Tag: align

Planning with Purpose: Designing Certificate Programs That Align with Market and Mission
Higher education is seeing a surge of interest in non-degree credentials. Learners are seeking faster, more affordable pathways to workforce advancement. Employers are increasingly open to (and in some cases requesting) alternatives to traditional degrees. And with new federal policy expanding Pell Grant eligibility to non-degree programs, institutions are feeling the urgency to act.

But not all certificate programs are created equal. And while the trend line is clear, the strategy behind how institutions respond is anything but. This moment presents an opportunity, but only for those willing to plan with purpose and set realistic expectations.

What’s driving demand for short-term credentials?

Recent data underscores a clear increase in interest:
- Undergraduate certificate enrollment grew 33% and graduate certificate enrollment grew 21% from Fall 2020 to Fall 2024, according to National Student Clearinghouse data.
- Google search volume for certificates has increased 19% from 2020 to 2025, according to Google Trends data.
Today’s learners are drawn to programs that offer accelerated timelines, reduced costs, and clear pathways to meaningful career outcomes. Many working adults are looking to upskill or pivot careers, and a certificate can be a more practical option than a full degree.

On the employer side, organizations want proof of skills and are increasingly willing to collaborate with institutions on curriculum design. In fact, according to a 2022 employer survey from Collegis and UPCEA, 68% of respondents said they would be interested in teaming up with an institution to develop non-degree credentials to benefit their workforce.

Certificates are a piece of the puzzle — not the whole strategy

Despite the interest, many institutions struggle to meet enrollment goals for certificate programs. Strong market trends do not automatically translate into high enrollment volume. The reality is that most certificates serve niche audiences and deliver modest numbers. When treated as stand-alone growth drivers, they often fall short.

The institutions that see the most strategic value from certificates do so by positioning them within a larger enrollment and academic ecosystem. For example, we’ve helped our partner institutions find success in using certificate interest as a marketing funnel to drive engagement in related master’s programs. Once a prospective student engages, enrollment teams can advise them on the best fit for their career goals, which, for some students, is enrolling in the full degree program.

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What a strategic certificate model looks like

A certificate program with purpose isn’t just a set of courses — it’s a product with clear value to both learners and the institution. Key elements of a strategic approach include:
1. Workforce alignment: Programs must be rooted in real-time labor market data. What skills are employers seeking? Which certifications are valued? Aligning with reputable industry certifications is a proven way to ensure relevance and employer recognition.
2. Accessibility: Pricing should reflect the certificate’s value relative to degree programs, and eligibility for financial aid must be prioritized. Lack of aid is a significant barrier to enrollment for many prospective learners.
3. Laddering and stackability: Certificates should not be terminal unless intentionally designed that way. They should stack into larger degree pathways or offer alumni incentives for continuing their education.
4. Delivery speed and flexibility: Busy adult learners expect quick starts, clear outcomes, and minimal red tape. Institutions need streamlined onboarding and agile curriculum design.
5. Internal collaboration: Designing certificates in isolation often leads to friction. Academic, enrollment, and marketing teams must be aligned on purpose, target audience, and outcomes.
6. Employer engagement: Employers want to be part of the development process and seek assurance that certificate programs teach the skills they need. Their involvement enhances the recognition and credibility of the credential.
The role of institutions: Balance mission with market

Certificate programs are not a shortcut to growth. But they can be a smart strategic lever when grounded in data and designed to complement an institution’s broader mission. They offer colleges and universities an opportunity to:
- Expand access to underserved learners
- Respond more nimbly to labor market shifts
- Strengthen ties with regional employers
- Drive awareness and enrollment for degree programs
The key is alignment. When certificate offerings reflect both market demand and institutional mission, they can play a powerful role in expanding reach and impact.

Plan with purpose, execute with intent

Certificates are more than just a trending credential. They’re a tool to serve learners in new ways. But institutions must resist the urge to chase quick wins. Success requires thoughtful design, realistic expectations, and cross-functional collaboration.

With the right foundation, certificate programs can do more than fill a gap. They can open doors for learners, employers, and institutions alike. Collegis supports this effort with integrated services in market research, instructional design, and portfolio development — empowering institutions to make informed, mission-aligned decisions that deliver impact.

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Amber Arnseth oversees program and market research as a skilled problem-solver with an ability to integrate and contextualize data for partners into actionable recommendations. The research she and her team conduct help inform and strengthen our partners’ strategic portfolio and program decisions.

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October 22, 2025
Trump Administration Compact Demands Universities Align With Political Agenda

The Trump administration has escalated its confrontation with higher education institutions by sending detailed policy demands to nine universities, conditioning their continued access to federal funding on compliance with the president’s political objectives.

The unprecedented move, delivered via letters signed by Education Secretary Linda McMahon and other senior officials, presents a 10-page “compact” that outlines sweeping requirements affecting tuition pricing, international student enrollment, gender policy, and campus speech.

The compact mandates that participating institutions freeze tuition rates for five years, place restrictions on international student enrollment, and adopt administration-approved definitions of gender. Universities must also commit to preventing any policies that the administration characterizes as punishing conservative viewpoints.

The nine institutions that received letters on Wednesday include Dartmouth College, Brown University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Southern California, University of Arizona, University of Virginia, University of Pennsylvania, University of Texas, and Vanderbilt University.

According to The New York Times, May Mailman, the White House’s senior adviser for special projects and a letter signatory, indicated the administration remains open to dialogue with contacted universities. “We hope all universities ultimately are able to have a conversation with us,” Mailman stated.

The demands represent a significant threat to institutional autonomy and could have far-reaching implications for diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts on college campuses. The restrictions on international student enrollment raise particular concerns about the future of global education exchange and the presence of international scholars who contribute substantially to research and campus diversity.

The administration’s approach effectively creates a two-tiered system where compliance brings preferential treatment in federal grant competitions. As one senior White House official told The Washington Post, universities would technically remain eligible for grants, but compliant institutions would gain a “competitive advantage.”

This compact represents the latest escalation in the administration’s sustained campaign targeting higher education. Previous actions have included funding freezes, threats to revoke tax-exempt status, and attempts to eliminate universities’ authorization to host international students.

The administration has particularly focused on policies related to international students, pro-Palestinian campus activism, transgender student athletes, and diversity, equity, and inclusion programming.

Harvard University stands alone among major research universities in actively resisting the administration’s demands through litigation. In an April open letter to the Harvard community, President Alan Garber articulated the stakes for academic freedom: “No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”

However, on Tuesday, President Trump claimed a deal with Harvard was nearing completion. The administration has already announced agreements with the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, and Brown University earlier this year.

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October 2, 2025
Bridging the Gap: How Smart Technology Can Align University Programmes with Real-World Skills
- By Pete Moss, Business Development Director at Ellucian.
‘Pouvez-vous s’il vous plaît me dire où se trouve la gare?’ – this is the extent that a colleague of mine can remember from his Introductory French module that he completed as part of a computing degree in the late 90s. That institution’s attempt at the time to embed flexibility and cross-curriculum choice to help students develop skills out of their discipline to help with employability. ‘It was easier to pass than the programming courses’ was the authentic feedback that my colleague gave in retrospect, but they did at least have the choice to expand their learning experience and gain some broader foundational skills. That institution, however, has long abandoned much of that flexibility, largely due to the apparent complexity of administration.

That is not to say that there are not fantastic examples of employability related skills initiatives across the sector, but the recent policy landscape (not least the Skills England Sector evidence on the growth and skills offer) and ever-present national growth agenda are now firmly putting the spotlight on the role of HE in this area. The if element of HE holding that key role in the skills agenda is widely held, but now the thorny problem of how must be addressed. Technology advancements, specifically AI, will play a contributory factor in how institutions can remove barriers that caused institutions to reduce flexibility in the past, but what of the wider considerations?

To explore this topic further I asked Ben Rodgers, an experienced academic registrar and AHEP consultant, for his views on the topic:

In today’s fast-moving global economy, the value of a university education is increasingly measured not just by academic achievement, but by the employability of graduates. Employers are no longer looking solely for degrees, they’re looking for skills: digital fluency, critical thinking, communication, and technical know-how that align with the needs of their industries. Meanwhile, universities are under pressure to demonstrate that their programmes deliver real-world value. The challenge is clear: how do we bridge the gap between what is taught and what is needed?

This is where technology can make a transformative difference. At the forefront of this change is a new wave of AI-powered innovation designed to bridge the gap between academic programmes and real-world skill demands. These emerging technologies can analyse curricula, extracting the skills embedded within them and mapping those against labour market data to identify areas of alignment and gaps.

Crucially, they work in both directions; institutions can see what skills a course develops, while students or employers can start with a desired competency like coding or digital marketing and trace back to the programmes that build those capabilities.

It is the kind of innovation that higher education has long needed. For too long, the link between the classroom and the workplace has been inconsistent or poorly articulated. Universities may know they are delivering valuable learning, but haven’t always had the means to evidence that value in terms that resonate with employers and prospective students. These technologies bring much-needed clarity, offering structured and data-informed ways to demonstrate how academic learning contributes directly to employment readiness.

A Game-Changer for the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE)

This kind of technology becomes even more important as the UK rolls out the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE). The LLE is set to reshape the educational landscape by allowing individuals to access student finance for short courses, modular learning and skills-based development over the course of their lives. This shift away from traditional three-year degrees opens new possibilities, but also new challenges.

How will learners know which modules to pick? How will they know what skills they need for the job they want or even the job they haven’t yet imagined? With the support of emerging AI-driven tools, learners can begin to reverse-engineer their career goals. Want to become a Data Scientist? These systems can help identify which combinations of modules across a university lead to that destination. Interested in project management? The technology can pinpoint where those skills are taught, and which courses offer them. It’s like having a careers advisor, curriculum guide, and labour market analyst all in one—offering personalised insights that connect educational choices with professional ambitions.

This sort of capability is vital if LLE is to be more than just a funding mechanism. It needs to be supported by intelligent infrastructure that empowers learners to make informed choices. Otherwise, there’s a risk that modular study becomes a confusing patchwork of disconnected learning.

Towards a Shared, Inter-University Skills Ecosystem

Now imagine if we took this even further. What if a skills platform were adopted not just by individual institutions but as a shared framework across regions or even nationally? In this model, students in Glasgow, Cardiff, Birmingham, or Belfast could see the skills they need for local job markets and be directed to the institutions offering them. This would create a more agile, responsive, and learner-centred education system. Universities wouldn’t just be competing with each other; they’d be collaborating to build a broader skills ecosystem.

The scale of opportunity here is significant and growing fast. Consider this: if every individual in the workforce has access to around £1,800 in personal development funding each year, the cumulative potential across a university’s learner base is vast. Multiply that by hundreds or thousands of learners, and you’re looking at a transformative funding stream that’s currently underutilised.

This is not just an opportunity for students, it’s a strategic imperative for institutions. By enabling individuals to build relevant, targeted skills, universities position themselves as essential engines of workforce development, driving economic resilience at local, regional, and national levels. It’s a win-win: empowered learners, future-ready graduates, and sustainable new revenue for the sector.

Of course, this requires a shift in thinking from institutional autonomy to inter-institutional alignment. But the benefits are compelling: more efficient use of public funding, stronger regional economies, and better outcomes for students.

Making Programme Design More Purposeful

Beyond helping students choose what to study, this technology also has the power to influence what universities choose to offer. If data consistently shows that a particular programme has little connection to current or emerging job markets, it is worth investigating. It does not mean the course should be cut. There may be academic or social reasons to preserve it, but it does mean the institution is equipped with the intelligence needed to make informed decisions.

It also invites a more purposeful approach to curriculum design. Are we including this module because it is pedagogically valuable, or because it’s always been there? Are we assessing this way because it builds a skill, or because it is the easiest to administer? When you can map outcomes to employment skills, these questions become easier to answer.

Moreover, it provides a compelling framework for conversations with students, parents, and policy-makers about the value of university education. It shows that we are listening to what the world needs and responding with academic rigour and strategic intent.

Global Potential, Local Application

The skills gap is not just a UK issue; it’s a global one. The World Economic Forum reports that nearly half of all workers (66 per cent) will need reskilling by 2030. Universities worldwide are grappling with how to stay relevant in an era of automation, AI and constant disruption. Emerging AI tools offer the potential for a globally shared skills taxonomy that could, with appropriate localisation, apply anywhere.

Conclusion

As universities continue to evolve, their role as engines of economic and social mobility becomes more important than ever. To fulfil that role, we must ensure that what we teach aligns with what the world needs. That does not mean turning every degree into job training, but it does mean being thoughtful, strategic, and transparent about the skills our programmes provide.

Emerging technologies offer an exciting glimpse into a more connected, skills-aware future. They empower students to take greater control of their learning, help universities refine and align their programmes and ensure that the promise of Higher Education translates into meaningful, real-world opportunities.

After all, education is a journey. It’s time the map caught up.
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July 22, 2025
How does UK research support Government’s five missions, and should universities align with them?

Earlier this year, HEPI, with support from global information analytics company Elsevier, hosted a roundtable dinner on how UK research and innovation should support the government’s five missions.

This blog considers some of the themes that emerged from that discussion.

The Labour government has made clear that five missions drive its decisions on policy. These are: kickstarting economic growth, an NHS fit for the future, safer streets, breaking down barriers to opportunity and making Britain a clean energy superpower. In October 2024, it announced a £25 million R&D Missions Programme to address specific challenges involved in meeting these missions and to help turn scientific advances into real-world benefits.

How well do the UK’s research strengths already map to the missions, and how much capacity exists to do more? For global information analytics company Elsevier, this was worth interrogating. It set to work, drawing on its Scopus database of research publications and the Overton index of policy documents, clustering papers into topics and using artificial intelligence and large language models to link them to the missions.

This allowed it to track what share of UK research carried out between 2019 and 2023 relates to the missions the government has identified and how this compares to other policy areas, including how it has varied over time. Elsevier has also been able to make comparisons with the research strengths of other countries in these areas. The process involved developing a methodology that matched huge datasets to the narrative national goals set out in Labour’s manifesto.

The role of R&D in supporting government priorities was the subject of a roundtable dinner, informed by this analysis, hosted by HEPI in February and attended by policymakers and senior leaders from across the higher education sector. The discussion was held under the Chatham House rule, by which speakers express views on the understanding that they will be unattributed.

Useful information

Sarah Main, vice-president, academic and government relations at Elsevier, told participants that the aim of the analysis was to be useful, for the research community and policymakers, in making the case for continued investment in R&D in the lead up to a tight spending review.

The work shows that a significant share of the UK’s published research relates to government priorities: for example, 11% relates to growth and around 35% to its aims around health. By making comparisons with research outputs in other countries, it also identifies possible future partnerships and collaborations.

But she pointed out that research output is only one way in which research and innovation supports the government’s missions; people, skills and infrastructure also play a part. Further work, she said, could help identify the key people, institutions and areas in which the UK has relevant strengths, as well as suggest emerging questions and themes.

Many of those attending the roundtable felt that it was useful to see how far universities are producing research that supports government priorities and to be able to demonstrate this to policymakers – and the Treasury. They particularly welcomed the chance to identify where relevant research was taking place internationally.

It was suggested that the tool would be useful in maintaining a dialogue between research and government priorities, identifying quickly the kind of work taking place and who was doing it and helping to build communities around research areas.

Potential problems

But there were reservations about aligning research too closely with specific policy areas. The fear was that what could be lost in the process was curiosity-driven work, which was a feature of the UK system and which could lead to valuable nuggets of knowledge that could go on to solve world problems. Another concern was that innovation strengths did not always translate into strengths around delivery.

Some questioned how much could be achieved without investment in supporting a healthy research environment for the long term. The recent decision to cut overseas aid in favour of increasing the defence budget was an example of how quickly government policies could change.

Research priorities could change too. One participant in the roundtable said it would be important not to ignore findings from further back in the past or for policymakers to forget the broader research agenda in favour of the latest exciting paper.

‘I look at the missions and I think the reason these are possible is because of R&D that was being done 25 years ago,’ said one delegate, who was worried that concentrating on where the government is looking now could be at the expense of developing capability in the missions of future generations and working out what these would be – learning to live with robots perhaps or addressing chronic loneliness.

Focusing exclusively on missions also ignores how ready the research community is for a shock like Covid or another existential challenge. And what about some of the nuances of where the UK’s research strengths are located, such as working with other disciplines, and how research feeds into growth in more general ways than through specific papers? Relevant skills training and universities’ educational role are also important.

Talking politics

Then, how much weight should be given to a government’s stated priorities? If last July’s election had elected a party with the mission to make Britain great again, would the research community want to find out how far the work it was doing supported it?

Also, how far are the government’s missions likely to persist, with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin doing everything they can to undermine them, as one delegate argued? Far more likely to determine whether the government gets re-elected will be progress on growth and healthcare, which have been consistent public concerns for decades. Even if, as Elsevier has found, 35% of research in the UK relates to health, ministers may respond by asking why, in that case, people are no healthier.

Some felt that universities needed to be more political and to understand better the channels by which research becomes policy and how to negotiate them. This could involve researchers considering the attitudes of the public as well as those of politicians.

The government may also need to give universities a clearer idea of what good looks like when it comes to universities, such as whether the amount of research related to healthcare that Elsevier has identified is good enough, where the government wants universities to be focusing and what resources will be available to them.

But spending too much time dabbling in politics could be dangerous. Instead, suggested one participant, universities should be engaging “at scale” with all sectors and everyone involved in the political process, giving advice to whoever needs it.

The public purse

Universities should also avoid dwelling on their own self-interest. One delegate noted that finding out how far they contribute to the government’s missions would be of little use if the sector collapses. But another suggested that focusing too closely on missions could encourage universities merely to highlight relevant work they are already doing and then make another request for money.

It is certainly the case that there will be plenty of other calls on the public purse over the next few months and years. In this context, it could be useful for the sector to stress the shorter-term wins relevant to the missions that management science or operational research can offer, as well as long-term gains such as new drugs. One delegate suggested that it would be useful to have clearer identification of where research has directly led to spin-out companies and economic growth.

The roundtable concluded that universities are clearly relevant to addressing the government’s missions, that they are already influencing policy and that the methodology under discussion could help inform strategy. But it recognised that outcomes – such as reduced crime and an efficient NHS – are what matter most to the public and these therefore should be the priority.

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May 2, 2025
International Student Aspirations Increasingly Align With The Skills Needed To Propel UK Growth, ApplyBoard’s Internal Data Shows
- Justin Wood is Director, UK at ApplyBoard.
Millions of international students have used the ApplyBoard platform to search for international study opportunities.^[1] For many of these students, searching for courses in Australia, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States is one of the first steps in their study abroad journey. This proprietary search data reveals a leading indicator of changing student preferences.

What UK Fields of Study did International Students Search for in 2024?

After the Sunak Government announced the tightening rules on international student dependants and a review into the graduate route, the UK saw a significant contraction in interest from international students in 2024—applications declined by 14% year-over-year, while dependant applications dropped by 84%. The good news for a struggling sector is that early signs point to positive momentum in 2025, with higher enrolments for many of the institutions that offer a January intake. Enroly data suggests a 23% increase in January 2025 compared to January 2024, and ApplyBoard has experienced growth at three times this rate.

ApplyBoard’s search trends reinforce these early signs: interest in UK courses jumped 25% in 2024 vs. 2023. With search behaviour often signaling future application trends, this surge suggests the UK’s positive momentum in early 2025 could continue throughout the year. Beyond this overall growth, shifting field-of-study preferences highlight how international applicants are adapting to the UK’s changing landscape:

Health fields saw the largest proportional increase among UK searches, climbing nearly four percentage points to 12.8% of all searches. This growing interest aligns with the UK’s expanding healthcare sector, which is projected to add 349,000 jobs by 2035, growing 7% from 2025. Likewise, the information technology sector is expected to grow 8% over the next decade, which aligns with shifting student preferences—ApplyBoard platform data shows Engineering and Technology accounted for 17% of searches in 2024, up two percentage points year-over-year.

Interest in the Sciences also expanded, rising from 13% in 2023 to 16% in 2024. Alongside the gains in Health and Engineering and Technology, this shift underscores how international student priorities are increasingly aligning with long-term global workforce demands.

How International Students are Navigating UK Study Fields

This alignment comes at a time when interest in UK courses is rising. Interest in UK courses grew significantly among several key student populations in 2024, with searches from students in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Ghana, and Saudi Arabia doubling year-over-year. Meanwhile, student searches from Nigeria and Pakistan saw substantial gains, rising 66% and 40%, respectively. However, searches from Nepalese students experienced the most dramatic increase, with searches tripling compared to 2023.

Further supporting the possibility that the UK’s positive momentum in January 2025 will continue throughout the year, searches from most key student demographics reached an all-time monthly high in either December 2024 or January 2025.

The graphic below illustrates how major student populations explored different fields of study in the UK on the ApplyBoard platform last year:

Student interest in Health fields was strongest among Ghanaian (22%), Nigerian (20%), and Saudi Arabian students (16%). Compared to the previous year, the share of searches for this field rose by six percentage points among Ghanaian students and five percentage points among Nigerian students. Additionally, the proportion of Health searches among Sri Lankan students doubled over this period.

By comparison, the Sciences were a priority across all nine student populations, making up at least 14% of UK course searches. Students from Pakistan (18%), Saudi Arabia (18%), and Bangladesh (16%) had the highest proportion of Science-related searches. Notably, seven of the nine key student populations devoted a greater share of their searches to the Sciences in 2024 than in the previous year.

Engineering and Technology also accounted for at least 14% of searches among these major student populations, although Sri Lankan (29%), Saudi Arabian (26%), and Chinese (23%) students showed the highest engagement in this field. Additionally, eight of the nine key student populations allocated a larger share of their searches to Engineering and Technology in 2024. As student interest in UK courses continues to grow, institutions can strengthen their appeal by aligning their portfolio with evolving student priorities and workforce needs.

The UK’s Edge: Where Student Interest Outpaces Canada and the US

Understanding where the UK sees higher proportional interest in key fields of study compared to Canada and the US can reveal important competitive advantages for institutions and better inform strategic recruitment strategies. This interactive visualization allows you to explore student interest by field and destination, filterable by top student populations:

Health-related fields accounted for 25% of searches for UK institutions among Filipino students—three percentage points higher than their searches for Canada and the US. Likewise, 22% of Ghanaian students were interested in UK-based Health courses, outpacing the interest shown for both Canadian (21%) and American (20%) options.

In Engineering and Technology, 29% of Sri Lankan students’ searches for UK courses were in this field—matching their interest in US study but well surpassing their searches for Canada (24%).

Social-related fields like Law, Social Sciences, and Teaching captured 10% of Pakistani searches for the UK, outpacing that for Canada (6%) and the US (7%). A similar trend occurred among Bangladeshi students, with 10% of their UK-based searches occurring for social-related fields compared to 7% of Canada and 6% for the US.

Leveraging Search Trends to Shape Future Recruitment

Search trends serve as a leading indicator of shifting student interest, often signaling future application patterns. The surge in searches for UK courses—particularly in high-demand fields like health, engineering, and sciences—suggests a growing alignment between student priorities and workforce needs. By analysing these trends, institutions can proactively refine course offerings and recruitment strategies to attract top international talent. As demand continues to evolve, leveraging real-time search insights enables institutions to stay ahead of market shifts, ensuring they meet student expectations while strengthening their global competitiveness. Understanding where the UK holds a competitive edge will be key to optimizing outreach and course development in 2025 and beyond.

^[1] In the past, ApplyBoard platform search data was generated based on button clicks on a page, while the new search data is generated by any changes made to the page’s filters (destination, field of study, etc.) As a result, the new search count, if tallied using the previous search data approach, would be significantly inflated compared to the original search count. To make the search counts more comparable, we changed our methodology as of August 2024 to use unique entries per user within each hour.
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March 3, 2025
Rutgers cancels HBCU event to align with Trump DEI orders
The virtual mini-conference sponsored by Jobs for the Future was scheduled for Jan. 30.
The Rutgers University Center for Minority Serving Institutions announced Thursday that it has canceled an upcoming virtual conference about registered apprenticeship programs as a result of President Trump’s executive orders targeting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

“We were very excited to bring the HBCUs and Registered Apprenticeship Mini-Conference to you next week,” said the email sent to registered attendees. “Unfortunately, due to President Trump’s Executive Orders … we have been asked to cease all work under the auspices of the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility HUB at Jobs for the Future, which the U.S. Department of Labor funds.”

Jobs for the Future, an organization focused on helping college and workforce leaders create equitable economic outcomes for students, runs a national innovation hub focused on improving access to registered apprenticeships for women, people of color and other underrepresented groups.

Located in New Jersey, a blue state for more the 30 years, Rutgers has not faced pressure from state legislators to dismantle DEI. But the cancellation demonstrates the leverage and power the federal government can hold over colleges and universities by threatening to pull funding from programs that don’t comply with the president’s demands.

It’s just the kind of reaction higher ed policy experts and DEI advocates predicted as a result of the Republican agenda.

“That wariness and sort of pre-emptive compliance, even absent direct threats from the federal or state government, might be somewhat universal,” Brendan Cantwell, a professor of education at Michigan State University, told Inside Higher Ed.

“These leaders will be worried about losing their federal funding, which is exactly what DEI opponents want,” added Shaun Harper, a professor of education, business and public policy; the founder of the University of Southern California’s Race and Equity Center; and an Inside Higher Ed opinion contributor.

More cancellations are anticipated in the weeks and months to come as the Trump administration continues to issue executive orders. For instance, Trump’s growing team at the Department of Education announced a series of actions Thursday related to eliminating DEI.

“The Department removed or archived hundreds of guidance documents, reports, and training materials that include mentions of DEI from its outward facing communication channels [and] put employees charged with leading DEI initiatives on paid administrative leave,” agency officials said in a news release. “These actions are in line with President Trump’s ongoing commitment to end illegal discrimination and wasteful spending across the federal government. They are the first step in reorienting the agency toward prioritizing meaningful learning ahead of divisive ideology in our schools.”

Other actions the department has taken include:
- Dissolving the department’s Diversity and Inclusion Council.
- Terminating the Employee Engagement Diversity Equity Inclusion Accessibility Council within the Office for Civil Rights.
- Canceling ongoing DEI training and service contracts that total over $2.6 million.
- Withdrawing the department’s Equity Action Plan, which was released in 2023 to align with former president Joe Biden’s executive order to advance racial equity and support for underserved communities.
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January 24, 2025
Meta’s content moderation changes closely align with FIRE recommendations
On Tuesday, Meta* CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan announced sweeping changes to the content moderation policies at Meta (the owner of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads) with the stated intention of improving free speech and reducing “censorship” on its platforms. The changes simplify policies, replace the top-down fact-checking with a Community Notes-style system, reduce opportunities for false positives in automatic content flagging, and allow for greater user control of content feeds. All these changes mirror recommendations FIRE made in its May 2024 Report on Social Media.

Given Meta’s platforms boast billions of users, the changes, if implemented, have major positive implications for free expression online.

FIRE’s Social Media Report

FIRE Report on Social Media 2024

Reports

With as many as 5.17 billion accounts worldwide, social media is the most powerful tool in history for average citizens to express themselves.

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In our report, we promoted three principles to improve the state of free expression on social media:
1. The law should require transparency whenever the government involves itself in social media moderation decisions.
2. Content moderation policies should be transparent to users, who should be able to appeal moderation decisions that affect them.
3. Content moderation decisions should be unbiased and should consistently apply the criteria that a platform’s terms of service establish.
Principle 1 is the only one where FIRE believes government intervention is appropriate and constitutional (and we created a model bill to that effect). Principles 2 and 3 we hoped would enjoy voluntary adoption by social media platforms that wanted to promote freedom of expression.

While we don’t know whether these principles influenced Meta’s decision, we’re pleased the promised changes align very well with FIRE’s proposals for how a social media platform committed to free expression could put that commitment into practice.

Meta’s changes to content moderation structures

With a candid admission that it believes 10-20% of its millions of daily content removals are mistakes, Meta announced it is taking several actions to expand freedom of expression on the platform. The first is simplification and scaling back of its rules on the boundaries of discourse. According to Zuckerberg and Kaplan:

[Meta is] getting rid of a number of restrictions on topics like immigration, gender identity and gender that are the subject of frequent political discourse and debate. It’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms. These policy changes may take a few weeks to be fully implemented.

While this is promising in and of itself, it will be enhanced by a broad change to the automated systems for content moderation. Meta is restricting its automated flagging to only the most severe policy violations. For lesser policy violations, a user will have to manually report a post for review and possible removal. Additionally, any removal will require the agreement of multiple human reviewers.

This is consistent with our argument that AI-driven and other automated flagging systems will invariably have issues with false-positives, making human review critical. Beyond removals, Meta is increasing the confidence threshold required for deboosting a post suspected of violating policy.

Who fact-checks the fact checkers?

Replacing top-down fact-checking with a bottom-up approach based on X’s Community Notes feature may be just about the biggest change announced by Meta. As FIRE noted in the Social Media Report:

Mark Zuckerberg famously said he didn’t want Facebook to be the “arbiter of truth.” But, in effect, through choosing a third-party fact checker, Facebook becomes the arbiter of the arbiter of truth. Given that users do not trust social media platforms, this is unlikely to engender trust in the accuracy of fact checks.

Zuckerberg similarly said in the announcement that Meta’s“fact checkers have just been too politically biased, and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created.”

Our Social Media Report argued that the Community Notes feature is preferable to top-down fact-checking, because a community of diverse perspectives will likely be “less vulnerable to bias and easier for users to trust than top-down solutions that may reflect the biases of a much smaller number of stakeholders.” Additionally, we argued labeling is more supportive of free expression, being a “more speech” alternative to removal and deboosting.

We are eager to see the results of this shift. At a minimum, experimentation and innovation in content moderation practices provides critical experience and data to guide future decisions and help platforms improve reliability, fairness, and responsiveness to users.

User trust and the appearance of bias

An overall theme in Zuckerberg and Kaplan’s remarks is that biased decision-making has eroded user trust in content moderation at Meta, and these policy changes are aimed at regaining users’ trust. As FIRE argued in our Social Media Report:

In the case of moderating political speech, any platform that seeks to promote free expression should develop narrow, well-defined, and consistently enforceable rules to minimize the kind of subjectivity that leads to arbitrary and unfair enforcement practices that reduce users’ confidence both in platforms and in the state of free expression online.

We also argued that perception of bias and flexibility in rules encourages powerful entities like government actors to “work the refs,” including through informal pressure, known as “jawboning.”

What is jawboning? And does it violate the First Amendment?

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Additionally, when perceived bias drives users to small, ideologically homogeneous alternative platforms, the result can damage broader discourse:

If users believe their “side” is censored unfairly, many will leave that platform for one where they believe they’ll have more of a fair shake. Because the exodus is ideological in nature, it will drive banned users to new platforms where they are exposed to fewer competing ideas, leading to “group polarization,” the well-documented phenomenon that like-minded groups become more extreme over time. Structures on all social media platforms contribute to polarization, but the homogeneity of alternative platforms turbocharges it.

These are real problems, and it is not clear whether Meta’s plans will succeed in addressing them, but it is welcome to see them recognized.

International threats to speech

Our Social Media Report expressed concern that the Digital Services Act — the broad EU regulation mandating censorship on social media far beyond what U.S. constitutional law allows — would become a least common denominator approach for social media companies, even in the United States. Mark Zuckerberg seems to announce his intention to do no such thing, stating he planned to work with President Trump to push back on “governments around the world” that are “pushing [companies] to censor more.”

While we are pleased at the implication that Meta’s platforms will seemingly not change their free expression policies in America at the behest of the EU, the invocation of a social media company working with any government, including the United States government, rings alarm bells for any civil libertarian. We will watch this development closely for that reason.

FIRE has often said — and it often bears repeating — the greatest threat to freedom of expression will always come from the government, and as Zuckerberg himself notes, the government has in years past pushed Meta to remove content.

When the rubber meets the road

Meta’s commitment to promote freedom of expression on its platforms offers plenty of reasons for cautious optimism.

But we do want to emphasize caution. There is, with free expression, often a large gap between stated intentions and what happens when theory meets practice. As a civil liberties watchdog, our duty is to measure promise against performance.

Take, for example, our measured praise for Elon Musk’s stated commitment to free expression, followed by our frequent criticism when he failed to live up to that commitment. And that criticism hasn’t kept us from giving credit when due to X, such as when it adopted Community Notes.

Similarly, FIRE stands ready to help Meta live up to its stated commitments to free expression. You can be sure that we will watch closely and hold them accountable.

* Meta has donated to FIRE.
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January 9, 2025