Colleges and universities are deep in the first admissions cycle since the Trump administration dramatically disrupted the landscape for international students in the United States, and experts say that the past year has altered how they’re recruiting this year—and perhaps beyond.
Amid uncertainty about what the future may bring for international higher education, institutions are investing in new recruitment strategies or looking at new ways to reach international students, according to international education experts. That may involve recruiting more from countries that weren’t as affected by visa delays, forging new partnerships with international recruiting agencies or launching new branch campuses to reach international students in their home countries.
Anthony C. Ogden, founder and managing director at Gateway International Group, an international higher education firm, said he’s heard from a swath of institutions in recent months that are considering shaking up their international recruitment strategies as a result of the tumult of the past year.
“And that’s not unique to a certain section of higher ed,” he said. “It’s from the Big Tens to smaller institutions. Everybody’s considering different partners.”
In the year since President Donald Trump took office, his administration has, among other things, revoked students’ SEVIS records, implemented travel bans, advocated for institutions to cap the number of international students they admit, attempted to disallow Harvard University from hosting international students and frozen visa interviews for about three weeks, creating a backlog that has made it incredibly difficult to secure an appointment in many countries once interviews resumed. Further restrictions are expected on how long international students can stay in the United States and on Optional Practical Training, which allows international students to work in the country for up to three years after completing their schooling.
The number of new international students enrolled college in the U.S. this past fall dipped 17 percent as compared to the year before. Although surveys show international students still want to study in the U.S., they worry that they could have their visas revoked or face discrimination here.
Those fears, as well as concerns about securing a visa, have also influenced how students and their families are approaching the admissions process this year, international education leaders say. Many are still applying to U.S. universities, but an increasing number of students and families are developing backup plans, applying to institutions in other countries like the United Kingdom or Australia, said Samira Pardanani, associate vice president for international education and global engagement at Shoreline Community College.
“I think students are interested in more flexibility, and universities that used to not be very flexible, I’m seeing more flexibility,” she said. “What we’re seeing is students are looking for that low-risk start.”
International Innovations
But this precariousness and demand for flexibility could lead to new innovations in how institutions engage with international students, Ogden said.
“If we can’t bring students here, should we go to them, either on-site in-country or remotely in some ways? I think there’s some optimism there and when new modalities and new approaches—what we saw in the pandemic—comes out, some of that moves from the periphery to the mainstream,” he said. “Is that a Pollyannaish way of looking into January 2026?”
The University of Cincinnati, for one, is leaning in to new strategies to attract international students to its campus, according to Jack Miner, UC’s vice provost for enrollment management. The institution is exploring partnerships with schools in other nations—both high schools, which can funnel applicants to UC, and colleges where students can start a degree before transferring to the Ohio university.
Partnering with institutions rather than recruiting broadly across an entire country, Miner said, gives UC access to students who are already aware of and interested in studying in the U.S., removing a hurdle in the recruitment process. UC already has such partnerships in China and Vietnam but is planning to expand.
“What these partnerships has done for us is essentially streamline those conversations, because the students always end up knowing peers who have come to the U.S. or come to the University of Cincinnati. You know 20 students in the grade before you … or you have an older brother or sister that came to the university,” he said. “So that conversation about what it’s like to study in the United States, what it’s like to be at the University of Cincinnati, is a much easier conversation because it’s in context.”
It’s not just the Trump administration that has changed the international education landscape, said Liz Nino, executive director of international enrollment at Augustana College, a private Lutheran college in Illinois that began recruiting large numbers of international students in 2013. She said that visa appointment delays this year did seem to impact Augustana—the college’s first-year international cohort declined about 16 percent this fall from fall 2024—but that problems with visa interviews stretch back to COVID-19.
In recent years, she said, the “flood” of students who are interested in studying in the U.S. is more than U.S. embassies can handle, leading to interview wait times as long as a year and a half in certain countries. Currently, she said, she’s working with about 10 students from Ghana who were hoping to enroll in fall 2025 but had to defer to spring 2026; now it appears they may not be able to secure visas until October.
Such issues have influenced how Augustana recruits international students.
“This has been a huge challenge for U.S. universities because, as you can imagine, we’ve invested so much. I used to travel to Ghana once, sometimes twice a year, and now we’ve had to pull back because we cannot be putting so many resources into a market where we know that students simply cannot enroll,” Nino said.
The unpredictability can also be reflected in university budgets, said George F. Kacenga, vice president for enrollment management at William Paterson University in New Jersey.
“One of the most important things we can do, as enrollment managers, from my perspective, is give a forecast that is reliable so that a sound budget can be built,” Kacenga said. “In certain times, I might be aspirational about what I think that incoming number [of international students] looks like or share certain stretch goals. But right now, at least for myself and I think most of my colleagues, we are being very conservative in those international enrollment numbers.”
Deferred Students
The ultimate fates of students who were unable to secure visas in time for the fall 2025 semester appear to vary by institution.
Cornell University ended up having only a small number of students—primarily in graduate programs—who weren’t able to make it for the fall. Of that number, almost all will arrive for the spring semester.
“We feel like students were able to get to campus and were really relieved about the visa pressures not being as bad as we thought,” said Wendy Wolford, vice provost for international affairs at Cornell.
William Paterson had dozens of deferrals from fall 2025 to spring 2026 due to visa issues, Kacenga said. It’s not yet clear how many of those students will make it by the start of classes later this month, he said, but there has been “a lot of continued interest from those students.”
William Paterson also offered those students the opportunity to begin their coursework online until they’re able to secure visas, but Kacenga said students were generally uninterested in that option.
“There was too much uncertainty about actually being able to get here for the spring that people didn’t want to have a lost semester or an investment, and I’ve heard that story from institution types located all over the country,” he said. “So, a valiant effort to rally and support the students, but because of the uncertainty principle, it just wasn’t a smart choice for many folks.”
Fanta Aw, CEO and executive director of NAFSA, said in an email to Inside Higher Ed that visa delays have persisted, especially in China and India, the two largest suppliers of international students in the U.S. As a result, she wrote, it’s likely that most students who didn’t get visas in time to come in the fall opted to begin their studies elsewhere.
“The losses seen this past fall will continue to be felt for the foreseeable future as a decline in enrollments is not a one-term issue, but will have a compounding effect,” she wrote. “It is vitally important for the administration to reverse course if it wishes for a stronger, safer and more prosperous America.”
Aw and other experts expect visa delays to continue, but they say that, because there is so little new enrollment in the spring semester, those numbers won’t indicate much about the state of visa processing. Instead, the fall 2026 numbers will offer more insights into whether these delays were just a blip or if they’ll have a longer-term impact on international higher education.
As institutions begin to dole out acceptances this year, Kacenga said, he has been emphasizing to prospective and admitted students the importance of starting the college application and visa processes early.
“We’re helping students understand the urgency to complete your process to get admitted early—it’s not just about getting your class selection that you want or the housing arrangements that you’re most interested in,” he said. “It’s about doing it early so that you have the runway that you need for the immigration process.”
January 5, 2026 – Editor’s Note: Last week we published a synthesis of insights from Small College America’s 2025 webinar series, featuring voices from seven leaders navigating change, partnerships, and strategic decisions. Here, two expert panelists from the December webinar on mergers and partnerships provide a deeper analytical examination of the economic forces and partnership models reshaping small colleges.
By Dr. Chet Haskell and Dr. Barry Ryan. During a recent national webinar titled Navigating Higher Education’s Existential Challenges: From Partnerships and Mergers to Reinvention, in which we served as panelists, we were struck by both the familiarity and the seriousness of the questions raised by senior higher education leaders—particularly those concerning the growing consideration of mergers and partnerships. Most were no longer asking whether change is coming, but which options remain realistically available.
This article builds on conversations from that webinar and complements the recent synthesis of insights shared by our fellow panelists and the college presidents who participated in Small College America’s fall webinar series. Here we examine more systematically the economic forces and partnership models small colleges must now navigate. This article represents our attempt to step back from that conversation and examine more deliberately the forces now reshaping higher education.
Anyone involved with higher education is both aware and concerned about the struggles of small, independent colleges and the challenges to their viability. Defined as having 3000 or fewer students, more than 90% of these institutions lack substantial endowments and other financial assets and thus are at risk.
For many of these institutions, the risk is truly existential. Many simply are too small, too under-financed, too strapped to have any reasonable path to continuity. The result is the almost weekly announcement of a closure with all the pain and loss that accompanies such events.
Why is all this happening? Most of the problems are well known and openly discussed. Since almost all of these institutions are tuition revenue dependent, the biggest threat is declining enrollments. Demographic changes leading to fewer high school graduates are central, a situation exacerbated in many cases by Federal policy changes that discourage international students. But there are many others: excessive tuition discounting leading to reduced net tuition revenue, rising operating costs for everything from facilities to insurance to employee salaries, changes in state and Federal policies, especially student aid policies and restrictions on international students are just some examples.
The reality is that higher education is in a period of consolidation. After decades of growth beginning after the Second World War, the basic economic drivers of the private, non-profit residential undergraduate institutions are slowing down or even reversing. There simply are not enough traditional students to make all institutions viable. The basic financial model no longer works. If it did work, one could expect to see new institutions springing up. This has not happened except in the for-profit sphere, a totally different model known mostly for its excesses and failures. While there is a place for the for-profit approach, it is not in the small liberal arts college world. This is true for the same reason that the small institutions are under stress: the economics do not work.
One crucial challenge is simple scale or, rather, lack thereof. Small institutions have fewer opportunities for achieving economies of scale. Unlike larger public institutions (that have different challenges of their own) these colleges cannot have large classes as a significant characteristic of their modes of delivery. Their basic model assumes a relatively comprehensive curriculum provided through small classes, giving a wide variety of choices and pathways to a degree for undergraduates. But the broader the curriculum, the fewer students per program, almost always without commensurate faculty reductions. The economic inefficiency of the current model is clear.
And there are certain base personnel costs beyond the faculty. Every institution needs a range of administrative personnel (often required by accreditors) regardless of size. Attracting experienced personnel to such institutions is neither easy nor inexpensive.
The undergraduate residential model is both a key element in the American higher education ecosystem and a beloved concept for those fortunate enough to have experienced it. These schools are often cornerstones of small communities. They have produced an inordinate number of future professors and scholars. For example, a 2022 NCSES study provided evidence of doctoral degree attainment being at higher ratios for graduates of baccalaureate arts and science institutions than for baccalaureate graduates of R1 research universities.* The basic matter of scale is central to the liberal arts institutions’ attractiveness for students who may go on to doctoral study: small classes with high levels of faculty interaction; a focus on teaching instead of research; the sense of intimacy and a clear mission.
With proper planning and courage, some of these colleges may yet find ways to survive through some form of merger with – or acquisition by – a larger and stronger institution. Further, with sufficient foresight, many other seemingly more solid colleges may find ways to assure survival through other forms of partnerships.
However, the fact is that only the wealthiest 10% of institutions are not at immediate risk, even though prudence would suggest even they should be considering possible changes in their paths.
What can be done?
There have been multiple efforts to reimagine higher education. Some have been based on technology and have led to the growth of various distance or remote models, some quite successful, other less so. MOOCs were going to take over education generally, but have faded. For-profit models have all too often led to abuses, especially of poorer students. Artificial intelligence is at the forefront of current change concepts, but it is too early to assess outcomes. But small residential colleges have resisted such innovations, in part because they are clear about their education model and in part because they often lack the expertise or the resources to take advantage of change.
Some institutions have sought to mitigate the impacts of their scale limitations through consortia arrangements with other institutions. While significant savings may be achieved through the sharing of administrative costs, such as information technology systems or certain other “back office” functions, these savings are unlikely to be more than marginal in impact.
Other impacts for a consortium may come from cost sharing on the academic side. Small academic departments (foreign languages, for example) may permit modest faculty reductions while providing a wider range of choices for students. Athletic facilities and even teams may be shared, as well as some academic services such as international offices or career services operations. In the case of two of the most successful consortia, the Claremont Colleges and the Atlanta University Center, the schools share a central library. Access to electronic databases certainly creates an easier and less expensive pathway to increased economically efficient use of critical resources.
While the savings in expenses may be considered marginal, the true potential in such arrangements is the chance to grow collective student enrollments by offering more options and amenities than would be possible for a single institution.
However, there are other challenges to the consortium model. A primary one relates to location. Institutions near each other likely can find more ways to take advantage of the contiguity than those widely separated. Examples might be the Five Colleges in Western Massachusetts, the previously noted Claremont Colleges or the Atlanta University Center that links four HBCU institutions in the same city. New examples of cooperation include the recently announce CaliBaja Higher Education Consortium, a joint effort of both private and public institutions reaching across the border in the San Diego/Baja California region.
A different kind of sharing arrangement is represented by initiatives to share academic programs though arrangements where one institution provides courses and programs to others through licensing agreements and the like. An example would be Rize Education, an initiative that seeks to enable undergraduate institutions to expand and enhance academic offerings through courses designed elsewhere that can be readily integrated into existing curricula, thus avoiding the costs of time and money needed to build new programs.
At the other end of the spectrum are straightforward mergers and acquisitions. One institution takes over another. Sometimes this is accomplished in ways that preserve at least parts of the acquired school, even if only for political reasons related to alumni, but the reality is that one institution swallows another.
Another version is a true merger of rough equals. There are numerous examples, one of the best known being Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. In this situation, two separate institutions decided they could both be better together and, over time, they have built an integrated university of quality. A recent example may be the announced merger of Willamette University and Pacific University in Oregon. Such arrangements are quite complex, but may provide a model for certain institutions.
A third model might be the new Coalition for the Common Good. Initially a partnership of two independent universities, Antioch and Otterbein Universities, the Coalition is built on three principles: symbiosis, multilateralism and mission. The symbiosis involves Antioch taking on and expanding Otterbein’s graduate programs for the shared benefit of both institutions. Multilateralism refers to the Coalition basic concept of being more than two institutions as the goal: a collection of similar institutions. Mission is central to the Coalition. The initial partners share long histories of institutional culture and mission, as reflected in the name of the Coalition itself.
Other partnership models are possible and should be encouraged. While it is rare to see a partnership of true equals, as one partner is usually dominant, this middle ground between a complete merger or acquisition and consortia should be fertile ground for innovation for forward thinking institutions not in dire straits. Since there is no single approach to such structures, the benefits to participating partners should be at the core of the approach. These partnerships may be able to address the challenge of scale and provide opportunities for shared costs. Properly presented, they should be attractive to potential students and provide a competitive edge in a highly competitive environment.
The importance of mission and culture
While the root cause of most college declines and failures is economic in nature, it is all too easy to forget the role of an institution’s mission and culture. Many colleges look alike in terms of academic offerings, yet institutions usually have a carefully defined and defended mission or purpose. These missions are important because they help define the college as more than just a collection of courses. Education can serve many different missions and thus mission clarity is crucial to institutional identify. And identity is one way for institutions to differentiate themselves from competition, while also helping to attract students.
Mission is also tied to institutional culture. Colleges have different subjective cultures that serve to attract certain students, as well as faculty and staff members. Spending four years of one’s life ought not to be spent in an impersonal organizational setting. There are multiple individual personal reasons for attending one institution instead of another. Most of these reasons are not entirely objective, but instead depend on an individual’s sense of ‘fit’ in the college setting.
What should institutions be doing?
The stark reality is that for many smaller institutions the alternative to some sort of partnership is likely to be closure. But closure is not to be taken lightly. The impact of these institutions is far-reaching and the human, educational and community costs are very real.
All institutions, regardless of financial assets, should be openly discussing their futures in a changing world. As noted, a few may be able to simply proceed with what they have been doing for years. But this luxury (or blindness) is not a viable or attractive option for most.
Every institution should be looking into the future at its basic model. Is there a realistic path to assuring enrollment and revenue growth in excess of expenses over time? Is there a budget model that provides regular surpluses that can provide a cushion against unanticipated challenges or can enable investment in new initiatives? Are there alternative paths to revenues that can augment tuition, such as fundraising, auxiliary enterprises or the like? And in looking at such questions, an institution should be asking how it can be better off over time with a partner or partners.
Even institutions that examine such matters and conclude it would be advantageous to engage a partner are faced with daunting challenges. First is determining what is desired in a partner and then identifying one. Some colleges feel bound by geography, so can only think about like institutions nearby. Others are more creative, looking to use technology to enable a more widely dispersed partnership.
Once a partner is identified, the path to an agreement is arduous, complex, lengthy and costly. Accreditors, the Department of Education, state boards of higher education, alumni, and all manner of other interested parties must be addressed. This requires external legal and financial expertise. This process is excessively demanding of an institution’s leaders, especially presidents, provosts and chief financial officers. Boards must be deeply involved and internal constituencies of faculty and staff must be brought along.
And once a final agreement is reached, signed and approved, the work has only begun. The implementation of any partnership is also arduous, complex, lengthy and costly. Furthermore, implementation involves deep human factors, as institutional cultures must be aligned and new personal professional partnerships must be developed.
The fact is that many institutions will either enter into some form of partnerships in the coming years, as the alternative will be closure. Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, and unnecessary delays create limitations on available options and increase risks. Every institution’s path into partnerships will vary, as will the particulars of each arrangement. It is incumbent upon boards of trustees and institutional leaders to face such facts realistically and to devise practical plans to move forward. Not doing so would be a dereliction of duty.
Dr. Chet Haskell is an experienced higher education consultant focusing on existential challenges to smaller nonprofit institutions. and opportunities for collaboration. Dr. Haskell is a former two-time president and, most recently, a provost directly involved in three significant merger acquisitions or partnership agreements. including the coalition. for the common good, the partnership of Antioch and Otterbein University.
Barry Ryan is an experienced leader and attorney. has served as a president and provost for multiple universities. He helped guide several institutions through mergers, acquisitions, and accreditation. Most recently, he led Woodbury University through its merger. with the University of Redlands. He also serves on university boards and is a commissioner for WASC.
Haskell and Ryan are the Co-Directors of the Center for College Partnerships and Alliances, launched by Edu Alliance Group in late 2025. It is dedicated to helping higher education institutions explore and implement college partnerships, mergers, and strategic alliances designed to strengthen sustainability and mission alignment.
Artificial intelligence has rapidly evolved from experimental pilots into practical tools in higher education. Colleges and universities are now adopting AI agents, intelligent, autonomous systems designed to perform tasks, learn continuously from data, and act proactively to support students and staff throughout the entire enrollment and student journey.
Unlike traditional chatbots that offer scripted responses, AI agents for colleges can analyze behavior, adapt to changing inputs, and take meaningful actions based on goals or context. They can handle tasks like personalized communication, lead nurturing, application guidance, and even predicting student attrition, all with minimal human intervention.
For higher ed leaders, enrollment managers, and marketing teams, the question is no longer if AI will play a role in education; it’s how to use it strategically, ethically, and effectively. The potential is significant: smarter outreach, streamlined operations, and stronger support for students.
In this article, we’ll unpack what AI agents are, how they differ from simpler tools, how institutions are using them today, and what practical steps schools can take to get started or scale up AI-powered initiatives.
Are you prepared for the next evolution of enrollment and student support?
What Is an AI Agent?
An AI agent is a dynamic, intelligent system designed to perform tasks autonomously on behalf of users or institutions. Unlike static tools or rule-based chatbots, AI agents can analyze data, interpret complex intent, and act independently in pursuit of defined goals. They are capable of:
Understanding and responding to user intent across multiple interactions
Taking proactive actions based on predefined goals, real-time context, or behavioral triggers
Continuously learning and improving from user inputs and outcomes
Integrating with core institutional platforms such as CRMs, student information systems (SIS), learning management systems (LMS), and communication tools
In a higher education context, AI agents are not simply answering questions; they’re helping institutions solve problems. These agents can assist with lead nurturing, application guidance, appointment scheduling, academic advising, and more. Their ultimate purpose is to support institutional goals such as improving enrollment conversion, enhancing student engagement, and reducing the manual workload on admissions, marketing, and student services teams.
Key Characteristics of AI Agents in Higher Education
AI agents for colleges are defined by several core capabilities that set them apart from traditional tools or scripted chatbots:
Autonomy: They operate independently, completing tasks or initiating interactions without requiring constant human oversight.
Context Awareness: AI agents can recognize a student’s position within the enrollment or academic lifecycle and adjust their responses accordingly.
Goal-Oriented Behavior: They are built with specific institutional outcomes in mind, such as increasing conversion rates, reducing summer melt, or improving retention.
Continuous Learning: These systems improve over time by analyzing data patterns and learning from past interactions.
Together, these characteristics enable AI agents to act as proactive, adaptive partners in student engagement, going well beyond static digital assistants to drive meaningful institutional impact.
AI Agent vs. Chatbot: What’s the Difference?
A common source of confusion in higher education is the distinction between traditional chatbots and AI agents. While the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, the capabilities and strategic impact of each are vastly different.
Traditional Chatbots
Chatbots are typically rule-based or scripted tools that respond to user prompts. They are reactive rather than proactive, meaning they wait for a user to initiate contact. Most chatbots are limited in scope: they may answer FAQs or provide links to resources, but they cannot understand context or evolve. Their utility is often confined to narrow use cases like answering admissions deadlines or sharing campus event information.
AI Agents
AI agents, by contrast, are intelligent, goal-driven systems that can operate autonomously across platforms. They are capable of interpreting complex intent, initiating actions, and retaining memory across sessions and channels. These agents integrate with CRMs, SIS, and learning platforms to deliver personalized experiences. More importantly, AI agents can adapt their strategies based on behavioral data and outcomes. For example, an AI agent might detect that an admitted student has not opened key onboarding emails and proactively reach out with a nudge or alternative format.
The Key Distinction
What makes an AI agent different from a chatbot?AI agents are autonomous, goal-driven systems that understand context, learn over time, and take proactive actions. Unlike chatbots, which respond to scripted prompts, AI agents can guide users through processes and initiate engagement across multiple platforms.
In essence, chatbots answer questions, but AI agents help move students through a process. They not only provide information but also drive outcomes like enrollment completion, financial aid submission, and course registration. As institutions seek to improve service quality and efficiency at scale, AI agents offer a more strategic, integrated approach than chatbots alone.
Why AI Agents Matter for Colleges Today
Higher education is undergoing a seismic shift. Institutions are under mounting pressure from multiple directions: growing competition for a shrinking pool of prospective students, fluctuating domestic enrollment in many regions, rising expectations for personalized and digital-first engagement, and increasingly limited internal resources. In this environment, colleges and universities need tools that enable them to do more with less without sacrificing student experience.
AI agents offer a powerful solution. These intelligent systems enable colleges to shift from reactive service models to proactive, anticipatory engagement across the student lifecycle. Whether guiding prospective applicants through the admissions process or supporting enrolled students with course selection and financial aid navigation, AI agents help scale operations while preserving a sense of personal touch.
Core Education AI Use Cases for Colleges
1. AI in Enrollment Management
One of the most transformative applications of AI agents is in enrollment management. Traditional outreach methods often rely on bulk communications and static timelines. AI agents, by contrast, enable real-time, tailored engagement based on where each student is in the funnel.
Key functions include:
Sending automated, personalized nudges to incomplete applicants
Identifying prospects who show signs of disengagement or drop-off
Providing 24/7 responses to common admissions questions
Supporting post-admit engagement and reducing summer melt
Rather than replacing admissions professionals, these agents act as digital extensions of the team, helping manage volume while maintaining quality interactions.
2. Intelligent Assistants in Higher Education Recruitment
On websites, landing pages, and student portals, intelligent AI assistants for higher ed help convert interest into action. These systems can dynamically guide users to the most relevant content or next steps based on browsing behavior, geography, or persona.
Use cases include:
Directing students to matching academic programs
Surfacing key dates and requirements based on applicant type
Offering localized content or multilingual support for international visitors
Capturing high-intent inquiries for CRM integration and follow-up
When embedded at strategic touchpoints, these tools improve the prospective student experience and boost lead conversion rates.
3. Student Services and Academic Support
Beyond recruitment, AI agents are increasingly being used to reduce administrative burden and expand access to essential student services. This is especially valuable for institutions serving diverse populations, including adult learners, international students, and part-time students who may need help outside of regular office hours.
Key areas of support:
Assisting with course registration logistics and policies
Answering financial aid questions and helping students navigate fees
Referring students to on-campus services based on need (e.g., mental health, tutoring, IT help)
Acting as a triage point for academic advising requests
By handling routine inquiries, AI agents free up staff to focus on more complex or sensitive cases.
4. Retention and Student Success
Student success teams often lack real-time visibility into which students are disengaging. AI agents can analyze signals such as missed logins, dropped classes, or overdue assignments to flag early risk indicators.
Once identified, agents can:
Trigger automated check-ins or reminders
Recommend helpful resources (e.g., peer tutoring)
Notify academic advisors or success coaches
Encourage re-engagement through timely, personalized outreach
These interventions help prevent attrition by reaching students before they fully disengage.
5. Marketing and Communications Automation
AI agents also bring efficiency to enrollment marketing operations. They can support:
Real-time content personalization on websites
Automated follow-up workflows based on behavior (e.g., abandoned form fill)
Cross-channel engagement across email, SMS, and chat
Handling campaign-related inquiries or call-to-action responses instantly
For marketing teams, this means campaigns can scale without losing relevance. AI ensures that prospective students receive the right message, at the right time, via the right channel, improving conversion rates and ROI.
In short, AI agents are not a future-facing concept. They’re a current strategic advantage. By embedding intelligence and automation into student engagement, colleges can improve outcomes, reduce strain on staff, and create experiences that meet the expectations of today’s digital-native learners.
How Are Colleges Using AI Agents Today?
Across Canada, the United States, and internationally, colleges and universities are already deploying AI agents to support critical areas like enrollment, student services, academic advising, and marketing. These are no longer just experimental tools or isolated pilot projects. Instead, many institutions are integrating AI agents into their core strategies, using them to improve responsiveness, personalize outreach, and ease the burden on staff.
From automating admissions follow-ups to guiding students through financial aid, real-world use cases are multiplying. The focus has shifted from “if” to “how best” to implement these tools.
(See the curated examples at the end of this article.)
Do AI Agents Replace College Staff?
This is a common concern, and the answer is no. AI agents are not designed to replace college staff, but to support them.
These intelligent tools handle routine, high-volume, and time-sensitive tasks that can overwhelm busy teams. They can respond instantly to frequently asked questions, guide users to resources, and even operate around the clock, especially useful during evenings, weekends, or high-traffic application periods.
By managing first-line support, AI agents free up staff to concentrate on what matters most: personalized advising, meaningful relationship-building, and strategic planning. They also surface real-time data and student behavior insights that staff can use to make more informed decisions.
Importantly, human expertise remains essential for nuanced conversations, equity-based support, and complex decision-making. Rather than replacing staff, AI agents extend their capacity, allowing institutions to offer more consistent, timely, and personalized service without adding headcount. When implemented thoughtfully, AI agents strengthen, not diminish, the human touch in education.
Ethical and Practical Considerations
As colleges adopt AI agents, ethical implementation is paramount. Institutions must ensure these tools align with institutional values and uphold trust.
Data Privacy and Security: AI agents must comply with relevant privacy laws such as PIPEDA or GDPR. Clear, transparent data usage policies help reassure users and safeguard institutional integrity.
Bias and Fairness: To prevent unintended bias, especially in areas like admissions or advising, institutions should conduct regular audits, use diverse training data, and maintain human oversight in high-stakes decisions.
Governance and Oversight: Successful AI initiatives require clear accountability. Define who owns the AI agent, how it’s monitored, and when human staff should step in.
Ultimately, AI agents should enhance equitable access, not compromise it. Thoughtful design and oversight are essential.
How Can Colleges Get Started with AI Agents?
For colleges and universities exploring AI agents for the first time, a phased and strategic approach ensures alignment with institutional goals while minimizing risks.
Step 1: Identify High-Impact Use Cases Start by targeting clear, high-volume needs where automation delivers immediate value. Common entry points include admissions inquiries, application follow-ups, and frequently asked questions in student services. These areas typically require timely, consistent responses and are ideal for early pilots.
Step 2: Align with Enrollment and Marketing Strategy AI agents should reinforce your institution’s enrollment goals, not operate in a silo. Ensure that the use cases support broader priorities such as inquiry-to-application conversion, yield improvement, or retention. Collaboration between admissions, marketing, and IT is key.
Step 3: Integrate with Existing Systems To be effective, AI agents must connect with your existing technology stack. Integrate them with CRM platforms, student portals, and marketing automation tools to ensure seamless data flow and actionable insights.
Step 4: Pilot, Measure, Optimize Launch a limited-scope pilot with clear objectives. Track metrics like reduced response times, increased application completion, or staff time saved. Use feedback and data to refine both the agent’s responses and its integration with team workflows.
Step 5: Scale Thoughtfully Once the agent has proven value, consider expanding to new functions (e.g., academic support or financial aid). Establish governance policies, ensure ongoing training and monitoring, and communicate transparently with users.
With the right foundation, AI agents can scale intelligently, becoming a long-term asset for your institution.
Examples of Higher Education Institutions Demonstrating AI Agent Use
Georgia State University (USA): Georgia State pioneered an AI chatbot named “Pounce” to assist incoming students with admissions queries, financial aid forms, and other enrollment steps. By answering thousands of questions 24/7 via text messages, Pounce helped reduce “summer melt” (admitted students failing to enroll) by 22% in its first year, meaning hundreds more freshmen made it to campus. This AI assistant continues to guide students through registration and financial processes, improving support for new Panthers.
University of Toronto (Canada): U of T is actively exploring AI-driven tools to enhance student advising and services. A university-wide AI task force has recommended integrating AI into student support and administration. Initiatives include pilot projects for AI chatbots and data analytics to assist academic advisors, streamline routine administrative queries, and personalize student services. By embracing these technologies with a human-centric approach, U of T aims to improve how students receive guidance and navigate campus resources.
Arizona State University (USA): ASU has implemented AI-enabled digital assistants (including voice-activated tools) to guide prospective and current students. Notably, ASU partnered with Amazon to create a voice-based campus chatbot via Alexa, allowing users to ask the “ASU” skill about campus events, library hours, dining menus, and more. In residence halls, students received Echo Dot devices as part of a smart campus initiative, making it easy to get instant answers about enrollment or campus life. These AI assistants augment student engagement by conversationally providing on-demand information and support.
University of British Columbia (Canada): UBC leverages AI in both research and practical applications to improve student experiences. The university deploys AI chatbots and advising assistants to help answer student questions and streamline services. For example, UBC’s “AskCali” project is an AI-driven advising tool that uses generative AI to answer academic planning questions and direct students to resources. UBC Okanagan’s campus also introduced an AI chatbot across departments like IT support and Student Services, automating routine inquiries and reducing wait times by handling ~99% of chats, which frees up staff for complex issues. Through these efforts, UBC enhances student support while improving operational efficiency.
Harvard University (USA): Harvard is applying AI systems to enhance academic advising, streamline administrative tasks, and bolster student engagement. The university’s digital strategy encourages responsible use of AI in advising and student services. For example, Harvard has explored AI chatbots for answering routine student questions and experimented with AI tutors to augment academic advising. These AI initiatives are aimed at improving the efficiency of advising processes and enriching how students interact with academic support, all while maintaining a human-centered approach (Harvard’s advisors and faculty guide AI use to ensure it aligns with educational values).
University of Michigan (USA): U-M has rolled out AI-powered tools to support student services, including conversational assistants for advising and campus information. The College of LSA launched “Maizey,” a 24/7 AI academic advising chatbot that answers questions on course requirements, policies, and study tips, providing a “smart sidekick” for students seeking guidance after hours. Additionally, U-M developed “MiMaizey,” a personalized AI campus assistant that helps students find information on dining, events, organizations, and more in a chat interface. By deploying these AI-supported services, Michigan offers instant help and tailored support to students while complementing its human advisors.
University of Alberta (Canada): UAlberta is integrating AI into student services and campus operations to improve efficiency and support. The university’s AI committees explicitly guide the use of AI to “improve university operations, services, resource management, and administrative tasks.” This means deploying AI tools in areas like student advising, where chatbots or predictive analytics can assist with inquiries, and in back-office processes, where automation can streamline workflows. By embracing these technologies, the U of A seeks to enhance the student service experience (faster responses, 24/7 support) and optimize institutional decision-making and resource use.
Stanford University (USA): Stanford has been a leader in leveraging AI agents for student support, learning analytics, and administrative innovation. Researchers at Stanford have developed AI systems that detect when students are struggling in digital courses and then recommend interventions to instructors, effectively acting as an AI tutor/assistant to keep students on track. In student services, Stanford has experimented with chatbots and AI-driven data analysis to personalize learning and improve advising. These efforts—from AI “teaching assistants” that answer student questions to predictive models that inform advisors—illustrate Stanford’s use of AI to enhance learning outcomes and streamline academic administration.
AI agents represent a transformative opportunity for colleges and universities that approach them with purpose and alignment. When embedded within broader strategies for enrollment management, student success, and marketing, these tools can significantly enhance institutional impact.
By automating high-volume tasks and providing real-time, personalized support, AI agents help institutions engage students earlier in their journey, offer more relevant touchpoints, and deliver a seamless digital experience that today’s learners expect. At the same time, they free up staff to focus on strategic, human-centered work, creating a more agile and efficient institution.
The real value lies not in simply deploying AI tools, but in how they’re integrated across departments and designed to serve long-term goals. For higher education leaders, this means shifting the conversation from technology for its own sake to technology as an enabler of student-centric transformation. With thoughtful implementation, AI agents can become a cornerstone of modern, resilient, and responsive institutions.
Are you prepared for the next evolution of enrollment and student support?
Frequently Asked Questions
Question: What makes an AI agent different from a chatbot? Answer: AI agents are autonomous, goal-driven systems that understand context, learn over time, and take proactive actions. Unlike chatbots, which respond to scripted prompts, AI agents can guide users through processes and initiate engagement across multiple platforms.
Question: How are colleges using AI agents today? Answer: Across Canada, the United States, and internationally, colleges and universities are already deploying AI agents to support critical areas like enrollment, student services, academic advising, and marketing.
Question: Do AI agents replace college staff? Answer: This is a common concern, and the answer is no. AI agents are not designed to replace college staff, but to support them. These intelligent tools handle routine, high-volume, and time-sensitive tasks that can overwhelm busy teams.
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The manufacturing industry has long bemoaned the decline of its workforce. Yet today’s manufacturing educational pathways look much like they did in the ‘80s, when hiring numbers began declining.
Apprenticeship programs remain scarce, with just 678,000 apprentices registered nationwide (in comparison, Germany’s labor force is less than a third of the U.S.’ yet maintains 1.22 million apprentices). And according to one Dewalt survey, students believe that trade schools are costly and offer limited networking opportunities.
One underrated option may hold the most promise for workforce growth: the local community college.
Community colleges excel in ways conducive to a successful manufacturing career, said Shalin Jyotishi, founder of the Future of Work & Innovation Economy Initiative at think tank New America.
The schools are accessible, closely plugged into the local manufacturing industry and usually more affordable. For many people, Jyotishi said, a community college is the best way to enroll in a program that offers all the benefits of an apprenticeship.
“An apprenticeship program is the closest possible coupling between education and work experience since the Babylonian times. It’s largely considered the gold standard in workforce education. The problem is, in the U.S., only 2% of our students go through apprenticeship programs,” Jyotishi said.
Apprenticeship coursework is often exclusively aligned with specific occupations and not transferable to four-year universities. Community colleges allow students to enroll in credit-bearing courses, which can open future doors to opportunities in advanced manufacturing and beyond.
What makes community colleges unique
Unlike many higher education institutions, community colleges are able to develop, tailor and put specialized courses in manufacturing on offer at a quick pace.
Students at Ohio-based Clark State College, for example, can obtain up to 14 manufacturing certificates, which can be applied toward a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Manufacturing Technology Management.
President Jo Blondin said much of this is created according to the Developing A Curriculum model, which centers industry input.
For instance, the college organized a workshop with a core group of subject matter expertsrepresenting Ohio Laser, Resonetics and GE/Unison to develop its most recent certification. This led to the Laser Materials Processing/Photonics certification, which Blondin said is “extremely important for base contractors, both inside and outside the fence.”
Simultaneously, Blondin said, the college’s engineering tech coordinator organized another advisory meeting to “obtain key insights to evolving advanced manufacturing skills desired by industry partners.” This included participants from Amazon, American Pan, Honda, LH Battery, Rittal, Sweet, Topre and Valco.
“If a business comes to us and says, ‘We really need this training,’ we’re going to move heaven and earth to make it happen. And I would say that most community colleges that have a strong workforce development focus take that approach,” she said.
Maintaining excellent industry relationships isn’t just a boon for the curriculum, it also allows colleges to offer training with a degree of job placement support.
While still employed at Honda, Scot McLemore helped develop an apprenticeship program for manufacturing in which students could interview for and do paid work at a local advanced manufacturing employer for three days a week.
And while there was no guarantee, “it was the intention of both the company and the college for that student to then be employed with that company at the end of that apprenticeship,” said McLemore, who now serves as the vice president of the Office of Talent Strategy at Columbus State Community College. At worst, the student walked away with a network, real-life experience and skills tested in a live manufacturing environment.
Community colleges also offer something that many apprenticeships do not: following their coursework, students have the flexibility to move away from manufacturing.
“Some of these students are going to be transfer students that go on for a four-year degree. The others are going to go directly into industry either with their associate’s degree or noncredit learning and completion certificate,” said McLemore, referring to the noncredit bearing coursework that manufacturing training is usually categorized under.
“Our job here is to serve the individuals in the Columbus area and be the front door to their success,” he said.
That commitment to serving the community is baked into the community college ethos, said Blondin, and it applies across industries.
Just three years ago, Clark State’s practical nursing program enrolled 350 students. Today, it has 786 students in classes.
That’s a direct result of increased demand from local hospitals and healthcare providers, said Blondin, adding that demand from manufacturers is also growing.
According to a Rutgers report, community colleges are “filling knowledge and coordination gaps among local manufacturers and acting as ‘innovation brokers’ by linking their programs to the needs of local employers.”
“We do see a general trend for community colleges to be more focused on workforce issues in their local communities,” said Michelle Van Noy, director of the Rutgers Education and Employment Research Center.
One of the reasons that community colleges can mobilize the faculty and resources at their disposal is because they don’t have the kind of “conflict of priorities” that faculty at research universities might have, according to Jyotishi.
“Faculty are able to work with employers, because that is the sole mission of community colleges. They don’t have to balance research with teaching. They just do the teaching,” said Jyotishi, while acknowledging that community colleges are not a monolith.
There’s also the fact that the “noncredit” nature of many manufacturing programs allows “faster time to program creation.” While credit-bearing programs have to move through faculty senates and the accreditation process, their “noncredit” counterparts allow colleges to quickly meet the customized training needs of manufacturers, Jyotishi said.
“It may not happen in two hours, but in 48 hours, we could get something going,” Blondin said.
Two people stand next to machinery at Clark State College in Springfield, Ohio.
Permission granted by Jimmy Straley, Clark State College
The community college-manufacturing pipeline
In the United States, people seeking a manufacturing career have “too many options” when it comes to certifications and credentials, Jyotishi said.
According to Credential Engine, there are more than 1 million unique credentials available in the U.S. across sectors including IT, healthcare, manufacturing and more. This, coupled with the fact that not enough data exists on which certifications lead to better employment outcomes, means students must often make difficult choices with little guarantee of results.
“In other countries, there’s much more sophisticated mechanisms to curate pathways into jobs. For us, it’s the wild west,” Jyotishi said.
Manufacturers can help develop a skilled workforce by teaming up with their local community college on coursework development, or even offering a work-based learning arrangement that benefits both the student and the manufacturing business.
“I think that everybody — from the CEO to the plant manager to the HR director — should know their counterparts at their local community college, so they can make sure that that’s a great relationship,” Blondin said.
She added that community colleges should stay connected to their local legislators, for whom workforce development is top of mind.
“When you talk to anybody, of any party, they will say the number one issue, of course, is workforce.”
by Jeni Hebert-Beirne, The Hechinger Report December 22, 2025
It started with Harvard University. Then Notre Dame, Cornell, Ohio State University and the University of Michigan.
Colleges are racing to close or rename their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) offices, which serve as the institutional infrastructure to ensure fair opportunity and conditions for all. The pace is disorienting and getting worse: since last January, 181 colleges in all.
Often this comes with a formal announcement via mass email, whispering a watered-down name change that implies: “There is nothing to see here. The work will remain the same.” But renaming the offices is something to see, and it changes the work that can be done.
Colleges say the changes are needed to comply with last January’s White House executive orders to end “wasteful government DEI programs” and “illegal discrimination” and restore “merit-based opportunity,” prompting them to replace DEI with words like engagement, culture, community, opportunity and belonging.
One college went even further this month: The University of Alabama ended two student-run magazines because administrators perceived them to be targeting specific demographics and thus to be out of compliance with Attorney General Pamela Bondi’s anti-discrimination guidance. Students are fighting back while some experts say the move is a blatant violation of the First Amendment.
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With the one-year mark of the original disruptive executive orders approaching, the pattern of response is nearly always the same. Announcements of name changes are followed quickly by impassioned pronouncements that schools should “remain committed to our long-standing social justice mission.”
University administrators, faculty, students, supporters and alumni need to stand up and call attention to the risks of this widespread renaming.
True, there are risks to not complying. The U.S. State Department recently proposed to cut research funding to 38 elite universities in a public-private partnership for what the Trump administration perceived as DEI hiring practices. Universities removed from the partnership will be replaced by schools that the administration perceives to be more merit-based, such as Liberty University and Brigham Young University.
In addition to the freezing of critical research dollars, universities are being fined millions of dollars for hiring practices that use an equity lens — even though those practices are merit-based and ensure that all candidates are fairly evaluated.
Northwestern University recently paid $75 million to have research funding that had already been approved restored, while Columbia University paid $200 million. Make no mistake: This is extortion.
Some top university administrators have resigned under this pressure. Others seem to be deciding that changing the name of their equity office is cheaper than being extorted.
Many are clinging to the misguided notion that the name changes do not mean they are any less committed to their equity and justice-oriented missions.
As a long-standing faculty member of a major public university, I find this alarming. In what way does backing away from critical, specific language advance social justice missions?
In ceding ground on critical infrastructure that centers justice, the universities that are caving are violating a number of historian and author Timothy Snyder’s 20 lessons from the 20th century for fighting tyranny.
The first lesson is: “Do not obey in advance.” Many of these changes are not required. Rather, universities are making decisions to comply in advance in order to avoid potential future conflicts.
The second is: “Defend institutions.” The name changes and reorganizations convey that this infrastructure is not foundational to university work.
What Snyder doesn’t warn about is the loss of critical words that frame justice work.
The swift dismantling of the infrastructures that had been advancing social justice goals, especially those secured during the recent responses to racial injustice in the United States and the global pandemic, has been breathtaking.
This is personal to me. Over the 15 years since I was hired as a professor and community health equity researcher at Chicago’s only public research institution, the university deepened its commitment to social justice by investing resources to address systemic inequities.
Directors were named, staff members hired. Missions were carefully curated. Funding mechanisms were announced to encourage work at the intersections of the roots of injustices. Award mechanisms were carefully worded to describe what excellence looks like in social justice work.
Now, one by one, this infrastructure is being deconstructed.
The University of Illinois Chicago leadership recently announced that the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Equity and Diversity will be renamed and reoriented as the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Engagement. The explanation noted that this change reflects a narrowed dual focus: engaging internally within the university community and externally with the City of Chicago.
This concept of university engagement efforts as two sides of one coin oversimplifies the complexity of the authentic, reciprocal relationship development required by the university to achieve equity goals.
As a community engagement scientist, I feel a major loss and unsettling alarm from the renaming of “Equity and Diversity” as “Engagement.” I’ve spent two decades doing justice-centered, community-based participatory research in Chicago neighborhoods with community members. It is doubtful that the work can remain authentic if administrators can’t stand up enough to keep the name.
As a professor of public health, I train graduate students on the importance of language and naming. For example, people in low-income neighborhoods are not inherently “at risk” for poor health but rather are exposed to conditions that impact their risk level and defy health equity. Health is “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being,” while health equity is “the state in which everyone has the chance to attain full health potential.” Changing the emphasis from health equity to health focuses the system’s lens on the individual and mutes population impact.
Similarly, changing the language around DEI offices is a huge deal. It is the beginning of the end. Pretending it is not is complicity.
Jeni Hebert-Beirne is a professor of Community Health Sciences at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health and a public voices fellow of The OpEd Project.
This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-colleges-are-not-just-saying-goodbye-to-dei-offices-they-are-dismantling-programs-that-assure-institutional-commitment-to-justice/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://hechingerreport.org”>The Hechinger Report</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/hechingerreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/cropped-favicon.jpg?fit=150%2C150&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>
On December 7, 2025, the U.S. Education Department announced a new initiative aimed at helping students make informed choices in higher education and maximize their potential for success. Starting now, students applying for federal financial aid may receive a FAFSA “lower earnings” warning for certain colleges and universities that fall below state or national salary benchmarks for high school graduates. Access to this crucial data point is designed to help students evaluate the return on their educational investment.
What Is the FAFSA Lower Earnings Warning?
The FAFSA “lower earnings” warning identifies colleges where median earnings four years after graduation fall below those of typical high school graduates, helping students assess potential ROI.
According to department data, nearly one-fourth of all higher-education institutions (1,365 colleges) currently fall into the “lower earnings” category. These new FAFSA warnings will overwhelmingly impact for-profit (88%) and non-degree granting (80%) institutions, so the short-term impact on traditional higher education is limited for now.
But the broader signal is unmistakable: federal policy and public expectations are moving squarely toward transparency, outcomes, and return on investment (ROI). Even if your institution is not directly affected, the cultural and regulatory shift redefines what students and families expect, and how institutions must communicate and deliver value.
How should you respond?
1. Invest in a Data-Driven Strategy for Student Success
This shift continues to validate the trend in national scrutiny on the value of higher education, calling for a continued emphasis on transparency about outcomes. A truly effective student success strategy requires comprehensive data that tracks the entire learner journey and post-graduation impact measured against internal and external benchmarks.
In a recent Carnegie blog, we shared a list of essential data elements to include when leveling up your data infrastructure for student success. In alignment with these metrics, institutions should prioritize a focused set of value-driven metrics:
Undergraduate and program-level earnings
Job placement and program alignment metrics
Experiential learning access (e.g., internships, co-ops, research opportunities)
Affordability and equity indicators (including net price, unmet need, and gaps in outcomes)
This kind of outcome-focused dataset is essential for real institutional improvement. It should be actively used to inform strategic functions across the college (e.g., curriculum development, early career engagement, academic advising, student employment, and leadership opportunities).
Without clear, outcome-focused and post-graduation earnings data, institutions lack the necessary insights to genuinely improve student success and cannot articulate their value or ROI to students, families, or the public with any confidence.
2. Proactively Articulate Your Value Proposition
Although this report shows that most college graduates do out-earn high-school graduates, that reality is no longer assumed by the public. Institutions must actively and clearly demonstrate the full short-term and long-term benefits their degrees provide.
If economic mobility and social responsibility are promises we make to prospective students and families, these promises should be measured and communicated as a means to re-recruiting your students throughout their journey. The task for four-year colleges is to effectively articulate their long-term ROI and full value proposition, which includes:
Career Earnings and Economic Mobility: Explicitly linking their degrees to higher lifetime earning potential.
Skills and Competencies: Highlighting the critical thinking, communication, and adaptability skills that drive long-term career success.
Personal, Social, and Civic Outcomes: Highlighting the less-visible benefits of a holistic education, including confidence, belonging, wellbeing, leadership development, and community engagement.
In this newest Federal Student Aid report, the key data point under question is undergraduate earnings four years after graduation as reported on the College Scorecard (with adjustment for inflation). Reviewing your institution’s standing against state, national, and even comparison institutions’ benchmarks is an important starting point, but the real question is broader: Are you clearly communicating the full spectrum of outcomes your graduates achieve—not only economically, but in terms of skills, well-being, and long-term direction?
3. Implement a Holistic Plan for Student Success
As you gather data and more fully articulate your value proposition, it becomes essential to activate a corresponding plan and structure that supports student success. Many institutions may have retention efforts in place, but may lack a strategy that extends from matriculation to graduation and beyond.
Ongoing Process for Continuous Improvement: Student demographics and workforce needs constantly change, so the success strategy can’t be static.
Holistic Definition of Student Success: Moving beyond simple retention or graduation rates to a more complete picture of student well-being and post-graduation readiness is essential. This expanded definition must include metrics that drive action. For example, if improving salaries at graduation is a priority, what experiences must be in place in year one, and how will you measure progress?
Structure + Ownership: Establish a clear, accountable framework for your institutional student success strategy. This structure should ideally include designation of accountability for student success within a cabinet-level position, but should also include a thoughtful integration of key offices with responsibilities for essential student success metrics.
Collaboration Across Essential Areas: True student success requires breaking down institutional silos. A cross-functional committee with delegated authority can provide an important opportunity for connection between what happens in the classroom (curricular) with everything else (co-curricular).
Annual Action Plan: Commit to regular, institutional-level reviews (e.g., annually) of all success metrics to determine which initiatives should be scaled, revised, or retired. Key to the plan will be the use of leading indicators such as early academic performance, engagement, and experiential learning access to guide mid-course adjustments.
Ongoing Process for Continuous Improvement: Student demographics and workforce needs constantly change, so the success strategy can’t be static.
Student Success Solutions We Offer
Carnegie collaborates with higher education institutions nationwide to enhance their student success and ROI strategies through a strong focus on data-driven decision-making. Our support is designed to produce measurable outcomes, with a core mission: to help you deliver on the promises you make to every student you serve.
Our Services Include:
Student Success Assessment: Identifies structural gaps, opportunities, and strategic priorities across your advising, data systems, curriculum alignment, and career pathways.
Career Ecosystem Blueprint: Provides decision-makers with a robust understanding of their current career outcomes, career services operations, including strengths, opportunities, and challenges, and builds a shared vision for embedded career engagement and employer relations as a critical function for institutional health.
Strategy Session (1 Hour): A working session with Carnegie’s Student Success team to help leadership teams rapidly assess where they stand — and what steps to take next..
If you haven’t considered it yet, we invite you to the Carnegie Conference in January. This is a perfect opportunity for leaders who are ready to delve deeper into how their institution can create and execute a student success strategy centered on return on investment. Participants will have the chance to share best practices with colleagues and walk away with tangible, actionable solutions for immediate implementation.
Partner With Us
As national scrutiny of higher education continues to increase, articulating the long-term value of your degrees and prioritizing student success will enable you to demonstrate relevance, lead, and grow in this current environment. Carnegie is dedicated to helping your institution move forward.
In the current climate, one might question whether academic accommodations are the most urgent avenue for discourse. Yet a pattern of uncontested opinion pieces in spaces like The Atlantic (the newly published “Accommodation Nation”), The Chronicle of Higher Education (“Are Colleges Getting Disability Accommodations All Wrong?), The Wall Street Journal (“Colleges Bend the Rules for More Students, Give Them Extra Help”) and, indeed, Inside Higher Ed itself (“How Accommodating Can (Should) I Be?”) speaks to the enduring cultural conflict around how the Americans With Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act are actualized in higher education.
As members of the executive board of the Association on Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD) in Virginia—a professional organization for staff of disability service offices—It is our intention to define and defuse the recurring arguments of this specific “type” of opinion article, which for convenience we will call the “Do Colleges Over-Accommodate?” piece.
Setting the Table With Statistics
It is common to see these claims begin from an assumption that disability accommodations “are skyrocketing”—a claim that sensationalizes statistics. One author cites the large volume of accommodation letters sent by a university per semester. Such a claim is rooted in either misunderstanding or deliberate misrepresentation of accommodations. At any institution, the total count of all accommodation letters sent appears disproportionately large, because each student is enrolled in multiple courses.
A better accounting would come from data on the representation of disabled students within the institution. Recent National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) data shows that among public, 4-year institutions, 10.1 percent of them report that students with disabilities make up 10 percent or more of their student population. This is an increase from the 1.5 percent of institutions in 2010–2011, but why is it shocking that disabled students also want to go to universities that their nondisabled peers attend?
The NCES data do suggest that disabled students are more likely to enroll in private institutions (more than 23 percent of private nonprofit colleges report that students with disabilities make up 10 percent or more of their student population). While this is supportive of a claim that students from privileged backgrounds have higher access to accommodations (and indeed, research supports this) it is telling that authors who put elite institutions in the spotlight are more focused on reducing accommodations available to these students than on increasing the support available to students at less elite institutions.
It is also important to view these figures in the context of the post-ADA era. The ADA is only 35 years old, and its amendments passed in 2008. Today’s students come from an environment where they are more likely to expect accessibility, which is reflected in these “skyrocketing”—or “breathtaking”—numbers.
Categorizing the Case Against Accommodations
In our review of the “Do Colleges Over-Accommodate” archetype, we saw a clear pattern of essential recurring arguments:
More rigid documentation standards are needed to “create equity.”
In these arguments, we see unfortunate parallels to other attacks on civil rights playing out in our public discourse. Each individual claim requires a full-throated counterargument—which we will provide below.
Claim: Accommodations Convey Advantage
This is the most prevalent claim within these articles, and we will spend the greatest effort defusing it. This claim suggests that all accommodations create advantages for students with disabilities—that we should fear for “fairness,” or that accommodations will compromise rigor. In this piece, the author asserts that additional testing time for students with disabilities “is as unfair to other students as a head start would be to other runners.”
This metaphor reveals a flawed assumption—that education is inherently a place of competition, with a fixed number of winners and losers. A zero-sum game. But universities are not limited in their capacity to provide degrees, nor is there a fixed number of A’s available.
Still, there is value in ensuring fairness. Disability services officers (DSOs) develop rigorouscriteria for assessing and analyzing cases where academic accommodations would “fundamentally alter” key aspects of courses. DSOs also seek to apply a measured approach to approval of accommodations, consistent with professional guidance. The purpose of accommodations—to return to the metaphor—is ensuring that students run in the same race.
Research such as this 2022 U.K.-based study, which found that accommodations in most cases “worked as intended and helped [with] leveling the playing field,” challenges this narrative further.
The work of DSOs relies on an interactiveprocess at the individual level. A student who is dyslexic may benefit from a dictation tool for writing essays in a way that another would not. A student who has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder may benefit from a quiet testing environment—but not all students with the same diagnosis would have the same needs. The individualized identification and selection of supports to address disability-specific barriers is the cornerstone of DSO work, and it is work that our offices conduct effectively.
Claim: Disabled Students ‘Game the System’
Running through these articles is an implicit—at times explicit—assumption that DSOs are either tricked by students and their medical providers into approving accommodations inappropriately, or that students deliberately misuse even appropriate accommodations. Implicitly, this assumption is communicated to readers through less-than-subtle reliance on words like “claim” for how students communicate their disability, rather than “disclose.” Explicitly, this line of argument appeals to scholarship debating the ways in which individual disabilities are defined.
Some of the most-cited sources in support of this claim are of questionable reliability. For example, this article from the Canadian Journal Psychological Injury and Law has been held as “sobering” evidence that DSOs are insufficiently rigorous in approving accommodations. In the study, researchers asked DSO staff if they would accommodate a fictitious prospective student based solely on what the researchers deemed insufficient documentation.
Setting aside gaps in context between Canada and the U.S., what a DSO professional would hypothetically do and what they would do when presented with a live student are different. Our professional guidelines encourage the use of self-report, triangulated with other forms of information. Without following a student through the interactive process, the authors project bias and incorrect assumptions onto the work of DSO professionals—just as asking a doctor to suggest treatment without an exam would likely produce similarly “sobering” results.
The inaccuracy of this claim is likely to be apparent to anyone involved in accommodations review. Moreover, some of the sources cited by proponents of this claim directly contradict it. For example, Ashley Yull’s 2015 article about the intersection of race class, and disability notes:
“Premising access to accommodations in post-secondary education on receipt of a psychiatric diagnosis magnifies the negative impact of childhood poverty.”
“SES [socioeconomic status] contributes to the experience of disadvantage for learning disabled students when they lack the financial means to obtain required diagnoses.”
It is no wonder that scholars would dispute that documentation is a lever for equity, given the staggering cost of psychological assessments. There is variance in the pricing of these assessments, but in some areas they can cost between $1,000 and $5,000. While some university-operated assessment centers can be less costly, they typically have very long waiting lists. Meanwhile, 1 in 5 dependent undergraduate students come from families below the poverty line—and nearly half of independent students (those without financial support from family) met this criterion.
Financial cost is not the only barrier to accessing rigorous documentation. Mental health providers experience significant demand, stretching wait times and disproportionately impacting rural and marginalized communities.
If DSOs demanded that each student claiming a learning disability or ADHD diagnosis supply such a document, accommodations would be unavailable to poorer students and to many students from rural areas. For all students, the provision of accommodations would be delayed. This is why those working as DSOs are often so willing to work with students when they can articulate an access barrier. To claim otherwise can be understood as either a statement of ignorance about disability services or, perhaps, as reflective of a desire for accommodation requests to diminish.
Conclusion
As we noted, our goal is to present a measured response to these opinion essays. Having done so, we will do our readers the service of stating our own view:
Disability services professionals are thoughtful and effective in discharging their responsibilities in the interactive process.
Disabled students belong on college campuses, and accommodations serve to enable access to higher education.
Accommodations level the playing field for students within environments that were built without considering their very existence.
Rigidity in the interactive process burdens the student, and these burdens disproportionately impact marginalized communities.
We encourage readers to draw their own conclusions—however, in doing so, we encourage you to listen to the voices of the disabled community, disability services professionals, and those with stakes and experience in navigating the accommodations process.
In the current climate, where we are asked to consider whether empathy might be a sin, and whether disability might be incongruent with merit in the workplace, it is important to uplift these voices. It is important to stand firm in the knowledge of the expertise and value of those in helping professions. It is important to affirm that all means all, and that includes students with disabilities.
Chris Parthemos and Martina Svyantek are the president-elect and president, respectively, of the Association on Higher Education and Disability in Virginia.
Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott gave more multimillion donations out to colleges.
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Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott is at it again with another round of gifts.
Robeson Community College in North Carolina announced a $24 million gift from Scott on Thursday, the single largest contribution in the rural college’s history.
Robeson’s president, Melissa Singler, called the gift “a profound affirmation of our students, our faculty and staff, and the limitless potential of Robeson County.”
“Never before have we been given a gift of this magnitude that affords our team the time, space and freedom to think, dream and plan boldly,” Singler said in a news release.
Scott also gifted Carl Albert State College in Oklahoma $23 million. The college is working on a strategic plan for how to use the funds, focused on “sustainability, academic and career success, innovation, and community engagement,” according to an announcement last week. Connors State College, also in Oklahoma, celebrated a $15 million contribution from Scott, its largest gift ever.
Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College also announced a “multi-million dollar gift” last week, the largest unrestricted gift in its history, but didn’t specify the amount. The tribal college plans to use Scott’s funding to support scholarships and grants for native and non-native students.
First-time undergraduates applying for federal student aid will now receive a warning if they indicate interest in an institution where graduates don’t earn more than an adult with a high school diploma.
The new earnings indicator on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid is aimed at ensuring students have more information about their postsecondary options, Education Department officials said in a news release Monday. Consumer protection advocates generally praised the department’s move, while institutional groups criticized it.
About 23 percent of the nearly 5,900 institutions in the department’s database will be labeled as “lower earnings.” Those colleges enroll fewer than 3 percent of undergraduates and receive about $2 billion in federal student aid annually. That’s a fraction of the more than $100 billion in federal aid that’s doled out each year. The department pulled from publicly available data to generate the label, and program-level data is available online on the College Scorecard.
This warning comes after years of debates over how to give students more information about the outcomes at institutions and specific programs. An Obama-era effort was scuttled after higher ed groups and institutions pushed back. However, a new rule drafted by the Biden administration will eventually provide more program-level data on earnings, which consumer protection advocates say will help to steer students away from those that don’t pay off.
“This new indicator will help students and families better understand how their choices could translate into real-world outcomes, and it will be provided at a crucial moment in the college decision-making process,” Education Under Secretary Nicholas Kent wrote in a blog post. “This indicator is designed to inform—not limit—student choices. It’s one additional resource students can use—alongside factors like cost, mission, location, and personal interests—to identify the path that best aligns with their goals.”
Most of the 1,365 institutions flagged for lower earnings are for-profits and beauty schools. A few on the list are community colleges and historically Black colleges and universities.
The association that represents cosmetology schools didn’t respond to a request for comment Monday. However, the group has fought efforts to tie financial aid eligibility to students’ earnings, arguing in part that the underlying data is inaccurate.
The left-leaning think tank New America released a report critical of the industry earlier this year, calling it “predatory.” Meanwhile, Michelle Dimino, director of the education program at Third Way, a left-of-center think tank, expects the lower-earnings list to add to the scrutiny on beauty schools.
“Well over half [on the list] were [beauty schools and cosmetology institutes],” Dimino said. “That continues to really raise the temperature around that industry and some of the questions about return on investment and supply and demand in that space, how they might think about licensing and other requirements to be able to appropriately calibrate their costs with their outputs.”
Institutional representatives said Monday afternoon that while they support greater transparency, they are concerned about the department’s methods to create the designation, such as which students are included in the calculations and how the earnings metric doesn’t take into account regional variations and differences in earnings for specific fields.
“This is a blunt tool for a nuanced process that has enormous potential for creating misleading outcomes,” said Jon Fansmith, senior vice president for government relations and national engagement at the American Council on Education. “Much more care, time and attention should have gone into it, and it would be all the better for it if ED had done that. Regardless of their motivations, there are good reasons to question the process and how useful it will actually be. “
Fansmith added that if the department is flagging low performers, it should also highlight high performers.
In the release, Kent’s blog post and other online information about the earnings flag, the department made clear that it’s not taking a “position on the underlying value of educational services provided by any institution of higher education.”
Jordan Wicker, senior vice president of legislative and regulatory affairs at Career Education Colleges and Universities, which represents the for-profit sector, said in a statement that he appreciates that the earnings indicator applies to all institutions.
“CECU believes disclosures like this can be improved by including non-completer earnings data, which the College Scorecard currently lacks,” he said. “Similarly, CECU is consistent in its critique of the dataset for the comparison group age 25-34, as well as accounting for regional variations in earnings. We share the Department’s commitment to transparency and will work with them to ensure that the most accurate disclosures are provided to help students select the school that best fits their needs and wishes.”
First-year undergraduates will see the label on their FAFSA Submission Summary. From there, they can click to receive more detailed earnings information on the institutions they selected. Students can then opt to remove a flagged institution.
Even students who have already submitted their FAFSA can see whether any of their chosen schools have been flagged. In his blog post, Kent said the notices have “no impact on FAFSA completion, submission, or eligibility for aid.”
Starting next July, all college programs will have to show their graduates make more than the average adult with only a high school diploma in order to access federal student aid. The department is still working through the specifics of how that test, known as Do No Harm, will work.
To Dimino of Third Way, the launch of the indicator is a sign of growing momentum toward greater transparency and more information about earnings.
Dimino particularly likes the department’s decision to tell students about the earnings data after they complete the FAFSA. She thinks disclosure at that step will help ensure students actually see the information and can use it as they consider their options. She is interested in learning more about how students act on the data and whether they decide against sending the lower-earnings institutions their aid application.
Students lack awareness about available earnings data or where to find it, according to Inside Higher Ed’s 2025 Student Voice survey, conducted in August. About 11 percent of students said they don’t know where to find postgraduation outcomes information and an additional 8 percent said they “know nothing” about postgraduation outcomes. Just 12 percent said they knew detailed outcome data for their program.
Michael Itzkowitz, founder of higher education research and policy firm HEA Group, said the earnings indicator is “a step in the right direction for transparency.”
“Students today primarily attend college to secure better employment opportunities, and they deserve to know up front whether an institution simply isn’t delivering on that promise,” he said. “Most institutions deliver on the promise of economic prosperity but, unfortunately, some do not.”
Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott continued her latest giving spree this week, showering millions of dollars on another slew of higher ed institutions.
Scott gave $50 million each to California State University, East Bay, the largest single donation in the university’s history, and to Lehman College, part of the City University of New York system, according to announcements from the institutions on Thursday. (Scott also gifted Lehman College $20 million in 2020 and has given a total of $125 million to campuses across the CUNY system in the last five years.)
