Tag: Colleges

  • Why Some Colleges are Thriving While Others Are Falling Behind 

    Why Some Colleges are Thriving While Others Are Falling Behind 

    The New Reality of Enrollment Management 

    For many colleges, the fall 2025 enrollment numbers brought a mix of emotions. While some institutions are celebrating record-breaking classes and hitting their targets, others—equally committed to their mission—fell short. This stark contrast isn’t just a symptom of demographic shifts; it reveals a deeper, more urgent truth: the status quo is failing higher education.

    Many institutions are struggling not just because of demographics, but because of outdated, fragmented enrollment strategies. They are kept in silos—admissions, marketing, financial aid—creating an inconsistent student experience that leads to missed starts, early attrition and lost potential.

    Today’s Modern Learners are more discerning than ever. They expect speed, personalization and transparency, making fragmented approaches not only ineffective but unsustainable. The future of higher education does not belong to those defending the past. It belongs to institutions bold enough to build what’s next—a unified, data-informed strategy that transforms these challenges into opportunities for sustainable growth.

    Missed Starts: The Silent Threat to Student Recruitment  

    Enrollment managers face a stark reality: the decision-making window has never been shorter. Students aren’t shopping around like they once did. Students are making decisions faster than ever. According to our latest Engaging the Modern Learner Report, 67% inquire at only one or two institutions, and 45% apply to just one. This is a fundamental shift. In 2015, only 43% of learners would enroll at the first school that contacted them. By 2025, that figure has skyrocketed to nearly three in four. For your institution, this is a wake-up call. The window to turn interest into enrollment is closing, and any delay, inconsistent follow-up or fragmented outreach means you lose students before they even begin their journey.

    Speed and consistency are not just critical—they are the price of admission. Slow, fragmented communication—whether through delayed responses, inconsistent messaging, or glaring gaps across departments—is not an inefficiency. It is a direct cause of a hemorrhaging enrollment funnel. The only way to transform this challenge is with a unified enrollment management approach.

    Think of the bright prospective student who loves your campus culture after a visit. The prospective student sends a follow-up email with a simple question about a scholarship deadline, but the admissions team is swamped, and a response is delayed. Meanwhile, another school sends a personalized text message with the needed information, along with a link to a testimonial from a student in the desired major. This prospective student’s trust is built and stolen by the competing school, and your school is now completely out of the consideration mix—not because of your academics or campus life, but because of a missed connection.

    The Four Pillars of Strategic Enrollment Management

    The path to reversing missed starts and early attrition isn’t guesswork—it’s a disciplined, coordinated approach. The Four Pillars of Strategic Enrollment Management give institutions a clear framework to turn insights into action, strengthen recruitment and improve student success. By combining brand alignment, AI-driven analytics, full-funnel marketing and student-centric engagement, campuses can act decisively, close gaps in the enrollment process, and ensure every touchpoint moves students toward enrollment and persistence. 

    Strategic Brand Alignment for Student Recruitment 

    In a crowded market, a compelling and authentic brand is not optional—it’s the foundation of any winning student recruitment strategy. Reputation drives decisions more than ever, with 31% of all applicants and 51% of traditional undergraduates ranking it among their top factors for choosing a school. Most Modern Learners start their search with the institution itself rather than a specific program, which means that without a strong, visible brand, your institution risks being overlooked before the conversation even begins. For marketing and enrollment leaders, this makes it clear that visibility and authenticity are essential for influencing enrollment outcomes.

    Brand is also about proving value. Affordability remains important, but today’s Modern Learners are increasingly focused on career outcomes and program benefits in addition to cost. Messaging must clearly convey the tangible return on investment and the real-world impact of a degree to resonate with prospective students. By aligning programs with student aspirations and demonstrating clear student success outcomes, institutions can create meaningful, personalized engagement that drives enrollment forward.

    AI-Powered Analytics and Performance Optimization 

    Data alone won’t drive results; insights must inform every decision. Integrating AI into your enrollment strategy isn’t a strategy of the future—it’s a strategy of now. Competitive institutions use predictive insights to identify which students are most likely to apply, enroll and persist, turning complex data into actionable strategies. By analyzing engagement, inquiries, social sentiment and historical trends, enrollment managers can uncover funnel leaks, prioritize outreach, and allocate resources effectively. 

    At EducationDynamics, we combine AI-driven insights with human expertise to ensure recommendations are contextually grounded. This lets teams act quickly, maintain consistency and optimize every touchpoint. Integrated with targeted marketing insights, these analytics help institutions reach the right students with personalized messaging, strengthening enrollment management and driving long-term success. 

    Full-Funnel Marketing for Student Recruitment and Retention 

    Modern Learners move seamlessly across digital, social, email, and traditional channels—and they expect institutions to meet them wherever they are. A full-funnel marketing approach ensures every interaction reinforces the institution’s brand while delivering timely, personalized and meaningful engagement. 

    Now more than ever, students’ attention spans are short and their decision-making windows are fast. Consistent, relevant communication at every stage of the journey is critical: it keeps prospects engaged, strengthens trust, and positions your institution as a top choice. By aligning program-specific messaging with the broader institutional brand, enrollment managers create a unified narrative that drives conversions, builds credibility, and strengthens student engagement across the entire enrollment journey. 

    Every touchpoint—from initial awareness to follow-up engagement—works in concert to reduce lost starts, increase inquiry-to-application conversion and support long-term student success. This integrated approach ensures your marketing investments deliver measurable results while keeping prospective students moving efficiently through the enrollment funnel. 

    Student-Centric Enrollment and Retention for Student Success 

    Personalized engagement is a critical pillar in turning prospects into enrolled students and lifelong advocates. Students expect timely guidance, responsiveness and a sense that their individual goals are understood and valued. AI tools, including chatbots and virtual assistants, provide 24/7 support for routine questions, ensuring no inquiry is left unanswered. While technology handles the routine, your team’s expertise remains the essential ingredient. It’s the human connection—the empathy, the guidance and the personal touch—that ultimately drives commitment. Technology amplifies your reach; your team delivers the relationships.

    A student-centric approach ensures every touchpoint aligns with the learner’s journey, making communications, guidance, and support feel relevant and meaningful. With the right tools, data, and training, campuses can anticipate student needs, address obstacles proactively, and build confidence early in the enrollment process. This approach strengthens trust, boosts engagement, improves persistence, and turns every interaction into an opportunity to reinforce your institution’s brand while driving measurable student success.

    Uncover the Student Experience 

    By now, it’s clear: fragmented enrollment strategies and inconsistent outreach cost institutions students. Modern Learners expect speed, personalization and clarity—anything less, and they move on. The challenge for enrollment managers is not just knowing where students drop off, but having the tools to act before interest is lost.

    Mapping the student journey provides that clarity. By tracing the entire enrollment process from inquiry to start, it uncovers friction points—broken links, slow follow-up, confusing financial aid—that silently derail prospects. Enrollment teams can pinpoint exactly where disengagement happens, intervene strategically and ensure every touchpoint reinforces your brand promise while supporting student success.

    To take it a step further, you can secretly shop your own institution to reveal how your enrollment experience truly feels to the student. Delayed responses, generic messaging or unhelpful chat functions aren’t just minor inefficiencies—they signal misalignment and break trust. By uncovering these gaps, this process informs targeted improvements in communication, staff workflows and recruitment strategies, keeping your institution competitive in a fast-moving market.

    Together, these tools offer a concrete roadmap to unify brand, marketing and engagement efforts—turning insights into action, closing gaps before students disengage, and ensuring every interaction drives measurable enrollment and student success.

    In today’s competitive landscape, the institutions winning enrollment aren’t just reacting—they’re thinking bigger. They recognize that success comes from cross-functional collaboration, where departments work together to deliver cohesive, personalized experiences for Modern Learners.

    A Unified Enrollment Strategy turns isolated efforts into a coordinated system designed to:

    • Capture student intent faster
    • Reduce missed starts
    • Increase retention
    • Strengthen long-term student success

    This is more than efficiency—it’s a strategic mindset. By aligning every department around the student journey, anticipating needs, and curating experiences that reflect the expectations of Modern Learners, institutions build trust, enhance engagement and position themselves for sustainable growth and measurable outcomes.

    Transform Your Enrollment Strategy 

    The status quo won’t carry institutions into 2026 and beyond. To stay competitive, enrollment leaders must move beyond fragmented processes and adopt integrated strategies that deliver speed, personalization, and authenticity at scale. At EducationDynamics, we do more than unify departments—we help institutions transform scattered efforts into a cohesive system that drives measurable student success. 

    Don’t let a fragmented strategy define your future. It’s not too late to turn things around. We help institutions move beyond the status quo to build a unified system that fixes funnel leaks, increases retention and delivers measurable student success. 

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  • Most adults say higher education is important but want colleges to stay out of politics

    Most adults say higher education is important but want colleges to stay out of politics

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    Dive Brief:

    • Nearly 4 in 5 surveyed Americans, 78%, said a college education is somewhat or very important to a young person’s success, according to a new poll from researchers at Vanderbilt University.
    • Despite increasing polarization around higher ed, a significant majority of both Democrats and Republicans — 87% and 68%, respectively — said a college education was at least somewhat important.
    • The broadly favorable public sentiment comes amid the federal government’s allegations of “violations, shortcomings and biases” at colleges, John Geer, head of the nonpartisan Vanderbilt Project on Unity & American Democracy, said in a Wednesday press release.

    Dive Insight:

    The Trump administration has increasingly targeted higher education, decrying colleges as hubs of liberal indoctrination and wastes of federal funding. Against this backdrop, Vanderbilt researchers polled 1,030 adults in English and Spanish from Sept. 5 to Sept. 8.

    “Higher education has undoubtedly been a primary concern for President [Donald] Trump’s administration,” Geer said. “Certainly, people expressed areas of concern and viewed certain institutions as more problematic than others, but support for colleges and universities remains substantial, even in the midst of these many criticisms from Washington,” he said.

    Nearly two-thirds of respondents, 65%, said colleges have a positive effect on society. A large majority of Democrats agreed with this statement, as did most of the “traditional” Republicans surveyed, according to the Wednesday release. 

    A deeper schism emerged from Republican respondents who identified with the Make America Great Again movement. Among those supporting MAGA ideology, 65% said colleges have a negative effect on the U.S. 

    In a February poll, Vanderbilt found that a majority of Republicans surveyed, 52%, identified with the MAGA movement — though slight, it was the first majority since researchers began asking the question in June 2023.

    The September survey also found a broader skepticism of some aspects of higher education that transcended political divides. Among the overall respondent pool, 67% said ideological or political bias is at least somewhat of a serious problem at colleges. Within that share, 35% said bias is a problem at most institutions.

    However, the respondents who said political bias exists on campuses did not broadly fault academic instruction. About 2 in 5, or 43%, blamed administrative decisions, while 16% cited what is being taught in the classroom.

    Nearly three-quarters of respondents, 71%, said colleges should not “take official positions on controversial political issues.” Broken down by political party, 83% of Republicans and 59% of Democrats concurred with that statement. 

    “That mix of skepticism and expectation underscores how difficult it will be for colleges to persuade the public that they are neutral arbiters in a polarized environment,” Vanderbilt said.

    The public showed mixed opinions on different types of institutions, the poll found. 

    For instance, 70% of respondents expressed confidence in community colleges. Vanderbilt researchers noted that community colleges “have largely avoided the controversies embroiling larger, wealthier institutions.”

    But that confidence level dropped sharply for Ivy League institutions. Less than half of those surveyed, 48%, expressed a somewhat or very favorable opinion of those eight universities. 

    What’s more, respondents’ view of the Ivies varied significantly by their political party. Among Democrats, 72% approved of Ivy League universities, compared to just 33% of Republicans.

    Other colleges earned a similar approval rating as the Ivies but with a smaller political divide.

    Just 2 in 5 respondents expressed overall confidence in colleges in the Southeastern Conference, which includes the University of Georgia, the University of Tennessee and Mississippi State University among its 16 members.

    About half of Republicans, 51%, expressed a favorable opinion of those institutions, as did 33% of Democrats.

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  • Colleges Teach Students Healthy Eating, Cooking Habits

    Colleges Teach Students Healthy Eating, Cooking Habits

    A 2025 survey of 5,000 undergraduates by Inside Higher Ed, supported by Generation Lab, found that the greatest share of students rated their nutrition at college as average (44 percent), with an additional 30 percent describing their nutrition as below average or poor.

    A number of colleges and universities are working to teach students proper nutrition habits and equip them to lead healthy lives in and beyond college.

    The research: A 2023 literature review found that college students experience a variety of risk factors that make them uniquely positioned to experience food insecurity, including busy schedules and a lack of access to nutritious food.

    Several studies found that students who had cooking experience were less likely to face food insecurity, implying that those without cooking or food-preparation skills may be at higher risk for food insecurity, according to the report.

    The report suggests colleges can provide cooking and meal-preparation demonstrations to help students gain skills, as well as learn how to prepare low-budget, nutritious meals. One study cited in the literature review suggested adding nutrition education—including food budgeting and recipes—as a feature of first-year seminars.

    Inside Higher Ed compiled five examples of nutrition education designed to address student health, food insecurity and malnutrition.

    1. University of Memphis: Grilling Classes

    To help teach students how to cook using relevant tools and resources, the University of Memphis staff hosts a lunchtime nutrition class, teaching students how to prepare and grill a personal pizza.

    The university charges students $15 to participate in the class, which covers ingredients and lunch foods, providing a low-cost and casual introduction to basic cooking principles.

    1. University of North Dakota: Culinary Corner

    At UND, students get the chance to lead their peers in cooking classes. Events are open to all campus members, including faculty and staff, and the hourlong sessions in the wellness center teach students how to prepare simple meals.

    In addition, UND has a virtual demonstration library so students can teach themselves how to cook a range of healthful recipes from wherever they are, including honey-glazed salmon, chana masala or acai bowls. Each demonstration video features a student instructor and a recipe card for viewers to follow along.

    1. Lewis College, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension: Fulton Fresh University

    This fall Georgia State University students benefited from a free cooking demonstration and nutrition course pilot hosted by two local institutions.

    Fulton Fresh University, a partnership between Lewis College and the University of Georgia Cooperative Extension, typically educates seniors or those in low-income communities. But in 2024, the partners tested a new offering for college students who don’t necessarily know how to cook and are more inclined to eat quick meals or takeout, according to a university press release.

    The four-week, no-cost course provided students with 10 pounds of produce at each session, in addition to spices and a variety of kitchen tools to keep.

    1. Iowa State University: Culinary Boot Camp

    Iowa State University students can participate in a two-credit course, Culinary Boot Camp, which provides nutrition education and culinary skills to promote healthy living.

    The course, which has been offered since 2016, covers topics including storing food safely, reducing food waste, converting recipes and shopping efficiently for groceries, among others.

    1. Cornell University: Get Cooking With Cornell Dining

    Cornell offers students a chance to learn from the professionals: the campus dining team. Members host events in the Discovery Kitchen in a residence hall on campus, where students can practice preparing plant-based dishes, which they then enjoy.

    The goal is to help students learn to make healthy dishes that are both tasty and environmentally friendly.

    Do you have a wellness intervention that might help others promote student success? Tell us about it.

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  • Trump student visa policies pose outsized risk to speciality colleges

    Trump student visa policies pose outsized risk to speciality colleges

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    A loss of international students due to restrictive federal policies could disproportionately harm small private colleges that have specialized focuses or are affiliated with Christian churches, according to a recent report from the Brookings Institution. 

    Many public institutions that charge much higher tuition for international and out-of-state students could also face serious financial hits, said the report’s author, Dick Startz, an economics professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

    In his analysis, Startz looked at the common traits of colleges where international students made up at least 30% of enrollment. He found that all of those colleges were private, tended to be small, and have a special focus like business or arts. 

    They were also disproportionately Christian colleges. According to the report, Christian institutions represent 34.3% of colleges and universities where international students comprise more than 30% of total enrollment. 

    “Perhaps the importance of international students to Christian schools should not be so surprising,” the report said. “Many Christian schools are affiliated with evangelical beliefs, spreading their faith globally.”

    Many small private and religious colleges in the U.S. have closed in recent years amid enrollment losses. For such institutions, a sudden loss of 30% of their student population could be a “disaster,” the report warned.

    “The majority of schools will see very little effect,” said Startz. “But there are a small number of schools — private schools that are not very large — and 30% of their budget could disappear. It could be devastating.”

    In June, the U.S. Department of State reopened consular interviews for foreign students looking to apply or renew their student visas after freezing the process the month prior. The State Department, however, now requires those students to unlock their social media accounts so consular officers can review whether they consider their posts hostile to the U.S. or to its culture and founding principles, The Associated Press reported. 

    International students who were previously in the country with active visas are less likely to be affected, said Startz. But first-year students, new graduate students, or some students who need to renew their visas will be impacted, he said. 

    It’s unclear how much those policies will affect international student enrollment or when colleges may start seeing significant impacts, said Startz. But some major colleges and university systems are already beginning to report a major drop in international student enrollment. 

    Over the summer, NASFSA: Association of International Educators projected international enrollment at U.S. colleges could decline by as much as 150,000 students this semester if the federal government did not start ramping up efforts to issue visas. 

    International freshmen enrollment at elite institutions like Princeton University and Columbia University remained steady heading into fall, The New York Times reported. However, other institutions, such as the University at Buffalo, are reportedly experiencing significant declines in international student enrollment, NPR reported. 

    Affecting the economy, affecting colleges

    Volatility in international student levels could affect nearly every college in the country that enrolls foreign students, the Brookings report stated. But not every college — even the ones with large foreign student enrollments — would be affected equally. 

    Colleges such as the University of California, Santa Barbara — where international students make up 9% of enrollment — could face serious financial threats. That’s because those students pay triple the tuition paid by in-state students at UC Santa Barbara, the report stated. 

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  • More Colleges Promise Grads Employment, Grad School Placement

    More Colleges Promise Grads Employment, Grad School Placement

    For some students, enrolling in college can feel like a gamble due to the high cost and lack of a clear career at the end of the program. But a growing number of colleges and universities are guaranteeing students will land a job or graduate program slot within months of graduation.

    Bethel University in St. Paul is the latest to make such a promise; Bethel’s Career Commitment provides students in the College of Arts & Sciences with additional assistance if they are still unemployed or not enrolled in graduate school six months after graduation—including by offering a tuition-free spot in a graduate-level Bethel course or a staff job at the university. 

    The trend indicates a growing awareness among institutions of their responsibility to provide students with career-development opportunities, as well as their recognition that a lack of institutional support can impact the college’s perceived value.

    State of play: Nationally, institutions of higher education are struggling to demonstrate value to the public, including prospective students, parents and lawmakers. Much of the trepidation comes from a lack of transparency regarding colleges’ high cost of attendance and the mountain of student loan debt Americans hold, as well as high unemployment and underemployment rates among graduates.

    A recent survey by Tyton Partners found that among students who believe college is worth the cost, 95 percent think higher education is preparing them well for jobs and careers.

    In general, students give fair ratings to the work campuses are currently doing to prepare them for their professional lives. A 2024 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab found that the plurality of students rate their institution’s efforts in career development as “average” (34 percent), 44.6 percent combined consider their college “good” or “excellent,” and 18 percent said poor or below average.

    Today’s college students are also eyeing a competitive job market during an economic downturn, as well as pressures from evolving technologies, such as generative artificial intelligence, that threaten entry-level roles.

    Embedding career development throughout the curriculum or as a graduation requirement is becoming more common, encouraging students to think about life after college earlier and in more meaningful ways so they aren’t caught unprepared when senior spring rolls around.

    Previous research shows that students engaged in career development are more likely to secure a job; a 2022 survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that students who engaged with their career center received more job offers than their peers who didn’t. But some structural barriers can hinder students’ ability to participate in career activities, including off-campus work, caregiving responsibilities or lack of awareness of services. Internships are also increasingly competitive, leaving some students behind.

    How it works: A key piece of the Bethel Career Commitment is that students must undertake significant measures to advance their own career before the university will open additional doors of support.

    Students must complete four “phases” of career preparation prior to graduation to be eligible for a spot in Bethel’s career commitment plan. The elements include creating a Handshake profile, meeting with a career-development coach and participating in an internship. And after they earn their degree, students must meet with a career coach monthly and apply for at least 20 jobs per month to complete the final phase.

    In addition, students must have a minimum 3.0 GPA, be in good financial standing with the university and be willing to relocate.

    For students who don’t meet all the eligibility requirements, the university provides postgraduation career support in the form of coaching, Bethel University president Ross Allen told Inside Higher Ed.

    “Today, 99 percent of Bethel graduates are employed or in graduate school within a year, so we expect a small number of graduates will need the additional postgraduation support,” Allen said.

    He anticipates that graduate-level credits will often be “the most helpful next step vocationally,” but the university may offer short-term employment opportunities to students based on staffing needs, Allen said.

    A national picture: Other institutions, including Thomas College in Maine, Davenport University in Michigan, Curry College in Massachusetts and the University of Tulsa, guarantee their graduates employment, also on the condition that students participate in career development while enrolled.

    At Davenport, for example, students in select majors who earn a 3.0 GPA, complete an internship or experiential learning opportunity, and participate in extracurricular activities are supported by the DU Employment Guarantee. The plan allows students to enroll in 48 additional credits tuition-free in a graduate, undergraduate or professional program at the university, as well as participate in career coaching and recruitment efforts.

    At Curry College, students who opt into the Curry Commitment receive assistance with federal student loans for up to 12 months. They are also given a paid internship or a tuition waiver for six credits of graduate studies at the institution. To be eligible, a student must participate in career advising, workshops and résumé development; earn at least a 2.8 GPA; and graduate within four years.

    None of these institutions differentiates among the types of job a student may secure—making no distinction between a part-time role or one that doesn’t require a bachelor’s degree—leaving some questions about the underemployment of college graduates.

    If your student success program has a unique feature or twist, we’d like to know about it. Click here to submit.

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  • ED Reallocates MSI Funding to HBCUs, Tribal Colleges

    ED Reallocates MSI Funding to HBCUs, Tribal Colleges

    When the U.S. Department of Education abruptly ended grants for most minority-serving institutions last week, it raised questions about what the department would do with the hundreds of millions of dollars already slated for these programs. The department offered an answer Monday, announcing plans to repurpose funds from programs “not in the best interest of students and families” to historically Black colleges and universities, tribal colleges, charter schools, and civics education.

    “The department has carefully scrutinized our federal grants, ensuring that taxpayers are not funding racially discriminatory programs but those programs which promote merit and excellence in education,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement. “The Trump Administration will use every available tool to meaningfully advance educational outcomes and ensure every American has the opportunity to succeed in life.”

    The department promised to direct an extra $495 million to HBCUs and tribal colleges, on top of the funds already anticipated for fiscal year 2025—increases of 48.4 percent and 109.3 percent, respectively. In total, HBCUs are slated to receive over $1.34 billion and tribal colleges expect to receive $108 million this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. The department is also giving an additional $60 million to charter schools and putting $137 million toward civics education grants. The department didn’t share more specifics on how it would allocate the funds to institutions.

    The move has been met with mixed reactions. Some HBCU advocates are celebrating the one-time influx as a game-changer for cash-starved institutions. Others’ joy is tempered by concern that the Trump administration is uplifting some MSIs at the expense of others, sowing tensions between them.

    The new funds come less than a week after the Education Department quashed grant programs for Hispanic-serving institutions and other MSIs, deeming them “unconstitutional” because they require colleges to serve a certain percentage of students from a particular racial or ethnic background to qualify. (HBCUs and tribal colleges don’t have enrollment thresholds.) This blow to MSI grants, as well as cuts to teacher prep and gifted and talented programs, is paying for the department’s recent largess, The New York Times reported, citing several anonymous sources familiar with the department’s plans.

    Lodriguez Murray, vice president of public policy and government affairs at the United Negro College Fund, which represents private HBCUs, said the funds are “nothing short of a godsend” for institutions operating on lean budgets.

    “Now, all of a sudden, [HBCUs] have much more wherewithal to do the things, not just that take you from year to year, but can make an impact on your campus,” he said. He foresees HBCUs using the funds to buy property, improve their campus infrastructure and invest in student and faculty supports in new ways.

    Murray said he doesn’t have qualms about the money coming from the slashed MSI programs.

    He claimed many of these institutions are predominantly white, tend to have higher endowments than HBCUs and serve lower shares of Pell-eligible students. (Most enrollment-based MSIs are required to serve at least 50 percent low-income students. HBCUs have no such requirement but tend to enroll at least 70 percent Pell-eligible students.)

    As far as he’s concerned, the Trump administration is channeling “resources toward the institutions that seem to need it the most—and the institutions that have a better track record at taking students from underserved backgrounds and … changing the economic outlook of their lives,” Murray said. “That is the reason why we have no pause about receiving the funds this morning.”

    Harry Williams, president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which represents public HBCUs, said he wants to see other types of MSIs thrive, and at the same time, he’s excited about how the new support could help HBCU students.

    He didn’t know the Trump administration planned to drop millions on the institutions, he said. And while TMCF regularly lobbies for HBCU funding, “candidly, we have never made any recommendations about where the money should come from to the administration, because that’s their decision in terms of how they operate.”

    He said he’s “sensitive” to the challenges facing MSIs, noting that TMCF has three predominantly Black institutions among its members. TMCF put out a statement last week in support of them when the department said it was ending MSI grant programs, including PBIs.

    “We do support MSIs and PBIs and all the groups in that category and recognize the importance of them having resources, too,” he said, “but our primary focus has always been working with HBCUs.”

    Pitting MSIs Against Each Other

    Marybeth Gasman, executive director of the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions, said HBCUs and tribal colleges deserve the money.

    These institutions have “always been underfunded” and “the federal government should always be thinking about ways to enhance them, especially based on our country’s history of racism and inequities,” she said.

    But Gasman believes other types of MSIs are also deserving of these resources. She pointed out that many Hispanic-serving institutions are community colleges, and they serve about a third of the country’s students over all, not just Latino students.

    The Education Department is “trying to pit different types of minority-serving institutions against each other,” even though MSI leaders and advocacy groups have worked together for years toward similar policy goals, she said. “And that is really, really troubling … I hope people don’t fall for that.”

    Gasman noted that department officials made a “purposeful” decision to share that new funds for HBCUs and tribal colleges came from defunded programs. She called the framing of the announcement “spiteful” and said she worries for the future of the MSI community.

    “There is enough pie for all of these institutions,” she said. “It’s not like you need to take from one to feed the others.”

    Dominique Baker, associate professor of education and public policy at the University of Delaware, said the funding for HBCUs and tribal colleges, while necessary, doesn’t lead her to believe the Trump administration has their best interests at heart.

    The funds are “a nice way” for the administration to claim “they hold no racial animus, because look at all the money that they’ve given to HBCUs,” Baker said, at the same time as they crack down on diversity, equity and inclusion at predominantly white institutions.

    “It can both be true that you are providing funding to institutions that deserve funding—and you are working to ensure that the institutions that you hold in high prestige resegregate,” she added.

    Executive Branch Overreach?

    The legality of the department’s move—cutting funding for some programs to be showered on others—is also a little murky. Department officials say they are relying on “existing flexibilities in discretionary grant programs” to move the money around.

    Amanda Fuchs Miller, former deputy assistant secretary for higher education programs under the Biden administration and now president of the higher ed consultancy Seventh Street Strategies, said under statute, the department legally has the right to “reprogram” funds within an account.

    But even if department officials are following the law, she said the “intent” of reprogramming was never to end programs authorized and continually funded by Congress, like the MSI programs. And the executive branch claiming it has the authority to declare anything unconstitutional is “the real problem.” So, as far as she’s concerned, the department went out of bounds by eliminating the MSI programs and regifting their money to other institutions.

    “It’s great that the HBCUs and TCUs will get more money—they need it,” Miller said. “Those students will benefit from it. But to take away funds from one group of students to help another group of students, that’s not beneficial to anybody. We should be pushing back to help all students succeed and have these resources.”

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  • In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, colleges must not burden speaking events

    In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, colleges must not burden speaking events

    Last week, an assassin silenced speech on a college campus. A family lost a father and a husband. As we have said without equivocation, political violence is never an acceptable response to free speech.

    Appropriately, we can expect colleges and universities to place even greater emphasis on safety and security ahead of outside speakers arriving on campus moving forward. They have a moral and legal obligation to redouble their efforts to protect free speech as well as their campus community. However, administrators must not pass those security costs along to speakers or use security concerns as pretext to cancel a speaker’s appearance. Rewarding threats of violence by taxing speech or silencing speakers will only invite more threats and more violence.

    Just as there is undeniable risk in hosting controversial speakers, there is infinite risk in surrendering the marketplace of ideas to the heckler’s veto.

    In Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement (1992), the Supreme Court determined that government actors — like public college or university administrators — may not lawfully impose security fees based on their own subjective judgments about “the amount of hostility likely to be created by the speech based on its content.” Such fees amount to a tax on speech an administrator subjectively dislikes, or subjectively believes is likely to cause disruption or violence.

    “Speech cannot be financially burdened, any more than it can be punished or banned, simply because it might offend a hostile mob,” the Forsyth Court wrote, noting that “[t]hose wishing to express views unpopular with bottle throwers, for example, may have to pay more for their permit.”

    Over the years, FIRE has tracked far too many instances of campuses burdening controversial speech with hefty security fees. Some have resulted in First Amendment lawsuits, resulting in costly settlements for the institutions involved. FIRE has also often seen institutions use security concerns — without legitimate evidence — to silence expression on campus.

    Violence must never be a response to speech

    America must be an open society where we feel safe to share our ideas in the public square, not just from behind bulletproof glass and bulletproof vests.


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    Imposing exorbitant security fees due to the controversial nature of an event effectuates a heckler’s veto, as it allows an audience’s reaction to dictate the price a student group must pay to hold an event. This means that a student group could be priced out of holding a controversial event if the audience reaction is anticipated to be too disruptive. Just as there is undeniable risk in hosting controversial speakers, there is infinite risk in surrendering the marketplace of ideas to the heckler’s veto.

    So what should colleges do in the face of this challenge?

    First, they need to adopt and publish viewpoint- and content-neutral regulations on events. As we wrote in a 2022 letter to Pennsylvania State University, “Any administrative imposition of security fees on a student group must be guided by narrowly drawn, viewpoint- and content-neutral, reasonable, definite, and clearly communicated standards in order to comply with [the university’s]…obligations under the First Amendment.” FIRE’s Model Speech Policies for College Campuses include a security fee policy that other colleges can emulate to set themselves up for success.

    When universities silence controversy they silence opportunity — the opportunity to test ideas, sharpen arguments, and confront uncomfortable topics.

    Second, colleges must apply those regulations to make decisions about security measures on the basis of verified, specific safety concerns, rather than speculative assumptions on the basis of the speaker’s message or experiences at past events. And every effort should be made to ensure events that do present concerns are able to continue. Such strategies as increasing security, using metal detectors, and moving events online should be applied before cancellation.

    Third, colleges need to train staff to apply these standards properly to meet their dual obligations to ensure safety of attendees and the speaker during the event, and to uphold the ability of attendees to hear the speaker’s message. FIRE’s First Amendment Lessons for College Administrators can be a useful starting point for this work.

    Student acceptance of violence in response to speech hits a record high

    In 2020, just 1 in 5 students said it was acceptable to use violence to stop a speaker. Now it’s 1 in 3 — a nearly 80% jump in five years.


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    At the same time, colleges should educate students on freedom of speech: both its limits and its importance in our democracy. FIRE encourages colleges to begin this education on day one at orientation, guided by our Free Speech at Freshman Orientation programming. These lessons should provide students with better options for responding to disfavored speech than shoutdowns or violence. They should also reinforce why we’ve chosen in America to meet speech with which we disagree with more speech.

    When universities silence controversy they silence opportunity — the opportunity to test ideas, sharpen arguments, and confront uncomfortable topics. They must meet this challenging moment not with censorship but with empowerment of free expression.

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  • Colleges add sports to bring men, but it doesn’t always work

    Colleges add sports to bring men, but it doesn’t always work

    SALEM, Va. — On a hot and humid August morning in this southwestern Virginia town, football training camp is in full swing at Roanoke College. Players cheer as a receiver makes a leaping one-handed catch, and linemen sweat through blocking drills. Practice hums along like a well-oiled machine — yet this is the first day this team has practiced, ever.

    In fact, it’s the first day of practice for a Roanoke College varsity football team since 1942, when the college dropped football in the midst of World War II. 

    Roanoke is one of about a dozen schools that have added football programs in the last two years, with several more set to do so in 2026. They hope that having a team will increase enrollment, especially of men, whose ranks in college have been falling. Yet research consistently finds that while enrollment may spike initially, adding football does not produce long-term enrollment gains, or if it does, it is only for a few years.

    Roanoke’s president, Frank Shushok Jr., nonetheless believes that bringing back football – and the various spirit-raising activities that go with it — will attract more students, especially men. The small liberal arts college lost nearly 300 students between 2019 and 2022, and things were likely to get worse; the country’s population of 18-year-olds is about to decline and colleges everywhere are competing for students from a smaller pool.  

    “Do I think adding sports strategically is helping the college maintain its enrollment base? It absolutely has for us,” said Shushok.  “And it has in a time when men in particular aren’t going to college.”   

    Women outnumber men by about 60 percent to 40 percent at four-year colleges nationwide. Roanoke is a part of this trend. In 2019, the college had 1,125 women students and 817 men. 

    This fall, Roanoke will have 1,738 students altogether, about half men and half women. But the incoming freshman class is more than 55 percent male. 

    Sophomore linebacker Ethan Mapstone (26) jogs to the sideline at the end of a drill. Mapstone said he hadn’t planned to play college football until Roanoke head coach Bryan Stinespring recruited him. Credit: Miles MacClure for The Hechinger Report

    “The goal was that football would, in a couple of years, bring in at least an additional hundred students to the college,” said Curtis Campbell, Roanoke’s athletic director, as he observed the first day of practice. “We’ve got 97 kids out there on the field. So we’re already at the goal.”

    That number was 91 players as the season began, on Sept. 6 — and the Maroons won their first game, 23-7, over Virginia University of Lynchburg, on what Shushok called “a brilliant day full of community spirit and pride.”

    “Our students were out in force, side by side with community members spanning the generations,” he said via email. “In a time when we all need more to celebrate and opportunities to gather, it is easy to say our first football game since 1942 was both historic and invigorating.”

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

    In the NCAA’s Division III, where Roanoke teams compete, athletic scholarships are not permitted. Athletes pay tuition or receive financial aid in the same way as other students, so adding football players will add revenue. For a small college, this can be significant. 

    Shushok said it’s not just about enrollment, though: He wants a livelier campus with more school spirit. Along with football, he started a marching band and a competitive cheerleading team. 

    “It plays to something that’s really important to 18- to 22-year-olds right now, which is a sense of belonging and spirit and excitement,” said Shushok, who came to Roanoke after being vice president of student affairs at Virginia Tech. Its Division I football team plays in a 65,000-seat stadium where fans jump up and down in unison to Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” as the players take the field. 

    The Maroons play in the local high school stadium — it seats 7,157 — and pay the city of Salem $2,850 per game in rent. The college raised $1.3 million from alumni and corporate sponsors to get the team up and running. 

    Roanoke College players gather on the sidelines during practice. Credit: Miles MacClure for The Hechinger Report

    Despite the research showing limited enrollment gains from adding football, colleges keep doing it. About a dozen have added or relaunched football programs in the last two years, including New England College in New Hampshire and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Several more plan to add football in 2026, including Chicago State University and Azusa Pacific University in California. 

    Related: Universities and colleges search for ways to reverse the decline in the ranks of male students

    Calvin University in Michigan recently added football even though the student body was already half men, half women. The school wanted to broaden its overall appeal, Calvin Provost Noah Toly said, citing “school spirit, tradition, leadership development,” as well as the increased enrollment and “strengthened pipelines with feeder schools.”

    A 2024 University of Georgia study examined the effects of adding football on a school’s enrollment.

    “What you see is basically a one-year spike in male enrollment around guys who come to that school to help be part of starting up a team, but then that effect fades out over the next couple of years,” said Welch Suggs, an associate professor there and the lead author of that study. It found early modest enrollment spikes at colleges that added football compared to peers that didn’t and “statistically indistinguishable” differences after the first two years.

     ”What happens is that you have a substitution effect going on,” Suggs said. “There’s a population of students that really want to go to a football school; the football culture and everything with it really attracts some students. And there are others who really do not care one way or the other. And so I think what happens is that you are simply recruiting from different pools.” 

    Today, college leaders value any pool that includes men. Most prefer the campus population to be balanced between the sexes, and, considering the low number of male high school graduates going to college at all (39 percent in the last Pew survey), many worry about too few men being prepared for the future workforce.

    “ I don’t know that we have done a good job of articulating the value, and of programming to the particular needs that some of our young men are bringing in this moment,” Shushok said. “I think it’s pretty obvious, if you read the literature out there, that a lot of men are feeling undervalued and perhaps unseen in our culture.”

    Roanoke College President Frank Shushok Jr. in his office. Shushok said he brought football back to Roanoke to boost enrollment and create a livelier campus. Credit: Miles MacClure for The Hechinger Report

    Shushok said that Roanoke’s enrollment-building strategy was not centered on athletics. The college has also forged partnerships with local community colleges, guaranteeing students admission after they complete their associate degree, and has added nine new majors in 2024, including cannabis studies. Shushok pointed out that while freshman enrollment is down slightly this year, the community college program has produced a big increase in transfer students, from 65 in fall of 2024 to 91 this fall.

    About 55 percent of Roanoke’s students come from Virginia, but 75 of the football team’s 91 players are Virginians. The head coach, Bryan Stinespring, a 61-year-old Virginia native, knows that recruiting territory, having worked on the coaching staffs at several Virginia universities in his career. 

    Related: College Uncovered podcast: The Missing Men

    When Stinespring took over as head coach in 2023, hoping to inspire existing students and potential applicants to join his new team, there was no locker room, no shoulder pads or tackling dummies, no uniforms. 

    “The first set of recruits that came on campus, we ran down to Dick’s, got a football, went to the bookstore, got a sweatshirt,” said Stinespring, referring to a local Dick’s Sporting Goods store. “These kids came on campus and they had to believe in the vision that we had.” 

    Students bought into that vision; 61 of them joined a club team last fall, which played four exhibition games in preparation for this year. The community bought in, too; 9,200 fans showed up to the first club game, about 2,000 of them perched on a grassy hill overlooking the end zone. 

    Linebackers Connor Cox (40) and Austin Fisher (20) look on from the sidelines. Credit: Miles MacClure for The Hechinger Report

    Before Ethan Mapstone, a sophomore, committed to Roanoke, he was on the verge of giving up football, having sustained several injuries in high school. Then Stinespring called. 

    “I could hear by the tone of his voice how serious he meant everything he was saying,” said Mapstone, a 6-foot-1-inch linebacker from Virginia Beach. “I was on a visit a week later, committed two weeks later.”  

    To him, the football leaders at Roanoke seemed to be “a bunch of people on a mission ready to make something happen, and I think that’s what drove me in.” 

    Related: Even as women outpace men in graduating from college their earnings remain stuck 

    KJ Bratton, a junior wide receiver and transfer student from the University of Virginia, said he was drawn to Roanoke not because of football but because of the focus on individual attention in small classes. “You definitely get that one-on-one attention with your teacher, that definitely helps you in the long run,” said Bratton.  

    Jaden Davis, a sophomore wide receiver who was an honor roll student in high school, said, “ The staff, they care about all the students. They’ll pull you aside, they know you personally, they’ll send you emails, invite you to office hours, and they just work with you to do the best you can.” 

    Not everyone was on board with football returning to the college when the plan was first announced. Some faculty and administrators were concerned football would change the campus culture, said Campbell, the athletic director. 

    Sophomore wide receiver Jaden Davis poses for a photograph before the first practice of the season. Davis said the individual attention he could get from professors is what attracted him to Roanoke. Credit: Miles MacClure for The Hechinger Report

    “There were just stereotypes about football players,” he said. “You know, they’re not smart, they’re troublemakers. They’re gonna do this and they’re gonna do that, be disruptive.” 

    But the stereotypes turned out to be unwarranted, he said. When the club team started, he said, “I got so many compliments last year from faculty and staff and campus security about how respectful and polite and nice our students were, how they behaved in the classroom, sitting in the front row and just being role models.”

    Payton Rigney, a junior who helps out with the football team, concurred. “All the professors like them because they say ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, ma’am,’” she said.

    Like most Division III athletes, the Roanoke players know that they have little chance of making football a professional career. Mapstone said there are other reasons to embrace the sport. 

    “It’s a great blessing to be able to do what we do,” he said. “There’s many people that I speak to who are older and, and they reminisce about the times that they had to play football, and it’s very limited time.

    “And even though there’s not a future for it, I love it. It’s a Thursday, my only problem in the world is that there’s dew on my shoes.”  

    Contact editor Lawrie Mifflin at (212) 678-4078 or [email protected].

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

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

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  • Tribal Colleges Boost the Economy

    Tribal Colleges Boost the Economy

    Tribal colleges and universities are known to play an outsize role in educating and employing members of their local tribal communities. But they also offer major returns to taxpayers and the economy at large, according to a new economic impact study by the American Indian Higher Education Consortium and Lightcast.

    The study, released on Tuesday, drew on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau and institutional reports from the 2022–23 academic year at all 34 tribal colleges and universities across the country.

    It found that associate degree graduates from tribal colleges earned, on average, $9,400 more per year than those with just a high school diploma. Students earned $7.50 in future returns for every dollar invested in their tribal college education, an annual return of 27.2 percent.

    Meanwhile, alumni of tribal institutions contributed $3.8 billion to the U.S. economy through the higher wages they earned, the increased output of the businesses that employed them and the money students and their employers spent. Tribal college alumni also supported 40,732 jobs nationwide, particularly in industries such as health care and social assistance, retail, and professional and technical services.

    For every federal dollar invested in tribal colleges, the institutions return $1.60 in tax revenue through the increased tax payments of their alumni and alumni’s employers. According to the study, the colleges generate a total of $785.6 million in additional tax revenue and save taxpayers $96.8 million because of higher education’s benefits to alumni, including improved health, fewer interactions with the justice system and less reliance on income-assistance programs.

    “Tribal Colleges and Universities are powerful engines for opportunity, growth, and stability, not just for Native people, but for everyone,” Ahniwake Rose, president of AIHEC, said in a statement to Inside Higher Ed. “The evidence is clear: Supporting Tribal higher education is not only the right thing to do, it is one of the smartest investments this country can make.”

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  • 2026 College Free Speech Rankings: America’s colleges get an ‘F’ for poor free speech climate

    2026 College Free Speech Rankings: America’s colleges get an ‘F’ for poor free speech climate

    • Claremont McKenna takes the top spot, while Barnard College, Columbia University, and Indiana University come in last.
    • 166 of the 257 schools surveyed got an F for their speech climate.
    • For the first time ever, a majority of students would prevent speakers from both the left and right who express controversial views, ranging from abortion to transgender issues, from stepping foot on campus.

    WASHINGTON, D.C., Sept. 9, 2025 – If America’s colleges could earn report cards for free speech friendliness, most would deserve an “F”— and conservative students are increasingly joining their liberal peers in supporting censorship.

    The sixth annual College Free Speech Rankings, released today by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and survey partner College Pulse, show a continued decline in support for free speech among all students, but particularly conservatives. Students of every political persuasion show a deep unwillingness to encounter controversial ideas. The survey, which is the most comprehensive look at campus expression in the country, ranked 257 schools based on 68,510 student responses to a wide array of free speech-related questions.

    The rankings come at a notable moment for free speech on college campuses: clashes over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a vigorous and aggressive culture of student activism, and the Trump administration’s persistent scrutiny of higher education. 

    “This year, students largely opposed allowing any controversial campus speaker, no matter that speaker’s politics,” said FIRE President and CEO Greg Lukianoff. “Rather than hearing out and then responding to an ideological opponent, both liberal and conservative college students are retreating from the encounter entirely. This will only harm students’ ability to think critically and create rifts between them. We must champion free speech on campus as a remedy to our culture’s deep polarization.”

    The best colleges for free speech

    1. Claremont McKenna College
    2. Purdue University
    3. University of Chicago
    4. Michigan Technological University
    5. University of Colorado, Boulder
    6. University of North Carolina, Greensboro
    7. Vanderbilt University
    8. Appalachian State University
    9. Eastern Kentucky University
    10. North Carolina State University

    The worst colleges for free speech

    1. Loyola University, Chicago

    2. Middlebury College

    3. New York University

    4. Boston College

    5. University of California, Davis

    6. Northeastern University

    7. University of Washington

    8. Indiana University

    9. Columbia University

    10. Barnard College

    EXPLORE THE RANKINGS

    For the second time, Claremont McKenna has claimed the top spot in the rankings. Speech controversies at the highest-rated schools are rare, and their administrations are more likely to support free speech. The schools that improved their score the most, including Dartmouth College and Vanderbilt University, worked to reform their policies and recently implemented new programs that support free speech and encourage open discourse. 

    The lowest-rated schools are home to restrictive speech policies and some of last year’s most shocking anti-free speech moments, including threats to press freedom, speaker cancellations, and the quashing of student protests.

    “Even one egregious anti-free speech incident can destroy students’ trust in their administration and cause a school to plummet in the rankings,” said FIRE Vice President of Research Angela C. Erickson. “If campus administrators, faculty, and students want to enjoy an atmosphere of trust on campus, they can start by protecting each other’s rights.”

    Other key findings from the report include:

    • 166 of the 257 schools surveyed got an F for their speech climate, while only 11 schools received a speech climate grade of C or higher.
    • Only 36% of students said that it was “extremely” or “very” clear that their administration protects free speech on campus.
    • A record 1 in 3 students now holds some level of acceptance – even if only “rarely” — for resorting to violence to stop a campus speech.
    • 53% of students say that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a difficult topic to discuss openly on campus. On 21 of the campuses surveyed, at least 75% of students said this — including 90% of students at Barnard.
    • For the first time ever, a majority of students oppose their school allowing any of the six controversial speakers they were asked about onto campus — three controversial conservative speakers and three controversial liberal ones.

    “More students than ever think violence and chaos are acceptable alternatives to peaceful protest,” said FIRE Chief Research Advisor Sean Stevens. “This finding cuts across partisan lines. It is not a liberal or conservative problem — it’s an American problem. Students see speech that they oppose as threatening, and their overblown response contributes to a volatile political climate.” 

    Explore the full rankings here.

    The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought—the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE recognizes that colleges and universities play a vital role in preserving free thought within a free society. To this end, we place a special emphasis on defending the individual rights of students and faculty members on our nation’s campuses, including freedom of speech, freedom of association, due process, legal equality, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience.

    CONTACT 

    Katie Stalcup, Communications Campaign Manager, FIRE: 215-717-3473; [email protected] 

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