In this replay episode of the Education Exchange, Robert Enlow, the President and CEO of EdChoice, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss the tax credit scholarship provision that was part of budget reconciliation bill, which was passed by Congress and signed into law on July 4, 2025.
Tag: choice
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Derrick Bell, Critical Race Theory and the Beginnings of School Choice – The 74
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School choice — the idea that American education would function more efficiently and effectively if parents received public funding to send their children to private and religious schools — is commonly traced to an influential essay written in 1955 by conservative economist and Nobel laureate Milton Friedman. It has provoked animated debate between adversaries on the political right and the political left ever since. Less well known is that school choice also has roots in the work of Derrick Bell, considered by many the father of critical race theory.
In 1971, Derrick Bell became the first Black man to be awarded tenure at Harvard Law School. As part of his teaching load, he developed a civil rights course that focused on race. In order to meet its topical requirements, Bell wrote an accompanying textbook, Race, Racism and American Law, which is foundational in critical race theory. It holds that racism is an ordinary and permanent feature of American society. His claim was viewed by many colleagues at the time as a radical statement, and it remains so for many today. Yet, it carries forward a certain truth that the history of school choice persuasively illustrates.
Having served as a federal attorney litigating desegregation cases, Bell had grown skeptical about forced racial integration and whether it would actually improve student learning. The original edition of his 1973 textbook included a chapter outlining “Alternatives to Integrated Schools” by which “black children might receive the long-promised equal educational opportunity — in predominantly black schools.” The chapter included a discussion of tuition vouchers.
Bell argued that for vouchers to work, poor families would need to receive substantially larger grants than the more fortunate. He also mentioned “free schools.” These were small, private institutions in poor areas supported by foundation grants, fundraising and, sometimes, public dollars. Tuition was charged on a sliding scale, and students whose parents could not pay attended for free. Many of these schools began “deep in the black community.” For example, Bell mentioned a system of schools operated by the Black Muslims that emphasized racial pride, self-discipline and self–sufficiency. He explained that such virtues are not commonly celebrated in the neighborhood public schools Black students attended. He pointed out that students at the Muslim schools performed several grade levels above most Black teenagers who attended public schools.
Bell saw school choice as the culmination of a series of disappointments in the fight for educational equality. He understood it as a dramatic manifestation of the ways the Black community was losing confidence in its public schools. After numerous false starts to achieve desegregation and equalized funding, many Black activists turned to demands for community control. In 1968, a group of local parents and residents in Brooklyn’s Ocean Hill-Brownsville neighborhood wrested local control of their school board. When a similar eruption took place in Milwaukee in 1988, those involved issued a call to action — commonly referred to as the Milwaukee Manifesto — demanding that the state allow them to establish an independent school district.
To lend a helping hand, Bell traveled to Milwaukee and wrote an op-ed for the Milwaukee Journal. Published under the headline “Control Not Color: The Real Issue in the Milwaukee Manifesto,” it took issue with the better-off liberal activists who condemned the plan. “Can we whose children are not required to attend the inner-city schools honestly condemn the Manifesto writers and their supporters?” Bell wrote. “After all, when middle-class parents — black and white — lose faith in the administration of a public school, we move to another school district or place our children in private schools. Inner-city black parents who can’t afford our options seek as a group a legislative remedy that may after a long struggle enable them to do what we achieve independently by virtue of our higher economic status.”
Soon after, in 1990, the same Black activists in Milwaukee joined forces with their white Republican governor, Tommy Thompson, and his conservative legislative colleagues to pass the nation’s first school voucher law. The original Wisconsin vouchers were targeted at low-income students stuck in chronically failing public schools. Five years later, Wisconsin became the first state to expand its voucher program to include religious schools.
Bell revisited the topic of school choice in Silent Covenants (2004). By then, vouchers had been adopted in Cleveland and Washington, D.C., among other places. He acknowledged that vouchers were “probably the most controversial of educational alternatives to emerge in the last decade,” but that they were also growing in popularity. He understood that many opponents were liberal Democrats with long histories of civil rights activism. These critics alleged that minority parents were being duped, that the real beneficiaries of such programs were private religious schools gaining enrollment.
Bell recognized these criticisms but was also sympathetic to arguments by free-market advocates who believed that the competition fostered by choice would incentivize floundering public schools in Black communities to improve. He did not deny that the Catholic Church had become a major player in the choice movement to address its own declining school enrollments. But Bell was more impressed with how many Black and Hispanic parents chose Catholic schools over public schools because of their more disciplined learning environments and better academic outcomes. He cited one particular Catholic school in Milwaukee, where 80% of the students were not Catholic and the voucher covered most of the tuition.
Silent Covenants also delves into the topic of charter schools. Bell lauded them as innovative institutions that give options to all students, not just the wealthy who can afford private school tuition. He rejected claims by liberals that the institutions would become bastions for middle-class families who were better prepared to work the system, citing evidence that two-thirds of charter students nationwide were nonwhite and more than half were from low-income families. Critics had also raised concerns that charter schools would discriminate, become racially isolated and drain resources from regular public schools. Bell, unmoved by these claims, was more concerned that charters were receiving 15% less funding than other public schools.
Now, 30 years after the Milwaukee breakthrough, the school choice movement has taken off in a new direction. Republicans who once allied with Black advocates to demand better options for low-income students now rally behind appeals for universal choice, which provides such benefits to all students regardless of family income. Eighteen states have enacted such programs. When awards do not cover the entire cost of tuition, they end up subsidizing better-off families and neglecting those unable to make up the difference. As demands for private and religious schools grow, so does the competition for seats and the incentive to raise tuition. Yielding larger numbers of applications from a stronger pool of students, these initiatives can function more to enhance the choices available to school admissions officers than the most needy students.
A law that President Donald Trump signed this year allows a tax deduction of up to $1,700 for anyone who donates to an organization that gives scholarships for students to attend private or religious schools. Like the state-level universal choice programs, the federal initiative does not target low-income students. Assistance will be available to any family whose income is below 300% of the average for their area.
Here is the underlying political irony to the choice debate: For years, when programs were designed to help the most vulnerable students, the major opponents were activists who historically have identified with progressive causes. Now, conservatives are spending with abandon — in many cases, with limited public accountability — on programs that can create opportunities for students who need them the least. In either case, those who get hurt remain the same, and they are disproportionately under-resourced students of color. Derrick Bell would not be surprised.
In 1980, Bell wrote an article for the Harvard Law Review advancing a concept referred to in the scholarly literature as the “interest convergence dilemma” that is fundamental to critical race theory. It holds, “The interest of blacks in achieving racial equality will be accommodated only when it converges with the interests of whites.” Not very trusting of white collaborators hailing from either the left or right, it deems political alliances temporary and subject to the competing priorities of all pertinent parties, anticipating eventual abandonment.
And so, that’s the way it is.
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As School Choice Programs Grow, Parents Are Demanding Better Customer Service – The 74
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As states continue to launch and expand private school choice programs, one of their biggest challenges is building online platforms that meet the overwhelming demand.
Tennessee families experienced a bottleneck earlier this year as they waited hours online to submit applications for the state’s new Education Freedom Scholarship program. In July, the state told 166 parents that they had received a scholarship, only to alert them a few days later that the notification was a mistake.
“It wasn’t the most ideal user experience,” said Heide Nesset, a senior fellow for the Beacon Center of Tennessee, a right-leaning think tank. But there was a “tight runway,” about three months, to get the program off the ground.
With state leaders hoping to serve up to 70,000 students next year, they’re now searching for a new vendor. Proposals are due Friday.
But the rough start in Tennessee wasn’t an anomaly. All states with education savings accounts have struggled to some extent with ensuring smooth transactions for families, whether that’s paying a school on time or ordering a homeschool curriculum. Some say the solution lies in picking more than one company to handle the increasing demand and improve customer service.
“If it’s one contract, I think the vendor is inherently trying to ensure that the state department has a really fantastic experience,” said Nesset, who is also the vice president of
implementation at the Yes. Every Kid. Foundation, a school choice advocacy organization. “If you have more than one [vendor], then they start competing, and families have the opportunity to make choices.”
Tennessee’s current vendor is Student First Technologies, which won a contract in 2023 to run a smaller ESA program in three counties. Earlier this year, the state expanded the contract with the Indiana-based company to manage the new statewide program, despite its problems in other states.
In West Virginia, where Student First still operates the Hope Scholarship program, an ESA, homeschool families complain that they can’t access the platform on their phones and that approvals and denials for purchases are inconsistent. Arkansas canceled its contract with Student First last fall after it failed to deliver a “fully operational” system on time. The company paid the state a $300,000 fine.
‘Get what they need’
Eighteen states now have at least one ESA program. With a new federal tax credit scholarship system beginning in 2027, the demand for organizations to manage them will surely grow. The trick is delivering a system that runs smoothly for families while ensuring that they’re using the money the way the state intended.
In a recent interview, Michael Horn, cofounder of the Clayton Christensen Institute, a think tank, talked with Jamie Rosenberg, the founder of ClassWallet. Still the biggest player in the market, the Florida-based company manages nine ESA programs.
Prior to platforms like his, states had two options, he explained. They either issued debit cards, which made it hard to ensure parents spent the money on allowable purchases, or expected them to pay up front and request reimbursement — a significant obstacle for families on a tight budget.
ESA vendors, he said, give families the “agency to get what they need but also the ease of knowing that what they’re doing and what they’re buying [complies with] program rules.”
Adding more than one vendor to the mix could make the companies work harder to reach lower-income and minority families who are less likely to use the programs, said Lisa Snell, a senior fellow at Stand Together Trust, which funds school choice initiatives.
“Family outreach and satisfaction become the goal rather than the government as the customer to one vendor,” she said.
Texas had the option to choose multiple vendors for its new ESA program, which launches next fall. The law allows the comptroller’s office to contract with up to five companies. But officials opted against it and awarded a two-year, $26 million contract to New York-based Odyssey, which currently runs programs in four other states.
Joe Connor, Odyssey’s CEO declined to comment on the state’s decision and referred The 74 to the state comptroller’s office. The office did not respond, but Amar Kumar, CEO of KaiPod Learning, a large national network of microschools, said the state likely felt multiple vendors would further complicate the process.
“There was this huge question of the complexity of doing that,” he said. “How do you tell families which portal to go to or how will they decide who manages which part of the program?”
‘Send a quarterly check’
The vendor platforms include built-in tools to prevent misuse. Student First Technologies has an AI feature, called QuinnIQ, that reviews each expense, “assigns a confidence score” and flags anything that’s new or that the state hasn’t approved in the past.
But Katie Switzer, a West Virginia parent using the state’s Hope Scholarship to homeschool her children, said it’s unreliable, sometimes approving purchases for some families and rejecting the same items for others. She thinks states should focus more on monitoring students’ academic progress than tracking every purchase.
“It’s stupid in my opinion to micromanage down to like the $20 workbook level,” she said. “Honestly, I think it would be more cost effective to send a quarterly check to families.”
That’s unlikely with such programs constantly under the microscope, and critics, especially in Arizona, pointing to high-end purchases, like diamonds and plane tickets, as examples of misuse. The state education department says it takes steps to prevent fraud and has referred cases to the attorney general’s office that have led to convictions.
West Virginia officials said they’re pleased with Student First’s progress since October, when parents complained that delayed orders caused students to fall behind on lessons. Orders are now “generally” processed within two business days, said Assistant Treasurer Carrie Hodousek, and the company has added and trained staff to prepare for peak order times.
Providers like Kaipod have their own concerns. School founders in the network have sometimes gone to the brink of eviction from their leased space because of late tuition payments, said CEO Kumar.
“There should be a predictable schedule, but sometimes it can take weeks extra to get paid,” he said. “If you’re running a small business and you owe rent, you owe payroll and your state payment is delayed, that creates a huge amount of stress for founders.”
For now, rebidding contracts for vendors is the strongest form of accountability, he said.
“They ought to not feel safe once they’ve won a contract,” he said.
Disclosure: Stand Together Trust provides financial support to The 74.
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Choice & Money: Post-16 Education
This blog was kindly authored by Joseph Morrison-Howe, former HEPI intern and recent graduate of the University of Nottingham. This blog is the seventh blog in HEPI’s series responding to the post-16 education and skills white paper. You can find the others in the series here, here, here, here, here and here.
Tuition fees rising with inflation serves as a reminder that going to university is a significant financial commitment for the student. In the recent Post-16 Education and Skills white paper, the Government commits to making higher education more skills focused because ‘there is a disconnect between what individuals choose to study and the needs of the economy, which limits people’s earning potential’. To achieve this, the Government seems to be leaning towards interventionalist policies. However, since the individuals themselves are involved in a financial decision, then presumably the Government’s desire for growth – that is, boosting average incomes – is largely not at odds with the individual. Therefore improving knowledge and access to information, which makes the individual’s decision more informed, is a viable alternative to interventionalist policy, and the Government’s commitment to providing graduate earning’s data on UCAS could lead the individual to choose courses with higher earnings should they want, which is in line with the Government’s aims whilst improving choice rather than curtailing it.
The Ministerial Foreword to the white paper states that the Government’s ‘defining mission’ of growth ‘relies on providing real opportunities through education and training that lead to real careers.’ In terms of policy, this aim seems to be taking the Government in an interventionalist direction, in an attempt to align what they see as the skills required in the economy with the skills being learnt in post-16 education. For example, by making the modular use of Lifelong Learning Entitlement conditional on the chosen course being aligned with the Government’s Industrial Strategy the Government hopes to create a workforce that is more productive in the jobs that the labour market demands. A more productive workforce is one associated with higher incomes, and so by pushing people towards the skills set out in their Industrial Strategy, the government hopes to achieve growth.
Interventionalist policies such as this, although moderate, can have adverse effects, however. Through the above policy, the Government might succeed in fixing the mismatch of skills learnt and skills demanded by the economy. However, the government cannot consider how happy an individual will be from entering a particular profession, and thus, by prioritising financial returns over choice, the welfare of individuals may be neglected.
It is worth remembering that for each individual, going to university is a financial commitment, but there are several reasons why it is difficult to make an informed decision about the financial aspect of going to university. The financial decision comprises the costs and gains of attending. The costs are difficult to determine because repayment is determined by future earnings, which at 18 is a distant and uncertain prospect. The financial gains are likewise uncertain because of the huge variety between courses as well as individuals, but this uncertainty can be limited. In England, there is a lot of data available on average graduate earnings by course and educational institution. This information is currently available on the Discover Uni website, but is very rarely accessed (see Imperfect Information in Higher Education). Perhaps the disconnect discussed in the recent white paper ‘between what individuals choose to study and the needs of the economy’ could be fixed to some extent by ensuring that when individuals choose what to study, they are in an informed position about earning differentials associated with different courses and institutions. This way, the prospective student has the capacity to make an informed financial decision, but still has complete freedom to study without it being a solely financial decision.
In the white paper, the Government has committed to integrating graduate earnings data into the UCAS website, ensuring the data will be seen and used by more prospective students, as proposed in Imperfect Information in Higher Education. This approach of helping individuals make an informed choice about what and where to study, rather than taking a more interventionalist approach, as a way of fixing the disconnect between study and the skills demanded by the economy, is valuable because it preserves individual choice. Someone who values high pay in return for their studies could use this graduate earnings data to ensure that the course they choose has the capacity to provide this. Someone who wishes to study for the sake of the subject, or someone who wants to study something that leads to a particular low-earning job because it will make them happy, has complete freedom to make this choice. This policy, by preserving choice and improving access to information, can promote government aims such as growth whilst letting people choose what they want.
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Where the federal school choice program stands
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.School choice advocates and public school supporters are eagerly awaiting details of the nation’s first federally funded tax credit scholarship — a program that could accelerate private school choice participation while funneling taxpayer dollars to private schools.
Approval of the first nationwide private school choice program came in the Republican-led “One Big, Beautiful Bill” signed by President Donald Trump on July 4.
The U.S. Department of Treasury is expected to issue proposed rules detailing how the program will operate, including how states can opt in and what guardrails will be put on managing the scholarships. However, it’s unclear where this work stands and whether the prolonged federal government shutdown has delayed this work.
The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to an inquiry from K-12 Dive on Wednesday about the status of the rule.
The new law allows any taxpayer to donate up to $1,700 annually to a scholarship-granting 501(c)(3) organization, or SGO. That donor would then be eligible for a 100% federal income tax credit for their contribution. The contributions could then be used toward private school tuition at secular and religious schools, homeschooling materials, and expenses at public or private schools.
The money generated from contributions could add up to $101 billion per year if all 59 million taxpayers chose to claim the credit, according to a July analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. However, the institute predicts not all taxpayers would participate.
Taxpayers can begin making contributions to scholarship-granting organizations beginning Jan. 1, 2027. States need to opt in to participate.
Advocating for and against federal scholarships
Since the omnibus budget was signed into law, supporters and critics of the tax credit scholarship provision have been voicing concerns and questions. For instance, a coalition of more than 200 national and state organizations that support education freedom wrote to the Treasury Department on Oct. 24 to offer their recommendations as the agency begins to write proposed regulations, according to the letter posted by Tax Analysts, a nonprofit tax publisher.
The group suggested that there be consistent requirements for scholarship-granting organizations and clarity on the timeline for when states submit lists of qualified SGOs.
“We believe the three guiding principles for rulemaking are to make it: as easy as possible for as many families as possible to access scholarships for their children; as easy as possible for scholarship-granting organizations (SGOs) to participate and provide scholarships; and, as easy as possible for taxpayers to contribute to SGOs,” the letter said.
ACE Scholarships, a Denver-based nonprofit scholarship-granting organization that operates in 13 states, is part of that coalition. Jackie Guglielmo, vice president of services, said ACE has been busy fielding inquiries from SGOs, families and schools about the new program. It has also worked to help Treasury Department staff understand how current SGOs support private school choice programs.
The Treasury Department is “really looking to us to understand the operations,” said Guglielmo, who anticipates proposed regulations will be released early next year.
The organization is also meeting with state leaders to discuss their potential participation, Guglielmo said. “I think a very, very important part of this initiative that’s sometimes overlooked is that both private and public students are eligible to receive the scholarship, and that’s something that’s really exciting.”
Arne Duncan, who served as U.S. education secretary in the Obama administration, recently co-wrote an opinion piece in The Washington Post urging states to participate. “Opting in doesn’t take a single dollar from state education budgets. It simply opens the door to new, private donations, at no cost to taxpayers, that can support students in public and nonpublic settings alike,” the op-ed said.
Meanwhile, organizations critical of the fledgling program are urging states not to opt-in. Although the program includes taxpayer contributions to public schools, people should be aware of the “potential ramifications of opening the door to a voucher scheme that is ultimately designed to benefit private and religious schools,” according to a Sept. 15 fact sheet from Public Funds for Public Schools and the Education Law Center.
Public school supporters are concerned the program will lead to reduced funding for public schools and worry about educational equity and accountability at private schools.
Research into existing private school voucher programs shows negative impacts on academic outcomes, as well as high participation rates from students who already attend private schools, said Kevin Welner, director of National Education Policy Center, during an Oct 14 webinar hosted by the public school advocacy group Public Funds for Public Schools.
There’s a “huge amount of money shifting to subsidize people to go to private school,” Welner said.
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New test tubes or shiny buildings? The choice facing policymakers when it comes to funding research
Let me start with a vignette. Back in 2017, we published a brilliant award-winning report on TRAC written by a young intern. This looked specifically at cross-subsidies in universities from Teaching (international students) to Research.
Back then, there was no clear cross subsidy towards home students, as they (more than) paid for themselves due to £9,000 fees. But the subsidy from international students towards research was large, as it remains today.
We held a launch event at the LSE for the paper. This remains seared on my mind for, instead of being impartial, the eminent professor in the Chair attacked our young intern for having the temerity to publicise the split in resources for teaching and research.
His (widely shared) view was that, at an institution like the LSE, research informs teaching and teaching informs research, so policy makers should not look too closely under the bonnet but instead let universities spend their resources as they see fit.
The interesting part of this story is that the person who asked us to write the report was the LSE’s own Director of Research. He was frustrated that his colleagues seemed not to understand the financial flows in their own institution.
A second reason why we should shine a spotlight on how universities work is that teaching and research are now split down the middle when it comes to political oversight:
- we have one Minister for teaching and another for research;
- we have one Whitehall Department for teaching and another for research; and
- we have one regulator / funder for teaching and another for research.
We might prefer it if it were not so, but it is naïve to think substantial cross-subsidies within institutions fit as naturally with these arrangements as they did with the arrangements in place back at the turn of the millennium, when TRAC was first mooted.
In our 2017 report, we showed that, according to TRAC, only 73% of research costs were recovered. On revisiting the issue in another report three years later, we found cost recovery had fallen to 69%. Today, as the KCL report shows, the number is just 66%.
In other words, during a decade when politicians have exalted the power of R&D to transform Britain, the level of cost recovery has been falling at almost 1 percentage point a year.
However, what has changed over time is that this is now fairly well understood. For example, TRAC data were heavily used to show the sector’s challenges in both the Universities UK Blueprint and the recent Post-16 Education and Skills white paper.
Let me focus on that white paper for a second. It is a slightly odd document, where you can see the joins between the three Secretaries of State (for Education, Work and Pensions and Science, Innovation and Technology) who share responsibility for it.
In particular, the white paper recommits to improving cost recovery for research while simultaneously looking for new ways to crack down on the international students who currently provide big cross-subsidise for research.
The end result, as the white paper itself admits, is likely to be less research:
We will work with the sector and other funders to address the cost recovery of research. … We recognise that this may result in funding a lower volume of research but at a more sustainable level.
While some research-intensive institutions may celebrate this concentration, it does not feel like we have talked enough about the consequences in terms of what it could mean:
- for research capacity in each region;
- for the pipeline of new researchers; and
- for the likelihood of missing out on new discoveries that may otherwise happen.
In other words, what we have in the white paper is the perhaps inevitable result of giving the Minister for Science, Research and Innovation, Lord Vallance, the additional role of champion for the ‘Oxford-Cambridge corridor’.
So far, I have assumed the TRAC numbers are accurate, yet we all know they are rough – or worse. A 10-year old piece on TRAC in Times Higher Education quotes one university finance director as saying: ‘if you put garbage [data] in, you will get garbage out.’
In preparation for this session, I spoke to one academic at a research-intensive university, who even argued: ‘TRAC is a piece of fiction to conceal how much teaching subsidises research.’
He went on to explain that your contract might say 40% of time should be on Teaching and 40% on Research (with 20% for admin): ‘If you spend 60% on Research and 20% on Teaching, you would be in violation of contract so no one will admit to it.’
A second academic I contacted was similarly scathing:
‘I think it is a classic case of looking for a lost wedding ring under the lamppost, even when you lost it a mile away. Universities obviously have an incentive to say that teaching UK students and doing research is more expensive, because they hope to get more money from the government. That is why TRAC does not lead to better business models – the stuff is known to be suspect.’
Such criticisms may explain why I have only ever been able to find one university that has followed the logic of their own TRAC numbers by refusing to take on any major new research projects (and even they only had the ban in force temporarily).
The lesson I take from all this is that TRAC is useful, but not enough. Some sort of calculation needs to occur to inform policy makers, funders and managers. But TRAC is not the slam dunk that people sometimes like to think it is because:
- the process is neither liked nor trusted by those it measures;
- institutions do not respond to what the data say, so look guilty of crying wolf; and
- every sector in search of public money does its own calculations, so the fact that TRAC exists and shows a substantial shortfall in the full economic costs of research and, increasingly, teaching home students too does not automatically give higher education institutions a leg up over other areas of when lobbying the Government.
Finally, TRAC is meant to help politicians understand the world but I think we also need to recall the motivations of political leaders. When I was in Whitehall, we struggled to persuade the Treasury to move towards full economic costing. They caricatured it as buying new test tubes when the alternative was shiny new buildings. In the end, politicians in hard hats cannot go to topping-out ceremonies for new test tubes.
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A Defining Choice for Higher Ed (opinion)
Ask people at Columbia, Harvard or UCLA how things are going for higher education, and they might rightly say that things are quite dismal. Those places have been early targets in the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to bring colleges and universities to heel.
Funding cutoffs, intrusive demands for data and investigations have made life pretty difficult for those universities and some others. In addition, they have had to confront the excruciating choice of whether to defy the administration’s demands or try to reach a settlement.
At Columbia, Harvard and UCLA, budgets have been squeezed. Uncomfortable adjustments have been made. Reputations and careers have been damaged or ruined.
While some college presidents have publicly condemned what the administration has been doing, many other college and university leaders have tried to keep their heads down, to say nothing or do nothing to join with and support places that have been prominent on the administration’s hit list. But the days of duck and cover in American higher education may be coming to a close.
On Sunday, The Washington Post reported that the administration was considering a new strategy in its dealings with colleges and universities. The plan is to change the way the federal government awards research grants, “giving a competitive advantage to schools that pledge to adhere to the values and policies of the Trump administration on admissions, hiring and other matters.”
Then, on Wednesday, the administration sent letters to nine universities asking them to sign a 10-page “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” In exchange for getting preferential treatment for federal funds, among other benefits, colleges would agree “to freeze tuition for five years, cap the enrollment of international students and commit to strict definitions of gender.” They also must, per The New York Times, “change their governance structures to prohibit anything that would ‘punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas.’”
The “Compact for Academic Excellence” seeks to get colleges and universities to sign onto President Trump’s priorities all at once. That means that the kinds of excruciating choices faced by a few colleges and universities will soon be coming to a campus near you.
Higher education is now facing an unprecedented moment of truth, with institutions needing to decide whether to stick to their commitments to independence and academic freedom at the cost of their financial well-being and capacity to carry out research, or to show their loyalty to the administration at a cost to their integrity and mission.
As I see it, there really is no choice. Colleges and universities must say no. They should do so now, when resistance might dissuade the administration from going any further with its plan.
If colleges relent, they will forfeit whatever moral capital they have left and send the message that the pursuit of truth matters less than loyalty to a political agenda and that colleges and universities can be made to give up their independence if the price of freedom is high enough.
I am enough of a realist not to take odds on what choices colleges and universities will make. And I know that resistance of the kind I am advocating may be very costly for students, faculty and staff, as well as the communities served by campuses that push back.
But as journalist Nathan M. Greenfield explained in 2021, “Academic freedom is the sine qua non of universities in common law countries as well as those in Western Europe and, indeed, is central to the functioning of universities in all but those countries with repressive governments.” Yale Law School professor Robert Post explains that “academic freedom rests on a bargain between society and institutions of higher education. Universities are granted independence so they can produce two necessities of modern life: knowledge and education.”
The very idea that the Trump administration is seeking to compel universities to adhere to the values and policies that it prefers suggests how little regard it has for either knowledge or education. Post gets it right when he says, “Democracy would become a farce, and the value of self-government meaningless, if the state could manipulate the knowledge available to its citizens.”
In 1957, Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter approvingly cited a statement that identified four conditions for higher education to thrive: universities must be free to determine who may teach, what can be taught, how it is taught and who will be admitted. “For society’s good,” Justice Frankfurter wrote, “inquiries into [academic and social] problems, speculations about them, stimulation in others of reflection upon them, must be left as unfettered as possible. Political power must abstain from intrusion into this activity of freedom, pursued in the interest of wise government and the people’s wellbeing.”
The Trump administration is not displaying such restraint in dealing with all of American higher education. The Washington Post quotes Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, who said that the new policy is a frontal “assault … on institutional autonomy, on ideological diversity, on freedom of expression and academic freedom.”
“Suddenly, to get a grant,” Mitchell continued, “you need to not demonstrate merit, but ideological fealty to a particular set of political viewpoints … I can’t imagine a university in America that would be supportive of this.”
We may soon see whether he is right. But he may have framed the issue incorrectly.
The question is not whether America’s colleges and universities will support a clearly unconstitutional overreach by the Trump administration. The question is whether they will go along with it by signing on to the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.”
The administration is asking colleges and universities, “’What are the things that you believe? What are your values?” Justice Frankfurter must be rolling over in his grave.
We can only hope that the first nine universities asked to agree to the administration’s latest intrusion into higher education will follow his wisdom and refuse to do so. And other colleges and universities should make clear now that if they are asked to follow suit, they too will say no.
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The push to expand school choice should not diminish civic education
From Texas to Florida to Arizona, school voucher policies are reshaping the landscape of American education. The Trump administration champions federal support for voucher expansion, and many state-level leaders are advancing school choice programs. Billions of public dollars are now flowing to private schools, church networks and microeducation platforms.
The push to expand school choice is not just reallocating public funds to private institutions. It is reorganizing the very purpose of schooling. And in that shift, something essential is being lost — the public mission of education as a foundation of democracy.
Civic education is becoming fragmented, underfunded and institutionally weak.
In this moment of sweeping change, as public dollars shift from common institutions to private and alternative schools, the shared civic entities that once supported democratic learning are being diminished or lost entirely — traditional structures like public schools, libraries and community colleges are no longer guaranteed common spaces.
The result is a disjointed system in which students may gain academic content or career preparation but receive little support in learning how to lead with integrity, think across differences or sustain democratic institutions. The very idea of public life is at risk, especially in places where shared experience has been replaced by polarization. We need civic education more than ever.
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If we want students who can lead a multiracial democracy, we need schools of every type to take civic formation seriously. That includes religious schools, charter schools and homeschooling networks. The responsibility cannot fall on public schools alone. Civic formation is not an ideological project. It is a democratic one, involving the long-term work of building the skills, habits and values that prepare people to work across differences and take responsibility for shared democratic life.
What we need now is a civic education strategy that matches the scale of the changes reshaping American schooling. This will mean fostering coordinated investment, institutional partnerships and recognition that the stakes are not just academic, they are also democratic.
Americans overwhelmingly support civic instruction. According to a 2020 survey in Texas by the Center of Women in Politics and Public Policy and iCivics, just 49 percent of teachers statewide believed that enough time was being devoted to teaching civics knowledge, and just 23 percent said the same about participatory-democracy skills. This gap is not unique to Texas, but there is little agreement on how civics should be taught, and even less structural support for the schools trying to do it.
Without serious investment, civic formation will remain an afterthought — a patchwork effort disconnected from the design of most educational systems.
This is not an argument against vouchers in principle. Families should have options. But in the move to decentralize education, we risk hollowing out its civic core. A democratic society cannot survive on academic content alone. It requires citizens — not just in the legal sense, but in the civic one.
A democratic society needs people who can deliberate, organize, collaborate and build a shared future with others who do not think or live like they do.
And that’s why we are building a framework in Texas that others can adopt and adapt to their own civic mission.
The pioneering Democracy Schools model, to which I contribute, supports civic formation across a range of public and private schools, colleges, community organizations and professional networks.
Civic infrastructure is the term we use to describe our approach: the design of relationships, institutions and systems that hold democracy together. Just as engineers build physical infrastructure, educators and civic leaders must build civic infrastructure by working with communities, not for or on them.
We start from a democratic tradition rooted in the Black freedom struggle. Freedom, in this view, is not just protection from domination. It is the capacity to act, build and see oneself reflected in the world. This view of citizenship demands more than voice. It calls for the ability to shape institutions, policies and public narratives from the ground up.
The model speaks to a national crisis: the erosion of shared civic space in education. It must be practiced and must be supported by institutions that understand their role in building public life. Historically Black colleges and universities like Huston-Tillotson University offer a powerful example. They are not elite pipelines disconnected from everyday life. They are rooted in community, oriented toward public leadership and shaped by a history of democratic struggle. They show what it looks like to educate for civic capacity — not just for upward mobility. They remind us that education is not only about what students know, but about who they become and what kind of world they are prepared to help shape.
Our national future depends on how well we prepare young people to take responsibility for shared institutions and pluralistic public life. This cannot be accomplished through content standards alone. It requires civic ecosystems designed to cultivate public authorship.
We have an enormous stake in preparing the next generation for the demands of democratic life. What kind of society are we preparing young people to lead? The answer will not come from any single institution. It will come from partnerships across sectors, aligned in purpose even if diverse in approach.
We are eager to collaborate with any organization — public, private or faith-based — committed to building the civic infrastructure that sustains our democracy. Wherever education takes place, civic formation must remain a central concern.
Robert Ceresa is the founding director of the Politics Lab of the James L. Farmer House, Huston-Tillotson University.
Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].
This story about civic education 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.
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UK still top choice for pathway students despite policy changes
International students are placing getting a quality education over policy developments – with the UK keeping its spot as the preferred desitnation for 80% of nearly 1,000 pathway students surveyed by NCUK.
A new report covering the survey’s findings analyses data from 921 students across 88 countries studying an international foundation year or Master’s preparatino programs, looking at their motivations for studying in top destinations, as well as other preferences.
It found that Australia was the second most popular choice, with 4% of students surveyed marking it as their preference, followed by Canada, the US, New Zealand and Ireland at 3%. Meanwhile, the most coveted programs are business and computer science, as the preferred subjects for just under a third (31%) of respondents.
Students’ continued preference for the UK comes in spite of a slew of policy changes affecting international students. In May, the government unveiled its long-awaited immigration white paper, setting out the way Keir Starmer’s Labour party intends to tackle migration over the coming years.
It included plans to reduce the Graduate Route by six months to a total of 18 months, as well as new compliance metrics that higher education institutions must in order to continue recrutiing international students. Tougher Basic Compliance Assessment (BCA) requirements are set to take effect this month, meaning that universities will face penalties if more than 5% of their students’ visas are rejected, down from 10%.
And last September, the UK increased international student maintenance requirements for the first time since 2020. Under the new rules, students coming to London must show evidence of having £1,483 per month, while studying outside of London need proof that they have at least £1,136 per month.
But NCUK’s chief marketing officer Andy Howells pointed out that students are looking beyond arbitrary political decision when choosing their preferred study destination, thinking instead about their long-term prospects.
“This research demonstrates that international students are sophisticated decision-makers who look beyond political headlines to focus on educational quality and career outcomes,” he said. “While policy changes generate significant discussion in our sector, students are primarily motivated by the academic excellence and opportunities that institutions can provide.”
The survey found that, of a sample size of 646 students, just 12% who said they were considering studying in the UK said that financial requiremwnr increases would stop them from applying to UK instiutuons.
However, the popularity of other major study destinations were ore impacted by political headwinds, the survey found.
Over a third (36%) interested in applying the Australian institutions said that proposed international enrolment caps would affect their decision, while 26% of those looking to study in Canada said they would no longer apply to Canadian institutions over policy changes – particularly changes to the country’s postgraduate work permit scheme.
And almost four in 10 (38%) considering the US said Donald Trump’s second presidency would negatively impact their choice to study in America.
For the majority of students surveyed (69.9%), education quality is the primary driver leading them to seek study abroad opportunities, closely followed by enhanced career development opportunities (56.4%) and gaining new knowledge (55.2%).
The survey also shone a light on students’ post-graduation plans. Half of respondents said they wanted to stay in their study destination, with 31% planning to work and 19% looking at further studies.
This research demonstrates that international students are sophisticated decision-makers who look beyond political headlines to focus on educational quality and career outcomes
Andy Howells, NCUKBut a growing number of students plan to return to their hoe country immediately after graduating, with 23% saying they want to do this – up from 18% in last year’s survey.
Immigration has continued to be a hot topic in the UK as the anti-immigration Reform party grows in popularity.
Just earlier this week, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper drew ire from the international education sector after announcing that the government will be tougher on overseas students who make asylum claims that “lack merit” as a means to stay in the country after their visa expires.
Some 10,000 students have already been texted and emailed warning them that they will not be allowed to stay in the UK if they have no legal right to remain and explicitly warning them against making bogus asylum claims.
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Exploring a new standard for preparing students for the future of work
Key points:
According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025, nearly 40 percent of workers’ core skills will change in just the next five years. As AI, automation, and global connectivity continue to reshape every industry, today’s students are stepping into a world where lifelong careers in a single field are increasingly rare.
Rather than following a straight path, the most successful professionals tomorrow will be able to pivot, reinvent, and adapt again and again. That’s why the goal of education must also shift. Instead of preparing students for a fixed destination, we must prepare them to navigate change itself.
At Rockingham County Schools (RCS), this belief is at the heart of our mission to ensure every student is “choice-ready.” Rather than just asking, “What job will this student have?” we’re asking, “Will they be ready to succeed in whatever path they choose now and 10 years from now?”
Choice-ready is a mindset, not just a pathway
Let’s start with a quick analogy: Not long ago, the NBA underwent a major transformation. For decades, basketball was largely a two-point game with teams focused on scoring inside the arc. But over time, the strategy shifted to where it is today: a three-point league, where teams that invest in long-range shooters open up the floor, score more efficiently, and consistently outperform those stuck in old models. The teams that adapted reshaped the game. The ones that didn’t have fallen behind.
Education is facing a similar moment. If we prepare students for a narrow, outdated version of success that prepares them for one track, one career, or one outcome, we risk leaving them unprepared for a world that rewards agility, range, and innovation.
At RCS, we take a global approach to education to avoid this. Being “choice-ready” means equipping students with the mindset and flexibility to pursue many possible futures, and a global approach expands that readiness by exposing them to a broader range of competencies and real-world situations. This exposure prepares them to navigate the variety of contexts they will encounter as professionals. Rather than locking them into a specific plan, it helps them develop the ability to shift when industries, interests, and opportunities change.
The core competencies to embrace this mindset and flexibility include:
- Creative and analytical thinking, which help solve new problems in new contexts
- Empathy and collaboration, which are essential for dynamic teams and cross-sector work
- Confidence and communication, which are built through student-led projects and real-world learning
RCS also brings students into the conversation. They’re invited to shape their learning environment by giving their input on district policies around AI, cell phone use, and dress codes. This encourages engagement and ownership that helps them build the soft skills and self-direction that today’s workforce demands.
The 4 E’s: A vision for holistic student readiness and flexibility
To turn this philosophy into action, we developed a four-part framework to support every student’s readiness:
- Enlisted: Prepared for military service
- Enrolled: Ready for college or higher education
- Educated: Grounded in academic and life skills
- Entrepreneur: Equipped to create, innovate, and take initiative
That fourth “E”–entrepreneur–is unique to RCS and especially powerful. It signals that students can create their opportunities rather than waiting for them. In one standout example, a student who began producing and selling digital sound files online explored both creative and commercial skill sets.
These categories aren’t silos. A student might enlist, then enroll in college, then start a business. That’s the whole point: Choice-ready students can move fluidly from one path to another as their interests–and the world–evolve.
The role of global education
Global education is a framework that prepares students to understand the world, appreciate different perspectives, and engage with real-world issues across local and global contexts. It emphasizes transferable skills—such as adaptability, empathy, and critical thinking—that students need to thrive in an unpredictable future.
At RCS, global education strengthens student readiness through:
- Dual language immersion, which gives students a competitive edge in a multilingual, interconnected workforce
- Cultural exposure, which builds resilience, empathy, and cross-cultural competence
- Real-world learning, which connects academic content to relevant, global challenges
These experiences prepare students to shift between roles, industries, and even countries with confidence.
Redesigning career exploration: Early exposure and real skills
Because we don’t know what future careers will be, we embed career exploration across K-12 to ensure students develop self-awareness and transferable skills early on.
One of our best examples is the Paxton Patterson Labs in middle schools, where students explore real-world roles, such as practicing dental procedures on models rather than just watching videos.
Through our career and technical education and innovation program at the high school level, students can:
- Earn industry-recognized credentials.
- Collaborate with local small business owners.
- Graduate workforce-ready with the option to pursue higher education later.
For students who need immediate income after graduation, RCS offers meaningful preparation that doesn’t close off future opportunities, keeping those doors open.
And across the system, RCS tracks success by student engagement and ownership, both indicators that a learner is building confidence, agency, and readiness to adapt. This focus on student engagement and preparing students for the world postgraduation is already paying dividends. During the 2024-25 school year, RCS was able to increase the percentage of students scoring proficient on the ACT by more than 20 points to 44 percent. Additionally, RCS increased both the number of students who took AP exams and the number who received a passing score by 12 points to 48 percent.
Preparing students for a moving target
RCS knows that workforce readiness is a moving target. That’s why the district continues to evolve with it. Our ongoing focus areas include:
- Helping graduates become lifelong learners who can retrain and reskill as needed
- Raising awareness of AI’s influence on learning, creativity, and work
- Expanding career exploration opportunities that prioritize transferable, human-centered skills
We don’t know exactly what the future holds. We do know that students who can adapt, pivot, and move confidently from one career path to another will be the most prepared–because the most important outcome isn’t fitting students into today’s job market but preparing them to create value in tomorrow’s.
At Rockingham County Schools, that’s what being “choice-ready” really means. It’s not about predicting the future. It’s about preparing students to thrive within it wherever it leads.
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