Tag: Committee

Senate Committee Approves Education Under Secretary Nominee

The U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions voted to approve Nicholas Kent as under secretary of education, the top job in the country for higher education policy and oversight, by a narrow 12-to-11 vote. The Senate will hold a final confirmation vote at a later date.

Kent, a former Virginia deputy secretary of education, is a vocal critic of the Biden administration and a former lobbyist for for-profit colleges and trade schools.

His nomination earned a mix of support and concern from higher education associations and advocates, some of whom viewed it as a worrying harbinger of the Trump administration’s plans to reduce federal regulation and oversight of for-profit colleges and credential programs.

Kent was advanced to a full vote with a tranche of six other cabinet nominees. A few organizations, including the American Federation of Teachers and the Institute for College Access and Success, expressed concern that there was no public hearing about Kent’s ties to for-profit institutions. In 2015 Kent’s then-employer, Education Affiliates, a company that operates dozens of for-profit colleges nationwide, settled a False Claims Act case brought by the Department of Justice for $2 million.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont, voted no on Kent’s nomination Thursday morning, saying, “We should not be confirming a former lobbyist who represented for-profit colleges to oversee higher education.”

Other organizations say Kent could shake up a regulatory framework they believe has stifled innovation. The American Association of Community Colleges wrote a letter supporting Kent, saying it believes he is committed to “ensuring statutory compliance and program integrity while decreasing administrative burdens and supporting innovation.”

If confirmed, Kent will replace acting under secretary James Bergeron as the No. 2 education policy official in the country.

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May 23, 2025
Senate Committee Postpones Vote on Antisemitism Awareness Act

A vote on the Antisemitism Awareness Act—a bill that would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s controversial definition of antisemitism—was postponed Wednesday following a testy two-hour debate in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Jewish Insider reported.

The committee’s Republican chairman, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, called off the planned vote after the Democratic minority won enough Republican support to pass several amendments aimed at more clearly distinguishing what qualifies as discriminatory speech and protecting the First Amendment rights of pro-Palestinian protesters.

For instance, some of the proposed amendments included clarifying that it is not antisemitic to oppose the “devastation of Gaza,” or to criticize Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as preventing the revocation of visas based on “protected conduct under the First Amendment.” Lawmakers also sought to ensure students and faculty members could protest as long as they don’t incite violence.

Cassidy opposed the amendments, saying they were “problematic” and could jeopardize GOP support for the bill on the Senate floor.

“So that it’s clear for the people that are watching, supporting these amendments is an effort to kill this bill, which protects Jewish students from antisemitic acts,” he said during the meeting. “The bill [already] includes protections for free speech. So let’s not be naïve as to what’s taking place here.”

But Democrats and Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky said the amendments were necessary to ensure that while objecting to bigotry and discrimination, this bill also upheld the constitutional right to peaceful protest. (Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, also supported some of the amendments.)

“I worry very much that the Antisemitism Awareness Act that we are considering today is unconstitutional and will move us far along in the authoritarian direction that the Trump administration is taking us,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont Independent and ranking member of the committee, said in his opening remarks.

Paul also objected the current bill’s language, particularly the examples of antisemitic speech it includes.

“The problem is if you look at the IHRA’s examples of speech, they are going to be limiting on campuses everything on that list … protected by the First Amendment,” Paul said. “The First Amendment isn’t about protecting good speech; it protects even the most despicable and vile speech.”

The bill was already expected to face a tight vote given that the committee consists of 12 Republicans and 11 Democrats. So if two Republicans voted in opposition to the act, it wouldn’t move forward.

Furthermore, multiple Republican members of the committee were not present for the full hearing due to other commitments. Cassidy said there was not enough time for all Republicans to return to the committee room for a vote before the meeting ended, so he postponed the vote. A vote on the Protecting Students on Campus Act, which would require colleges to notify students of how to file discrimination complaints, was also delayed.

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May 1, 2025
Student Loan Overhaul Clears House Committee

Over strong objections from Democrats, House Republicans on the Education and the Workforce Committee advanced legislation Tuesday that would make dramatic changes to the federal student aid system.

For a full Inside Higher Ed analysis of what provisions are included in the reconciliation bill, read here.

The sweeping 103-page bill, known as the Student Success and Taxpayer Savings Plan, passed on a party-line vote after more than five hours of debate. The legislation would cap the amount of federal loans a student can take out, cut off the Pell Grant for students who attend less than half time, consolidate income-driven repayment plans and introduce a risk-sharing program where colleges are partially responsible for unpaid student loans. The bill, which would also reverse multiple Biden-era student borrower protection regulations, could save more than $330 billion in federal funding over 10 years, committee Republicans say.

It’s just one section of a larger budget bill that lawmakers are planning to use to fund some of President Donald Trump’s top priorities, like lofty tax cuts for the wealthy and a major crackdown on immigration. But House Republicans said the changes were more than just a means to fund his MAGA agenda.

“If there is any consensus when it comes to student loans, it’s that the current system is effectively broken and littered with incentives that push tuition prices upward,” Rep. Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican and committee chair, said in his opening statement. Higher education is “on a fiscally unsustainable path, so we must deliver on the promise of economic mobility to our students and families. Taken together, the provisions in this package will do just that.”

Democrats on the committee argued the legislation is nothing more than a means to fund tax cuts for the wealthy that will force low-income and racial minority students to take on more debt and penalize the community colleges, regional universities and minority-serving institutions that educate those students. All in all, the bill will put the cost of a college degree out of reach for many, they said.

“I appreciate that my colleagues acknowledge that the cost of college is too high, and that Congress should reform the system. But the committee print before us today … seriously misses the mark of making college more affordable,” said Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat and ranking member on the committee. “Put bluntly, this Republican proposal will limit how much money middle- and low-income students can borrow from the federal government.”

Scott and other Democrats proposed 33 amendments—all of which Republicans voted down. They ranged from requests to prove the bill wouldn’t disproportionately affect certain institutions and increase costs for students to defending the Pell eligibility of part-time students and some consumer-protection regulations. Democrats also proposed replacing the income-driven repayment plan in the legislation with a more generous Biden-era alternative and striking the bill entirely. Other amendments touched on other issues unrelated to this section of the legislation, such as proposed cuts to Medicaid and the Department of Government Efficiency’s access to sensitive data.

Republicans countered that Democrats’ allegations that the bill would make college less affordable were, as Rep. Burgess Owens of Utah said, “nothing further from the truth.” The proposed changes to the federal aid system will lead to better loan terms and repayment options that are also fair to taxpayers and avoid wasteful spending, they argued.

The bill will now head to the House Budget Committee, where it will be folded into a complex omnibus bill before it is sent to the floor for a full House vote.

But even if it clears the House, the legislation still has a long way to go. The House and the Senate have differing ideas about how much federal spending they wish to cut and what programs they are willing to slash. The Senate is aiming to make at least $1 billion in education cuts, which is less than 1 percent of the House committee’s $330 billion reduction.

This reconciliation bill only needs a simple majority vote, or 51 yeas, to pass the upper chamber, but that will require almost all Republicans in the Senate to agree, which experts don’t think is a foregone conclusion.

Risk Sharing

One of the more contentious proposals in the bill is the risk-sharing provision, which would require colleges to repay the government a portion of students’ unpaid loans.

Republicans on the committee described the risk-sharing proposal as critical, adding that it would penalize colleges for forcing their students into unmanageable debt and would incentivize them to lower their cost of attendance.

“The best way for us to do that is not to loan [students] more money, but to reduce the cost so that they don’t need the loans,” said Rep. Randy Fine of Florida, who has been active in higher ed in the Sunshine State. “That’s what this bill does over and over and over again.”

But Democrats said it is misleading to say the bill and provisions like risk-sharing would reduce costs and increase graduation rates, arguing it would actually incentivize colleges to accept fewer low-income students and increase tuition or cut critical student-support programs in order to foot the bill of new penalties.

Rep. Alma Adams, a Democrat of North Carolina, called risk-sharing “a dire threat” especially to historically Black colleges and universities, which would have to pay an average of $1.7 million per year to account for the debt of their graduates.

The students at these institutions “started behind but are determined to get ahead,” Adams said, adding that they don’t default because they are failing; they default because they are “carrying the burden of generations of inequity.”

“This bill will tell colleges to take only the best students and leave the rest behind,” she added.

Multiple student advocacy and higher education groups opposed risk-sharing and other proposals in letters to the committee and fact sheets.

Third Way, a left-of-center think tank, noted in a memo Monday that the concept of risk-sharing “has a lot of intuitive appeal,” but the proposal “misses the mark for meaningful accountability.” Other provisions like loan limits and changes to the Pell Grant program will also “drive students into the private loan market,” the memo added.

And the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities told the committee that, if passed, risk-sharing would amount to a “staggering level of federal overreach” that penalizes colleges and universities for “decisions beyond their control.”

“The gravity of these changes would have a far reaching impact to current and future students,” APLU wrote. “There is a better way.”

If Republicans “truly believed” the bill would not raise the cost of college and the burden of debt for students, then they would have no problem passing proposed amendments that certify its impact on students and institutions, said Adams, the North Carolina Democrat.

“Let’s be clear about what this really means: This bill punishes students for being poor. It punishes students for needing to work. It punishes students for living in the real world,” she said. It transforms financial aid “from a bridge into a barricade.”

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April 30, 2025
Committee Withdraws Request for Northwestern Docs

The House Education and the Workforce Committee is no longer seeking records related to legal clinics at Northwestern University after a group of law professors sued over the request.

The committee took issue with the university’s Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic representing pro-Palestinian activists and sought information about the budget and funding sources for the Bluhm Legal Clinic and its more than 20 clinics and 12 centers. Two professors—one of them is Sheila Bedi, the director of the offending clinic—argued that the congressional probe violated their rights and the rights of their clients.

“The Committee’s demands exceed its authority and have no valid legislative purpose; they are an attempt to investigate, intimidate, and punish institutions and individuals that the Committee has deemed ‘left-wing;’ and they violate the federal Constitution,” the complaint reads. “Immediate relief is necessary to prevent irreparable harm.”

The committee withdrew the request during an emergency hearing in federal court in Chicago in response to the lawsuit, according to a news release Thursday from the plaintiffs.

“I filed this suit to defend my clients’ rights to representation, my students’ rights to learn, and my right to teach,” Bedi said in the release. “But today’s decision won’t stop the federal government’s attacks on universities and the legal profession. Educators and institutions must stand united to protect our students, our communities, and each other.”

Rep. Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican and chair of the committee, said in a statement that the decision to withdraw the request doesn’t mean “our foot [is] off the gas.”

“The failures of schools across the country to follow their own rules and federal law to ensure a safe environment for Jewish students and faculty is unacceptable,” Walberg said. “Discussions with Northwestern about our concerns will continue. We seek answers that are critical to informing legislation that will address this national problem, and all tools are on the table, including compulsory measures.”

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April 11, 2025
House Education and Workforce Committee Holds Hearing on NLRB and Student Athletes

by CUPA-HR | April 10, 2025

On April 8, the House Education and Workforce Committee held a hearing titled, “Game Changer: The NLRB, Student-Athletes, and the Future of College Sports.” The hearing focused on the employment classification status of student athletes at institutions of higher education.

The witnesses at the hearing included Daniel L. Nash, shareholder at Littler; Morgyn Wynne, former softball student athlete at Oklahoma State University; Ramogi Huma, executive director at the National College Players Association; and Jacqie McWilliams Parker, commissioner at the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association.

Majority Concerns with Employee Classification

Republican committee members argued that the classification of student athletes as employees could alter college athletics to the detriment of institutions and student athletes alike. Confirmed by witness testimony, the majority discussed that employee classification for and unionization by student athletes could trigger unintended consequences for the athletes, such as fewer benefits, losing scholarships based on poor performance, having scholarships taxed as taxable income, and losing training support, mental health services, and media and career support. Further, they highlighted that employee classification could strain athletic department resources; McWilliams Parker stated that athletic departments would need to consider whether they could continue to sustain certain sports and provide scholarships to students.

The majority also discussed the legislative and regulatory landscape surrounding this issue. In his opening statement, Chair Rick Allen (R-GA) discussed the memo from former General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Jennifer Abruzzo regarding the Biden-era NLRB’s position that student athletes are employees and are afforded statutory protections under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Notably, the memo has since been revoked by the Trump administration’s acting general counsel at the NLRB. Further, in response to questioning from the chair of the full committee, Tim Walberg (R-MI), Nash clarified that existing labor laws are clear that revenue received by an organization is not a factor in determining employee status.

Representative Lisa McClain (R-MI) also discussed her bill, the Protecting Student Athletes Economic Freedom Act, which would codify into law that student athletes are not employees of institutions, athletic conferences or athletic associations, as a solution to the majority’s concerns.

Minority Argue for Greater Protections for Student Athletes

Committee Democrats argued that student athletes require greater protection from exploitation. They argued that student athletes generate revenue for their institutions of higher education, conferences and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), but fail to be compensated for their work and the amount of time they commit to their team. The members claimed that classifying student athletes as employees and allowing those athletes to collectively bargain would end the exploitation. Huma’s testimony supported committee Democrats advocating that student athletes should be equally able to benefit financially from the revenue they generate.

CUPA-HR will monitor for future developments on the status of student athletes as discussed during this hearing and keep members apprised of significant policy updates.

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April 10, 2025
House Education and Workforce Committee Holds Hearing on FLSA Modernization

by CUPA-HR | March 27, 2025

On March 25, the House Education and Workforce Subcommittee on Workforce Protections held a hearing titled “The Future of Wage Laws: Assessing the FLSA’s Effectiveness, Challenges, and Opportunities.” The hearing focused on several bills aimed at modernizing the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), including legislation to amend overtime pay requirements on compensatory time and regular rate of pay and to provide clarity on independent contractor status under the FLSA.

The witnesses at the hearing included Tammy McCutchen, senior affiliate at Resolution Economics; Paige Boughan, senior vice president and director of human resources at Farmers and Merchants Banks (on behalf of the Society for Human Resource Management); Andrew Stettner, director of economy and jobs at the Century Foundation; and Jonathan Wolfson, chief legal officer and policy director at Cicero Institute.

Compensatory Time

Committee members and witnesses discussed the Working Families Flexibility Act, which would allow private sector employers, including private institutions, to offer employees the choice of compensatory time or cash wages for overtime hours worked. Currently, the FLSA only allows for employees working for the public sector, including public institutions, to choose compensatory time or cash compensation for overtime hours worked.

Chair of the Education and Workforce Committee Tim Walburg (R-MI) expressed his support for a bill like the Working Families Flexibility Act, as it would allow employees to choose which form of compensation best suits their needs. On the other side of the aisle, Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA) argued that offering compensatory time is an attempt to force workers to work more hours for free.

CUPA-HR submitted a letter for the record prior to the hearing in support of the Working Families Flexibility Act. The letter highlights our past support for the legislation as introduced in previous Congresses. It also draws from CUPA-HR President and CEO Andy Brantley’s testimony for a 2013 Workforce Protections Subcommittee hearing in support of compensatory time. In his testimony, he provided examples of instances where employees benefited from the option of such overtime compensation, which he witnessed while working as an HR leader at a large public university.

Regular Rate

The hearing also discussed the Empowering Employer Child and Elder Care Solutions Act, which would exclude the value of employer-funded child or dependent care benefits from the regular rate calculation. The FLSA requires that overtime hours are paid at one-and-one-half times the employee’s regular rate of pay, which is an average hourly rate that includes certain types of compensation.

During the hearing, Rep. Mark Messmer (R-IN) argued that the regular rate calculation that is currently used to determine overtime pay discourages employers from offering certain benefits. McCutcheon stated that legislation like the Empowering Employer Child and Elder Care Solutions Act would encourage employers to offer more benefits as they would no longer face burdensome overtime pay calculations.

Independent Contractor Status

During the hearing, committee members and witnesses also discussed the Modern Worker Empowerment Act (H.R. 1319), which would establish a new standard for defining an employee and an independent contractor under the FLSA. Specifically, the legislation would implement language that states workers are employees if the employer controls what work will be done and how it will be done, and workers are independent contractors if the entity under which the worker works does not exercise significant control over how the work is performed, among other things.

Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA), who introduced the bill in early February, stated that the Modern Worker Empowerment Act was needed to ensure protections for independent contractors in the FLSA. Wolfson pointed to a 2019 California law, AB 5, which implemented an “ABC” test for worker classification and stated that businesses stopped working with freelancers as a result of the law. McCutcheon explained that the Modern Worker Empowerment Act provides clarity when determining worker classification status by focusing on who controls the work being done, unlike California’s ABC test which she claimed was too complicated.

Ranking Member of the Education and Workforce Committee Bobby Scott (D-VA) opposed the Modern Worker Empowerment Act, claiming that workers do not want to be independent contractors and that employers force workers to accept independent contractor status, thus saving employers money.

The House Education and Workforce Committee will continue to consider these bills as they are reintroduced and marked up during the 119th Congress. CUPA-HR will monitor for future developments on the bills discussed during this hearing and keep members apprised of significant updates.

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March 27, 2025
Edward Peck’s performance at the Education Committee

There’s something wonderfully postmodern about Edward Peck’s committee hearing ahead of his likely appointment as the next chair of the Office for Students.

While the first chair of the regulator, Michael Barber, arrived with a fully documented quasi-academic theory of delivery – and while the second, James Wharton, brought a certain kind of political cunning – Edward Peck has a fully fledged multi-disciplinary research-informed theory of leadership as performance.

How should we understand leadership as performance?

The idea of performativity – broadly speaking that the descriptive language we use in a given situation has a direct impact on the situation itself – has informed a conceptualisation of leadership as a performance that interrelates both with the wider ideas of what it is to be a leader and the narrower immediate context as a particular leadership “act”. This shifts the focus on leadership from a kind of all-powerful “strongman” (with the consequent cod-psychological popular literature on essential attributes of successful leaders available at an airport near you) to something more subtle around relationships, language, and behavior across multiple settings as shaping experiences of leadership.

Leaders – in other words – are sensemakers, both in terms of explaining (and thus shaping) reality for those around them, and in collaboratively situating activities carried out by an organisation within this negotiated reality. Sometimes these acts can be almost ritualistic (“is” performance) like in representing the university at a graduation ceremony where roles and norms are predetermined.

At other points these are more spontaneous (“as” performance) a narrative (a pre-existing conceptualisation of an experience or situation) enacted to an audience in response to an everyday stimulus – something like a discussion of university finances during a spontaneous conversation with a member of staff on campus).

Not an actual theatre

This isn’t a literal assertion that leadership is theatre – that it is a kind of scripted reality that lacks authenticity – but the idea that the actions of leaders reiterate (and thus endorse) organisational norms and organisational cultures. So when Peck repeatedly qualified his responses to the education committee with reference to what the OfS had learned in eight years of regulatory activity, and in his need to understand the way in which the legal framework in which regulation takes place has been interpreted he is situating himself as a part of an ongoing story rather than attempting to begin telling a new one.

This is likely to be important to those who might think a return to a HEFCE-like situation in which leaders were former vice chancellors and things were, apparently, nicer (they weren’t nicer, but this is the story some like to tell) – Peck is entering the stage in the middle of the play and is clearly looking to be an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary chair.

What he does seem to want to do, in narrative terms, is to use more of the language that institutional leaders themselves use within regulation. In Peck’s performativity theory – these linguistic shifts are important in that they themselves have an impact on the collective understanding of what is going on.

Usually about six

The best example of this was, inevitably, about university finances. To Peck there are “usually about six” things that universities do to balance income with expenditure in times of financial constriction – he didn’t name the six, but the impression he was looking to give is that these are well-known and familiar interventions among those who run universities. With this frame, he was able to put the onus on universities rather than regulators to act (“a lot of institutions are still on this journey”), allowing him the appeal to accepted wisdom in being clear that it was not for the Office for Students to bail out universities, and to go further to suggest that if there was a credible route to sustainable business it would be visible to banks (and, I guess, other lenders) and it should not be for the government to create a “moral hazard” by stepping in.

Committee member Manuela Perteghella pushed him on what he had specifically learned from what Nottingham Trent University had done to stave off financial problems (NTU ran a £9.5m surplus last year, but saw around a 10 per cent reduction in student numbers this year). The first example he reached for can again be traced back to the way he has written about leadership in the past – he made much of the need to “be clear with colleagues” about the problems that the university was facing and do so regularly and openly (there is a quarterly town hall meeting).

As a leader you do have the chance to control the narrative – and this shapes the way problems are understood. Peck noted the problems that other providers had faced in submitting unrealistic income or recruitment projections to the Office for Students – grand (if broad) plans that made any subsequent need for economy harder to sell internally. He was able to sell a 10 per cent reduction in staff numbers at NTU on the basis of needing less staff to teach less students (based on historical precedent) – and being clear about recruitment problems early allowed him to say that all these job losses would be voluntary.

The historical precedent – an appeal to a quantifiable and shared memory within the organisation – also made it easier to make the case for a lower staff headcount maintaining the quality of education. If, after all, we could teach this number of students at an acceptable level a few years back with this number of staff, why can’t it be done in 2025?

Independence day

One of the stories that has become accepted fact about the Office for Students is that it is too close to the government – reverse regulatory capture, if you like. The Behan report (and to a lesser extent the House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee report) undermined this assumption a little – there are examples of places where OfS pushed back against the department, although the very nature of the beast means that such independence is rarely visible in public.

As chair Peck would clearly need to work with government on the underpinning policy framework – hinting at a “new” policy under development for release in the summer, most likely the much-heralded “HE reform” package – but emphasised that “operational” decisions would be independent, and that his network of contacts across the sector would help OfS build better relationships with institutions.

Again, this isn’t new – or even particularly notable – but it’s another pointer to his explanatory mode of leadership. It suggests that the problem is one of communication, and he even suggests his own ability to communicate as the solution. Virtuoso performance as leadership. When we get to the actual structural changes there’s a sense that OfS has been on the right track recently – revamped student panels, more student surveys. The only novelty is a promised re-engagement with NUS.

Curtain call

There’s a lot of stuff that would remain in a Peck-led OfS: he’s keen on B3 as driving value for money, keen to get stuck in on regulating modular provision, feel like we are in the right place on freedom of speech given recent changes, pleased with TEF and access and participation plan (though he asked a fascinating question around what happens to those who register with UCAS – he is interim chair there, currently – but are not placed by the end of the cycle).

For much of this, regulation is a matter of establishing codes of practice and ensuring that the actions of universities are within these bounds – Peck’s government work on student mental health should have provided the clue there. The codes themselves set the stage, the universities act within those boundaries. You could argue this as legalism, but it makes more sense as freedom within set parameters, something which universities (and indeed academics) will find comfortingly familiar.

In their 2009 book, “Performing Leadership” Peck and Helen Dickinson (now a professor at the University of New South Wales) cite one compelling example (an unpublished conference paper by Druckett from 2007) of the way the performance of a particular style of management has an impact on lived experience of university staff.

the case study… illustrates that the assertion, arguably the over-assertion, of the hierarchical and individualist ways of organising by senior management is generating negative feedback from the academics in the organisation. The consequences of not allowing the isolate and enclave approaches to contribute adequately to the organisational settlement may be having, or have in future, significant detrimental consequences for the university.

The classic postmodernist understanding of the organisation, in contrast, is one of multiple narratives within a common framework. If you feel that OfS has been too deterministic – too rules based rather than risk based – within the first eight years, the way in which Peck (and whoever he chooses as a senior executive team) allows other voices to fill the stage will be fascinating to watch.

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March 4, 2025
National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity Meets February 19-20. (US Department of Education)

Education Department

Hearings, Meetings, Proceedings, etc.:

National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity

FR Document: 2025-01459
Citation: 90 FR 7677 PDF Pages 7677-7679 (3 pages)
Permalink
Abstract: This notice sets forth the agenda, time, and instructions to access or participate in the February 19-20, 2025 meeting of NACIQI, and provides information to members of the public regarding the meeting, including requesting to make written or oral comments. Committee members will meet in-person while accrediting agency representatives and public attendees will participate virtually.

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January 22, 2025
The Migration Advisory Committee thinks about skills and long term net migration

The Migration Advisory Committee’s annual report for 2023 ended up being one of the publications with most policy influence on the subsequent year.

Though it was released the week after then Home Secretary James Cleverly announced a review of the Graduate route, it clearly reflected ongoing Whitehall discussions and concerns over the post-study work visa, and much of its conclusions ended up being quoted incessantly through the subsequent debate around the MAC review – especially by those in favour of the route’s abolition or restriction:

The graduate route may not be attracting the global talent anticipated, with many students likely entering low-wage roles.

Our concern that the graduate visa would incentivise demand for short Master’s degrees based on the temporary right to work in the UK, rather than primarily on the value of qualification, may well be borne out in the trends that we have observed.

As we have already shown, the rise in student numbers is almost entirely focused on taught Master’s degrees, and the growth has been fastest in less selective and lower cost universities. The rise in the share of dependants is also consistent with this.

Given all that, it’s probably a relief to all concerned that the 2024 edition of the MAC annual report doesn’t go in depth on any international student-related issue, reflecting what feels like a (welcome) period of stasis in visa policy affecting higher education under the new government.

Nevertheless, the MAC has a beefed up role under Labour – additional civil servant resource, plus we now learn that chair Brian Bell’s role will move from two to five days a week – and this time around the questions percolating away are worthy of some long-term thinking, even if they are not going to lead to knee-jerk policy decisions.

Staying or going

The annual review kicks off with consideration of long-term net migration trends, noting that the general election saw all main parties commit to bringing headline figures down.

Thinking ahead, it notes:

In the long run, work routes will have a greater impact on net migration compared to study routes as a greater percentage of those on the work route stay in the UK, whilst students are more likely to emigrate when they finish their course. Put simply, whilst students increase net migration in the year they arrive, they will reduce it by the same amount if and when they leave.

This is a helpful soundbite for the sector, after last month’s ONS figures started to make clear what has been evident for a while – that historic claims around the “vast majority” of international students leaving the UK after completing their courses no longer hold much water. The ONS net migration stats estimated that the proportion of those on student visas who had transitioned to another visa three years after arriving was 48 per cent for those who arrived in year ending June 2021. This was up from nine per cent for those who arrived in June 2019, largely driven by introduction of the Graduate route.

But the detail is still uncertain, as the MAC goes on to acknowledge. It cites recent Migration Observatory modelling (director Madeleine Sumption is now the MAC deputy chair) which estimates that the “stay rate” after eight years is around 26 per cent for those on study visas, compared to 56 per cent for those on work visas. The consequence of this is that – again, according to the Migration Observatory’s heavily caveated modelling – is that student visas contribute to 19 per cent of long-term net migration.

(The modelling also lets you adjust the assumptions around stay rate and annual international student numbers – the baseline is rather simplistically 250,000 new student visas every year from 2024 to 2032, though to be fair recent volatility means that putting a firm prediction on international recruitment is a brave bet in itself.)

All in all the MAC notes that stay rates are “highly uncertain” – but it’s an issue that will continue to inform the wider political debate, especially as the post-pandemic bulge is gradually smoothed out of net numbers. It’s notable in this context that think tank Labour Together – which typically has the ear of the government – has just put out a proposal for a “national migration plan” based on nationally set targets for different routes. Student visas, it says, would only be included in the analysis “to the extent that they have an impact on long-run net migration” through the Graduate and Skilled Worker visa routes.

The skills puzzle

The central piece of this year’s review is driven by the observation that the new government’s intention is “to more closely link migration and skills policy.” Given that starting point, the MAC carefully explores to what extent this can work. It’s of course written in the careful language you would expect of a government-sponsored committee with a Home Office secretariat, but reading between the lines there’s a cautionary note to it all (and not just in the observation that “skills” is an “ambiguous term both conceptually and empirically” – don’t tell Jacqui Smith).

“In theory”, MAC observes, skills shortages lead employers to recruit using the immigration system. “If this were true,” the government can bring down work-related immigration via the reduction of skills shortages.

In practice, there are some complications. Most obviously, skills investments take a long time to translate to the labour market – the last government repeatedly took the quicker route of facilitating international recruitment, especially in the health and care sectors, but also in not insignificant ways in areas like filling teacher vacancies.

The MAC also stresses how employers will not deliberately make choices around whether to hire UK-based workers or those from overseas (speaking to The Times, Brian Bell specifically points to academic recruitment as an area where employers – universities – would not change their hiring practices if the domestic labour force had better qualifications). We are also told that labour demand and supply are not independent (“employers look for what they think they can get, and employees try to match what employers want”), and that skills aside there are other differences between domestic and international recruits.

For the construction industry, this latter point was vividly illustrated by the Financial Times last week, which argued that many businesses in this field prefer “pay-by-the-day” labour and self-employed staff, and hence hire internationally and typically not via skilled worker routes – another consequence of this is that they are unlikely to commit to training apprentices. (The article also cites Brian Bell saying that high net migration leads to “real strains on our ability to manage housing and infrastructure,” in case anyone was thinking the MAC will take a more dovish approach under Labour.)

All in all, bringing about a join-up between the skills and migration systems is a tough ask – or, more cynically, an unrealistic policy goal. It’s clear that the MAC is trying to temper expectations about what can be achieved:

Linking immigration and skills policy is not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach and it is important to consider the individual circumstances within sectors and occupations, including diagnosing whether shortages are genuinely driven by a lack of skills or are due to poor pay and conditions of certain roles.

And the elephant in the room is pay. In the care sector, the MAC has repeatedly stressed that wages need a significant uplift for other visa-related tinkering to have an impact. It stresses this again here, and makes the point that a large proportion of work visas go to public sector workers.

This is a point for Skills England to take on board as well, you would hope. Its initial report was notably incurious about the role of low pay (especially in the public sector) in driving “skills mismatches”, rather presenting employment more as a simple supply and demand relationship between skills available and skills needed. The MAC annual report has some more persuasive analysis here, showing a lack of correlation between so-called “skills shortage vacancies” (SSVs) and skilled worker visa usage. That is to say, it’s by no means a given that those industries facing skills shortages are the ones more likely to sponsor workers from overseas. There are all kinds of factors at play.

Quad to the rescue

You get the sense that the team of economists who make up the Migration Advisory Committee are being careful about the government’s plans to link up skills and migration in a coherent way (it’s also noted at one point that skills is devolved and immigration is not – another challenge).

What we’re getting to make this all fit together is a new “Quad framework” (I believe this is the first time it’s publicly been referred to in this way). As promised in Labour’s manifesto, the strengthened MAC will be working with the newly launched Industrial Strategy Council, the Department for Work and Pensions, and Skills England – the manifesto in fact promised “skills bodies across the UK”, but this hasn’t been fleshed out yet.

This Quad will cooperate “to address systemic long-term issues that have led to reliance from certain sectors on international recruitment, and where appropriate, to reduce that reliance.” The MAC anticipates that the Quad will help identify priority sectors (following the industrial strategy, when ready) and determine which have a high reliance on migration, after which the MAC will – if it sees fit – recommend policy levers the government might pull, while Skills England will be drawing up workforce and skills plans, of some sort.

It’s all a recipe for an incredibly complicated set of moving parts, and given Skills England’s involvement and the importance of overseas staff and student recruitment, one that the English higher education sector would be wise to keep an eye on and work out how it can contribute to.

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December 18, 2024
Forming a Digital Transformation Committee

The Role of a Project Committee in Digital Transformation

Why do some institutional digital transformations fail while others completely change whole institutions? The hook lies in one critical thing: the project committee. Institutional digital transformation is no longer just a choice for higher education; it’s now essential to the success of modern institutions.

Without the right team leading the way, even the best plans can fail. The chances of an institution reaching its digital goals are 2.5 times higher if its project groups are well organized, according to research! There’s a bigger picture here than just managing a project. Your committee is shaping the future of your institute.

Partially deciding who does what is not the only thing that matters. A strong group of thinkers, problem-solvers, and decision-makers can make goals come true. The question is, what makes a dream team, and how can your institution put together one? Now, let’s get into the nitty-gritty.

Why Institutional Digital Transformation Needs Project Committees?

Embracing new technology implementation in institutions is just one part of institutional digital transformation in higher education; the process also involves changing the culture and practices of institutions. Still, there will be problems along the way, like how hard it is to update systems, get people from different groups to work together, and get people to accept and gain from change.

In this case, the digital transformation project group must be well organized. Committees create goals and monitor progress to help change efforts succeed. Since they may adjust their plans, they can face issues head-on.

Maintaining a sense of responsibility is essential. If there is a digital transformation project committee, then everyone on the team will be responsible for their part of the change. Committees bring multiple viewpoints to address the full gamut of challenges: experience from information technology (IT), administration, faculty, and other departments. Together, they create the kind of innovative solutions that pave the way for positive digital transformation.

Key Members to Include in the Digital Transformation Project Committee

Digital transformation demands clear roles and responsibilities and more than a group. Clear project committee roles improve transformation efficiency. In it, everyone knows their roles, so responses are faster. Here are the essential roles of the higher education digital transformation project committee:

Assigning Roles and Responsibilities Within the Committee Members

Now that you have your essential players, make sure everyone knows their roles. The committee must have clear duties and responsibilities to work well and achieve its goals. Here are typical duties for each role:

Executive Sponsor

Executive Sponsors are your project’s top supporters. They acquire funding, top leadership support, and project alignment with the institution’s vision. Their role is to move the project forward and remove obstacles. Without them, the project may lack top-level direction and support.

A Project Manager

This individual manages the project daily. They organize, manage, and track deadlines. They oversee project timelines and budgets. Strong project managers pay attention to every detail and finish on time.

Subject Matter Masters

SMEs offer digital transformation competence (admissions, student services, tech). They suggest solutions that meet the institution’s needs and offer design and implementation help. SMEs connect tech solutions to institutional needs.

IT Leads

The IT Lead ensures smooth technical operations. They integrate new technology, maintain security and compliance, and resolve technical concerns. They must oversee infrastructure and data security.

Swap Champions

These people manage grassroots transformation. They handle resistance, promote adoption, and motivate staff and faculty. Unless people are onboarded and trained, even the best technology can fail without Change Champions.

A Faculty Rep

Faculty represent teachers’ needs and viewpoints. They ensure institutional digital transformation doesn’t disrupt learning and faculty demands are considered. Faculty input is crucial to campus development and developing a system that works for everyone.

Students’ Representative

Improved student experiences depend on their voices. This individual ensures improvements satisfy student learning, communication, and accessibility needs. Many of the systems being altered are used by students, so their feedback is vital.

Finance Officer

The Financial Officer manages the budget. They manage spending, finance, and project budget. They ensure project budget and resource efficiency.

Law and Compliance Advisor

This person ensures the project respects all laws, policies, and regulations, notably data privacy and security. Avoiding legal issues requires a dedicated person.

External consultant if needed

If needed, external experts provide project expertise. They can offer best practices and cover team knowledge gaps. A third party may provide fresh perspectives to help the team avoid surprises.

Steps to Define the Purpose and Objectives of the Committee

Step 1: First, figure out what the organization needs.

Look at the goals and problems of your organization. Find the places where going digital can make the biggest difference.

Step 2: Align with the institution’s goals

Make sure that the committee’s goals are in line with the institution’s long-term mission and plan. This will help the transformation program support the institution’s goals.

Step 3: Find important people

Find out who will benefit or be affected by the move to digital, such as students, staff, teachers, and administration. This group’s needs should guide the group’s goals.

Step 4: Make your goals clear

SMART goals should be used to make changes, like running the business or making the school experience better for students.

Step 5: Put together a group

Write down what each person in the group does to help the group reach its goal. This covers everything that’s important and makes sure that everyone is responsible.

Step 6: Write down your goals

Put your goals in order of how important they are and how doable they are. Think about what makes things useful now and in the future.

Step 7: Set goals to reach them

Things can be judged by how involved the students are, how well the business runs, how much money it has, how many people accept it, or how it’s planned.

Step 8: Get together

As new information comes in, the committee’s goals should be changed to meet the needs of higher education.

Strategic Contributions of a Project Committee

Institutional digital transformation project committees supervise daily operations and strategize long-term success in this way:

Vision Alignment

The committee makes sure the digital transformation project fits the institution’s aim. By understanding institutional priorities, the committee steers the initiative in the appropriate direction and ensures it contributes to the institution’s vision.

Risk Management

Financial, operational, and reputational risks come with digital transformation. Early risk identification and mitigation by a strong committee reduces setbacks. The committee can foresee and mitigate project issues with different skills.

Stakeholder Engagement

Leadership, faculty, staff, and students must communicate well to succeed. Communication is key, and the project committee ensures everyone is informed and engaged. The committee ensures buy-in from all groups by addressing issues and receiving feedback, smoothing the transition.

Resource Allocation

The committee prioritizes resources! The committee carefully manages funding, staffing, and technical investments to maximize ROI. Allocation ensures the organization benefits from transformation by implementing the best options.

Setting Up the Campus Digitalization Governance Structure

Digitization needs a good governance structure! It ensures order and transparent decision-making. Setup:

Use Decision-Making

Regulate committee decision-making. Most votes, consensus, or executive sponsor approval? Avoiding misunderstanding and delays with a clear decision-making process helps the committee act quickly.

Determine Reporting Hierarchies

Who reports to whom? Early clarification ensures everyone knows their direct channel of communication. The project manager may report to the executive sponsor, while committee members may report to IT or faculty leaders. The organization is maintained by hierarchy.

Set Objectives

Determine project milestones and outputs. These project milestones will be monitored. Goals-based timelines keep everyone focused.

Crisis and Risk Planning

Campus digitalization governance involves risk management and decision-making. Risk planning is necessary for risk management. After an unforeseen event, the committee can quickly adjust and minimize disruption.

Honesty and Duty

Establish transparency and accountability. Progress reporting, decision documentation, and stakeholder communication are required. Unanimity eliminates misunderstandings and missing chances.

Hold Review Sessions

Discuss achievements, challenges, and plan modifications with the committee periodically. The meetings coordinate and allow course modifications.

Communication Setup

Communicate clearly using email, project management software, or meetings. Communicating with the committee is crucial.

Challenges in Forming and Managing a Digital Transformation Committee

Forming and leading a digital transformation committee is exciting but difficult. These obstacles can make it hard to guide the committee toward the institution’s aims. Examples of frequent challenges and ways to overcome them:

Misaligned Goals

One of the major problems is aligning all committee members with digital transformation goals. Committee members may have diverse opinions based on their duties, and without a clear goal, it might be simple to stray. Smooth functioning requires everyone to understand and support the same goals from the start.

Change Resistance

Change management in education is common in digital transformation. With new technologies and processes, faculty, staff, and stakeholders may feel intimidated or uncomfortable. Resolving this opposition requires clear communication, stakeholder engagement, and committee change champions who can promote the shift.

Poor Expertise

While a project committee can bring together stakeholders, technical or digital tool skills may be lacking. Without the right SMEs, the committee may struggle to make judgments. Include members who understand the institution’s needs and the technologies involved to address this.

Balanced Goals

Numerous committee members balance different tasks and priorities. Other roles may tug committee members in different ways, causing time and attention issues. The committee must prioritize its work and give members appropriate time for the assignment.

Trouble Communicating

Diverse teams can have communication issues if duties aren’t clear or updates aren’t communicated. To keep everyone in sync and provide information quickly, effective communication is essential. Without effective communication, the committee may miss opportunities or delay matters.

Uncertain Decisions

Decision-making confusion can cause delays and frustration. Members may disagree or be unsure of how to proceed without a clear decision-making framework. Avoid decision deadlock by setting clear guidelines for decision-making and who has the final say.

Insufficient Budget and Resources

Technological, training, and support investments are common in digital transformation projects. The committee might stall development if it lacks resources and funds. Leadership support and early funding are crucial to the committee’s success.

Scope Creep

It’s tempting to add features or adjust the scope as projects progress. Scope creep can cause delays, higher costs, and less concentration. Keep the group focused on the agreed-upon goals and plan and approve any amendments to avoid scope creep.

Overcoming Challenges in Managing a Digital Transformation Committee

A digital transformation committee can be difficult to organize and manage, but there are simple solutions. Let’s simplify:

Communicate clearly. Be clear about expectations from the start. Establish roles, goals, and duties and communicate regularly. It aligns everyone.

Digital transformation requires teamwork. Encourage open dialogue and collaboration. Higher input is preferable. This guarantees everyone is heard.

Be flexible. Digital transformation changes quickly. Adjust your plans and strategies as needed. Monitor progress and adjust. Flexibility maintains momentum.

Keep learning. Not everyone is an expert straight immediately. Give your crew training and resources to stay organized. Knowledge is power and simplifies decision-making.

You may need outside help. Use transformation-experienced experts. They can identify issues early and suggest novel solutions.

Grab smart tools. Track progress and goals with strategic planning tools. It streamlines tasks, deadlines, and KPI management. If plans go awry, you can change them.

Monitoring the Success of the Committee

After launching, your digital transformation committee must track its goals and progress. Track the committee’s progress to improve and stay on track. Monitor committee performance:

Establish KPIs: Define success to track it. Scheduled milestones, budgets, and stakeholder participation are examples. Set KPIs to track progress and ensure the committee meets digital transformation goals.

Status updates regularly: Communication matters. Monitor committee progress with regular updates. Meet to review progress, handle obstacles, and keep the project on track. You can notice issues before they escalate using updates.

Reverberations: Important to gather committee and stakeholder input. Feedback reveals issues and growth opportunities. Be transparent and use feedback to improve processes and results.

Examine Resource Distribution: Track budget, time, and personnel to see if the committee is staying under budget. If resources are abused or underused, project changes may be needed.

Monitor Stakeholder Satisfaction: Faculty, staff, and students must be satisfied for the digital shift to succeed. Poll these groups often to measure how well the transformation is accepted and how well the committee is addressing their concerns. Dissatisfaction should encourage the committee to improve results.

Institutional Goal Impact: Assess your institution’s digital transformation project’s success. Does it improve education? Do administrative processes work better? Improves student engagement? The committee prioritizes what matters by aligning progress with institutional goals.

Enjoy successes, learn from losses: Recognize small achievements. Celebrate wins to foster teamwork. Analyze setbacks and improve future efforts. Successful and unsuccessful people learn and evolve.

Conclusion: The Path Forward

As digital transformation reshapes higher education, a strong project committee becomes more essential. These committees serve as the backbone of successful initiatives by offering governance, guidance, and collaboration to navigate challenges and meet institutional goals.

Strategic planning and a clear structure lay the foundation for success. By assembling the right team, assigning clear responsibilities, and monitoring progress, institutions can drive meaningful change, improving operations, and student experiences, and fostering innovation.

For institutions to thrive during this transition, the right tools and systems are key. By focusing on the right approach, higher education can effectively embrace transformation and build a brighter future for both staff and students.

Let’s improve higher education together. Get in touch with the right committee for higher education technology projects! Connect with Team Creatrix Campus.

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November 29, 2024