Tag: Colleges
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Federal judge approves $2.8B settlement, paving way for US colleges to pay NCAA athletes millions (12 News, Phoenix, Arizona)
Higher Education Inquirer : Federal judge approves $2.8B settlement, paving way for US colleges to pay NCAA athletes millions (12 News, Phoenix, Arizona)
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U.S. Judge Rules Colleges Can Directly Pay Student Athletes
Grant House, the plaintiff in a now settled antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA, swam for Arizona State University.
Michael Reaves/Getty Images
Federal district judge Claudia Wilken granted final approval to a multi-billion-dollar settlement in the yearslong House v. NCAA lawsuit late Friday evening, effectively transforming college sports: Starting July 1, institutions will be allowed to pay student athletes directly.
In accordance with the settlement, the National Collegiate Athletic Association and colleges in Division I conferences will distribute nearly $2.8 billion in back damages over the next 10 years to athletes who competed any time since 2016, as well as to their lawyers. The case also allows each college that opted in to pay their athletes collectively up to $20.5 million per year, in addition to scholarships. That figure will increase incrementally over time.
The ruling, which technically resolves three antitrust lawsuits against the NCAA, essentially turns student-athletes from amateurs into professionals. But experts say this isn’t likely to end court battles over athletics. The creation of the revenue-sharing model (where schools distribute money earned from areas such as media rights or merchandise), combined with existing turmoil over the regulation of name, image and likeness (NIL) deals, will only invite more lawsuits, they say.
“The judge said, in essence, this is not a perfect settlement that solves everyone’s concerns, but it makes progress towards ‘righting the wrongs’ of higher education’s desire to maintain amateurism status for the players but no one else,” Karen Weaver, adjunct assistant professor in the graduate school of education at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed.
Although many colleges began making changes to their programs in anticipation of the settlement’s approval, the timing of the ruling could present logistical challenges as they move to start revenue-sharing with students from the July 1 deadline set out in the suit.
Current and former athletes have celebrated the ruling.
“It’s historic,” former college basketball star Sedona Prince, a co-lead plaintiff in one of the lawsuits, told ESPN. “It seemed like this crazy, outlandish idea at the time of what college athletics could and should be like. It was a difficult process at times … but it’s going to change millions of lives for the better.”
Wild West Yet to be Tamed
Judge Wilken’s ruling comes nearly two months after both parties presented arguments in early April for approving the settlement, and nearly five years after the suit was first filed in 2020. But contentious debates over how to manage paying student athletes really erupted in 2021, when NIL deals were first legalized.
Since then, collectives made up of alumni and boosters have paid athletes millions of dollars to play at schools through unregulated NIL partnerships. Top football and basketball players have earned the most.
College leaders have argued that the collectives could give wealthier institutions an unfair recruiting advantage. The House settlement, which not only allows colleges to pay athletes directly but also gives conferences the power to regulate booster influence, could help solve that problem.
“For several years, Division I members crafted well-intentioned rules and systems to govern financial benefits from schools and name, image and likeness opportunities, but the NCAA could not easily enforce these for several reasons,” NCAA president Charlie Baker wrote in a statement Friday. “The result was a sense of chaos: instability for schools, confusion for student-athletes and too often litigation.”
“The settlement opens a pathway to begin stabilizing college sports,” Baker said. “This new framework that enables schools to provide direct financial benefits to student-athletes and establishes clear and specific rules to regulate third-party NIL agreements marks a huge step forward for college sports.”
The settlement also establishes a new clearinghouse, run by Deloitte, that will vet any endorsement deal between a booster and an athlete worth more than $600, with the goal of ensuring it is for a “valid business purpose.”
Still, doubts remain about how the watchdog will work; one commenter on X noted that all it takes for boosters to create an NIL regulatory loophole is to pay athletes in multiple $599 payments rather than one mass sum
Despite the efforts to regulate NIL payments through the clearinghouse, Weaver said the settlement will create “a feeding frenzy of agents and dealmakers capitalizing on a few athletes wealth while schools scramble to lock down players who could bolt for a better offer at any moment.”
“I expect to see the first Title IX lawsuits, and requests for an immediate stay, filed as soon as this week,” she said. “It’s important for higher education leaders to understand the far-reaching impact on our industry—it’s only just begun.”
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Trump Proposes $161M Cut to Tribal Colleges’ Funding
The Trump administration is asking Congress to cut funds for tribal colleges and universities by nearly 90 percent, according to the Department of the Interior’s proposed budget released Monday.
Tribal college advocates told ProPublica, which first reported on the cuts, that tribal colleges could have to shutter if Congress approves the plan, leaving thousands of students without the support they need to complete a degree program. And reports from ProPublica show that it will only further devastate institutions that were already underfunded.
“The numbers that are being proposed would close the tribal colleges,” Ahniwake Rose, president and CEO of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, told ProPublica. “They would not be able to sustain.”
The budget request calls for about $860 million to operate Indian Education Programs, which includes two federally controlled tribal colleges—Haskell Indian Nations University and Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute. Of that $860 million, about $22 million would go toward postsecondary programs. That’s about a $161 million cut compared to fiscal year 2024.
Tribal colleges argue that their funding is protected by treaties and contend that the institutions up for discussion are critical providers in some of the country’s poorest areas.
“It doesn’t make sense for them to [approve the cuts[ when they’re relying on us to train the workforce,” Dawn Frank, president of Oglala Lakota College in South Dakota, told ProPublica. “We’re really relying on our senators and representatives to live up to their treaty and trust obligation.”
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Why Small Colleges Matter—Now More Than Ever – Edu Alliance Journal
June 2, 2025, by Dean Hoke: In the ongoing debate about the future of higher education, small colleges are often overlooked—yet they are indispensable. On May 21st, Higher Education Digest published my article, “Small Colleges Are Essential to American Higher Education,” in which I make the case for why these institutions remain vital to our national educational fabric.
Small colleges may not grab headlines, but they provide transformative experiences, especially for first-generation students, rural communities, and those seeking a deeply personal education. As financial pressures mount and demographic shifts continue, it’s easy to underestimate the impact of these campuses—but doing so comes at a cost. These schools are not only educators; they are regional economic engines, community partners, and laboratories for innovation.
In the article, I outline key reasons why we need to support and strengthen small colleges, including their unique role in economic development, workforce provider, and civic engagement. I also explore the consequences of neglecting this sector and what we can do about it.
I hope you’ll take a few minutes to read the whole piece and share it with your colleagues and networks. Read the article here.
As always, I welcome your thoughts and reflections.
Dean Hoke is Managing Partner of Edu Alliance Group, a higher education consultancy. He formerly served as President/CEO of the American Association of University Administrators (AAUA). With decades of experience in higher education leadership, consulting, and institutional strategy, he brings a wealth of knowledge on small colleges’ challenges and opportunities. Dean is the Executive Producer and co-host for the podcast series Small College America.
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Eastern Michigan University to cut ties with Chinese colleges amid lawmaker push
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- Eastern Michigan University is ending engineering teaching partnerships with two Chinese universities after a pair of prominent Republican lawmakers raised national security concerns.
- The university announced Wednesday it is terminating its partnership with Guangxi University and Beibu Gulf University. Eastern Michigan President James Smith said the university is working with Beibu Gulf to ensure affected students can complete their studies elsewhere. The Guangxi partnership did not enroll any students.
- The move comes as Republican lawmakers increasingly raise research theft concerns about colleges’ partnerships with Chinese universities. The Trump administration is also moving to “aggressively revoke” the visas of international students from China, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this week.
Dive Insight:
In February, two high-profile lawmakers from Michigan — Rep. Tim Walberg, the chair of the House’s education committee, and Rep. John Moolenaar, the chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party — called on Eastern Michigan and two other universities in their state to end their partnerships with Chinese colleges.
“The university’s [People’s Republic of China] collaborations jeopardize the integrity of U.S. research, risk the exploitation of sensitive technologies, and undermine taxpayer investments intended to strengthen America’s technological and defense capabilities,” the letter stated.
Shortly afterward, Oakland University said it would end its partnerships with three Chinese universities. The University of Detroit Mercy, the third institution that received a letter in February, is likewise ending its teaching partnerships with Chinese universities.
University of Detroit Mercy President Donald Taylor said in a Friday statement that the institution is working to ensure students can finish their studies. He also noted that the partnerships have not included any research or technology transfer.
“They are solely for undergraduate teaching programs only with course content that is available publicly,” Taylor said.
In Eastern Michigan’s Wednesday announcement, Smith stressed that both partnerships had been exclusively focused on teaching and did not involve research or the transfer of technology. He added that the programs did not encompass cybersecurity teaching.
“The course content for all offered classes is widely available in the public domain,” Smith said.
In October, Moolenaar also urged the University of Michigan to end its two-decade partnership with Shanghai Jiao Tong University on a joint institute. Moolenaar alleged the partnership had helped the Chinese government advance their defense technologies, from rocket fuel research to improving imaging to detect flaws in military equipment.
The University of Michigan announced in January it would end academic collaboration with Shanghai Jiao Tong and ensure students enrolled in the joint institute’s programs would be able to complete their degrees.
Last year, the Georgia Institute of Technology also announced it would pull out of a partnership that established an overseas campus in China, while the University of California, Berkeley recently severed ties with Tsinghua University following a House report raising concerns with colleges’ partnerships with Chinese institutions.
The Trump administration recently opened an investigation into UC Berkeley over its partnership with Tsinghua University, alleging that it failed to properly report its foreign gifts and contracts.
Earlier this month, two House committees set their sights on Harvard University’s ties with China, arguing that some of its partnerships “raise serious national security and ethnical concerns.” Lawmakers demanded the Ivy League institution hand over internal documents related to its partnerships with China and certain other countries by June 2.
The Trump administration is also planning a crackdown on international students from China, citing national security concerns. Rubio said Wednesday that the federal government will revoke visas from Chinese students “with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields,” though he didn’t specify what those disciplines would be.
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Which U.S. Colleges Spend the Most on Student Support? (Studocu)
[Editor’s note: The Higher Education Inquirer is presenting this press release for information only. This is not an endorsement of the organizations mentioned in article.]
- Ivy League institutions like Yale, Harvard, and MIT top the list, spending over $100K per student on academic support.
- Yale University leads in both categories, investing $225K per student in academic support and $53K in student services.
- A modest but consistent correlation was found between student support spending and graduation rates, particularly among top-tier institutions.
A new report by Studocu highlights the U.S. colleges investing most heavily in academic and student services and explores whether that support is linked to graduation outcomes.
Drawing on the most recent fiscal year data from IPEDS (2023), the study found a positive relationship between support spending and graduation rates, suggesting that per-student spending on departments which directly support student learning and wellbeing improve outcomes.
The analysis covered over 1,000 degree-granting institutions across the United States, each enrolling more than 100 undergraduate students. Financial data was compared against graduation rates to uncover trends in institutional spending.
The findings show that top-tier schools like Yale, Harvard, and MIT spend significantly more per student than the national average:
- National average for academic support: $2,933 per student
- National average for student services: $4,828 per student
Top Institutions on Academic Support per Student
Top Institutions on Student Services per Student
When comparing graduation rates to institutional spending, the study found:
- A 0.259 correlation between academic support spending and graduation rates
- A 0.23 correlation between student services spending and graduation rates
While the correlations indicate a positive relationship between support spending and graduation rates, it’s important to note that other factors also play a role.
However, the findings still suggest that well-funded student support services may provide meaningful benefits especially for students who might otherwise might have failed.
About Studocu:
StuDocu is a student-to-student knowledge exchange platform where students can share knowledge, college notes, and study guides.
Methodology
Institutions were selected based on the following criteria:
- Enrollment of over 100 undergraduate students
- Offering degree-granting programs
- For multi-campus institutions, the largest campus was used
Institutions were divided into tiers:
- Tier 1: This typically includes Ivy League schools (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc.), as well as other top-tier highly selective institutions such as Stanford, MIT, and Caltech.
- Tier 2: This category can include strong public universities, well-regarded liberal arts colleges, and other private universities. Examples might include schools like NYU, the University of Michigan.
- Tier 3: These institutions are often regional colleges and universities.
Community colleges and technical colleges were not included in the study.
Spending was calculated per undergraduate student, and graduation rate was used as the primary indicator of academic success.
Sources
Data for this analysis was obtained from the IPEDS, including:
- Graduation rates
- Undergraduate enrolment
- Academic support and student services expenditures
Caveats
- Financial data is current through the 2023 fiscal year * the latest available data
- Institutional reporting standards may vary, between public, private non-profit, and for-profit institutions
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Calif. Community Colleges Ramp Up Battle Against the Bots
Faced with an ongoing swell of fraudulent applications and enrollments, the California Community College system is hotly debating what to do next to win their battle against bot “students” for good.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the 116-college system has been haunted by ghost students—impostors who enroll online, apply for financial aid and disappear with the funds. System administrators say the issue arose in the last five years, with fraudsters eager to access federal aid made available to students. The growth of online education and spread of AI has exacerbated the problem, making it easier for bots to apply in droves. The issue has put strain on professors and staff who have had to flag and purge thousands of bots from online courses and led to the loss of millions of dollars of student aid.
System leaders brought a proposal before the Board of Governors in a meeting Tuesday, asking them to consider a “nominal” student fee to help pay for artificial intelligence tools and other defenses against the bots. After more than two hours of discussion, board members opted against taking steps to charge a fee. But the board didn’t reject the idea outright; instead they asked system staff to further “explore” it and unanimously voted in favor of other recommendations. Notably, the system now has approval to require an identity-verification process for all applicants and to ramp up use of high-tech and AI tools to combat the issue.
Over the past year alone, the system found 31.4 percent of applications were fraudulent, system officials said. Ghost students have stolen about $10 million in federal financial aid and $3 million in state and local aid in the past year, according to system officials. That’s an escalation from prior years; campus reports obtained by Cal Matters revealed that between September 2021 and January 2024, fraudsters took off with $5 million in federal aid and $1.5 million in state and local aid.
Those figures have alarmed state lawmakers. Last month, nine Republican members of Congress from California sent a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Attorney General Pam Bondi calling for a federal investigation into the fraud issue. State lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats alike, have since demanded a state audit of the system’s fraud challenges.
Chris Ferguson, executive vice chancellor of the California Community College system, told Inside Higher Ed that stolen funds account for “about two-tenths of a percent” of the several billion dollars of aid flowing into the colleges, “well below the threshold that would normally trigger federal investigations of financial aid fraud,” he said. He also emphasized that the system’s current tools for fraud detection capture about 85 percent of false applications.
At the beginning of last year, the system rolled out a new identity verification process as a part of applications, called ID.me. But the process was optional for community college districts until the Board of Governors voted to require it at this week’s meeting.
Ferguson would like to see the share of fraudulent cases caught—and prevented—approach 100 percent, partly by scaling AI tools already in use on some campuses. But advancing those efforts could cost up to $10 million, Ferguson estimated, which is why administrators requested the authority to charge a student fee in “the low tens of dollars.”
The goal of the fee would be to “both support application review costs and deter fraudulent application submissions,” according to the proposal.
James Todd, assistant vice chancellor of the California Community College system, told Inside Higher Ed that the system is trying to prevent fake students from continuing to take away resources from real students. He said campus employees have had to pivot from their day-to-day, student-facing work to focus their attention on identifying bots. Meanwhile, ghost students’ registrations are crowding out actual students from classes they need for their programs.
“Our entire system is based on increasing equitable access for students,” Todd said. “Students who are already on a degree or certificate path are sometimes finding barriers to being able to enroll in a class or a class being canceled because colleges have found that it’s all enrolled with fraudulent students. That is what we’re dealing with on an everyday basis across our campuses.”
But students came out in force at the Board of Governors meeting to express their opposition to the fee. Many students, from campuses across the system, acknowledged the importance of rooting out ghost students but also shared concerns that an additional charge, even if small, could pose a financial barrier for low-income students.
The fee “is someone’s food, is someone’s gas,” Daniela Romo, president of the Associated Students of Delta College at San Joaquin Delta College, told the board. “But it’s also a message to other people that there is some barrier to entry … I think that the beauty of the California Community College system is that it accepts everybody with open arms.”
A National Issue
While California community colleges have a particularly stubborn bot problem, student aid fraud isn’t new or isolated to the system.
The Office of Inspector General at the federal Department of Education has been working for years to raise national awareness about financial aid fraud rings. For example, OIG investigations revealed $10 million worth of student aid fraud in Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina and other states, according to a 2021 report.
Community colleges tend to be the most vulnerable to these types of scams because of their open-access mission, said Jill Desjean, director of policy analysis at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. They intentionally make it easy for students to apply, unlike more selective universities, and they’re low-cost, or even no cost in states with free college programs. That means a fraudulent student who feigned eligibility for the Pell Grant could pay minimal tuition and pocket the rest of the aid money intended for other educational expenses like textbooks and transportation.
“Because of their very nature of being welcoming to all, [community colleges] invite this kind of opportunity for fraud,” Desjean said.
She emphasized that there are guardrails in place to prevent people from exploiting the financial aid system, like the FAFSA verification process, which requires some students to verify information on their financial aid applications. The Department of Education also flags potentially fraudulent behavior, like enrolling and withdrawing multiple times at different nearby institutions.
But there’s a difficult balance to strike between stopping fraudsters and making the financial aid process so burdensome that real students are deterred from applying, she said.
Adu Love, a student member of the Board of Governors, raised similar concerns about the community college system’s verification process, now required for all applicants. She told the board she worries extra steps could make applying more difficult for homeless, incarcerated or undocumented students, who might lack some of the necessary documentation. She herself drove five hours to Moorpark College to verify her identity because she was unable to use ID.me, she said.
“Our responsibility is not just to stop fraud, but it’s also to maintain the access we have as a system while we do it,” she told board members.
Using AI to Fight AI?
Earlier in the Board of Governors meeting, some community college leaders detailed the stress fraudulent applications have put on their campuses and the steps they’ve taken to resolve the issue.
Jeannie G. Kim, president of Santiago Canyon College, told the board that her institution identified about 10,000 fraudulent students by employing various verification methods, including making phone calls to individual students.
“We had to actually take them out of our system, and when we did that, of course, our enrollment numbers … dropped tremendously,” Kim said. “But we needed to do it, because we needed to bring our real students in. That saved the day for our students … Our students were clamoring for these classes that they could not gain access to.”
Clearing out the false students made room for about 8,000 actual students to enroll.
Jory Hadsell, vice chancellor of technology for the Foothill–De Anza Community College District, told the Board of Governors that “waves” of fraudulent applications last year left admissions and financial aid personnel “overwhelmed and exhausted” as they sifted through thousands of suspect applications.
“Internal fraud tools were no longer keeping up with the speed and the sophistication of the threat that we were facing,” he said.
Now the Foothill–De Anza district and Santiago Canyon are part of a group of 48 colleges that have turned to artificial intelligence to flag potentially fraudulent applications—and they say it’s working.
Kim told board members that AI has been a game changer, helping her college catch bots at the application stage and keep them out of enrollments and wait lists.
The AI model reviews each application and gives it a “fraud score” indicating how likely it is to be fraudulent, along with an explanation of what factors triggered its suspicions. For example, the AI can detect whether lots of applications are coming from the same IP address.
The fraud problem “is controllable,” Kim said. “We have a 99 percent efficacy rate with the implementation that we have done” for a cost of less than $100,000.
Kiran Kodithala, CEO of N2N Services, which offers LightleapAI, the tool colleges are using, said at the meeting that the company processed roughly three million applications in the last eight months and prevented about 360,000 fraudsters “from defrauding taxpayers, stealing classes from students” and worrying campus leaders, helping them avoid “waking up in the middle of the night” fretting over whether they can trust their enrollment numbers.
These are the kinds of tools Ferguson wants to see expanded to more institutions.
“The more we can stop [fraud] at the application phase, the less you have to do on the enrollment front and … the less you have to do on the financial aid front,” he said.
Kim told the board that not every institution can use the same AI tools, because the bots used for fraud are too “smart”—they’ll quickly adapt if colleges aren’t using a diverse set of defenses. But she believes the entire system should be required to use some form of AI as part of their antifraud strategy, especially lower-resourced institutions that may not have the money or staffing to flag a swell of suspect applications on their own.
“We have a lot of small rural colleges, and those colleges cannot handle the kind of attack that we endured last fall,” she said. “If that happens to them, they are going to be in jeopardy.”
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Spring enrollment rises 3.2%, with community colleges leading the way
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- College enrollment rose 3.2% year over year in spring 2025, increasing by 562,000 students and inching closer to pre-pandemic levels, according to new data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
- Total enrollment reached 18.4 million students. Undergraduate enrollment increased 3.5% to 15.3 million, while graduate enrollment rose 1.5% to 3.1 million.
- Community colleges again drove much of the growth in the sector, with a 5.4% increase in undergraduate enrollment at public two-year institutions. Among community colleges focused on vocations, enrollment rose 11.7%, a gain of about 91,000 students.
Dive Insight:
Colleges are continuing to make up ground lost during the pandemic, according to the clearinghouse’s latest report. While undergraduate enrollment this spring remained 2.4% lower than pre-pandemic levels, graduate enrollment grew 7.2% higher than in 2020. Spring enrollment at trade-focused colleges was up a whopping 20% since 2020, an increase of 871,000 students.
Historically Black colleges and universities saw their highest upticks since the pandemic, with year-over-year growth of 4.6% for undergraduates and 7.7% for graduate students, according to the clearinghouse.
Undergraduate enrollment grew among students in their 20s for the first time since the pandemic, with headcounts up 3.2% among students aged 21 to 24 and 5.9% for students aged 25 to 29.
Every kind of higher ed institution saw enrollment growth this semester, with community colleges taking center stage.
Public two-year institutions accounted for a little over half of the sector’s undergraduate growth in spring 2024 while making up slightly more than a third of the total undergraduate population, Doug Shapiro, executive director of the clearinghouse’s research center, noted during a media briefing Wednesday. However, community college enrollment is still “well below pre-pandemic numbers,” he noted.
At about 4.7 million students, public two-year college enrollment this spring is still nearly 350,000 students under its 2020 high, according to the clearinghouse report.
Along with two-year program enrollment increases, community colleges drove 4.8% enrollment growth in undergraduate certificate programs.
“Students are voting with their feet in favor of shorter-term credentials at lower costs and with more direct job-related skills,” Shapiro said.
Four-year institutions also made progress this spring. Total spring enrollment was up 2.5% in public four-year colleges — compared to 1.7% growth in spring 2024. And private four-year nonprofits saw headcounts rise 1.4% — a slight deceleration from last spring’s 1.7% growth but still another mark of progress since the pandemic-era declines.
Most states in the U.S. experienced enrollment growth, with a handful of exceptions: Enrollment dropped 6.2% in Idaho, 3% in Alaska, 2% in Vermont, 1.6% in Oregon, 1% in Nebraska and 0.7% in Missouri.
The clearinghouse prefaced that the decline in Idaho, the biggest drop seen among the states, was largely driven by one college’s decision to stop reporting dual enrollment numbers, which include high school students taking college classes.
Earlier this year, the clearinghouse found that fall 2024 enrollment grew 4.5%, with first-year student headcounts rising 5.5% annually.
“College student attendance patterns this spring compared to spring 2024 are reinforcing and building on the growth that we saw in the fall,” Shapiro said Wednesday.
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As colleges close, small religious campuses in rural states are among the most imperiled
DAVENPORT, Iowa — The Catholic prayer for the faithful echoed off the limestone walls and marble floor of the high-ceilinged chapel.
It implored God to comfort the poor and the hungry. The sick and the suffering. The anxious and the afraid.
Then it took an unexpected turn.
“Lord, hear our prayer for St. Ambrose and Mount Mercy University,” the young voice said, “that the grace of the Holy Spirit may help us to follow God’s plan for our new partnership.”
The speaker was talking about ongoing efforts to unite St. Ambrose University, where this weeknight Mass was being held, with fellow Catholic university Mount Mercy. Small religious schools in rural states are shutting down at an accelerating rate, a fate these two are attempting to avoid.
Credit: Mike Rundle for The Hechinger Report “Lord, hear our prayer,” responded the congregation of students in St. Ambrose-branded T-shirts and hoodies.
The heads of both St. Ambrose and Mount Mercy, which is in Cedar Rapids, said they’ve watched as nearby religiously affiliated colleges, athletic rivals and institutions that employed their friends and former colleagues closed.
With falling numbers of applicants to college — especially in the Midwest — “we just don’t have the demographics anymore,” said St. Ambrose President Amy Novak. Now, as fewer graduates emerge from high schools, combining forces is a way to forestall “the reality that we might all see in five or seven years,” Novak said.
For many other small religiously affiliated institutions, time has already run out.
More than half of the 77 nonprofit colleges and universities that have closed or merged since 2020, or announced that they will close or merge, were religiously affiliated, according to a Hechinger Report analysis of news coverage and federal data. More than 30 that are still in business are on a U.S. Department of Education list of institutions considered “not financially responsible” because of comparatively low cash reserves and net income and high levels of debt.
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Some small, religiously affiliated institutions that are not on these lists are also showing signs of strain. Saint Augustine’s University in North Carolina, which is Episcopal, has 200 students, down from 1,100 two years ago, and has lost its accreditation. The 166-year-old St. Francis College in New York, which is Catholic, has sacked a quarter of its staff. Catholic Saint Louis University in Missouri laid off 20 employees, eliminated 130 unfilled faculty and staff positions and sold off its medical practice after running a deficit.
Bluffton University in Ohio, which is Mennonite, is looking for a new partner after a planned merger fell through in February and the president resigned. Catholic St. Norbert College in Wisconsin is eliminating 11 majors and minors and 21 faculty positions. And Georgetown College in Kentucky averted closing only after an alumnus gave it $16 million, which, along with another $12 million in donations, was enough to pay off crippling debt that was costing the small Baptist institution $3 million a year just in interest.
Other religiously affiliated schools are also taking steps to buttress themselves against demographic and financial challenges. Ursuline College in Ohio, for instance, which has fewer than 1,000 students, has agreed to merge with larger Gannon University, 95 miles away. Both are Catholic. Spring Hill College in Alabama and Rockhurst University in Missouri, both also Catholic, are teaming up so they can jointly offer more academic programs, though they will remain independent.
More than a fifth of colleges and universities in the United States, or 849 out of 3,893, are religiously affiliated, according to the most recent figures from the National Center for Education Statistics.
The threats to them are getting new attention. Presidents of 20 Catholic universities and colleges met in November in Chicago at a conference sponsored by DePaul University and held at the offices of the Deloitte consulting firm, which collected data to help them figure out solutions to the challenges they face.
“The intent was to think about a blueprint for the future of Catholic higher education,” including more partnerships, shared services and other kinds of alliances, said Donna Carroll, president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities. “Survival of the fittest is not the strategy that will advance the common good of Catholic higher education. We have to work together.”
The American Council on Education last year launched a Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities, with leaders of what has since grown to 17 institutions including Pepperdine, Brigham Young and Yeshiva universities and the University of Notre Dame.
The idea of the commission, which is scheduled to meet in Washington in June, is “to increase visibility for the important contributions of religious and faith-based colleges and universities and to foster collaboration” among them.
Some religious colleges and universities are doing fine, and even posting enrollment gains — at least in part because of growing political divisions, campus protests and ideological attacks on secular institutions, said David Hoag, president of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities.
Credit: Mike Rundle for The Hechinger Report Parents are “wanting to put their son or daughter at a safe place that’s going to have a biblical worldview or a way to look at challenges that’s not polarized,” Hoag said. “At our institutions, you’re not going to be seeing protests or things that are happening at many of these [other] universities and colleges. You’re going to see them rallying together, whether it’s for a sporting event or for a revival or baptisms.”
Other trends also offer some hope to religiously affiliated colleges and universities. A long decline in the proportion of adults who consider themselves affiliated with a religion appears to have leveled off, the Pew Research Center finds. And while enrollment at parochial schools that feed graduates to Catholic universities fell more than 10 percent from 2017 to 2021, the most recent year for which the figure is available, the number of students at other kinds of religious primary and secondary schools is up.
Even religiously affiliated institutions confronting the realities of falling enrollment and financial woes fill a critically important role, their advocates say. They often serve low-income students who are the first in their families to go to college and are reluctant to enroll at large public universities.
Related: The number of 18-year-olds is about to drop sharply, packing a wallop for colleges — and the economy
Many are in rural areas where access to higher education is more limited than in urban and suburban places and is becoming less available still as public universities in rural states have merged or closed or cut dozens of majors.
Attending a small rural, religiously affiliated institution “is, I think — especially for rural students — a great opportunity,” said Todd Olson, president of Mount Mercy, above the sound of trains crossing Cedar Rapids outside his window. “I know kids from very small towns around Iowa,” like the one where he grew up, Olson said. “This campus is a much more comfortable place for them.”
Credit: Mike Rundle for The Hechinger Report When Jacob Lange arrived at St. Ambrose from East Dubuque, Illinois, and attended a Mass on campus, “all of a sudden all these new people I had never met were kind of chatting with me and it was really kind of nice. It felt like I was kind of included and I didn’t really think I would be originally,” he said. “You figure, ‘I’m probably going to sit in the back and probably not talk to anyone all night,’ and then I showed up, and I walked out here and all of a sudden they’re, like, ‘Here, come join our group.’ ”
His parents also liked that he decided to go to a Catholic university, Lange said. “You know, you go to one of these big schools with 25,000 kids, and you’re kind of worried about your kid — like, what kind of dumb things is he going to get up to?”
Catholic universities in particular have a slightly higher four-year graduation rate than the national average, according to the Center for Catholic Studies at St. Mary’s University in Texas. Graduates have a stronger sense of community purpose, the center found in a survey. Alumni are 9 percentage points more likely to say they participate in civic activities.
Related: See Hechinger’s list of all college closures since 2008
More students at religiously affiliated than at secular institutions receive financial aid, the American Council on Education says. Three out of five get scholarships from the colleges themselves, compared to fewer than one in four at other kinds of schools. At both Mount Mercy and St. Ambrose, which have about 1,450 and 2,700 students, respectively, 100 percent get financial aid.
But these benefits for students can be vulnerabilities for budgets, said Novak, at St. Ambrose.
“We serve the poor. We educate the poor,” she said. “That is a risky financial proposition at the moment for small, regional institutions that are largely tuition-driven.”
The threats to smaller religiously affiliated institutions in rural areas stem largely from the downturn in the already short supply of high school graduates choosing to enroll. The proportion of such students going straight to college has fallen even more sharply in many largely rural states.
While they’re generous with their financial aid, religiously affiliated colleges are also generally more expensive than many other higher education institutions, at a time when many families are questioning the return on their investments in tuition. Median tuition and fees average $25,416 a year, according to the American Council on Education.
Related: ‘Easy to just write us off’: Rural students’ choices shrink as colleges slash majors
St. Ambrose and Mount Mercy, about 90 minutes away, are teaming up from positions of relative strength. Publicly available financial documents suggest that neither faces the immediate enrollment or financial crises that threaten many similar institutions. But their leaders say that they’re trying to fend off problems that could arise later. By joining forces, each can increase its number of programs while lowering administrative costs.
Reaction among students and alumni has been mixed.
Combining with St. Ambrose “was kind of nerve-racking at the beginning because it’s, like, ‘Oh, this is a lot of change,’ ” said Alaina Bina, a junior nursing major at Mount Mercy.
She picked the university in the first place because she liked the small, hilly campus.
“I came from a small town, so I didn’t really want to go bigger,” she said. “Even when I came here on a tour, people would say ‘Hi’ to each other. You just know everyone, and that’s kind of how it is in a small town, too.”
Students were worried about what name would appear on their degrees (the degrees will still say “Mount Mercy”) and whether sports teams that once competed against each other would be merged. Novak and Olson promised to keep their athletics programs separate and even add a sport at Mount Mercy: football, beginning in 2026.
Combining sports teams “would not be wise at all from a business perspective,” Olson said the two agreed, because they are “a powerful enrollment driver” for both schools.
Credit: Mike Rundle for The Hechinger Report “Honestly, this was probably the biggest student concern,” said Nasharia Patterson, student government president at Mount Mercy, who was wearing a brace on her wrist from an awkward back tuck basket catch during cheer practice. Keeping the athletics teams “gives us a piece of Mount Mercy specifically to just hold on to.”
Among alumni, meanwhile, “there’s mixed feelings” about what’s happening to their alma mater, said Sarah Watson, a leadership development consultant who graduated from Mount Mercy in 2008.
Still, she said, “I know the great challenges that higher ed is facing right now. It’s not just Mount Mercy. It’s not just St. Ambrose. It’s the bigger schools, too. Enrollment numbers have dropped. The desire to go to a traditional four-year college is just not quite what it used to be.”
For Mount Mercy, which was founded by an order of nuns in 1928, Watson said, “If we don’t do this, what’s the alternative? We want to be around for another hundred years.”
After all, said Novak, the St. Ambrose president, “to watch universities close across the heartland because we can’t make it work will leave our communities fallow.”
Carroll, of the Catholic colleges and university association, said that many other religiously affiliated institutions are closely watching what’s happening at St. Ambrose and Mount Mercy.
“It’s a leap of faith,” she said. “And who better to take a leap of faith than a Catholic institution?”
Religiously affiliated colleges that have closed or merged, or announced that they will merge, since 2020
Alderson Broaddus University, West Virginia, Baptist
Alliance University, New York, Christian
Ancilla College, Indiana, Catholic
B. H. Carroll Theological Institute, Texas, Baptist
Birmingham-Southern College, Alabama, Methodist
Bloomfield College, New Jersey, Presbyterian
Cabrini University, Pennsylvania, Catholic
Cardinal Stritch University, Wisconsin, Catholic
Chatfield College, Ohio, Catholic
Clarks Summit University, Pennsylvania, Baptist
College of Saint Rose, New York, Catholic
Compass College of Film & Media, Michigan, Christian
Concordia College New York, Lutheran
Concordia University, Oregon, Lutheran
Eastern Nazarene College, Massachusetts, Christian
Finlandia University, Michigan, Lutheran
Fontbonne University, Missouri, Catholic
Holy Family College, Wisconsin, Catholic
Holy Names University, California, Catholic
Iowa Wesleyan University, Iowa, Methodist
Judson College, Alabama, Baptist
Limestone University, South Carolina, Christian
Lincoln Christian University, Illinois, Christian
MacMurray College, Illinois, Methodist
Magdalen College, New Hampshire, Catholic
Martin Methodist College, Tennessee, Methodist
Marymount California University, California, Catholic
Mount Mercy University, Iowa, Catholic
Multnomah University, Oregon, Christian
Nebraska Christian College, Nebraska, Christian
Notre Dame College of Ohio, Catholic
Ohio Valley University, West Virginia, Christian
Presentation College, South Dakota, Catholic
Rosemont College, Pennsylvania, Catholic
St. Louis Christian College, Missouri, Christian
St. Augustine College, Illinois, Episcopal
St. John’s University Staten Island campus, New York, Catholic
University of Saint Katherine, California, Orthodox Christian
Ursuline College, Ohio, Catholic
Wave Leadership College, Virginia, Christian
Wesley College, Delaware, Methodist
SOURCE: Hechinger Report analysis of news coverage and federal data.
Contact writer Jon Marcus at 212-678-7556 or [email protected].
This story about religious colleges and universities was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter. Listen to our higher education podcast.
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Five colleges Impacting Black Student Achievement
A recent report from the Campaign for College Opportunity notes strategies and programs that support graduation outcomes for students from historically underrepresented backgrounds.
Tashi-Delek/E+/Getty Images
Higher education can be an agent for positive change in students’ lives, providing personal, intellectual and socioeconomic growth opportunities. But not all of these outcomes are realized by every student.
An April report by the Campaign for College Opportunity outlines some of the challenges Black students face in pursuit of higher education, as well as measures that colleges can take to address disparities in completion and persistence rates.
What’s the need: Since fall 2019, Black enrollment in higher education has declined more rapidly than that of other races. Black students currently make up about 10 percent of all undergraduates enrolled in the U.S., but roughly 14 percent of the total U.S. population.
Once enrolled, Black students are also less likely to complete a degree compared to their peers, which students of color say is tied to high costs, a lack of support and forms of racial discrimination, according to a 2023 survey.
Among U.S. adults, about 32 percent of Black Americans have completed some college but have yet to earn a bachelor’s degree—four percentage points higher than the average American (28 percent) but roughly the same as people belonging to two or more races (32 percent), Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (32 percent), and American Indian and Alaska Native populations (34 percent).
Despite the challenges students of color face while pursuing a degree, most learners say college is worth it in the long run for their careers. Still, balancing academics and other obligations, strains on mental health and feelings of isolation can be unexpected costs associated with college, according to a 2024 report from the Pell Institute.
DEI Under Attack
Since Trump retook office in January, his administration has sought to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion practices. A Feb. 14 Dear Colleague letter from the Department of Education to colleges and universities sought to issue guidance on which race-based practices besides those used in admissions—which the Supreme Court struck down in 2023—would no longer be permitted. The letter cited scholarships and programs that were exclusively available to students based on their race. An FAQ page from the department notes that race or cultural heritage education or celebrations are not prohibited, so long as they are open to everyone on campus.
Federal courts blocked enforcement of the Dear Colleague letter in April.
Recommendations: Based on existing research, the report authors outlined six strategies to improve Black student outcomes.
- Demystify the college experience. High school partnerships and pathway programs, including summer programs and dual-enrollment opportunities, can positively impact Black students’ college trajectories.
- Improve transfer. Invest in two-year colleges as access points and transfer launchpads for Black students who may want to earn a bachelor’s degree at four-year institutions. Additionally, strong partnerships between two- and four-year colleges can address culture gaps and ensure the four-year institution is equipped to help Black and other transfer students thrive.
- Address college affordability. Institutions should invest in avenues and resources to ensure Black students, and others, can pay for tuition, fees, technology, supplies, living experiences and other costs associated with college. “Having a robust portfolio of grants, scholarships and other financial support for Black and low-income students is essential,” according to the report. Students of color are also more likely to report basic needs insecurity, so creating holistic financial resources that ensure students have suitable food, housing and transportation is critical.
- Invest in representation. Establishing “Black-affirming” spaces, including resource centers, honors colleges, studies programs and media and art collections can improve students’ sense of belonging on campus, as well as counter negative stereotypes regarding Black students. Similarly, ensuring Black students have a seat at the table for decision-making processes allows them opportunities to advocate for their needs.
- Prioritize faculty development. Centers for teaching and learning can provide educators with resources and guidance on how to best serve underrepresented minority groups, including Black students.
- Create co-curricular learning opportunities. Faculty-led research, pre-apprenticeship programs and workforce development programs can engage Black students on campus and give them the necessary skills to launch their careers.
Examples of success: In addition to highlighting initiatives that can promote student success, the report also names five institutions that have developed effective programs to improve Black student outcomes.
- Compton College provides no-cost food to students through a variety of ways, including an on-campus food pantry, a partnership with the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank and free meals at the Everytable Cafeteria on campus. The college also broke ground on its first student housing facility earlier this year, creating more opportunities to minimize the risk of housing insecurity or homelessness for vulnerable students.
- Last year Sacramento State University established the Black Honors College, which provides wraparound support for students interested in learning about Black history and culture. The program, which is open to all students, celebrates Black excellence through mentorship by hand-selected faculty and staff, designated housing and personalized support for participants.
- The City University of New York created the Black Male Initiative in 2005, an inclusive 15-project initiative focused on improving enrollment and graduation rates of students from underrepresented populations. Most recently, the program has evolved to include wellness and career development.
- Spelman College invested millions of dollars in promoting holistic student wellness, in part by creating a new fitness center and introducing fitness classes, cooking demonstrations and mental health workshops. The initiative is designed to address health concerns that disproportionately impact Black women, including high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, breast cancer and strokes.
- The University of California, San Diego, is home to the Black Academic Excellence Initiative, which strives to improve the experiences of Black students, faculty and staff members on campus. The initiative provides scholarship funds for students and has established a hub for historically Black fraternities and sororities, called the Divine Nine.
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