Some people would rather watch movies than read news articles.
The thing is, an awful lot of movies came out of news articles. Consider the entire Fast & Furious movie franchise, starring Vin Diesel and my personal movie favorite Michelle Rodriguez (shout out!). It revolves around people who race souped up cars on city streets.
The idea of the first movie started with an article by journalist Ken Li, after he saw someone steal a car in New York and that spurred him to investigate the underground world of street racing. Someone at Universal Studios saw the article and bought the rights to it.
How can all this help an aspiring journalist? Well, thinking about your news story as the movie that might be commissioned from it is a way of seeing the story. So how do you go about doing that?
Visualize your story
First, think of the characters in your story. Who are the central actors involved? Who is the Vin Diesel or Tom Cruise in your story?
Who does the problem you are exploring affect? Who is causing it or standing in the way of solutions? Who are the people trying to solve or mitigate the problem? In journalism, the basic story structure is Who, What, Where, When and Why. The characters are the Who of the story.
The most compelling movies (and news stories) revolve around conflict: What are the stakes? In Fast & Furious, one of the main conflicts is the role of Brian O’Connor, who starts out as an FBI agent investigating the car racers and then becomes loyal to them.
Movie scripts revolve around turning points: What could change the course? What steps are being taken to solve or mitigate the problem you are exploring? What are people or corporations or governments or organizations doing that could worsen the situation? This is the What of the story.
Then think about the setting: Where is the crisis playing out? The original Fast & Furious took place in Los Angeles. Top Gun took place at a naval base in San Diego, California. This is the Where of the story.
Finally, what drives your story is the motivation of the characters: Why do they take the actions they do?
In Top Gun, Tom Cruise’s character is motivated by the death of his friend Goose to be the best pilot he can be. In Fast & Furious, Vin Diesel is motivated by the death of Michelle Rodriguez’s character to seek justice.
Actions and motivations
Death is a common motivation in movies — the killing of John Wick’s dog triggered one of the most successful movie franchises out there. But for non-fiction news stories, there can be all kinds of motivations: parents wanting to get their kids into good schools, communities wanting to fight crime in their neighborhoods, governments wanting to end homelessness.
In news stories this is the Why of the story. Why does some corporation build a plant in your community? Why does some NGO oppose a development proposal? What’s their reason and motivation?
So now try this: Think of a problem around you that you want to explore. It could be about anything from climate change, to mental health or inequities in sports or education. Start by noting down the Who (actors), What (what’s at stake), When, Where (setting) and Why (the motivations of the characters). Then turn this into a few paragraphs as if you’re writing for a news site.
Start with a hook: It should be something interesting or important. Why is this a big story? Why should people care? Then summarize in one paragraph the whole story. What’s the overall problem? Where is it happening and when, how did it start, what is causing it and who is it affecting?
Next, slowly work through each of those elements — the who, what, where, when, how and why. There is the meat of your story. Finally, talk about what’s next. What are the solutions or mitigations happening or proposed?
Who knows? You might get your story published and down the line a Hollywood or Bollywood producer calls you up. Now, isn’t that motivation to write a news story? Just make sure you have a good agent.
Questions to consider:
1. How can seeing your story as a movie help you report and write it?
2. If your life played out as a movie, what would be the central theme?
3. Think about the most important thing you are doing these days. What motivates you to do it?
The era of the “big four” international education destinations has passed, with at least a dozen rival nations jostling for primacy.
Stephanie Smith, Shanghai-based trade commissioner with Austrade, said Chinese students heading overseas before the coronavirus pandemic mainly chose from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia or Canada. That has changed since COVID. “The agents talk about the ‘big 14,’” Smith told the Australian International Education Conference. “It puts us in a lot more of a competitive environment.”
She said affordability issues are driving Chinese students to look at alternative destinations, as a global cost-of-living crisis coincided with a domestic economic slump. Options closer to home also offered linguistic familiarity, geographical proximity and—arguably—better employment and internship opportunities.
Hong Kong had become a “massive new market” for mainland Chinese students, particularly after the territory allowed universities to increase the nonlocal share of subsidized enrollments to 50 percent. Government investment in higher education has been paying off in rankings success. “You can really count Hong Kong as a new key competitor for Australia,” Smith told the conference.
Others included Ireland, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam. Ireland in particular has done “a good job at destination marketing in China.” France and Germany were considered safe and welcoming with good employment opportunities and low tuition fees.
“It’s no longer just teach and they will come,” Smith told Australian educators. “We have to defend and grow our position through marketing, promotion and showcasing.”
Alternative destinations now collectively attract more prospective Chinese students than any of the big four members, according to the latest survey by IDP Education, with France under consideration by 30 percent and Germany by 19 percent.
“The competition really is hotting up,” said Melissa Banks, senior partner with the consultancy The Lygon Group. She said the large Southeast Asian nations of Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam were not only “setting themselves up” to host transnational education partnerships, such as foreign branch campuses, “but they are also attracting students in their own right.”
France aims to enroll 500,000 international students by 2027 as part of its Bienvenue en France strategy. India reportedly has a goal of enrolling 500,000 foreign students by 2047, while Japan wants to host 400,000 by 2033.
South Korea’s target of 300,000 international students by 2027 has reportedly been reached two years ahead of schedule. Turkey wants 500,000 by 2028. Kazakhstan’s target of 100,000 foreign students by 2028 has reportedly been increased by 50 percent. Other countries reportedly setting international enrollment targets include Azerbaijan, Finland, Iran and Taiwan.
Jon Chew, chief insights officer at Navitas, said expressions like the “big four” belonged to the “market era,” when “winning” meant volume and growth.
“Do we have the composition, the distribution, the integrity and the quality that we want? If we do, maybe it doesn’t matter that we’re losing market share. It is going to be competitive, but I think it’s a very different outlook that we’re going into.”
Julian Hill, Australia’s assistant minister for international education, said geopolitics and demographic change have fueled a shift toward “a more multipolar sector.” This is a welcome development, he said.
“This sector … allows young people at formative stages of their life to get to know other societies and get to know each other. I think it’s a very good thing that that occurs in a blended way across as much of the world as possible.”
Larissa Bezo, CEO of the Canadian Bureau for International Education, said the tally of “top receiving countries” numbered somewhere between 15 and 20. “We’ve moved well beyond the big four,” she told the conference. “I see that as a positive.”
Bezo highlighted the opportunities for “traditional receiving markets” like Canada to “work together” with emerging destinations. Canadian institutions, burned by Ottawa’s international student caps, are “very much leaning into partnerships and … new modes of transnational education.”
The same applies Down Under, according to Phil Honeywood, CEO of the International Education Association of Australia. “There’s already such strong partnerships offshore in Dubai, in Malaysia and so on. There’s an opportunity to really be part of that new study hub progression, rather than be competing with it.”
Fanta Aw, CEO of the Washington, D.C.–based NAFSA: Association of International Educators, said many of the competing institutions in the Middle East and Asia had been established by locals educated in American colleges. “These are graduates of U.S. institutions … going back and creating capacity at home. That’s part of what education is supposed to be about. I think this is healthy.”
by Mehreen Ashraf, Eimear Nolan, Manual F Ramirez, Gazi Islam and Dirk Lindebaum
Walk into almost any university today, and you can be sure to encounter the topic of AI and how it affects higher education (HE). AI applications, especially large language models (LLM), have become part of everyday academic life, being used for drafting outlines, summarising readings, and even helping students to ‘think’. For some, the emergence of LLMs is a revolution that makes learning more efficient and accessible. For others, it signals something far more unsettling: a shift in how and by whom knowledge is controlled. This latter point is the focus of our new article published in Organization Studies.
At the heart of our article is a shift in what is referred to epistemic (or knowledge) governance: the way in which knowledge is created, organised, and legitimised in HE. In plain terms, epistemic governance is about who gets to decide what counts as credible, whose voices are heard, and how the rules of knowing are set. Universities have historically been central to epistemic governance through peer review, academic freedom, teaching, and the public mission of scholarship. But as AI tools become deeply embedded in teaching and research, those rules are being rewritten not by educators or policymakers, but by the companies that own the technology.
From epistemic agents to epistemic consumers
Universities, academics, and students have traditionally been epistemic agents: active producers and interpreters of knowledge. They ask questions, test ideas, and challenge assumptions. But when we rely on AI systems to generate or validate content, we risk shifting from being agents of knowledge to consumers of knowledge. Technology takes on the heavy cognitive work: it finds sources, summarises arguments, and even produces prose that sounds academic. However, this efficiency comes at the cost of profound changes in the nature of intellectual work.
Students who rely on AI to tidy up their essays, or generate references, will learn less about the process of critically evaluating sources, connecting ideas and constructing arguments, which are essential for reasoning through complex problems. Academics who let AI draft research sections, or feed decision letters and reviewer reports into AI with the request that AI produces a ‘revision strategy’, might save time but lose the slow, reflective process that leads to original thought, while undercutting their own agency in the process. And institutions that embed AI into learning systems hand part of their epistemic governance – their authority to define what knowledge is and how it is judged – to private corporations.
This is not about individual laziness; it is structural. As Shoshana Zuboff argued in The age of surveillance capitalism, digital infrastructures do not just collect information, they reorganise how we value and act upon it. When universities become dependent on tools owned by big tech, they enter an ecosystem where the incentives are commercial, not educational.
Big tech and the politics of knowing
The idea that universities might lose control of knowledge sounds abstract, but it is already visible. Jisc’s 2024 framework on AI in tertiary education warns that institutions must not ‘outsource their intellectual labour to unaccountable systems,’ yet that outsourcing is happening quietly. Many UK universities, including the University of Oxford, have signed up to corporate AI platforms to be used by staff and students alike. This, in turn, facilitates the collection of data on learning behaviours that can be fed back into proprietary models.
This data loop gives big tech enormous influence over what is known and how it is known. A company’s algorithm can shape how research is accessed, which papers surface first, or which ‘learning outcomes’ appear most efficient to achieve. That’s epistemic governance in action: the invisible scaffolding that structures knowledge behind the scenes. At the same time, it is easy to see why AI technologies appeal to universities under pressure. AI tools promise speed, standardisation, lower costs, and measurable performance, all seductive in a sector struggling with staff shortages and audit culture. But those same features risk hollowing out the human side of scholarship: interpretation, dissent, and moral reasoning. The risk is not that AI will replace academics but that it will change them, turning universities from communities of inquiry into systems of verification.
The Humboldtian ideal and why it is still relevant
The modern research university was shaped by the 19th-century thinker Wilhelm von Humboldt, who imagined higher education as a public good, a space where teaching and research were united in the pursuit of understanding. The goal was not efficiency: it was freedom. Freedom to think, to question, to fail, and to imagine differently.
That ideal has never been perfectly achieved, but it remains a vital counterweight to market-driven logics that render AI a natural way forward in HE. When HE serves as a place of critical inquiry, it nourishes democracy itself. When it becomes a service industry optimised by algorithms, it risks producing what Žižek once called ‘humans who talk like chatbots’: fluent, but shallow.
The drift toward organised immaturity
Scholars like Andreas Scherer and colleagues describe this shift as organised immaturity: a condition where sociotechnical systems prompt us to stop thinking for ourselves. While AI tools appear to liberate us from labour, what is happening is that they are actually narrowing the space for judgment and doubt.
In HE, that immaturity shows up when students skip the reading because ‘ChatGPT can summarise it’, or when lecturers rely on AI slides rather than designing lessons for their own cohort. Each act seems harmless; but collectively, they erode our epistemic agency. The more we delegate cognition to systems optimised for efficiency, the less we cultivate the messy, reflective habits that sustain democratic thinking. Immanuel Kant once defined immaturity as ‘the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another.’ In the age of AI, that ‘other’ may well be an algorithm trained on millions of data points, but answerable to no one.
Reclaiming epistemic agency
So how can higher education reclaim its epistemic agency? The answer lies not only in rejecting AI but also in rethinking our possible relationships with it. Universities need to treat generative tools as objects of inquiry, not an invisible infrastructure. That means embedding critical digital literacy across curricula: not simply training students to use AI responsibly, but teaching them to question how it works, whose knowledge it privileges, and whose it leaves out.
In classrooms, educators could experiment with comparative exercises: have students write an essay on their own, then analyse an AI version of the same task. What’s missing? What assumptions are built in? How were students changed when the AI wrote the essay for them and when they wrote them themselves? As the Russell Group’s 2024 AI principles note, ‘critical engagement must remain at the heart of learning.’
In research, academics too must realise that their unique perspectives, disciplinary judgement, and interpretive voices matter, perhaps now more than ever, in a system where AI’s homogenisation of knowledge looms. We need to understand that the more we subscribe to values of optimisation and efficiency as preferred ways of doing academic work, the more natural the penetration of AI into HE will unfold.
Institutionally, universities might consider building open, transparent AI systems through consortia, rather than depending entirely on proprietary tools. This isn’t just about ethics; it’s about governance and ensuring that epistemic authority remains a public, democratic responsibility.
Why this matters to you
Epistemic governance and epistemic agency may sound like abstract academic terms, but they refer to something fundamental: the ability of societies and citizens (not just ‘workers’) to think for themselves when/if universities lose control over how knowledge is created, validated and shared. When that happens, we risk not just changing education but weakening democracy. As journalist George Monbiot recently wrote, ‘you cannot speak truth to power if power controls your words.’ The same is true for HE. We cannot speak truth to power if power now writes our essays, marks our assignments, and curates our reading lists.
Mehreen Ashraf is an Assistant Professor at Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, United Kingdom.
Eimear Nolan is an Associate Professor in International Business at Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.
Manuel F Ramirez is Lecturer in Organisation Studies at the University of Liverpool Management School, UK.
Gazi Islam is Professor of People, Organizations and Society at Grenoble Ecole de Management, France.
Dirk Lindebaum is Professor of Management and Organisation at the School of Management, University of Bath.
As public outrage grows over the astronomical cost of prescription drugs, a quieter but equally consequential dynamic demands scrutiny: the entanglement of higher education institutions with the pharmaceutical industry. Universities—especially those with medical schools and biomedical research centers—have become indispensable players in Big Pharma’s pipeline. While these partnerships often promise innovation and public benefit, they also raise troubling questions about academic independence, ethical boundaries, and the commodification of publicly funded science.
Medical Education: A Curriculum Under Influence
Medical schools are tasked with training future physicians in evidence-based care. Yet many institutions maintain financial ties with pharmaceutical companies that risk compromising the integrity of their curricula. Faculty members often receive consulting fees, research grants, and honoraria from drug manufacturers. In some cases, industry-sponsored materials and lectures are integrated into coursework, subtly shaping how students understand disease treatment and drug efficacy.
This influence extends beyond the classroom. Continuing medical education (CME), a requirement for practicing physicians, is frequently funded by pharmaceutical companies. Critics argue that this model incentivizes the promotion of branded drugs over generics or non-pharmaceutical interventions, reinforcing prescribing habits that benefit corporate interests more than patient outcomes.
University Research: Innovation or Outsourcing?
Academic research is a cornerstone of pharmaceutical development. Universities conduct early-stage investigations into disease mechanisms, drug targets, and therapeutic compounds—often funded by public grants. Pharmaceutical companies then step in to commercialize promising discoveries, assuming control over clinical trials, regulatory approval, and marketing.
While this division of labor can accelerate drug development, it also shifts the locus of control. Universities may prioritize research that aligns with industry interests, sidelining studies that lack commercial appeal. Moreover, corporate sponsors can exert influence over publication timelines, data interpretation, and intellectual property rights. The result is a research ecosystem where profit potential increasingly dictates scientific inquiry.
Case Studies: The University-Pharma Nexus in Action
Harvard University
Harvard Medical School has faced scrutiny over the financial relationships between its faculty and pharmaceutical companies. A 2009 investigation by The New York Times revealed that more than 1,600 Harvard-affiliated physicians had financial ties to drug and medical device makers. The controversy sparked student protests and led to reforms requiring faculty to disclose industry ties and limiting pharma-funded materials in classrooms.
Harvard’s research enterprise is deeply intertwined with Big Pharma. Its partnership with Novartis in developing personalized cancer treatments—particularly CAR-T cell therapy—illustrates how academic science feeds into high-cost commercial therapies. While the treatment represents a breakthrough, its price tag (often exceeding $400,000 per patient) raises questions about the public’s return on investment.
Yale University
Yale’s collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) on PROTACs (proteolysis-targeting chimeras) showcases the university’s role in pioneering new drug technologies. Under the agreement, Yale and GSK formed a joint research team to advance PROTACs from lab concept to clinical candidate. GSK gained rights to use the technology across multiple therapeutic areas, while Yale stood to receive milestone payments and royalties.
Yale’s Center for Clinical Investigation (YCCI) saw an 850% increase in industry-sponsored trials between 2006 and 2019. To address concerns about equity, YCCI launched the Cultural Ambassador Program to diversify trial participation. While this initiative promotes inclusivity, it also serves the interests of pharmaceutical sponsors seeking broader demographic data for regulatory approval.
University of Bristol (UK)
The University of Bristol has maintained a decade-long partnership with GSK, spanning vaccine development, childhood disease research, and oral health. GSK funds PhD studentships and undergraduate placements and collaborates on data integrity initiatives. While the partnership aims to improve global health outcomes, it also serves GSK’s need to secure early-stage innovation and talent.
Temple University
Temple’s Moulder Center for Drug Discovery Research exemplifies the shift toward academic-led drug discovery. Pharmaceutical companies increasingly rely on centers like this to conduct early-stage research, reducing their own financial risk. As patents expire and blockbuster drugs lose exclusivity, pharma firms turn to universities to replenish their pipelines—often with taxpayer-funded science.
ETH Zurich (Switzerland)
ETH Zurich has become a hub for synthetic organic and medicinal chemistry, attracting partnerships with major pharmaceutical firms. Researchers at ETH conduct foundational work that pharma companies later commercialize. This reflects a broader trend: the outsourcing of riskier, cost-intensive research to academic institutions, often without proportional public benefit.
The Dark Legacy of Elite University Medical Centers
Beyond research and education, elite university medical centers have long been implicated in systemic inequality and exploitation. As detailed in The Dark Legacy of Elite Medical Centers, these institutions have historically treated marginalized and low-income patients as expendable research subjects. The term “Medical Apartheid,” coined by Harriet Washington, captures the racial and class-based exploitation embedded in American medical history.
The disparities extend to labor conditions as well. Support staff—often immigrants and people of color—face low wages, poor working conditions, and job insecurity, despite being essential to hospital operations. Meanwhile, early-career researchers and postdocs, many from working-class backgrounds, endure long hours and precarious employment while driving the innovation that fuels Big Pharma’s profits.
Even diversity initiatives at these institutions often fall short, focusing on optics rather than structural reform. As the article argues, “The institutional focus on ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ often overlooks the more significant structural issues, such as the affordability of education, the class-based access to healthcare, and the economic barriers that continue to undermine the ability of disadvantaged individuals to receive quality care.”
Technology Transfer and Patents: The Profit Pipeline
Many universities have established technology transfer offices to manage the commercialization of academic discoveries. These offices negotiate licensing agreements with pharmaceutical companies, often securing royalties or equity stakes in exchange. While such arrangements can generate substantial revenue—especially for elite institutions—they also entangle universities in the profit-driven logic of the pharmaceutical market.
This entanglement has real-world consequences. Drugs developed with public funding and academic expertise are frequently priced out of reach for many patients. The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, which allows universities to patent federally funded research, was intended to spur innovation. But critics argue it has enabled the privatization of public science, with universities acting as gatekeepers to life-saving treatments.
Ethical Crossroads: Transparency and Reform
The growing influence of Big Pharma in higher education has prompted calls for greater transparency and accountability. Some institutions have implemented conflict-of-interest policies, requiring faculty to disclose financial ties and limiting industry-sponsored events. Student-led movements have also emerged, demanding reforms to ensure that education and research serve the public good rather than corporate profit.
Yet systemic change remains elusive. The financial incentives are substantial, and the boundaries between academia and industry continue to blur. Without robust oversight and a recommitment to academic independence, universities risk becoming complicit in a system that prioritizes shareholder value over human health.
Rethinking the Role of Higher Ed and Medicine
Higher education institutions occupy a unique position in society—as centers of knowledge, innovation, and public trust. Their collaboration with Big Pharma is not inherently problematic, but it must be guided by ethical principles and a commitment to transparency. As the cost of healthcare continues to rise, universities must critically examine their role in the pharmaceutical ecosystem and ask whether their pursuit of profit is undermining their mission to serve the public.
The legacy of elite university medical centers is not just about innovation—it’s also about inequality. Until these institutions confront their role in perpetuating racial and class-based disparities, their contributions to public health will remain compromised.
The agency announced Thursday that it will convene two advisory committees to weigh in on changes to the rules and regulations for the federal student loan program, institutional and programmatic accountability, and the Pell Grant program. Officials wrote in the announcement that this round of rule-making was necessary to implement the changes in the One Big Beautiful Bill as well as “other administration priorities.”
Many of the higher ed provisions in the legislation take effect July 1, 2026, and several experts have raised concerns about whether that’s enough time for the department to put in place the necessary regulations and guidance. Among other changes, the law ends the Graduate PLUS loan program, caps loans for graduate and professional students, and expands the Pell Grant to workforce training programs that run between eight and 15 weeks.
To revise the regulations, the department is following its lengthy and complicated process known as negotiated rule making, which involves bringing together stakeholders to review proposed changes and then listening to public comment on the plan.
One group, which the department is calling the Reimagining and Improving Student Education (RISE) Committee, will focus on the student loan regulations, including creating new repayment plans and giving colleges the ability to limit how much students can borrow. The RISE Committee will meet twice in September and November for week-long sessions to negotiate policy revisions. If the committee doesn’t reach a consensus, the department is free to move forward with its own proposal, which would still be subject to public comment.
The other policy changes in the law will fall to the other panel, known as the Accountability in Higher Education and Access through Demand-driven Workforce Pell (AHEAD) Committee. That includes implementing the new earnings test, which requires programs to prove their graduates earn more than an adult with a high school diploma or risk losing their access to student loans, as well as revising the eligibility criteria for Pell grants to exclude students who get a full ride. The AHEAD committee will meet in December and January for week-long sessions.
Both committees will include student borrowers, legal assistance organizations and representatives from various types of institutions, among other stakeholder groups. None specifically include the financial aid administrations who will play a key role in rolling out these changes on college campuses.
To kick off the rule-making process, the department will hold a virtual public hearing from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Aug. 7. More information is available on the department’s website.
In late June, House Republicans aired a promotional video about their budget reconciliation bill, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, claiming it will “make the American dream accessible to all Americans again.” That dream—that anyone in this country can achieve prosperity and success through hard work and determination—is what leads people to come to America and stay. It’s no wonder that politicians invoke this promise as part of the reason for needed change.
Higher education has long been seen as one of the surest paths to economic security in America—it is one foundation that dream rests on. It feels consequential, therefore, that President Trump and congressional Republicans are looking to undercut this vision of the American dream. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act will reshape federal student aid in ways that transform access to higher education and shut everyday Americans out.
Forthcoming nationally representative survey data from New America, a nonpartisan think tank, shows Americans are clear-eyed about what it really takes to keep the dream alive: an affordable higher education. But they see college falling further out of reach. Nearly nine out of 10 believe college cost is the biggest factor that prevents families from attending college. And three-quarters of Americans agree that the federal government should spend more tax dollars on educational opportunities after high school to make them more affordable, including majorities of both Republicans and Democrats.
Americans also believe in accountability for this investment. They want a system that rewards effort, responsibility and outcomes—basic values that align with the American dream. Majorities from both parties say colleges and universities should lose access to taxpayer support if their students don’t earn more than a typical high school graduate or if they struggle to pay down their student loan debt.
Once enacted, the new law will trim the Pell Grant program, making some middle-income families ineligible who used to qualify for small amounts of the Pell Grant. Federal student loans will look vastly different, with big cuts to graduate, parent and lifetime borrowing limits and less generous repayment options for borrowers who fall on hard times. These changes will close one door for many low- and moderate-income Americans, the one that leads to an affordable associate or bachelor’s degree. At the same time, by expanding Pell Grants to short-term job training programs, the law opens another door to very short credentials as few as eight weeks long with little oversight and consumer protection. Our research has showntimeandagain that these very short credentials will not deliver economic stability nor improve employment prospects.
And while the law will take meaningful steps toward accountability and will cut off from federal loans associate, bachelor’s and graduate programs that fail to give students an earning boost, those measures exclude all undergraduate short-term certificate programs, which tend to have the worst outcomes. It will also allow programs to continue to operate, even if most of their students struggle to repay their loans.
While the president and congressional Republicans say these cuts are necessary under the auspices of extending tax cuts, improving fiscal responsibility and reforming higher education, the truth is this law will achieve none of this. It will add at least $3 trillion to our deficit by expanding tax cuts to wealthy Americans, all while stripping funding from critical programs everyday Americans rely on like Medicaid, SNAP and student aid. It does nothing to fix the underlying problems that drive college costs. It ignores targeted solutions that would promote affordability and expand accountability. That type of thoughtful reform would require bipartisan reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, which is more than a decade overdue.
Despite what Republicans in Washington say about making the American dream accessible again, this law will only put it further out of reach. The changes will fall hard on all students trying to obtain education after high school—from welders to electricians, nurses, teachers and medical doctors. These are not “elites,” but core constituents. They are working adults, veterans and parents looking to make a better life for their children, hoping that the American dream is still achievable. Instead, they will find that their own government has abandoned them.
In his inaugural address in January, President Trump said, “The American dream will soon be back and thriving like never before.” But, in truth, it is being suffocated. It’s too late to change this new law, but moving forward Congress and the Trump administration must center everyday Americans and act cautiously before making such seismic cuts. This is not a partisan issue, but a matter of national interest and prosperity. Failing to think about future legislation that makes meaningful student-centered reform to higher education will have political and generational consequences for years to come. It sends a message to future students that only familial wealth will bring college opportunities, and it won’t matter how much hard work they put in or determination they have.
Rachel Fishman is the director of the higher education program at New America.
Once the world’s largest source of international students, China is no longer expected to fuel further student growth in the ‘big four’ destinations, according to predictions from Bonard Education shared in a recent webinar.
“China is no longer the easy goldmine it once was”, Bonard senior research consultant, Su Su, told attendees, highlighting the “visible trend” of Chinese students choosing alternative options closer to home.
The US has seen the most noticeable decline in Chinese enrolments, which broadly started across traditional destinations in 2020/21 and has continued in the US over the past five years, according to Bonard data.
Amid the downturn in Chinese mobility to the US, India surpassed China as America’s largest sending country in 2023 and new government data has shown this gap continue to widen.
Source: BONARD
The UK, however, is bucking the trend and has witnessed continued modest growth in Chinese students since 2020, though this cohort’s visa approval rate saw a 6% year-on-year decline in 2024.
Elsewhere, Canada experienced a 21% drop in Chinese visa approvals last year as the impact of the government’s study permit caps took hold, but university enrolment nevertheless remains stable, signalling the visa decline is concentrated in non-university level students.
Meanwhile, Australia and New Zealand saw a modest rebound in Chinese enrolment in 2023/24, with Su maintaining that China was still a “pivotal” source market despite fluctuations.
The waning dominance of China as a source market can partly be attributed to the state of the economy, with financial pressure becoming the most cited factor impacting study decisions, according to Bonard’s agent network.
“Middle class families are experiencing slower financial growth, and, as a result, are more economically conscious,” explained Su, fuelling a rise in shorter term English language courses as well as impacting the post-secondary sector.
What’s more, China’s urban unemployment rate among 16-24-year-olds jumped to an all-time high of 19% last year, pushing career outcomes up the priority list for students and their families, said Su.
Given the financial context, “families are determined to make every RMB count”, said Su, with more affordable Asian destinations becoming increasingly attractive in China.
The PIE News has previously reported on the rise of intra-Asian mobility, with countries in the region increasingly seeing internationalisation as critical to sustaining economic growth, plugging workforce gaps and driving innovation.
In particular, the National Universities of Singapore and Hong Kong were highlighted as hitting the sweet spot by offering highly regarded international degrees at a lower price than traditional destinations – catering to families who still value prestige and the merits of an international education, but who are shopping “smarter”.
Elsewhere, Japan, South Korea and Malaysia are on the rise, with the Japanese government pursuing an ambitious goal of attracting 400,000 international students by 2033 and Malaysia streamlining international admissions through a new centralised system.
But it’s not just affordability that is changing the landscape: perceived policy volatility “can shape perspective just as much as the price”, said Su, highlighting the damaging impact of Donald Trump’s erratic policy announcements in the US.
“Recent headlines in the US are raising serious concerns among families, whether or not the policies are enacted,” Su warned.
By comparison, despite some restrictions in the UK: “It feels more stable… agencies are describing the UK as the safest bet due to its clear communication of policies,” attendees heard.
That being said, political environments tend to have a temporary impact on student decision-making, with agencies and institutions advised that now is the time to “adapt and rethink” rather than turning away from the Chinese market.
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The “One, Big, Beautiful Bill,” a major tax and spending package narrowly passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump on July 4, includes a Republican-led national school choice provision that public school advocates and some researchers say will disrupt the traditional public school K-12 model by driving more competition with public schools.
This controversial issue has been debated at the local, state and national levels for decades, but this is the first federally funded, nationwide private school choice program. While unknowns remain about how many students, schools and states will participate, reaction has been swift, with opponents calling the law harmful to public schools and supporters labeling it as a historic move for educational freedom.
“Parents should decide where their kids go to school. This bill helps them do that,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., author of the Educational Choice for Children Act included in the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill” and chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, in a Thursday statement.
Here’s what you need to know about the newly enacted measure:
What the new school choice provision says
The law provides a federal tax incentive to generate funds for families’ educational expenses, including private school tuition at secular and religious schools, as well as costs incurred for children at public and private schools such as fees, tutoring, educational therapies, transportation, technology and other expenses. It would also apply to homeschooling costs.
To be eligible, families’ household incomes must not exceed 300% of the median gross income for their locality. The means, for example, students in Memphis living in households with incomes of up to $364,400 could be eligible, based on a median family income of $91,100.
States, however, can opt out of participating, meaning none of the students in that state would be eligible for the program. It was not immediately clear which state agency or leader decides this.
Under the new school choice law, any taxpayer who donates up to $1,700 annually to a scholarship granting organization — a 501(c)(3) charity organization — would be eligible for a 100% federal income tax credit for their contribution, or the equal amount in a reduction of taxes owed. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, there is no other charitable giving structure that allows this type of dollar-for-dollar tax incentive.
ITEP’s analysis of Internal Revenue Service data shows that more than 138 million people could use this tax credit in 2027 if they choose to. But some might not participate because of the paperwork involved or because they disagree with private school vouchers, ITEP said.
If 43% of taxpayers — which would be about 59 million people — participate, the cost to the federal government would be $101 billion per year, according to ITEP.
The law does not cap the program’s cost, despite earlier versions of the bill limiting it to $4 billion or $5 billion per year. In addition, the program is permanent with no expiration date.
The scholarship-granting organizations that will distribute tuition vouchers for education expenses must be independent entities and cannot be affiliated with a school, according to ACE Scholarships, a nonprofit scholarship-granting organization that has analyzed the law. The organization, in an FAQ, also said parents cannot direct their tax credit directly to their child’s education expenses.
Rather, the scholarship-granting organizations will be charged with independently determining students’ eligibility.
Protestors participate in a “study-in” in front of the U.S. Department of Education on March 21, 2025, in Washington, D.C.
Kayla Bartkowski via Getty Images
What people are saying
Reaction to the law was swift, with critics voicing concern about the impacts on public school budgets and supporters applauding what they call a significant step toward parental empowerment in K-12 education.
Robert Kim, executive director of the Education Law Center, blasted the new program. Studies have shown private school vouchers “sweep aside civil rights protections, support segregation, decimate public school budgets, and do not improve student outcomes,” Kim said in a statement.
He added, “Vouchers undermine public education, the cornerstone of our democracy, and have no place in federal policy.”
EdTrust, a nonprofit organization that works to improve outcomes for students of color, lambasted the law as an “extremely costly federal voucher program that will spend billions in public money to subsidize wealthy families accessing private schools.” and will operate with “little oversight.”
EdTrust has nicknamed the law the “Great American Heist” for its private school choice provision and changes to Medicaid, food stamps and college loan repayment programs. The law “would dismantle the very programs that make education and economic advancement possible for students of color, first-generation college students, and low- and middle-income families,” EdTrust’s statement said.
Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said in a statement that the school choice program “will divert billions of taxpayer dollars to private religious schools that indoctrinate and can discriminate against students and their families based on the schools’ beliefs.”
Supporters of private school choice, however, struck a different note. They said parents have become frustrated at disappointing student academic performances in public schools and want more options for their children.
“This is a huge victory for American families that have been praying and hoping for a financial lifeline to provide their children with the education they need to thrive,” said Anthony J. de Nicola, chairman of the board of Invest in Education Coalition, an organization that has promoted a federal school choice program, in a statement.
Tommy Schultz, CEO of the American Federation for Children, a school choice advocacy organization, said the law’s passage will “supercharge” school choice across the country.
“For a generation, our movement has fought to give all families, especially lower-income families, the freedom to choose the best K-12 education for their sons and daughters, and now President Trump has signed into law the single biggest advancement of that goal,” Schultz said in a statement.
Even with the praise, however, some supporters urged caution.
In an interview with Catholic News Agency published July 3, John DeJak, executive director of the Secretariat of Catholic Education for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, applauded the law’s passage but also pointed to “unknowns” like how the program would address religious liberty protections.
Success! Not only does the OBBB include historic tax cuts and cost savings for American families – the bill also
✅ Includes massive expansion in school choice
✅ Adds accountability measures for higher ed institutions
✅ Reduces federal student loan borrowing amounts to help…
— Secretary Linda McMahon (@EDSecMcMahon) July 3, 2025
What happens next
The tax incentive starts with the taxable years ending after Dec. 31, 2026, — and there’s a lot to work out before then.
For starters, the new law says that the U.S. secretary of education must draft regulations for how the program will operate, including recordkeeping and reporting, as well as enforcement of a state’s certification of scholarship-granting organizations.
The U.S. Department of Education did not provide a time frame for this by press time on Monday.
Details such as state participation and how the national private school choice program would operate in conjunction with state-level choice programs also need to be worked out. According to EdChoice, an organization that advocates for school choice, 35 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have private school choice programs that together serve nearly 1.3 million students.
It’s also unclear how this new school choice program will meld into Republican-led plans to close the Education Department.
In the meantime, school choice advocates and supporters of public schools vow to continue advocating for and against the controversial law.
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The American higher education system is in for a big shake-up with the enactment of Republicans’ massive bill full of tax and spending cuts.
The Senate voted 51-50 on the package, with Vice President JD Vance casting the deciding ballot, after which the bill passed the House by a four-vote margin. President Donald Trumpsigned it into law on Friday, the deadline he had set for lawmakers.
One of the architects of the bill’s higher ed provisions, Sen. Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican who chairs his chamber’s education committee, called it “the first set of significant conservative reforms to the higher education landscape in two decades,” adding that it would “maintain America’s world-class higher education system.”
The new law means higher taxes for some university endowments and a new college accountability system tied to financial aid, as well as several changes to the federal student aid program — including ending the GRAD Plus loan program and capping student borrowing overall — that advocates say will limit college access.
The American Council on Education on Thursday described the bill as “a significant improvement” over an earlier House version, but added that it “combines major tax changes with deep spending cuts that will carry significant negative consequences for campuses and students.”
Sameer Gadkaree, president and CEO of The Institute for College Access & Success, said in a July 3 statement, “This bill can only be described as one big mistake — the consequences of which will negatively affect college students, borrowers, and their families for years to come.”
The law cuts $300 billion in federal support to students over 10 years, including by limiting borrowing to graduate students — to $100,000 per borrower, or $200,000 for those in professional programs such as law or medicine. It would also cap Parent PLUS loans to $65,000 per student.
The caps on federal student lending will likely lead more borrowers “to pursue riskier private loans or forego further education,” Gadkaree said.
At the same time, the law culls a handful of federal student loan repayment programs down to just two choices. That reduction — billed as a simplification by supporters — which will leave many borrowers on the hook for larger monthly payments, according to TICAS.
“By increasing the amount, riskiness, and duration of student loan debt, the law directly reduces the likelihood that current borrowers and future students can do better financially than their parents,” Gadkaree said.
Aissa Canchola Bañez, policy director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, decried the law as one that will “push millions off their healthcare, leave children to go hungry, and push dreams of a college education even further out of reach for working people across this country.”
Walberg, meanwhile, said the loan system changes “increase simplicity and affordability so students don’t borrow excessive debt they can never repay.”
Changes to the federal student aid program will also bring financial impact to colleges.
Combined with higher tax rates on the wealthiest private college endowments, the bill’s aid cuts “will force even more difficult decisions on chief business officers and further strain revenue that helps make college affordable for students and families,” Kara Freeman, CEO and president of the National Association of College and University Business Officers, said in a July 3 statement.
Colleges could also be rendered ineligible to receive student loan funds entirely if their former students don’t meet new earnings measures in the bill.
However, changes to the bill narrowed the funds at stake for colleges from a previous version and tweaked the metrics to include only graduates of the programs in question. The accountability system “represents a more targeted and data-informed alternative” to the “punitive” risk-sharing proposal in an earlier House version of the bill, the American Council on Education said on July 3.
As for the endowment tax, the bill creates tiered rates that start at the current levy of 1.4% on investment earnings that rise to 4% and then 8% based on endowment assets per student. While the tax won’t cover many institutions, some colleges will now owe millions to the government each year starting in 2026.
Yale University, for example, estimated it will pay $280 million just in its first year, according to institutional leadership. Such a tax bill represents a significant break in the historic relationship between nonprofit entities and the federal government.
“This is money that would otherwise support our students, faculty, staff, and local partnerships with the city of New Haven,” Yale President Maurie McInnis said in a July 3 community message.
She added, “Taxing universities undermines the education and research that fuel life-saving medical breakthroughs, life-changing innovations, and economic growth in communities across the country and around the globe.”
Along with cuts to the federal aid program, the law expands Pell Grants to short-term programs between eight and 15 weeks in length.
TICAS argued that the law “opens eligibility for potentially high-cost, low-quality short-term programs” that could exacerbate funding pressure on the Pell program.
That assessment came even after the Senate took out a controversial provision that would have permitted Pell eligibility for unaccredited institutions. The chamber’s parliamentarian had concluded it would have violated rules governing the reconciliation process, which the Senate used to sidestep the filibuster and pass the budget bill with a simple majority vote.
ELKHART, Ind. — Ever since Ty Zartman was little, people told him he had to go to college to be successful. “It was engraved on my brain,” he said.
But despite earning straight A’s, qualifying for the National Honor Society, being voted prom king and playing on the high school football and baseball teams, the teen never relished the idea of spending another four years in school. So in fall 2023 he signed up through his Elkhart, Indiana, high school for an apprenticeship at Hoosier Crane Service Company, eager to explore other paths. There, he was excited to meet coworkers who didn’t have a four-year degree but earned good money and were happy in their careers.
Through the youth apprenticeship, Ty started his day at the crane manufacturing and repair business at 6:30 a.m., working in customer service and taking safety and training courses while earning $13 an hour. Then, he spent the afternoon at his school, Jimtown High, in Advanced Placement English and U.S. government classes.
In June, the 18-year-old started full-time at Hoosier Crane as a field technician.
“College is important and I’m not dissing on that,” Ty said. “But it’s not necessarily something that you need.”
Elkhart County is at the forefront of a movement slowly spreading across Indiana and the nation to make apprenticeships a common offering in high school.
In 2019, as part of a plan to boost the region’s economic prospects, county leaders launched an effort to place high schoolers in apprenticeships that combine work-based training with classroom instruction. About 80 students from the county’s seven school districts participated this academic year, in fields such as health care, law, manufacturing, education and engineering. In April, as part of a broader push to revamp high school education and add more work-based learning, the state set a goal of 50,000 high school apprentices by 2034.
Tim Pletcher, the principal of Jimtown High, said students are often drawn first to the chance to spend less time in class. But his students quickly realize apprenticeships give them work-based learning credits and industry connections that help them after graduation. They also earn a paycheck. “It’s really causing us to have a paradigm shift in how we look at getting kids ready for the next step,” he said.
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This “earn and learn” model is taking hold in part because of deepening disillusionment with four-year college, and the fact that well-paying jobs that don’t require bachelor’s degrees are going unfilled nationally. The past three presidential administrations invested in expanding apprenticeships, including those for high schoolers, and in April, President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for 1 million new apprentices. In a recent poll, more than 80 percent of people said they supported expanding partnerships between schools and businesses to provide work-based learning experiences for students.
Yet in the United States, the number of so-called youth apprenticeships for high schoolers is still “infinitesimally small,” said Vinz Koller, a vice president at nonprofit group Jobs for the Future. One estimate suggests they number about 20,000 nationally, while there are some 17 million high school students.By contrast, in Switzerland — which has been praised widely for its apprenticeship model, including by U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon — 70 percent of high schoolers participate. Indiana is among several states, including Colorado, South Carolina and Washington, that have embraced the model and sent delegations to Switzerland to learn more.
Elkhart, Indiana, known as the “RV capital of the world,” saw widespread unemployment during the Great Recession. That led community leaders to focus on apprenticeships as a way to diversify their economy. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report
Experts including Ursula Renold, professor of education systems at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, note that importing the model to the United States at a large scale won’t be simple. Most businesses aren’t accustomed to employing apprentices, parents can be resistant to their students trading four-year college aspirations for work, and public transportation to take students to apprenticeships is limited, especially in rural areas. Many high schoolers don’t have a driver’s license, access to a car or money for gas. School districts already face a shortage of bus drivers that makes transporting students to apprenticeships difficult or impossible.
Still, Renold, who is known as the “grande dame of apprenticeships,” said Indiana’s commitment to apprenticeships at the highest levels of state government, as well as the funding the state has invested in work-based learning, at least $67 million, seem to be setting the state up for success, though it could take a decade to see results.
“If I had to make a bet,” said Renold, “I would say it’s Indiana who will lead the way.”
Elkhart County’s experiment with apprenticeships has its roots in the Great Recession. Recreational vehicle manufacturing dominates the local economy, and demand for the vehicles plummeted, contributing to a regional unemployment rate at that time of nearly 20 percent. Soon after, community leaders began discussing how to better insulate themselves from future economic instability, eventually focusing on high school education as a way to diversify industries and keep up with automation, said Brian Wiebe, who in 2012 founded local nonprofit Horizon Education Alliance, or HEA, to help lead that work.
Elkhart County, Indiana, was the first community in Indiana to encourage businesses to employ high school students as apprentices, where they can earn work-based learning credits and make industry connections that help them, even if they decide to go on to college. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report
That year, Wiebe and two dozen local and state political, business, nonprofit and education leaders visited Switzerland and Germany to learn more about the apprenticeship model. “We realized in the U.S., there was only a Plan A, a path to college,” he recalled. “We were not supporting the rest of our young people because there was no Plan B.”
HEA partnered with Elkhart County school districts and businesses, as well as with CareerWise, a youth apprenticeship nonprofit that works nationally. They began rolling out apprenticeships in 2019, eventually settling on a goal of increasing participation by 20 percent each year.
In 2021, Katie Jenner, the new secretary of education for Indiana, learned about Elkhart’s apprenticeships as she was trying to revamp high school education in the state so it better prepared students for the workforce. Elkhart, as well as six other apprenticeship pilot sites funded by Indianapolis-based philanthropy the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation, provided a proof of concept for the apprenticeship model, said Jenner.
In December, the state adopted a new diploma system that includes an emphasis on experiential and work-based learning, through apprenticeships, internships and summer jobs.
On a weekday this winter, 17 sophomores at Elkhart’s Concord High School were sitting at computers, creating resumes they planned to use to apply for apprenticeships. The students were among some 50 sophomores at the high school who’d expressed interest in apprenticing and met the school’s attendance and minimum 2.5 GPA requirements, out of a class of roughly 400. They would receive coaching and participate in mock interviews before meeting with employers.
Becca Roberts, a former English teacher who now oversees the high school’s college and career programs, said apprenticeships help convince students of the importance of habits like punctuality, clear communication and regular attendance. “It’s not from a book,” she said. “They’re dealing with real life.”
Becca Roberts, who oversees college and career programs at Concord High School in Indiana, helps students research different companies offering apprenticeships, including job descriptions, work schedules and commuting distances. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report
One student, Ava Cripe, said she hoped for an apprenticeship of some sort in the health care field. She’d only been a pet sitter and was nervous at the thought of having a professional job. “You’re actually going out and working for someone else, like not for your parents or your grandma, so it’s a little scary,” she said.
CareerWise Elkhart has recently beefed up its support for students and businesses participating in apprenticeships. It employs a business partnership manager and customer success managers who help smooth over issues that arise in the workplace — an apprentice who isn’t taking initiative, for example, or an apprenticeship that isn’t sufficiently challenging. “Before, if an issue came up, a business would just fire a student or a student would leave,” said Sarah Koontz, director of CareerWise Elkhart County. “We’re now more proactive.”
In Elkhart and across the state, the embrace of work-based learning has worried some parents who fear it will limit, not expand, their children’s opportunities. In previous generations, career and technical programs (then known as vocational education) were often used to route low-income and Black and Hispanic students away from college and into relatively low-paying career paths.
Anitra Zartman, Ty’s mother, said she and her husband were initially worried when their son said he wanted to go straight to work. They both graduated from college, and her husband holds a master’s degree. “We were like, ‘Don’t waste your talent. You’re smart, go to college.’” But she says they came around after seeing how the work experience influenced him. “His maturity has definitely changed. I think it’s because he has a responsibility that he takes very seriously,” she said. “He doesn’t want to let people down.”
Her eldest daughter, Senica Zartman, also apprenticed during her final two years of high school, as a teacher’s assistant. She is now in college studying education. “The apprenticeship solidified her choice,” Anitra Zartman said, and it helped her decide to work with elementary students. Anitra Zartman said she would encourage her two youngest children to participate in apprenticeships too.
Ty Zartman works from 6 a.m. to noon at his apprenticeship at Hoosier Crane Service Company before he goes to school for afternoon classes. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report
Sarah Metzler, CEO of the nonprofit HEA, said apprenticeships differ from the vocational education of the past that tended only to prepare students for relatively low paid, entry-level jobs. With apprenticeships, she said, students must continually learn new skills and earn new licenses and industry certifications as part of the program.
Litzy Henriquez Monchez, 17, apprentices in human resources at a company of 50 people, earning $13.50 an hour. “I deal with payroll, I onboard new employees, I do a lot of translating. Anything that has to do with any of the employees, I deal with,” she said. She’s also earning an industry-recognized certification for her knowledge of a human resources management system, and says the company has offered to pay for her college tuition if she continues in the position.
Koontz said most companies pay for their apprentices to attend Ivy Tech, a statewide community college system, if they continue to work there. One is even paying for their apprentice’s four-year degree, she said.
Attracting employers has proven to be the biggest challenge to expanding youth apprenticeships — in Elkhart and beyond. In total, 20 companies worked with the Elkhart school districts last year, and 28 have signed on for this coming school year — only enough to employ about a third of interested students.
The obstacles, employers say, include the expense of apprentices’ salaries, training and other costs.
Metzler and others, though, point to studies showingbenefits for employers, including cost savings over time and improved employee loyalty. And in Indiana, the Fairbanks foundation and other organizations are working on ways to reduce employer costs, including by developing a standard curriculum for apprenticeships in industries like health care and banking so individual companies don’t bear the costs alone.
Business leaders who do sign on say they are happy with the experience. Todd Cook, the CEO of Hoosier Crane Service Company, employs 10 high schoolers, including Ty Zartman, as engineering and industrial maintenance technician apprentices, approximately 10 percent of his staff. He said the pipeline created by the apprenticeship program has helped reduce recruiting costs.
“We’re starting to build our own farm system of talent,” he said. Students initially earn $13 an hour, and finish their apprenticeship earning $18. If they continue with the company, he said, they can earn up to $50 an hour after about five years. And if they go on to become trainers or mentors, Cook said, “Honestly, there is no ceiling.”
Transportation has been a limiting factor too. There’s no public transit system, and students who can’t rely on their parents for rides are often out of luck. “We’d love to offer a bus to every kid, to every location, but we don’t have people to run those extra bus routes,” said Principal Pletcher.
The state has tried to help by investing $10 million to help students pay for costs such as transportation, equipment and certifications. Each school that provides work-based learning opportunities also receives an additional $500 per student.
Indiana has a goal to employ 50,000 high school students as apprentices by 2034. State leaders in business, education, government and nonprofits are working closely with Swiss experts to adopt a youth apprenticeship program similar to the one in that country. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report
Trump’s executive order called for the secretaries of education, labor and commerce to develop a plan by late August for adding 1 million new apprenticeships. The order does not set a date for reaching that milestone, and it applies to apprentices of all ages, not just high schoolers. Vinz Koller of Jobs for the Future said the goal is modest, and achievable; the number of youth apprenticeships has doubled just in the past few years, he said, and California alone has a goal of reaching 500,000 apprenticeships, across all ages, by 2029.
Still, the order did not include additional funding for apprenticeships, and the Trump administration’s proposed budget includes major cuts to workforce development training. In an email, a White House spokesperson said the administration had promoted apprenticeships through outreach programs but did not provide additional information including on whether that outreach had a focus on youth apprenticeships.
Back in Elkhart, Ty Zartman, the Hoosier Crane apprentice, has begun his technician job with the company after graduating in early June. He is earning $19 an hour. He is also taking a class at the local community college on electrical work and recently received a certificate of completion from the Department of Labor for completing 2,000 hours of his apprenticeship.
Anitra Zartman said she wishes he’d attended more school events like pep rallies, and sometimes worried he wasn’t “being a kid.” But Ty said his supervisor is “super flexible” and he was able to go to the winter formal and prom. “I think I still live a kid life,” he said. “I do a lot of fun things.”
Of his job, he said, “I love it so much.”
Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, via Signal at CarolineP.83 or on email at [email protected].
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