Tag: college

What We Learned About College Students in 2025
Every year, I have the opportunity to stand at the intersection of student voices, fresh research, and campus decision-making. It is this vantage point I never take for granted. I get to listen, really listen, as students and their families try to make sense of one of the biggest choices they will ever face. And honestly? The data always surprises me. It knocks me off balance, in the best way, and keeps me rethinking how this work should be done. But this year felt different, and not just in the numbers.

We conducted eight studies and heard from tens of thousands of students. Thousands of families shared their experiences with us. We also surveyed campus professionals at hundreds of institutions.

When I step back and look at it all, one message just echoes above the rest: Students want to succeed. They are not asking for a handout. They are just asking us to meet them where they are. No matter the dataset, the demographic, or the question, it was there, a kind of quiet message threading through every open-ended response: “I’m trying. Please help me in a way that works for me.”

Here is what I learned from all the students, families, and schools that trusted us with their stories this year. I have also listed the reports for each finding, which you can download and explore.

1. Students start earlier, search differently, and expect more from digital experiences.

Every year, I meet a new wave of students. Many are Gen Z, and the youngest are now part of Gen Alpha. These students do not just move nimbly through the internet. They approach it with a clear set of expectations.

They want websites to be easy to use and up-to-date. They want virtual tours to feel real, not packaged or staged. When they watch a video, they hope it speaks to them, not over their heads. They want answers quickly, but they also want to feel a sense of care and connection.

There is so much coming at them all at once. The choices are overwhelming. But even before they reach out to a human being, many are already wondering: “Can I picture myself at this college?”

Their search is emotional before it is analytical. And they need us to show up fully, with clarity, transparency, and responsiveness.

2. Institutions are truly trying, but capacity gaps get in the way.

A pattern that stood out this year: the divide between what students hope for and what most colleges feel they can provide. Colleges care deeply and want to meet the needs and expectations of students, but their systems and staffing simply lag behind students’ wants and needs. Here are just three examples:
- Students love personalized videos; however, many colleges continue to struggle with creating them.
- Students want information that is tailored for where they are in 10^th, 11th, or 12^th grade, but most schools find it tough to do this consistently.
- Students respond well to SMS reminders and instant guidance, yet some colleges hold back, worried about being intrusive.
This is not a willingness issue. It is a resourcing issue. It forces us to rethink what “meeting students where they are” looks like, not just emotionally, but operationally.

3. Families remain the quiet (and sometimes not-so-quiet) force behind every decision.

Families have been clear about what they need from us. Communicate, early and honestly. Talk about cost in real terms. Help us understand what comes next, and what this investment might mean for our children.

Families are not trying to control the process. They want to feel assured that their sons and daughters will be okay. It matters that families feel the investment is worth it, that their students will be supported, and that there is a clear path forward. At the same time, many families still struggle to obtain answers to even the most basic questions about costs, aid, or outcomes.

We cannot truly support students while ignoring the people quietly cheering (and sometimes worrying) behind them. Equity means working in partnership with families, especially those walking into higher education for the first time.

4. First-year students are deeply motivated and deeply worried.

This report broke my heart, I have to be honest!

Almost every first-year student says they want to finish their degree. They want to learn. They want to belong. They want to shape a future they can be proud of.

Yet more than a quarter are already doubting whether college will be worth it, sometimes even before their first class.

Their requests are not grand or out of reach. They want to make friends. They want to find the right major. They want to understand how careers really work. They want to know how to study well. They want advice on scholarships. These are not demands; they are invitations. Show them they belong. Prove that their presence matters here.

Belonging is not a catchphrase. It is the foundation for everything else. These are not demands. They are invitations: “Show me I matter here.”

5. Many students feel that institutions do not provide adequate financial aid.

Cost is a driver for enrollment and the biggest barrier for families. Knowing how much financial aid they are eligible for can go a long way toward alleviating the stress of financing an education.

However, across the board, about half of all students are not satisfied with the availability of financial aid. When looking at students at four-year private institutions, four-year public institutions, and community colleges, more than 80% said that adequate financial aid was important. Yet only half said they were satisfied that adequate financial aid was available. Adult students expressed similar levels of satisfaction.

Given the enormous investment students and families make in a college education, we have to design processes that educate them early on the aid that is available, explain their actual cost of attendance is, and share outcomes to illustrate how their college education can lead to a better life.

6. Retention is not a mystery. We know what works; the challenge is scaling it.

There were no huge surprises about what helps students stay and succeed. Academic support. Mental health services. Early alerts. Success coaches. We know these things work.

What is striking is how many places struggle to get support from every student who needs them. AI-powered tools are helpful, but not every campus utilizes them. Early assessments can significantly impact a student’s trajectory, but they are not universally applicable. Cross-campus plans work best, but not every college has enough hands-on deck to pull it off.

Retention is not something one office “owns.” It is a campuswide philosophy grounded in clarity, coordination, and community.

7. Gen Z are becoming the largest population of graduate students, and they expect more personalization

It’s hard to believe that Gen Z is already moving on to graduate school, but that shift is well underway. The National Center for Education Statistics showed that, by fall 2023, 26% of graduate students were under 25 and 30% under 29.

That means that the majority of graduate students are digital natives who have grown up online and are used to those online experiences being personalized and curated for them. When we conducted this year’s graduate student survey, 53% of our respondents said that personal contact was essential or very important to them in choosing a program.

More than ever, graduate student recruitment needs to feel like it speaks to students and addresses their goals, their interests, and their needs.

8. AI is not replacing people; students want us to help them use it safely and ethically.

This one surprised me the most. Whether students are wary of AI or jumping in, nearly all say the same thing:
- They want guidance.
- They want an advisor to help them use these tools wisely.
AI itself is not the enemy. Pretending students are not already experimenting with it would be the real mistake.

Students are not asking us to choose between AI and human connection. They are asking us to integrate both thoughtfully and responsibly.

What all eight reports taught me

Students are trying incredibly hard in a system that was not always built for them.

Our job is to build the bridge, not ask them to leap. Meeting students and families where they are is not a tagline. It is a responsibility. It looks like:
- Clear digital pathways for exploration
- Transparent communication for families
- Personalization so students feel you are speaking to them
- Support that begins early and never stops
- Belonging as a core institutional value
- Career clarity embedded throughout the journey
- Financial transparency without fine print
- AI literacy paired with human connection
And above all: Designing every process with equity at the center, not at the margins.

Because students are ready. Families are ready. They are doing everything they can.The real question is whether we are ready to meet them with the honesty, empathy, and support they deserve.

You can find all of these reports in our Resource Library. And if you want to talk about how you can turn these insights into strategies that will help you engage, enroll, and retain more of your students, reach out to us. We can schedule a time to talk about meeting more students where they are and meeting your enrollment goals.

Talk with our experts about enrollment and student success

Let’s talk about how you can find the optimal strategies for engaging the students who are the best fit, optimizing yield, and maximizing student success.

Schedule a time to talk
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December 9, 2025
Trinity College bans political activism over chalkboard messages

Imagine wearing an “I Voted” sticker to class and having the school investigate you for it. Or handing out pocket editions of the Constitution on campus for Constitution Day, only for your school to deem this disruptive.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Juneteenth. Labor Day. Columbus Day. Connecticut’s Trinity College seemingly prohibits on-campus celebrations of all these federal holidays. (Don’t even get us started on t-shirts that read “Reagan-Bush 1984” or “Nevertheless, She Persisted.”)

On November 7, individuals identifying with Students and Faculty for Justice in Palestine left chalkboard messages around campus while classes were out of session. These messages read, “Trinity is suppressing freedom of assembly,” “Disclose Divest Protest,” “Trinity Invests in Genocide,” “You are on stolen land,” and “Free Palestine.”

Message left by Students and Faculty for Justice in Palestine on a chalkboard in Seabury Hall. (@sfjp_trin / Instagram.com)

That evening, Trinity President Daniel Lugo emailed the campus community, announcing an investigation of the messages for disruption, intimidation, and harassment. Then came the anti-speech money quote: “Our Student Handbook and employment policies clearly prohibit political activism within academic settings.”

No nuance. No qualifiers. Just a blanket ban on political activism anywhere “academic.”

There’s only one problem. FIRE couldn’t find any such rule. In fact, Trinity’s official policies affirm the importance of free expression and academic freedom, and — to its credit — the school’s time, place, and manner rules largely track First Amendment standards. Although Trinity is a private college and not legally required to protect students’ First Amendment rights, it laudably promises to uphold students’ expressive freedom in its policies. So last week, FIRE wrote to Lugo, urging him to make good on these commitments.

FIRE calls on Trinity to end its investigation into the matter and remove any existing policy prohibiting “political activism within academic settings.”

Lugo’s letter said that the college community “deserves to teach, learn, and work in spaces free from intimidation, harassment, or disruption.” We certainly agree, but this letter errs in suggesting that the chalkboard messages should merit punishment. On the contrary, the after-hours commentary doesn’t come close to a material and substantial disruption. Even if they did, it still wouldn’t justify outlawing all political speech on campus.

The chalkboard messages weren’t harassment either. Harassment requires content so objectively offensive, pervasive, and severe that it effectively denies students equal access to education. There is no evidence these messages rise to this level of unprotected speech.

Nor are they intimidation. Unprotected intimidation (i.e. a true threat) requires a serious expression of intent to commit unlawful violence, and a conscious disregard of the potential for that expression to put its recipient in fear of serious physical harm. Again, nothing of the sort here.

Viral video appears to show Trinity College singling out one student’s political dorm display for removal

Without the freedom to express even inoffensive political convictions, the promise of free speech is meaningless. America’s colleges and universities cannot conceivably function as insulated vacuums for discussion on topics of national and international importance, especially in service of such a broad and spontaneous edict.

Political activism has always been part of campus life in the United States. Without it, groups from Students for a Democratic Society to Turning Point USA wouldn’t exist, and George Carlin’s most legendary, politically charged bits (including his landmark UCLA set) might never have happened.

Trinity’s overbroad language puts America’s long and proud tradition of fostering political engagement in jeopardy, and that is cause for alarm. Accordingly, FIRE calls on Trinity to end its investigation into the matter and remove any existing policy prohibiting “political activism within academic settings.”

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December 8, 2025
Facilitating Deliberative Dialogue in College Classrooms

Academic inquiry and exploring new opinions are cornerstones of higher education, but some students say they’re not encouraged to engage in new ideas on campus. According to 2025 data from Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab, approximately one in eight Student Voice respondents (13 percent) said they felt “not very” or “not at all” supported in their efforts to explore different perspectives at their college; 7 percent said they were unsure.

More colleges and universities are seeking to establish ways to advance civil discourse and allow students to disagree respectfully, but creating productive classroom dialogue remains a challenge for many professors.

A November webinar hosted by the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE) offered practical insights for instructors looking to build a supportive and thoughtful environment for exchanging ideas.

What’s the need: Constructive dialogue activities help students thrive in and outside the classroom.

“We need to have our students, whether they’re 40 and going back to school or just starting out in higher ed, we need to have adults in this world who are able to have meaningful conversations with others, to solve problems and to understand the viewpoints of others,” said Laurie Pendleton, executive director of faculty success at ACUE, during the webinar.

Such skills can also help students in their careers. “There are critiques of Gen Z [that] they don’t know how to work with each other in the workspace,” Zack Ritter, associate director of strategic initiatives at UCLA’s Center for Community Engagement, said during the webinar. “We’re providing a skill of, how do you listen to someone deeply at the workplace? How do you collaborate and find consensus among a bunch of different people?”

Defining terms: Deliberative dialogue, also called civil discourse or constructive conversation, is distinct from a casual discussion or engaging in debate, Pendleton said.

“When we think about debate, we’re really thinking more about winners and losers,” Pendleton said. “I’m stating my opinion or my facts. You’re stating your opinions and your facts, and we’re looking at who has the stronger case.”

Deliberative dialogue, however, is comparing different views, looking for mutual appreciation and potentially leading to collective action, Pendleton said.

“We’re looking for more shared understanding, things like, ‘I didn’t think about it from that perspective,’ or, ‘That’s interesting evidence; where did it come from?’” she explained.

Setting the stage: One of the common missteps faculty can make when establishing deliberative dialogue is neglecting to lay the groundwork, Ritter said. “You can’t just jump into the hot topic, because people are going to come with different baggage, different hates, different misunderstandings,” he said.

Instead, faculty should facilitate activities that allow students to share more about themselves and their cultures and to learn about their peers. Even better is when the class can build trust by doing some type of action project to solidify their connections, Ritter said, such as volunteering in the community.

Creating a classroom space that is responsive to discussion can also be key, said Adam A. Smith, founder and senior consultant at Smith Education Associates. Smith arranges his classroom to have “pods” of students grouped at desks or tables to allow them to connect in a more intimate way.

Navigating tensions: The goal of a deliberate discussion is not to make everyone comfortable, said Rosina Bolen, director of solidarity, engagement and success initiatives at Mount Saint Mary’s University.

“If everyone’s comfortable, you’re probably not having the kind of conversation that stretches people’s comfort zones,” Bolen said.

Faculty members should be prepared to make mistakes and for students possibly to get offended, and be equipped to handle “hot” or “cold” moments.

A hot moment is when tensions are high and conflict may erupt in the classroom. A cold moment, on the other hand, is when students don’t feel comfortable speaking out and a silent chill descends on the room.

Establishing community guidelines, ground rules or space agreements can be one way to mitigate or navigate uncomfortable situations by providing a working framework of what is or is not appropriate in the dialogue, Bolen said. Instructors should not assume students know the rules of engagement; it is their responsibility to outline the norms of the setting, Smith said.

It can be helpful to name what is happening in the outside world, including any prominent political or social tensions, and how they might inform individuals’ contributions to the conversation, Ritter said. “Naming the inequalities in society that are cutting across a bunch of different identities is also a way to build solidarity in the classroom.”

Professors should also conduct a self-evaluation of what may trigger their own emotional responses and prepare for how they will navigate such feelings so as to not disrupt the larger classroom goal. Similarly, faculty can give students an opportunity to share any of their own behaviors that might lead to misinterpretation.

“I’ve found it successful where students front-load some of their mannerisms and they say, ‘Hey everybody, sometimes I talk really loud, and it doesn’t mean that I’m mad at you, it’s just when I get excited about something, I just talk really loud and I use my hands,’” Ritter explained. “Having folks be vulnerable about their little mannerisms might result in a lot of pain reduction in the future.”

Continuing the conversation: After the formal discussion, faculty should create an opportunity for the class to reflect, Bolen said. How did the conversation go? How did people react? What did students learn?

“That debrief can go a long way towards ameliorating any negative impact on the rest of the course,” Bolen said. “And if something comes up that impacts individual students, it’s a great idea to go and check in with them afterwards and see how they’re doing.”

Deliberative dialogues should not be one-off events that occur in a vacuum, Pendleton said, but can be woven into the curriculum and connected to disciplinary content.

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December 5, 2025
New Program for College Students’ Executive Functioning Skills
Since the COVID-19 pandemic forced many schools to move instruction online, some students have struggled to regain or even learn the interpersonal and organizational skills they need to succeed in college.

To rectify that, the University of Mary Washington created a new four-week program this fall to help incoming students hone their planning and social skills. Called LaunchPad, the program aims to help ease students’ transition into higher education, provide them with life-management skills and connect them with peers and supportive staff.

What’s the need: Data shows that current traditional-aged college students are less likely than previous cohorts of students to be prepared for postsecondary education. A 2024 report from ed-tech provider EAB found that students increasingly struggle with resiliency and conflict resolution and are less likely to be involved in campus organizations or social opportunities.

Surveys show that students are interested in receiving additional support to help them get organized and learn to manage their time. A study from Anthology, also published in 2024, found that 40 percent of students feel overwhelmed and anxious about their academic workload, and a quarter say they lack time-management skills. Similarly, a 2023 survey by Inside Higher Ed found that one-third of respondents want help planning their schedules and managing their time, such as a through a deadline organizer.

At the University of Mary Washington, “many students struggle with organization, time management and involvement, especially post-pandemic,” said April Wynn, director of the first-year experience. “LaunchPad provides structured support in these areas.”

How it works: LaunchPad teaches students executive functioning and socialization skills, including how to maintain a schedule, track deadlines, employ technology, communicate effectively and respond to adversity, according to a university press release.

Starting the first week of class, students are invited to participate in a LaunchPad session, beginning with syllabus organization and then in subsequent week moving on to Microsoft basics, campus involvement and time management.

Each week, students could opt in to a LaunchPad activity to help them develop practical life skills.

University of Mary Washington

Teaching the tech tools is essential because students often enroll with more experience using Chromebooks than Microsoft products, Wynn noted. Students also received a physical planner during the syllabus session, marking upcoming deadlines at the start of the term to help them prepare.

The initiative is supported by a Fund for Mary Washington Impact Grant, which provides donor-funded grants, ranging from $500 to $5,000, to students, faculty and staff for projects. Wynn and Dean of Students Melissa Jones applied for the grant and received $5,000 to fund peer-mentor stipends, day planners, workshops and more.

LaunchPad involves representatives from a variety of campus offices, including the career center, student activities, new student programs, the writing center, campus recreation, housing and residence life, and the Office of Disability Resources.

The impact: The fall 2025 pilot offered 51 hours of programming over four weeks, with 378 student participants and 466 hours of work by staff, faculty and peer mentors, Wynn said. “Student and facilitator feedback was collected at each session, with additional student survey feedback scheduled for December, after they’ve had time to test out what they learned in the program,” she said.

The university is considering a shorter program in the spring semester to capture transfer and other new students, as well as expanding the fall program to six weeks to include major and career advising, Wynn said. “While LaunchPad is geared toward first-year students, we hope to plan it around the fall senior class meeting in the future to provide a refresher for soon-to-be graduates,” Wynn said.
Getting Students Organized

Several other colleges have implemented new programs to help students build executive-functioning skills.

Faculty at DePaul University created a short course in the College of Communication to help students set goals and reflect on their academic progress.

Wake Forest University’s Center for Learning Access and Student Success established a digital syllabus that outlines all assignments and assessments for each class a student is enrolled in, creating a centralized depot for organization.

Dartmouth College created regular programming to help students build time management and organization skills, led by peers to normalize challenges.
How does your college encourage students to be organized and improve their life skills? Tell us more.
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December 4, 2025

Trump’s attacks on DEI may hurt men in college admission

by Jon Marcus, The Hechinger Report
December 4, 2025

Brown University, one of the most selective institutions in America, attracted nearly 50,000 applicants who vied for just 1,700 freshman seats last year.

The university accepted nearly equal numbers of male and female prospects, even though, like some other schools, it got nearly twice as many female applicants. That math meant it was easier for male students to get in — 7 percent of male applicants were admitted, compared to 4.4 percent of female applicants, university data show.

The Trump administration’s policies may soon end that advantage that has been enjoyed by men, admissions and higher education experts say.

While much of the president’s recent scrutiny of college admissions practices has focused on race, these experts say his ban on diversity, equity and inclusion is likely to hit another underrepresented group of applicants: men, and particularly white men — the largest subset of male college applicants.

“This drips with irony,” said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, or ACE, the nation’s largest association of universities and colleges, who said he expects that colleges and universities are ending consideration of gender in admission. “The idea of males, including white males, being at the short end of the stick all of a sudden would be a truly ironic outcome.”

Related: Interested in more news about colleges and universities? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter.

For years universities and colleges have been trying to keep the number of men and women on campuses evened out at a time when growing numbers of men have been choosing not to go to college. Some schools have tried to attract more men by adding football and other sports, promoting forestry and hunting programs and launching entrepreneurship competitions.

Nationwide, the number of women on campuses has surpassed the number of men for more than four decades, with nearly 40 percent more women than men enrolled in higher education, federal data show.

Efforts to admit applicants at higher rates based on gender are legal under a loophole in federal anti-discrimination law, one that’s used to keep the genders balanced on campuses.

But the Trump administration has consistently included gender among the characteristics it says it does not want schools to consider for admissions or hiring, along with race, ethnicity, nationality, political views, sexual orientation, gender identity or religious associations. The White House has so far largely not succeeded in its campaign to press a handful of elite schools to agree to the terms and sign a wide-ranging Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education in exchange for priority consideration for federal funding.

“The racial parts have gotten a lot more attention, but I know from having spoken with practitioners who work in college admissions, they have read very clearly that it says ‘race and gender,’” in the administration’s pronouncements about ending preferences in admission, said Shaun Harper, founder and chief research scientist at the University of Southern California Race and Equity Center.

“What I think they don’t understand is that taking away the ability of colleges and universities to balance the gender composition of their incoming classes will ultimately have an impact on the college enrollment rates of white males,” Harper said. “It is likely to impact them the most, as a matter of fact.”

At some private colleges, male applicants are more likely to get in

School	% of males admitted	% of females admitted
Brown University	7.0	4.4
University of Chicago	5.6	3.7
Yale University	4.6	3.4
University of Miami	22.5	16.5
Middlebury College	12.2	9.6
Baylor University	56.8	47.9
Pomona College	7.6	6.7
Tulane University	14.9	13.4
Vassar College	20.4	17.6

_{SOURCE: Hechinger Report calculations from universities’ Common Data Sets}

Agreements that the administration has reached with Brown, Columbia and Northwestern universities to settle allegations of antisemitism discrimination also include language about gender.

In a statement announcing the Brown deal in July, Education Secretary Linda McMahon promised that “aspiring students will be judged solely on their merits, not their race or sex.”

Asked if that meant male applicants would no longer be admitted at higher rates than female applicants — which has helped Brown keep its undergraduate enrollment at almost exactly 50-50, even with twice as many female applicants — spokesman Brian Clark said, “We have made no changes to our admissions practices in this regard.”

The Trump administration has also vowed to make all higher education institutions submit details about the students they admit, including their gender, to find out whether they’re “discriminating against hard working American” prospective students, McMahon said in another statement.

Spokespeople for the Department of Education did not respond to questions about whether advantages in admission based on gender will be scrutinized in the same way as purported advantages based on race.

Universities are looking at the administration’s edicts “and they’re saying, ‘Well, we’d rather be cautious than stick our neck out’” by continuing to give advantages to male applicants, said ACE’s Mitchell, who was undersecretary of education under President Barack Obama. “I think we will see people dropping gender preferences, even though it is still within the law.”

Colleges that have been accepting men at higher rates are trying to avoid a marketing problem they fear will happen if their campuses become too female, said Madeleine Rhyneer, who headed admissions offices at four private universities and colleges and is now vice president of consulting services and dean of enrollment management for the education consulting firm EAB. Colleges worry, “Will men look at that and think, ‘That’s essentially a women’s college, and I don’t want to go there’?”

“For the Browns and Columbias and highly selective and very competitive institutions, it is a problem,” Rhyneer said. “They want to create what feels like a balanced climate.”

The results of ending this practice could be dramatic, experts predict. In 2023, the most recent year for which the figure is available, 817,035 more women than men applied to universities and colleges, federal data show. Boys also have lower mean scores on the SAT in reading and writing, score lower overall on the ACT and have lower grade point averages in high school.

“If we were going to eliminate preferences for men, the undergraduate population would skew to 65 percent female overnight,” Mitchell said.

Rick Hess, director of education policy studies at the right-leaning think-tank the American Enterprise Institute, pointed out that similar predictions were made after the 2023 Supreme Court decision effectively ending affirmative action based on race.

At the time, he said, colleges spoke “in apocalyptic terms of the implications for the racial composition of student bodies.” But the number of Black and Hispanic students enrolled at universities and colleges the next year rose, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Then, said Hess, “there was a lot of, ‘Never mind.’”

The country’s top 50 private colleges and universities have 2 percentage points more male undergraduates than the top 50 flagship public universities, which do not consider gender in admission, according to research by Princeton economist Zachary Bleemer. He said this suggests that at least some are putting a thumb on the scale for male applicants.

Columbia took 3 percent of women applicants last year and 4 percent of men. At the University of Chicago, 5.6 percent of male applicants were accepted last year, compared to 3.7 percent of female applicants. The ratio at the University of Miami was 22.5 percent to 16.5 percent; and at Vassar College, 20.4 percent to 17.6 percent.

Besides Brown, none of these universities would respond when asked if they will continue to accept higher percentages of men than women, Neither would others that do it, including Yale, Baylor and Tulane universities and Pomona College.

Private institutions are allowed to consider gender in admission under Title IX, the federal law otherwise banning discrimination by universities and colleges that get federal funding. That’s due to a loophole dating from when the law was passed, in 1971.

At the time, the gender ratio was exactly reversed, and men outnumbered women on campuses by nearly three to two. One of the universities’ congressional allies, Rep. John Erlenborn, R-Illinois, successfully amended the measure to let private colleges and universities continue to consider gender in admission.

Erlenborn said at the time that forcing colleges to stop considering gender would be “one more giant step toward involvement by the federal government in the internal affairs of institutions of higher education.”

There’s little ambiguity for admissions offices now, said USC’s Harper.

“It says here, in writing, ‘no discrimination on the basis of race and gender,’” he noted. “It says that explicitly.”

Contact writer Jon Marcus at 212-678-7556, [email protected] or jpm.82 on Signal.

This story about men in college was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter. Listen to our higher education podcast.

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December 4, 2025

College completion rate holds steady above 61%
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Dive Brief:
- Among students who entered college in fall 2019, 61.1% earned a credential within six years, according to a report released Thursday by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. That’s 0.3 percentage points lower than the rate seen among the fall 2018 cohort, according to the latest data.
- The newest college completion data also showed that full-time students faced better odds of graduating than part-time students. Those attending college full time who started in fall 2019 were almost twice as likely to graduate within six years compared to part-time students — 67.1% versus 34.1%, respectively.
- Whether students took college classes in high school also affected their likelihood of earning credentials. The six-year completion rate among prior dual enrollment students was 71.1%, compared to 57.2% among those who took their first postsecondary course in college.
Dive Insight:

Thursday’s report broadly shared good news for students, as the 2019 cohort becomes the fourth group in a row to see a completion rate above 61%.

Doug Shapiro, executive director of the research center, said that the recent stability in completion rates reflects “the day‑to‑day efforts of students and institutions to maintain progress toward credentials in a changing environment.”

“Students who started in fall 2019 faced the challenges of the pandemic beginning in their second semester, so the fact that their completion rates remain at recent highs underscores the remarkable strength of our higher education ecosystem,” he said in a Thursday statement.

Still, discrepancies remain in which students successfully make it over the finish line.

Along with full-time status and prior dual enrollment, students’ gender, age at the time of enrollment and economic background were linked to their likelihood of graduating, the clearinghouse found.

College women have consistently reported stronger completion rates, and the fall 2019 cohort continued the trend. Some 64.3% of them graduated within six years, compared to 58.1% of college men.

Among students who first entered college when they were 20 years old or younger, 63.8% earned a credential within six years. For those aged 21 to 24 when they enrolled, just 35.6% could say the same. The completion rate for students 25 and older was 36.6%.

And students from the top 25% wealthiest neighborhoods were nearly 26 percentage points more likely to graduate within six years compared to those from the bottom 25% of neighborhoods — 75.9% and 50.1%, respectively.
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December 4, 2025
December College Expert Newsletter | College Expert

Failure is not the opposite of success, but a deeply valuable learning experience. In this issue, we rethink what it means to “fail” and discuss how setbacks can make an even bigger impression on admissions officers than a spotless record. Other articles include:

Focus on Majors: Psychology – A path for students fascinated with human behavior.
Financial Matters – How tuition reciprocity can make out-of-state options more affordable.
Honors Colleges – Is an honors program worth it? Benefits often include preferential registration, small classes and honors housing options.

Read the December issue.

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December 3, 2025
Audit slams shuttered Eastern Gateway Community College for ‘derelict accounting’
Dive Brief:
- Ohio’s state auditor last week alleged “derelict accounting and controls” and “rampant financial mismanagement of public resources” at Eastern Gateway Community College during the now-shuttered institution’s final years.
- The report from auditor Keith Faber’s office flagged $17.3 million of Eastern Gateway’s spending — the total amount of its federal student aid dollars in fiscal 2023 — as being insufficiently accounted for, due to “pervasive deficiencies in recordkeeping.”
- The office additionally detailed dozens of instances of inadequate data, unjustified spending, poor student recordkeeping, and lack of existing or approved written spending policies, among other issues.
Dive Insight:

Faber issued a blunt summary of the troubled Eastern Gateway’s financial leadership during the period covered by the report, from July 2022 to June 2023.

“This goes beyond sloppiness and honest mistakes,” Faber said in a statement. “The public should be outraged.”

When investigating the public college’s books, state auditors were “unable to obtain audit evidence supporting the College’s compliance with applicable federal requirements for these programs,” according to the report. In other words, Eastern Gateway’s recordkeeping deficiencies may have violated federal law tied to Title IV, in the auditors’ view.

Eastern Gateway indeed came under scrutiny over federal compliance, which ultimately hastened its demise.

In 2022, the U.S. Department of Education alleged the institution’s free college initiative illegally charged students with Pell Grants more than those without. The department told Eastern Gateway to stop offering the free college program and implemented other regulatory restrictions, at which point the institution sued the agency. However, Eastern Gateway eventually did end the program as part of a settlement with the feds.

The reputational damage and subsequent student decline after ending its free college program took a heavy toll on Eastern Gateway. In February 2024, the community college announced it would suspend enrollment for all students after its spring semester. By May, the institution announced it would permanently close in the fall.

But despite being shuttered for more than a year, Eastern Gateway continues to make headlines. The state auditor’s new report details issues across nearly all of the college’s operations.

Some were as small as missing signatures in vendor contracts and lack of a detailed policy for use of an institutional Amazon account. But some findings represented potentially massive oversights, such as issuing $13.6 million in bonds to buy a parking garage that cost more to demolish than the land underneath was worth.

More reports and details could yet emerge. Faber’s office noted in the Nov. 25 release that its Special Investigations Unit has an ongoing probe into Eastern Gateway’s operations that could produce future reports on the institution. The unit, together with several state law enforcement agencies, executed a search warrant in January 2024 related to the investigation.

Meanwhile, nearby Youngstown State University — with which Eastern Gateway established a teach-out plan — plans to absorb what remains of the smaller institution. The university’s board last month approved a plan to acquire property belonging to the community college. Youngstown State officials have said it’s the first time a community college has operated under a four-year university in Ohio.
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December 3, 2025
Helping College Students Save for Retirement

High tuition rates and cost-of-living expenses can make it difficult for students to make ends meet in the present, but that doesn’t mean they’re not worried about future financial burdens. A 2025 Student Voice survey found that one in five respondents say their biggest source of stress when considering their post-college future is “affording life after graduation.”

A 2024 survey by Handshake found that more than 40 percent of students have thought at least “a fair amount” about planning for retirement; 15 percent say it’s a major focus area. However, a majority of young people are not saving for retirement (61 percent), according to a 2024 survey by CNBC and Generation Lab.

By the numbers: Nationally, about three in five adults have a retirement savings plan, with more college graduates (81 percent) likely to have a retirement plan than those with some college (58 percent) or those without a college education (39 percent), according to 2025 Gallup data. Young adults between 18 and 29 were less likely to be planning for retirement in general. However, many Gen Zers have aspirations to retire by age 65, 2024 Morning Consult data showed.

Preparing students for financial stability beyond college also has implications for their families; over half of students told Handshake they plan to provide financial support for older family members during their career.

Previous research shows that some graduates who take on large amounts of debt to attend college may be less likely to reach adequate retirement wealth. One study found that graduates in 60 percent of majors analyzed—including education, political science, journalism, biology and general business—were unable to reach $290,000 in retirement savings by age 65. For students who held $40,000 in debt, “80 percent of all majors will not reach a sufficient level of financial wealth to have a 50/50 chance of not outliving their money at retirement,” according to the report.

Future planning: To help students prepare for the future, some colleges and universities offer financial planning support or supply resources on financial education.

Many institutions partner with iGrad, which provides financial literacy training. iGrad offers courses for students to help them plan for retirement, with content including understanding tax implications, identifying Social Security benefits and navigating common retirement pitfalls. The platform also has a retirement analyzer tool to help students understand the gap between their retirement savings and their goals.

Kansas State University’s Powercat Financial division offers peer counselors and staff who can answer questions about retirement planning and help students navigate various accounts that might be available to them. The university has also created blog posts that detail how to evaluate employee benefits.

Two-thirds of undergraduates surveyed by Handshake said they wouldn’t accept a job that didn’t include retirement benefits, and an additional 32 percent said retirement benefits aren’t essential, but they are important.

Trinity College’s website features a Retirement 101 guide, which helps students understand when they might decide to retire, how to calculate comfortable retirement savings and how investing can factor into retirement income.

Wellesley College encourages students both to save for their own sake and also to consider how they can give back to the college through a charitable remainder trust or by deeding their residence to the college.

How does your college or university encourage students to practice wise money habits? Tell us about it.

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December 3, 2025
Texas Technical College Gets “Transformational” Endowment

Texas State Technical College is striving to fill the state’s workforce gaps, but college leaders say the institution has been hampered by out-of-date facilities and a lack of funding to expand.

The technical college has historically been entirely reliant on state funding, which can fluctuate. Unlike the state’s community colleges, it’s not allowed to levy taxes or issue bonds. And yet, the institution is bursting at the seams with 45 out of its 127 programs at capacity this semester across its 11 campuses. Enrollment at the institution has risen steadily over the last few years, jumping up to 13,682 students this year from 12,518 last year.

But this past election cycle, Texas voters gave the institution a rare gift for a technical college—an $850 million endowment.

In November, almost 70 percent of Texans backed a constitutional amendment to create an endowment for TSTC out of the state’s general revenue fund, which will include annual disbursements for capital improvements. College leaders expect up to $50 million from the endowment each year, said Joe Arnold, the college’s deputy vice chancellor of government relations.

He called the endowment “transformational for the institution and for the state of Texas.”

“Texas has grown and grown and grown in businesses and population over the last 20 years, and it’s going to continue to grow,” Arnold said. “You’re going to have to have the workforce to meet the demand, and this is going to help us do that.”

This is the second time TSTC has sought to get an endowment on the ballot. In 2023, an attempt to establish a $1 billion endowment for the college died in conference committee, The Texas Tribune reported.

An Unusual Advantage

Endowments at two-year institutions are rare compared to their four-year counterparts, but they aren’t unheard of. Southwest Wisconsin Technical College, for example, recently used its $700,000 Aspen Prize for a student success plan endowment run by its foundation. Ivy Tech Community College’s foundation also raises money for endowments to pay for student scholarships and other needs.

Some states have also provided such funds for their public higher ed institutions. Alabama, for example, has an education trust fund for its institutions, including two-year and four-year colleges. Tennessee also put lottery reserves in an endowment to sustain Tennessee Promise, its free community college program. Texas’s Permanent University Fund also allows the University of Texas and Texas A&M systems to generate money from land leased by oil and gas companies.

But still, “most public institutions don’t have state-provided endowments like that,” said Robert Kelchen, head of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. The advantage of an endowment is college leaders “know that the funds are going to be there and they have some level of control over how it gets drawn down.” But it’s a hard model for other states to replicate unless they have “a windfall [of] one-time funds” they’re willing to devote, without pulling back on state appropriations.

“Because of a lot of the politically conservative legislation coming out of Texas, I think the perception is that Texas doesn’t financially support higher ed, but they do, and they’ve done some pretty innovative things in finance,” Kelchen added.

Arnold said it makes a real difference knowing the institution has a set amount of money coming in each year.

“We can plan for growth” and “plan ahead,” Arnold said.

Support and Opposition

Plans for the endowment had the backing of a wide range of employer groups, including the Texas Association of Manufacturers, the Texas Association of Builders and the Texas Economic Development Council, among others.

It also drew opponents, including the Libertarian Party of Texas and a few other groups that support limited government. These organizations raised concerns that creating a separate tranche of long-term funding for TSTC could get in the way of its fiscal oversight.

For example, Texas Policy Research, a research organization that seeks “liberty-based solutions” to improve Texas governance, recommended Texans vote no—arguing that “locking funding mechanisms into the Constitution erodes transparency and limited government” and that “programs should be funded through the regular budget process, where lawmakers justify spending every two years.”

But Arnold stressed that the money can only be used for specific purposes, such as renovations, infrastructure improvements and buying new land, buildings and equipment for programs.

Those types of funds are sorely needed, Arnold said. TSTC was founded 60 years ago and its flagship campus is on an old U.S. Air Force base. The funding will allow the college to update its “rather old facilities” and move forward with plans to add new campuses in three additional counties.

Defenders of the proposition also argue TSTC’s funding model holds it accountable. The state tracks graduates’ wages five years after they leave TSTC, and state money is doled out to the college based on their wage gains. Select programs also refund students’ out-of-pocket tuition costs if they don’t get a job interview in their field of study within six months.

The college’s funding depends on “graduates securing good jobs,” Meagan McCoy Jones, president and CEO of McCoy’s Building Supply, wrote in an op-ed in The Austin American-Statesman defending the endowment proposal. “That ensures accountability to students, taxpayers and employers alike.” She told voters the endowment would “strengthen our economy, support families with life-changing education and keep our state on a path of growth and innovation.”

Since the funding formula was implemented in 2013, the college has discontinued programs that didn’t lead to well-paying or in-demand jobs.

“It made us really work hard with our employers to understand what the needs were,” Arnold said.

He believes the endowment is the next step in continuing to improve the institution.

“We’re excited to be able to increase our capacity and put more people to work in Texas,” he said. “That’s kind of our thing.”

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December 2, 2025