is “certainly one of the biggest concerns when it comes to students’ access to generative AI tools.” Some 83 percent of respondents in that study said they were concerned about widening the digital divide as an AI-related risk. Yet most respondents were also optimistic about AI improving access to and accessibility of educational materials.

Of course, Robert added, “AI tools won’t contribute to any of these improvements if students can’t access the tools.” Respondents to the Educause landscape study from larger institutions were more likely those from smaller ones to report that their AI-related strategic planning includes increasing access to AI tools.

Inside Higher Ed’s survey also reveals a link between institution size and access, with student access to generative AI tools through an institutionwide license, especially, increasing with student population. But just 11 percent of CTOs reported that their institution has a comprehensive AI strategy.

Still, Robert cautioned that “access is only part of the equation here. If we want to avoid widening the digital equity divide, we also have to help students learn how to use the tools they have access to.”

In a telling data point from Educause’s 2025 Students and Technology Report, more than half of students reported that most or all of their instructors prohibit the use of generative AI.

Arizona State University, like Michigan, collaborated early on with OpenAI, but it has multiple vendor partners and grants student access to generative AI tools through an institutionwide license, through certain programs and custom-built tools. ASU closely follows generative AI consumption in a way that allows it to meet varied needs across the university in a cost-effective manner, as “the cost of one [generative AI] model versus another can vary dramatically,” said Kyle Bowen, deputy CIO.

“A large percentage of students make use of a moderate level of capability, but some students and faculty make use of more advanced capability,” he said. “So everybody having everything may not make sense. It may not be very cost-sustainable. Part of what we have to look at is what we would describe as consumption-based modeling—meaning we are putting in place the things that people need and will consume, not trying to speculate what the future will look like.”

That’s what even institutions with established student access are “wrestling with,” Bowen continued. “How do we provide that universal level of AI capability today while recognizing that that will evolve and change, and we have to be ready to have technology for the future, as well, right?”

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April 21, 2025
One Million Behind Bars Now Have Access to Academic Research Through JSTOR

In a significant development for educational access in correctional facilities, the JSTOR Access in Prison (JAIP) program has reached a remarkable milestone, now serving over one million incarcerated learners across the United States. This achievement represents a doubling of the program’s reach in just over a year.

The program, which provides incarcerated individuals with access to scholarly materials including academic journals, books, and research papers, crossed this threshold in December 2024. Two pivotal agreements helped fuel this expansion: a new partnership with the Federal Bureau of Prisons that introduced JSTOR to two federal facilities, and an expansion of an existing arrangement with the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation, and Reentry (ADCRR).

The ADCRR agreement is particularly noteworthy as it evolved from initially serving approximately 3,000 people enrolled in higher education programs to now reaching nearly 40,000 individuals in Arizona’s prison system, regardless of their educational enrollment status.

“People in prisons use JSTOR the same way as people on the outside,” said Stacy Burnett, senior manager for the Access in Prison program. She explained that while many users pursue structured educational goals like degrees and certificates, others engage in self-directed learning, highlighting the diverse educational needs being met.

The impact of this access extends far beyond traditional education. Users have reported that JSTOR has helped them build community connections, save money on research-related expenses, and gain new perspectives on their circumstances. In one remarkable case, research conducted through JSTOR led an incarcerated individual to request a health screening that ultimately saved that individual’s life.

Some users have even leveraged their research to draft legislation supporting prison reentry programs, with one such proposal currently under consideration in North Carolina’s legislature.

These success stories underscore the program’s value in developing academic research and analytical skills that can serve as important bridges to life after incarceration. “It’s a valuable reentry tool for civic engagement. It gets people to think more deeply,” Burnett explained.

Since 2019, the program has seen dramatic growth, supported by grants from the Mellon Foundation and the Ascendium Education Group. Today, more than 95% of U.S. state and federal prison facilities provide access to JSTOR, with the program active in 24 countries worldwide.

Building on this momentum, the JSTOR Access in Prison program has secured $800,000 in new funding commitments to support expansion into U.S. jails, which typically operate at local rather than state or federal levels.

Despite the impressive one million user milestone, Burnett emphasizes that this represents just half of the incarcerated population in the United States and only 10% of those incarcerated globally. ITHAKA, JSTOR’s parent organization, has stated its ambition to eventually make educational resources available to all incarcerated individuals worldwide.

As the program continues to grow, supporters add that it’s a powerful example of how access to educational resources can transform lives, even within the constraints of incarceration.

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March 14, 2025