Tag: Big

  • Apprenticeships for high schoolers are touted as the next big thing. One state leads the way

    Apprenticeships for high schoolers are touted as the next big thing. One state leads the way

    This story is part of Hechinger’s ongoing coverage about rethinking high school. See our articles about a new diploma in Alabama and a “career education for all” model in Kentucky. 

    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. 

    Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter featuring the most important stories in education. 

    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.”

    Related: Apprenticeships are a trending alternative to college, but there’s a hitch

    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. 

    Related: Schools push career ed classes ‘for all,’ even kids heading to college

    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. 

    Related: ‘Golden ticket to job security’: Trade union partnerships hold promise for high school students

    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 showing benefits 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.”

    Related: A new kind of high school diploma trades chemistry for carpentry 

    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].

    This story about high school apprenticeships was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

    Source link

  • ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Means Big Changes for Higher Ed

    ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Means Big Changes for Higher Ed

    Following a flyover by a B-2 bomber, President Donald Trump signed a sweeping policy bill into law Friday, celebrating the Fourth of July and commending congressional Republicans for meeting his self-imposed deadline.

    The legislation, which narrowly passed the House on Thursday, promises to significantly change how colleges operate. Higher education groups and advocates warned that the bill will hurt low-income families while proponents praised the changes as necessary reforms.

    Much of the debate over the bill dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act centered on the nearly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, as well as changes to the tax code that will benefit the very rich. But the 870-page piece of legislation also overhauls higher education policy to cap some student loans, eliminate the Grad PLUS program and use students’ earnings to hold colleges accountable. Taken together, higher education experts say, the legislation would transform the sector, hurt universities’ finances and hinder college access.

    But the legislation doesn’t include some of the proposals that most worried college leaders, such as cuts to the Pell Grant program and a 21 percent endowment tax rate. Wealthy private colleges will still face a higher tax rate on their endowments, up to 8 percent. (The current rate is 1.4 percent.)

    Some higher ed lobbyists commended Republicans for backing off some of the deeper cuts, but they are worried about a number of changes in the bill.

    Eliminating Grad PLUS loans could mean fewer students attend graduate school, which would be a hit to universities’ bottom lines, especially at institutions that rely heavily on graduate programs for tuition revenue. Similarly, capping Parent PLUS loans at $65,000 per student could hurt Black and Latino families, who disproportionately use the loans. The legislation also consolidates repayment plans, giving future borrowers two options. Consumer protection advocates worry the bill will exacerbate the student debt crisis and drive students to private loans.

    The student loan changes take effect July 2026.

    Catch Up on Our Coverage of the Bill

    Lawmakers also agreed to expand the Pell Grant to short-term job-training programs, achieving a long-sought goal for community colleges and other groups. In a last-minute change, the expansion excludes unaccredited providers.

    “While somewhat improved over its original version, [the bill] contains a mix of new taxes and spending cuts that will force even more difficult decisions on chief business officers and further strain revenue that helps make college affordable for students and families,” said Kara Freeman, president of the National Association of College and University Business Officers. “The long-term implications of this legislation for higher education and American innovation are likely to be profound.”

    Over all, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will add about $3.3 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Republicans said they had hoped to curb spending and address the growing deficit with the legislation, and some conservatives balked at the price tag. Still, pressure from the president to deliver a legislative victory won out, even as some lawmakers waffled for hours over whether to support the bill. Politico reported that Trump called lawmakers and met with them in person to make his case.

    Republicans lawmakers and Trump administration officials praised the legislation, saying it would lower the cost of college and boost accountability. One of the major changes ties colleges’ access to federal student loans to students’ earnings. Programs that fail to show their graduates earn more than an adult with only a high school diploma could be cut off from loans. One rough analysis found that fewer than half of two-year degree programs would pass the earnings test, but community colleges are less reliant on loans.

    “Overall, the Senate’s ‘do no harm’ proposal would strengthen the higher education system,” wrote Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, who conducted the analysis. “But the current political environment presents a once-in-a-generation chance to fix the broken federal role in higher education. Lawmakers shouldn’t miss the opportunity to go further.”

    Another analysis from the Postsecondary Education and Economics Research Center at American University found that programs that would fail the earnings test enroll about 1 percent of students. But the test wouldn’t apply to certificate programs, where one in five students are pursuing a credential that doesn’t provide the necessary earnings boost, according to the PEER Center. Other experts have argued that the accountability plan should’ve taken into account the cost of programs and students’ debt loads.

    Colleges generally preferred the earnings-based accountability plan, which is similar to the Biden administration’s gainful-employment rule, though lobbyists had wanted lawmakers to make some changes. House Republicans had planned to make institutions pay an annual penalty based on students’ unpaid loans, which could’ve cost colleges billions.

    Jason Altmire, president of Career Education Colleges and Universities, the national trade association representing for-profit institutions, congratulated Congress in a statement Thursday for passing the “monumental legislation.”

    He praised the short-term Pell expansion as well as the “no tax on tips” policy, among other provisions. But he’s concerned about parts of the new accountability framework, though “we strongly support the fact that the measure applies equally to all schools in all sectors of higher education, a longtime CECU priority.”

    Altmire and CECU oppose the loan caps and eliminating Grad PLUS loans. “These cuts will negatively impact students and limit access for those who are most in need,” he said in the statement. “These provisions are ill-advised and we hope Congress will revisit them in the future. Overall, we are grateful that our voice was heard and so many of our longtime priorities were included in the final bill. We look forward to working with Congress to make improvements through future legislation.”

    Charles Welch, president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, said in a statement that the cuts to Medicaid and other programs will hurt regional public universities, which are typically “the first victim of tightened budgets.”

    “Never has the federal government divested itself of financial responsibility to such an extent, imperiling previously stretched state and local budgets as they seek to cover newly obligated burdens,” Welch said.

    Welch added that colleges in the association must put their “profound disappointment in the reconciliation bill aside” to focus on the appropriations process, which will kick into high gear this month. The appropriations bills in Congress set the spending limits and direct agencies how to dole out federal dollars. The Trump administration has proposed deep cuts to the Education Department’s budget, including zeroing out college-access programs like TRIO.

    “The American Association of State Colleges and Universities urges Congress to reassert its constitutionally endowed authority over government expenditures, eliminating executive overreach and fully funding the programs, grants, and institutions that serve our nation’s postsecondary students,” Welch said.

    Source link

  • The crisis in the youth sector is a big problem for universities

    The crisis in the youth sector is a big problem for universities

    It is hard for universities to see beyond their own sector crisis right now, but the crisis facing the youth sector today will be the problem of universities tomorrow.

    The youth sector in the UK greatly contributes towards supporting students and graduates of the future, but it is currently under threat and the deepest impact will come for those young people who face the highest barriers to accessing higher education.

    The youth sector engages young people to develop their critical skills for life, including how to build relationships with peers; resilience and developing social and emotional skills; and how to integrate into a community. Many within the higher education sector will recognise these as areas which students and graduates are also struggling with.

    At a time where universities are being called upon to widen access for young people, the reality is young people are facing narrower opportunities than ever. The challenge for widening participation teams will be multifaceted, including supporting attainment raising in schools; tackling entrenched views from schools and families of expectations of what their children can achieve; and providing the support needed for widening participation students to progress well once in higher education.

    So how can the higher education sector help ensure that the challenges the youth sector are facing today don’t become a nightmare for widening participation teams to tackle in the future?

    What is happening in the youth sector?

    The youth sector includes large organisations such as UK Youth, Scouts and Girlguiding, to smaller grassroots organisations who run clubs and activities in and out of schools and community centres across the country.

    There are many similarities between the crises facing the higher education sector and that of the youth sector. Much like universities, the youth sector has faced years of substantial defunding. A YMCA England and Wales report on The state of funding for youth services found that “local authority expenditure on youth services has fallen 73% in England and 27% in Wales since 2010-11” which “represents a real-term cut of £1.2bn to youth services between 2010-11 to 2023-24 in England, and £16.6m in Wales.”

    At the same time as these cuts, the rate of young people who are NEET (not in education, employment or training) is growing, with 13.2 per cent of 16-24 year olds reported as NEET in 2024, and 15.6 per cent of 18-24 year olds NEET. Both figures have increased compared to previous years, particularly in young men. These young people need support and youth services are increasingly unable to provide it.

    Organisations and charities who have been supporting the youth sector are closing at a rapid rate. The National Citizen Service (NCS), a national youth social action programme which has been running since 2009, has been cut by the Labour Government. Student Hubs, the social action charity I worked with which supported students to engage in social and environmental action, has closed. YMCA George Williams College, an organisation which supported the youth sector to improve monitoring, evaluation and impact of their activities closed on 31 March 2025 to the shock of many across the youth sector.

    Whilst the Government’s National Youth Strategy announced in November 2024 is welcome, it will not fix years of systematic underfunding of youth sector services.

    How will this crisis impact universities?

    David Kernohan’s analysis of the UCAS 2025 application figures shows that applications are down, with only applicants from the most advantaged quintile, IMD quintile 5, having improved. We are in the midst of what could be a big decline in the rate of students coming from disadvantaged backgrounds entering higher education, despite the transformative opportunities it provides.

    This comes at a time where there is greater expectation by the government and the regulator for universities to be proactive in supporting students’ and young people’s skills, learning and access to opportunity. In February the Office for Students announced successful providers in their latest funding round to deliver projects which tackle Equality of Opportunity Risk Register areas. The register supports universities to consider barriers in the student life cycle and how they might mitigate against these.

    Seeing the range of projects which have been awarded funding, it is clear that universities are being pushed to go further in imagining what their role is in shaping the lives of the students they engage, and it starts significantly earlier than freshers’ week. This funding shows that more emphasis is being put on universities to address barriers to participation by the Office for Students, and with the youth sector in crisis, this may need to become even wider if universities are to fulfil their access missions.

    Thankfully, there are actions universities can take now which will make a difference both to young people and widening participation teams.

    Tackling the problems together

    The youth sector cannot afford to wait. If universities want to be ready to meet the challenges of tomorrow, they need to build strong collaborative relationships with organisations already situated in communities whilst they are still here. Partnership with the youth sector offers an opportunity to enhance university strategic activity whilst making genuine social and economic impact.

    Universities could be doing more to provide expertise on monitoring and evaluation of youth activities, enhancing quality of local activities, and conducting research to support future outcomes. There’s an opportunity for universities to learn from these partnerships too, particularly because the youth sector has a range of expertise which is highly applicable to the work the sector is doing in broadening their widening participation and civic strategies. These partnerships will sometimes be informal and sometimes they might be formalised through knowledge exchange programmes like student consultancy.

    Students can play a big role in linking universities and youth services. Research conducted by the National Youth Agency in 2024 found “that fewer than seven per cent of respondents to a national survey of youth workers are under 26 years old”. There is a desperate need for youth workers and particularly under-30s to support the sector. Student Hubs’ legacy resources detail the approach we took to supporting students to volunteer in local schools, libraries and community centres to provide free support to young people as part of place-based programmes with universities.

    Universities and students’ unions have spaces they are looking to commercialise, whilst also trying to give students jobs on campus. Universities and students’ unions could work collaboratively with community groups to use spaces on campus, provide student work through staffing them, and in turn support young people and families to access campus facilities.

    The time is now

    One of the hallmarks of a crisis is communities coming together to meet challenges head on, and universities shouldn’t wait to be invited. Trust will need to be built and relationships take time to forge.

    The best time to start is now. Universities should mobilise whilst there is still a youth sector left to support, or the void left by the lack of youth services means universities’ involvement in young people’s lives is going to become even larger.

    Source link

  • Risk-Sharing: Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” — Implications for UK Higher Education

    Risk-Sharing: Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” — Implications for UK Higher Education

    • By Peter Ainsworth, a consultant and writer on higher education finance, known for advocating structural reform that aligns university incentives with real-world graduate outcomes.

    Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” may sound absurd to British ears, but beneath the “very stable genius’s” promotional gloss lies a legislative change designed to reset the relationship between the US Higher Education sector and the state. The bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives on 22 May 2025, includes the Student Success and Taxpayer Savings Act (SSTSA) – which, if passed by the Senate, would be the world’s first statutory implementation of institutional risk-sharing in student loans.

    Historically, in both the US and UK, universities have been financially rewarded for their enrollment of students rather than for the practical benefits delivered to their customers. Success arises out of customer acquisition rather than service value-add. Students take out government-backed loans to pay tuition; institutions receive the money upfront regardless of whether or not their degrees lead to economic success. The result is a moral hazard: an incentive (payment) structure for universities that is not aligned with the employability gain that students want and taxpayers need. Systematically falling graduate premiums on both sides of the Atlantic reflect the impact of insulating universities from the employment risk their students face in a rapidly changing economy.

    The American reform seeks to realign incentives to better align risks and objectives. It introduces an Earnings-to-Price Ratio (EPR):

    EPR = (Median Value-Added Earnings) / (Median Total Price)

    Institutions with low EPRs – indicating poor graduate earnings relative to costs – will face a financial penalty in the form of an invoice from the US Treasury to cover the estimated student loan losses for the relevant cohort. If the Senate passes the reform, US universities will have a powerful incentive to transform their offer to ensure meaningful real-world earnings gains for their students.

    The SSTSA is an advance on the existing Cohort Default Rate (CDR) system, which merely threatened to deny access to federal loans to students of institutions with very high default rates. But there was no direct financial risk. Congress deemed it ineffective and so now proposes something more market-oriented.

    Meanwhile, the UK is two steps behind, only now looking to implement a version of the CDR model which the US is already moving away from. A recent Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) paper proposes regulating universities based on early-career graduate earnings proxies – like the CDR it is recognising the importance of career earnings outcomes but measuring them indirectly and using regulatory sanction rather than financial cost as the stick. The IFS proposes to use earnings in a three- to five-year window post-graduation to drive regulatory response. Like the CDR’s reliance on a technical definition of default, this short, near-term window will create heavily biased statistics, diminishing the value of professions with delayed earnings trajectories such as medicine and academia.

    Further, the IFS proposes to exclude from consideration graduates with very low earnings. This favours institutions whose graduates earn just below an arbitrary threshold level. They also rely on UK tax data which omits emigrants, undervaluing universities that succeed in preparing graduates for global careers.

    As Friedrich Hayek argued, complex systems cannot be centrally managed through proxies and aggregated metrics. Graduate career trajectories are dynamic, diverse, and unpredictable — precisely the kind of outcomes that defy simple measurement. Accepting that lifetime earnings are the relevant metric leads inevitably to the conclusion that no bureaucratic proxy will suffice.

    There is a cleaner alternative. Universities could be required to issue the loans themselves, something that Buckingham, for example, already does on a small scale. Where needed, to support cash flow, the government could lend to institutions rather than students. This would internalise the financial risk: institutions would have a direct, long-term stake in the earnings success of their graduates. Universities could be freed to set fees and loan terms based on the economic value they expect to deliver and would be incentivised to provide ongoing support — career services, retraining, alumni engagement — to minimise loan defaults over the full life of the loan.

    Such a model also addresses bigger challenges facing the higher education sector. Edward Peck, the new Chair of the Office for Students, recently argued that AI is making traditional assessment ineffective and universities must move from testing what students know to what they can do. Meanwhile, Diana Beech and André Spicer, writing for HEPI, have highlighted that universities now employ an average of 17.6 staff solely to handle regulatory compliance and warned that regulation is “multiplying and becoming less predictable.” In this context, risk-sharing offers a route back to institutional autonomy: tying funding to real-world success rather than the IFS’s proposal for even more bureaucratic box-ticking.

    Finally, political and fiscal realities support this innovation. A shift to institutionally issued loans would remove the student loan portfolio from the government’s balance sheet, reducing annual write-downs by around £15bn per annum – a present value of around £300bn. That would go a long way to address the various fiscal challenges faced by the Labour government. With less bureaucratic interference, more strategic freedom, and appropriate incentives, the sector should be able to make student loans pay, ensuring a sustainable and prosperous future, and letting British universities blow past their American rivals like nobody’s seen before.

    Source link

  • Senate HELP Committee Releases Big Beautiful Bill

    Senate HELP Committee Releases Big Beautiful Bill

    Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, spearheading the Senate plan for higher education reform.

    Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

    Senate Republicans want to eliminate so-called “inflationary loans,” stop federal aid to degrees that leave students worse off and expand the Pell Grant to workforce training programs as part of a draft plan released late Tuesday evening to overhaul higher education policy. 

    The 71-page legislation is part of the Senate’s response to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which passed the House last month and is designed to fund President Donald Trump’s tax cuts, his crackdown on immigration and other top agenda items.

    The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee drafted the higher education portion of the legislation. As expected, the plan mirrors the House bill in many ways as it calls for significant changes to the federal student loan system. For instance, both plans would end the Grad Plus loans and restrict the Parent Plus program.

    But the Senate has a different plan to hold colleges accountable, nixing the House’s proposed risk-sharing model, under which colleges would have to pay a fee for their graduates’ unpaid loans, for a measure like gainful employment. Under the Senate plan, colleges would have to report their average postgraduate income levels and could lose access to federal aid, depending on students’ earnings and debt. The Senate bill also omits a provision from the House bill that would exclude part-time students from the Pell grant. Overall, the changes in the Senate bill would save $300 billion over 10 years compared to the House bill, which would save $350 billion.

    “American higher education has lost its purpose. Students are graduating with degrees that won’t get them a job and insurmountable debt that they can’t pay back,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Republican chair of the HELP committee, in a news release.  “We need to fix our broken higher education system, so it prioritizes student success and ensures Americans have the skills to compete in a 21st century economy. President Trump and Senate Republicans are focused on delivering results for American families and this bill does just that.”

    Lawmakers are using the process known as reconciliation to advance the legislation, so it only needs 51 votes to pass the high chamber instead of the typical 60 votes. But before senators can vote, the Senate Budget committee and then the parliamentarian will have to scrutinize the various provisions and ensure they adhere to the reconciliation rules. For example, the policy changes must have a budgetary impact and be within the jurisdiction of the committee that proposed it. 

    President Donald Trump has set an ambitious July 4 deadline to sign the measure into law, which would require quick action from the Senate.

    From the beginning of the Trump administration in January, House Republicans have been pushing a more radical plan with steep cuts to key welfare programs like Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and, most recently, student financial aid like the Pell Grant. Meanwhile, senators have talked about more modest, though still significant, spending cuts. 

    Now, Republicans from both chambers will have to get on the same page if they want to meet their deadline. All the while, lobbyists, policy analysts and political figures—including ex-Trump advisor, Elon Musk—are expected to come at the bill from every angle with critiques.

    Source link

  • A big reason why students with math anxiety underperform — they just don’t do enough math

    A big reason why students with math anxiety underperform — they just don’t do enough math

    Math anxiety isn’t just about feeling nervous before a math test. It’s been well-known for decades that students who are anxious about math tend to do worse on math tests and in math classes.

    But recently, some of us who research math anxiety have started to realize that we may have overlooked a simple yet important reason why students who are anxious about math underperform: They don’t like doing math, and as a result, they don’t do enough of it.

    We wanted to get a better idea of just what kind of impact math anxiety could have on academic choices and academic success throughout college. In one of our studies, we measured math anxiety levels right when students started their postsecondary education. We then followed them throughout their college career, tracking what classes they took and how well they did in them.

    We found that highly math-anxious students went on to perform worse not just in math classes, but also in STEM classes more broadly. This means that math anxiety is not something that only math teachers need to care about — science, technology and engineering educators need to have math anxiety on their radar, too.

    We also found that students who were anxious about math tended to avoid taking STEM classes altogether if they could. They would get their math and science general education credits out of the way early on in college and never look at another STEM class again. So not only is math anxiety affecting how well students do when they step into a STEM classroom, it makes it less likely that they’ll step into that classroom in the first place.

    Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.

    This means that math anxiety is causing many students to self-sort out of the STEM career pipeline early, closing off career paths that would likely be fulfilling (and lucrative).

    Our study’s third major finding was the most surprising. When it came to predicting how well students would do in STEM classes, math anxiety mattered even more than math ability. Our results showed that if you were a freshman in college and you wanted to do well in your STEM classes, you would likely be better off reducing your math anxiety than improving your math ability.

    We wondered: How could that be? How could math anxiety — how you feel about math — matter more for your academic performance than how good you are at it? Our best guess: avoidance.

    If something makes you anxious, you tend to avoid doing it if you can. Both in our research and in that of other researchers, there’s been a growing understanding that in addition to its other effects, math anxiety means that you’ll do your very best to engage with math as little as possible in situations where you can’t avoid it entirely.

    This might mean putting in less effort during a math test, paying less attention in math class and doing fewer practice problems while studying. In the case of adults, this kind of math avoidance might look like pulling out a calculator whenever the need to do math arises just to avoid doing it yourself.

    In some of our other work, we found that math-anxious students were less interested in doing everyday activities precisely to the degree that they thought those activities involved math. The more a math-anxious student thought an activity involved math, the less they wanted to do it.

    If math anxiety is causing students to consistently avoid spending time and effort on their classes that involve math, this would explain why their STEM grades suffer.

    What does all of this mean for educators? Teachers need to be aware that students who are anxious about math are less likely to engage with math during class, and they’re less likely to put in the effort to study effectively. All of this avoidance means missed opportunities for practice, and that may be the key reason why many math-anxious students struggle not only in math class, but also in science and engineering classes that require some math.

    Related: Experts share the latest research on how teachers can overcome math anxiety

    Math anxiety researchers are at the very beginning of our journey to understand ways to make students who are anxious about math stop avoiding it but have already made some promising suggestions for how teachers can help. One study showed that a direct focus on study skills could help math-anxious students.

    Giving students clear structure on how they should be studying (trying lots of practice problems) and how often they should be studying (spaced out over multiple days, not just the night before a test) was effective at helping students overcome their math anxiety and perform better.

    Especially heartening was the fact that the effects seen during the study persisted in semesters beyond the intervention; these students tended to make use of the new skills into the future.

    Math anxiety researchers will continue to explore new ways to help math-anxious students fight their math-avoidant proclivities. In the meantime, educators should do what they can to help their students struggling with math anxiety overcome this avoidance tendency — it could be one of the most powerful ways a math teacher can help shape their students’ futures.

    Rich Daker is a researcher and founder of Pinpoint Learning, an education company that makes research-backed tools to help educators identify why their students make mistakes. Ian Lyons is an associate professor in Georgetown University’s Department of Psychology and principal investigator for the Math Brain Lab.

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].

    This story about math anxiety was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

    Source link

  • One Big, Ugly, & Deadly Bill (Reverand William Barber)

    One Big, Ugly, & Deadly Bill (Reverand William Barber)

    This morning I joined Amy Goodman on Democracy Now to talk about the bill that House Republican leadership worked through the night to push toward a vote on the floor.

    The more Americans learn about what’s in this bill, the more outrage there will be that House members are willing to vote for cuts that will devastate communities so their billionaire donors can have a massive tax break. (That’s why they’re meeting to talk about the details in the middle of the night.)

    We must sharpen our language to make clear what’s at stake in this one big, ugly, and death-dealing bill.

    And we must prepare ourselves for moral action.

    We are glad to announce that Indivisible, the national organization behind “No Kings Day” on June 14th, has joined our Moral Monday partners to mobilize a mass action on June 2 outside of the US Capitol. We invite you to register here if you can join us for Moral Monday on June 2.

    To learn more, plan to join me and Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin for a Substack Live on Tuesday, May 27, at 12pm ET.

    I’m also looking forward to a conversation here on Substack next week with Robert Reich. We will be live Wednesday, May 28, at 5:30pm ET/2:30pm PT.

    To join live conversations with us on Our Moral Moment, you just need to download the Substack app, subscribe for free, and turn out notifications. You’ll get a notice on your phone that we are going live.

    Source link

  • Extracurricular activities have big benefits for students

    Extracurricular activities have big benefits for students

    Extracurricular activities have big benefits for both students and the university – but we could do more to get students involved.

    University life for students is busy these days, not just with lectures and assessments but for many students, also the need to work to fund their studies.

    Extracurricular activities can not only add value to the student experience and are a key offering of universities which have some surprising benefits for both.

    They have a demonstrative effect in reducing depression, boosting employability skills, giving students an opportunity to try new things without pressure of assessment – and participation in extracurricular activities is closely related to increasing alumni donations to the university, a clear sign of happy and successful graduates.

    However, in order for us to get the most out of them we need both the benefits, and the activities themselves, to be signposted better within the university as well as ensuring that some groups that would benefit most despite lower engagement are encouraged to get involved.

    Competition for student’s time is fierce, with coursework, exams, and projects, but also for those students who need to work in paid employment to fund their studies and living costs. But extracurricular activities have several benefits for the students, and whilst a small number of students find it harder than others to balance activities and academic work, outcomes are generally positive.

    The vast majority of studies around the world have found a general correlation between taking part in extracurricular activities and improved academic performance. There are a large range of activities that students could do – activities that complement the curriculum such as the MBA programme having a pitching competition or a weekend hackathon (often called cocurricular activities), whilst there are also activities from outside these boundaries such as sports which are unrelated to the student’s core subject.

    Regardless of the actual activity that they do, there are a range of positives. They improve employability skills and leadership skills – giving the student CV-worthy examples, and they are a way to show an employer that you are interested in a specific career.

    Employers have suggested extracurricular activities can help determine your cultural fit, and show examples of commitment and interpersonal skills. Involvement in social enterprise or charitable projects are looked upon favourably. Improving students’ employment prospects, especially with extracurricular activities having a “levelling up” effect for those from minority groups and those from lower socio-economic groups – this reflects well on the university and its mission.

    Extracurricular activities allow students the opportunity to try more hands-on and experiential activities without the risk and pressure of needing a good grade, or being creative using spaces such as makerspaces. It might also be a rare opportunity to work in a cross disciplinary manner and diversifies your group of friends.

    Residential courses and field trips are also valuable, with research showing that they stimulate a sense of togetherness with those on their courses, and with a chance to see their subject in action which helps them put it in context, encourages more enjoyment of it, and allows them to form career plans based on that subject, with those in late adolescence and early adulthood especially attuned for developing career self-efficacy in this way.

    These residential activities seem to disproportionally benefit poorer students and those from minority groups, resulting in higher marks, thus making them ideal activities for universities to support. With the Sutton Trust suggesting the number of students in the UK now living at home due to the cost of living to be 34 per cent, rising to 65 per cent from those in poorer socio-economic groups, it is a rare opportunity for some students to escape from living with parents.

    Extracurricular activities are seen as adding value by students, especially those overseas students who readily sign up for activities, as we have found with off campus opportunities we offer in entrepreneurship quickly booked up by enthusiastic overseas students, such as our “Enterprise School” in the Lake District with postgraduate groups from mixed subject areas working together late into the night (putting the staff to shame) – and keeping in touch when they return to Manchester and beyond, building a network they would never have otherwise met.

    What can we do to improve them?

    We can try to engage older and ethnic minorities more as these groups tend to spend less time on extracurricular activities at the university, and make them more friendly for those who may have carer commitments, for example not always having events in the evening.

    This might help other groups of students – I have also found as an academic adviser that many students in Manchester live with parents and commute from nearby cities such as Liverpool and Sheffield, with their notoriously bad rail lines – and these students are less likely to take part in extracurricular activities as they prioritise when they travel to university.

    Those from lower socio-economic groups also spend less time on extracurricular activities due to the pressure of paid employment, so encouraging them to consider at least some extracurricular activity would be beneficial.

    First year males could also be a target for engagement – whilst suicide rates for students overall are considerably lower than that of the general population, for first year males the rate was found to be 7.8 per 100,000 people, significantly higher than males of other years and female students as a whole, which has been attributed to social isolation, alcohol consumption and the general life change of moving to university.

    Involvement in extracurricular activities reduces suicidal tendencies by increasing the sense of belonging and lessening the sense of burden a student might feel, and are a relatively low cost option as part of the universities commitment to its duty of care. It has been suggested by the Office for Students that those students who are in several minority categories concurrently are particularly vulnerable from a mental health perspective, so being aware of these students is especially important.

    Students partaking in extracurricular activities reported having a depressive mood less often and report the development of a long-lasting social support network – which may well identify problems and help students before the university even becomes aware of anything wrong.

    Unfortunately, many that will benefit most from them won’t take part – so we need to encourage them to do so – especially students’ academic advisers who might have a broader picture on how well the student is getting on. Studies have found that female students are more likely than males to undervalue the skills they have gained from extracurricular activities – again academic advisers could reinforce this for all, especially when preparing for job applications.

    Alumni speakers could also reference what extracurricular activities they did to focus on how this helped them while at university, and examples of how it helped them find employment and fit into the workplace.

    Programme directors might also recommend what co-curricular activities might be useful for the student’s degree, and students themselves such as at the student’s union could communicate more on the benefits of extracurricular activities, especially to engage first years, throughout the year as well as during the whirlwind of welcome week – some students might need time to settle down before they can see how much spare time they can allocate to extracurricular activities.

    Ask students when they want activities to run – this might be different for city centre or out of town campuses – but we have found in Manchester a surprising number of students who are prepared to commit to a whole Saturday working on a hackathon, for example.

    Interestingly, there is a correlation between the number of extracurricular activities that a student partakes in and alumni donations, with a Wonkhe study suggesting that participation in extracurricular activities was a much stronger indicator of donation to their alma mater even than degree class obtained, showing extracurricular activities strengthen the relationship between students and their university.

    There is every reason for universities to provide a full range of opportunities – and to encourage students to get involved.

    Source link

  • To tell a big story find one that’s small

    To tell a big story find one that’s small

    How do you get someone who lives in India to care about people in Uganda?

    That’s the challenge for journalists who try to tell stories about parts of the world that most of the press ignores. Correspondent Enock Wanderema is from Uganda and wants the world to know what happens there. 

    For a story about the widespread government corruption he focused on one woman, Aloikin Praise Opoloje. Wanderema tells us this story about Opoloje giving birth in a hospital that had been starved of resources because of government corruption. He writes: 

    …she watched the midwife try to manage multiple births at once. Opoloje could tell she was exhausted.  “One of the women was in critical condition, but the surgeon who was supposed to operate was nowhere to be found,” Opoloje said. “We tried calling him, but he wasn’t picking up.” 

    Wanderema used what we call an anecdote to help bring the complicated story of government corruption to life. Anecdotes are little stories about something that happened to someone. People tell little stories about themselves all the time. 

    Bring the story to life.

    In interviews savvy reporters will focus attention on these little stories and try to get as many details as they can. When did this happen? Where were you exactly? What time of day was it? Were there people around? What did it sound like? 

    A good reporter knows that the little details help make a story three-dimensional for readers or listeners. It helps place the reader there as it is happening. And if people feel like they are there, they will care. 

    High school student Helen Milito wrote about her experience spending a year studying in Italy with School Year Abroad. To show how different she felt and how much it took her out of her comfort zone she gave this story:

    We were split into two teams scrimmaging against each other. The boys I play with are competitive so there was the usual light trash talking, jersey pulling and agile foot skills. 

    We were playing friendly rules with no corner kicks. My teammate, Gugu, was fouled in the makeshift goalie box and dramatically fell to the ground yelling for a penalty kick. 

    None of us expected the coach to listen to him, but surprisingly he gave it to our team on the condition that I take the kick. All the players lined up around the box as I prepared to shoot, choosing to aim for the bottom right corner. 

    Two things you should know: First this is in Italy and I’m an American teenager who speaks little Italian. Second, I’m the only girl on the team.

    The coach blew the whistle. I confidently ran, kicking the ball with all my strength. It went soaring over the crossbar into the fence behind. I wanted to crawl into a hole and hide. 

    Note how she shows us visually what is happening through action: “there was light trash talking, jersey pulling and agile foot skills.” She includes the sound of the coach’s whistle. And she gives us emotion: “I confidently ran…”, “I wanted to crawl into a hole…”

    Telling other people’s stories

    Correspondent Leah Pattem felt compelled to report how people in Madrid were suffering from high rents. To do that, like Wanderema, she found one woman whose story she could tell. 

    Pattem wrote: 

    Now in her 80s, [Marjorie] Kanter is at the peak of her career, author of three books and an active member of Madrid’s writing community. “I don’t have many more years left, so I really want to enjoy being a successful writer for as long as I can,” she said.

    However, Kanter is facing a major setback. In September, a registered letter demanded she vacate her home at the end of October. A Galician vulture fund had purchased her apartment and didn’t offer her a new higher-priced rental contract. She suspects that means they will convert her home into a tourist flat.

    The thing is, people don’t offer up anecdotes without prompting. They don’t think reporters are interested in the little stories they tell their friends. And there is a general rule in interviewing that people won’t answer unasked questions. So to get the anecdote you need to tease it out of the person you interview question by question.

    Here are some questions that are useful in teasing out a little story:

    Can you remember the first time you did that? 

    Can you remember the scariest time? 

    Can you think of a time when that happened to you?

    Drilling down

    Ask questions to jog a person’s memory. They’ll say, “There was this one time that …”

    All the time, write down what they say and pester them for details. Imagine that the person is your grandfather and you are five years old. You will keep interrupting him to ask for details he doesn’t think is important but is important to a five-year old: What were you wearing? Was it cold? What did it smell like? Were you scared? Were you hungry? How old were you? How tall were you? 

    The key is to drill down. When someone says something, ask for specifics. When did that happen exactly? Where was that? Who else was there? No detail is too small or insignificant because to recreate a scene and you need to paint a complete picture.  

    Anecdotes are great ways to start articles. They grab the attention of readers and get them interested enough to read on. 

    After all, who doesn’t want to hear a good story?

     

    Three questions to consider:

    1. What is an anecdote?
    2. How can anecdotes help you tell a complicated story?
    3. Can you think of a little story you have told your friends or family about yourself?

     

    Source link

  • BIG CHANGES to SNAP, Medicaid, Social Security & Student Loan Forgiveness – What You NEED to Know! (Low-Income Relief)

    BIG CHANGES to SNAP, Medicaid, Social Security & Student Loan Forgiveness – What You NEED to Know! (Low-Income Relief)

    If you’re worried about losing your benefits, you’re not alone. With new budget resolutions and lawsuits targeting SNAP, Medicaid, and student loan forgiveness, millions of Americans could be impacted.
     

     

    Source link