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Dive Brief:
The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana is suing the state’s governor, Mike Braun, over a new law giving him full control over the selection of Indiana University’s trustee board.
Last month, Republican lawmakers added several last-minute changes to Indiana’s budget bill that expanded the state’s control over its public colleges.Braun signed the budget into law Tuesday.
One provision empowers the governor to appoint all nine members of Indiana University’s board, eliminating the institution’s longstanding tradition of alumni trustee elections.That change illegally targets Indiana Universityand violates the state’s constitution, ACLU of Indiana’s lawsuit argues.
Dive Insight:
Indiana Universityhas held alumni trustee elections since 1891, with the process codified into state law.Board members oversee everything from admissions standards to presidential appointmentsto faculty promotions and tenure.
Prior to the change in law this month,three trustees on the university’s nine-person were elected by alumni. The governor appointed the rest.
ACLU of Indiana is suing Braun on behalf of a candidate who was vying for a board position this summer, Justin Vasel.
“This challenge addresses a law that strikes at the heart of democratic governance at Indiana’s flagship university,” Vasel said in a statement Wednesday. “This unconstitutional legislation threatens IU’s 134-year-old tradition of alumni representation while an election for those very positions is already underway.”
Before the change in law, the university’s over 790,000 graduates were eligible to cast a ballot, according to the university’s alumni association, making the voter pool larger than the populations of Wyoming, Vermont or Alaska.
Six members of the university’s alumni association had announced their candidacy for trustee, and the month-long election was set to begin in June. Had it gone on as scheduled, the winner would have joined the board July 1.
Now, Braun has the power to appoint who he wishes, so long as five trustees are university alumni and five are Indiana residents. The governor also received the power to remove anypreviously elected members at his discretion.
Braun defended the change during an April 30 press conference, citing low alumni voter turnout in the trustee elections, according to the Indiana Capital Chronicle.
“It wasn’t representative. It enabled a clique of a few people to actually determine three board members. And I don’t think that is real representation,” the governor told reporters.
The university’s next trustee meeting is set to take place June 12.
“No hearings were held concerning the proposal,” it said. “Instead the change was inserted at the eleventh hour deep within a lengthy budget bill that otherwise would have nothing to do with the election of members of the boards of trustees of Indiana’s higher education institutions.”
Vasel and the ACLU of Indiana also questioned the constitutionality of the budget’s targeting of Indiana University’s board selection.
The process for appointing trustees varies among the state’s other public universities. But the alumni of each institution have the ability to vote on or nominate graduates to the board, the lawsuit said. The change Braun signed into law takes that ability away from Indiana University alone.
“Every other four-year public university in the state has a process for allowing alumni to select at least some members of the board of trustees, and there is no justification for denying that ability to the alumni of IU,” Ken Falk, legal director of ACLU of Indiana, said in a Tuesday statement.
Indiana Republicans, who control both chambers of the Legislature and the governor’s mansion, have attempted to control other aspects of Indiana University.
Earlier this year, the state comptroller and two lawmakers joined an event where an advocacy group questioned if the university was illegally routing state funds to the Kinsey Institute, a sexuality and gender research center housed on its Bloomington campus.
Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith joined the opposition of the institute and said he and Braun are committed to ensuring Indiana University “is not using taxpayer dollars to fund something that is rooted in this wickedness,” according to WFYI.
Beckwith also threatened the university and its editorially independent student newspaper, the Indiana Daily Student, over the publication’s coverage of President Donald Trump.
The lieutenant governor derided a November cover story that showcased quotes critical of the president made by former Trump officials, though Beckwith misattributed the quotes as from the paper’s staff. He went on to call the story “WOKE propaganda at its finest.”
“This type of elitist leftist propaganda needs to stop or we will be happy to stop it for them,” Beckwith said in a social media post.
Gill Evans is Emeritus Professor of Medieval Theology and Intellectual History at the University of Cambridge.
In early March 2025, the Trump administration sent letters to 60 US universities warning them that they faced ‘potential enforcement actions’ for what it described as ‘failure to protect Jewish students on campus’ during the widespread pro-Palestinian protests on campuses during the last year. This Government direction not only permitted terms to be set on which continuing funding was to be conditional for a specific higher education provider, but also allowed those terms to encroach on the academic freedom of an institution to choose what to teach and how. This ‘Project 2025’ also allowed the President to require a significant proportion of funding to go to the provision of ‘business’ courses.
There were wider consequences of these Government directions. The resulting limitation of funding for research quickly prompted hints of restricted publication of results and encouraged US academics to seek employment in Canada, the UK and Europe.
Though it was joined in its active resistance by Yale and Princeton, Harvard became a test case. It objected to the Government demand that it immediately agree:
to implement the Trump administration’s demands to overhaul the University’s governance and leadership, academic programs, admissions system, hiring process, and discipline system—with the promise of more demands to come
and thus ‘overtly seek to impose on Harvard University political views and policy preferences advanced by the Trump administration and commit the University to punishing disfavored speech’. [1] The US Education Department speedily responded, announcing on 14 April that it was freezing about $2.3bn of Harvard’s funding. On 15 April, Trump threatened to remove Harvard’s tax-exempt status,
US universities are divided into the ‘private’ and ‘public’ on the basis of their funding and therefore differ in the extent to which they are at risk of loss of funding in attacks on their academic freedom. The ‘private’ Ivy League universities enjoy substantial endowments, making them less dependent on their supplementary Government funding than their ‘public’ counterparts.
The Office for Students funds and regulates higher education in England. MEDR, the Welsh Commission for Tertiary Education and Research, funds and regulates higher education in Wales, taking these responsibilities over from the former Higher Education Funding Council for Wales. The counterpart body for Scotland is the Scottish Funding Council. This depends on the Scottish Government for the funding it disburses to providers.
English higher education providers enjoy an institutional autonomy, strengthened by the fact that Government funding for English higher education was greatly reduced with the progressive ending of a ‘block grant’ under the Higher Education Act of 2004 and the raising of tuition fees in 2012. That was replaced by much higher student tuition fees under the Higher Education and Research Act of 2017.
Under the same legislation the autonomy of higher education providers in England is protected, with express reference to their right to design their own courses, choose their students and appoint their academic staff. This extends to higher education at tertiary education levels 4 and 5 as well as to ‘degree-level’ 6 and postgraduate degrees at levels 7 and 8.
This legislative permission does not allow a free-for-all. ‘University’ is a ‘sensitive term’ in English law, as are ‘higher’ and ‘accreditation’ when used of education. New providers may grant their own degrees and call themselves ‘universities’ only if they have powers to do so. In the case of new providers that requires Registration by the Office for Students (OfS). The OfS is subject only to ‘guidance on strategic priorities from the Department for Education’, though its activity is open to expressions of Parliamentary concern. For example, on 2 April 2025, the House of Commons debated ‘the impact of university finances on jobs in higher education’. It was suggested that ‘the funding model, which depends on international students paying higher fees, has harmed universities since Brexit’, but it was recognised that only public funding and such broad policy preferences lay with the Government.
The accreditation of qualifications in the UK is the responsibility of a number of agencies, some of which are professional and some are public bodies. In the USA ‘relying on private, independent accrediting agencies has been the most important tool for preventing the centralized political control of higher education in the United States’. The authority of the Trump directive over these seemed clear at first.
What protects the institutional autonomy of US Universities? The nearest US counterpart to the Office for Students is the Higher Learning Commission, an independent agency founded in 1895. It accredits institutions granting degrees. The University of Michigan, for example seeks renewal of its accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission every ten years. Its ‘evaluations’ are conducted by reviewers from other institutions not the HLC itself.
The award of ‘University title’ and degree-awarding powers is not restricted in the US as it is in England. For example they may derive from a Charter establishing the institution. Its own Charter granted the Trustees of Columbia University degree-awarding powers and powers to create such:
ordinances and by-laws which to them shall seem expedient for carrying into effect the designs of their institution; Provided always, That such ordinances or by-laws shall not make the religious tenets of any person a condition of admission to any privilege or office in the said college, nor be inconsistent with the constitution and laws of this state, nor with the constitution and laws of the United States.
Private US universities
The privately funded Ivy League Universities were set up with a degree of constitutional independence. Each had a State-based beginning. Harvard was established as a College by the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636 with funding of £400. Its stated purpose was to ensure that the Puritans should be provided with educated ministers, by advancing ‘learning’ to meet the needs of ‘posterity’ and to avoid leaving churches with ‘an illiterate ministry’.Princeton, founded in 1746 by the Presbyterian Synod as the College of New Jersey, had its name changed to Princeton University in 1896. Its present charter dates from 1748. It too has Trustees. In an age when it could be expected that those arriving from England would be practising members of the Church of England, it was insistent about religious freedom:
Petitioners have also expressed their earnest Desire that those of every Religious Denomination may have free and Equal Liberty and Advantage in the Said College any different Sentiments in Religion notwithstanding.
Columbia, too, began as a College. It was granted a Royal Charter in 1754, making its governors a ‘body corporate’. In 1912, the corporate name was changed to ‘Columbia University’. A series of amendments followed, with an Act of the people of the State of New York in 1810 clarifying the position. Its Trustees were to form ‘a body politic and corporate’ ‘in the City of New York’, with ‘continual succession for ever’ and a common seal. The powers of its Trustees as governors were set out in detail, separating them decisively from the ‘professors’ and ‘tutors ‘. The Trustees were to:
have full power and authority to direct and prescribe the course of study, and the discipline to be observed in the said college, and also to select by ballot or otherwise, a president of the said college, who shall hold his office during good behavior,
but no ‘professor, tutor, or other assistant officer’ was to be a Trustee. There was to be an executive body, consisting of eleven of the Trustees, constituting ‘a quorum for the despatch of all [routine] business’.
Its Statutes include a ‘Code of Academic Freedom and Tenure’:
Academic freedom implies that all officers of instruction are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subjects; that they are entitled to freedom in research and in the publication of its results; and that they may not be penalized by the University for expressions of opinion or associations in their private or civic capacity; but they should bear in mind the special obligations arising from their position in the academic community.
In March 2025, seeking to force the University of Columbia to comply with his instructions, the President of the USA withdrew $400m of federal funding. Nine specific ’reforms’ had been called for in this case, including a change of Departmental Head and modifications to its provision of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies. A Senior Vice-Provost was to review the educational programmes.
The University published a statement of its own view that certain ‘protests in academic buildings, and other places necessary for the conduct of University activities, are generally not acceptable under the Rules of University Conduct’ because of the likelihood of disrupting academic activities’. Yet Columbia acceded to the Trump administration’s demands, including an agreement to expand ‘intellectual diversity’ as ‘defined by the Trump administration’.
Princeton spoke of resistance when the ‘Trump administration suspended dozens of grants to the University from several agencies, including the Department of Energy, NASA, and the Department of Defense’, pending ‘an investigation into antisemitism on campus’. Yale too declared its resistance in a letter signed by 900 of its Faculty, protesting at ‘unlawful demands that threaten academic freedom and university self-governance’. On March 31, Cornell published an op-ed by its President in the New York Times, describing the point which had been made in the interests of freedom of speech when the University held a Panel conversation exploring ‘pathways to peace’ for Israel and Palestine.
On 24 March, the American Association of University Professors and Democracy Forward explained the decision to litigate. On 11 April 202,5 Harvard began its own litigation about ‘the Trump administration’s unlawful and unprecedented misuse of federal funding and civil rights enforcement authority to undermine academic freedom and free speech on a university campus’. It complained that on March 31 ‘an investigation of Harvard University’ had been announced and on April 3 this had been followed by an order to ‘adopt a list of vague yet sweeping programmatic and structural changes to university management, operations, and curriculum’ as a condition of the University continuing to be the ‘recipient’ of $9 billion ‘federal taxpayer dollars’.
Harvard argued that the Government had failed to take the required preliminary steps under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. These requirements, it pointed out, existed because ‘Congress recognized that allowing federal agencies to hold funding hostage, or to cancel it cavalierly, would give them dangerously broad power in a system in which institutions depend so heavily upon federal funding’. It pointed out that the Trump administration had:
frozen over $1 billion in funding for Cornell University and $790 million for Northwestern University, with an even more shocking lack of process, not even purporting to issue communications providing notice under Title VI or any other legal authority.
Public US universities
US public universities are subject to national Government control as recipients of Government funding. State legislation about them is also significant. The University of North Carolina was established by legislation in 1789, becoming America’s first public university. Its many schools and offshoots were brought together by the North Carolina General Assembly in 1972. The Constitution of the State of Texas states that its legislature shall ‘establish, organise and provide for the maintenance, support, and direction of a University of the first class’ with a new ‘undergraduate curriculum’ and also ‘establish a more demanding standard for leadership of academic departments and research centres’. As a public research university, the University of Texas at Austin (founded 1883) now describes itself as ‘the flagship institution of the University of Texas System’.
Conclusion
A wise US university makes provision to respond to both Government and State supervision. Michigan has a Vice President for Government Relations, acting ‘as the university’s bridge between local, state, and federal governments’. Its ‘State Relations team is committed to building and nurturing strong relationships with state government officials and agencies’, seeking ‘to secure funding, influence policy, and represent the university’s interests in state-level discussions. It also has a Federal Relations team ‘dedicated to fostering and maintaining collaborative relationships between the university and federal government entities including the U.S. Congress’. It too has been subject to Donald Trump’s demands and has stopped the successful diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) program it has run since 2016, and closed the office it had set up to deal with it.
It remains to be seen how far the present President of the USA will succeed in enlarging Government control of the nation’s institutions of higher education by linking direction of academic activity with their funding. Former President Barack Obama did not hesitate to express his support for Harvard, calling Trump’s action ‘unlawful and ham-handed‘.
[1]Harvard Faculty Chapter, and American Association of University Professors v.United States Department of Justice, filed 11 April, 2025.
American voters want to see an overhaul in higher education and Republicans are taking advantage of it. Over the course of its first 75 days, the 119th Congress introduced more than 30 pieces of legislation concerning higher education—more than half of which came from members of the GOP.
Historically, conservative lawmakers have taken a laissez-faire approach to governing colleges and universities. But at a time when students and families are demanding greater accountability and a solution to the debt crisis, Republicans—who hold majority in both the House and the Senate—are laying the legislative groundwork to increase federal control over colleges.
But while the bills do in some ways levy penalties against institutions, lawmakers are also aiming to advance key Trump agenda items, an Inside Higher Edanalysis tracking proposed legislation shows. For example, they’ve introduced bills to crack down on immigration and foreign influence by threatening student visas and restricting international donations; to hamper flexibility for borrowers by capping student loan amounts; and to suppress “liberal ideologies,” by establishing penalties for pro-Palestinian protests. Republicans are also escalating their ongoing attacks on wealthy colleges with proposals to significantly increase the tax on university endowments.
Rep. Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican who chairs the House Committee on Education and Workforce, has applauded Trump’s “enormous strides” and reinforced that these efforts will be a priority.
“Under President Trump, common sense is returning to America, and House Republicans are committed to enacting his bold vision for the country,” he said in a statement after the President’s March 4 joint address. “I will work in lockstep with this administration to protect students, workers, and job creators to ensure every American has a chance to thrive.”
Meanwhile, Democrats have rallied in defiance, introducing many bills that promote the exact opposite of what Republicans are trying to achieve. For example, the Republican bill that would ban transgender women from participating in female sports has a direct Democrat counterpart that would prohibit discrimination in athletics based on gender identity.
And all of that doesn’t even take into account the possibility that Republicans could revive parts of the College Cost Reduction Act—a comprehensive piece of legislation introduced last Congress to overhaul higher education. Although the bill itself has yet to be introduced, many of its provisions—such as requiring colleges to pay back a portion of students’ unpaid loans—could be part of the forthcoming reconciliation bill, a top priority for Congressional Republicans this spring that could mean billions in cuts to higher education. (Reconciliation is a budgetary tool which can be used once a year to quickly advance high-priority—and often controversial—pieces of legislation.)
Combined, the proposed legislation and potential for sweeping changes via reconciliation could lead to an unprecedented amount of federal focus on higher ed that college and university advocates say could heavily discourage international enrollment, indirectly increase the cost of attendance and cause a chilling effect on campus free speech.
“Higher education has moved to the forefront of the minds of our policy makers,” said Emmanual Guillory, senior director of government relations at the American Council on Education. “It has become a point of contention, especially with the increased oversight over institutions themselves by the current administration.”
But regardless of which party’s behind a bill, Guillory said he’s focused on educating lawmakers on how each piece of legislation could also have unintended consequences for institutions and the students they serve.
“Oftentimes what we see with Republicans and Democrats is they have good intentions behind what they’re trying to do, it’s just the way that they go about doing it,” he said. “When we begin to have more detailed conversations. Then [lawmakers] are like, ‘Oh, well no, we didn’t think about that. We didn’t realize this would happen. So it’s just a matter of us still continuing to do our job in advocating and educating.”
Given the emphasis on higher education in this session of Congress and the stakes for colleges, Inside Higher Ed is tracking higher-ed related bills. The searchable database, available here, currently includes 31 bills introduced since January, and we’ll update it regularly. Below you can find a breakdown of the legislation proposed so far.
Legislating at the federal level is complicated, so below you can find more information about how a bill becomes a law in 2025 as well as more details about the legislation raising concerns for institutions.
How a Bill Becomes Law
Few of the introduced bills will ever become law, based on Congress’s recent track record. And while the process is similar to what Schoolhouse Rock! described in the 1970s, partisan divides over policy have led to much gridlock on Capitol Hill.
An Inside Higher Ed cartoon showing a bill on the steps of Congress.
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed dkfielding/iStock/Getty Images
During the 118th Congress—which ran from 2023 to 2025 with a Republican-controlled House and Democrat-controlled Senate—more than 90 percent of measures introduced died in committee and only about 3 percent became law, according to GovTrack.US. Even during the 115th Congress, the last time the Republicans held a trifecta, 85 percent of bills got stuck in committee and only 8 percent became law.
Many pieces of legislation introduced are considered nothing more than messaging bills by which a party or lawmaker signals their priorities. For example, it’s highly unlikely the Democrats will advance either the Closing the College Hunger Gap Act or the Affordable College Textbook Act, but they demonstrate a focus on meeting students’ most basic needs.
But if the legislation comes from Republicans on the House Committee on Education and Workforce and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, it might be more likely to gain traction.
The chairs of those committees hold a lot of power over whether a bill will move forward. They control the schedule for public hearings and mark up sessions—where a bill is debated, amended and then voted on—so if a bill isn’t a priority for the chairs, it’s dead in the water.
But once again, having support and investment from an education committee member is helpful here. If they can make a case for the bill to receive time on the floor, it will face debate, amendments and a final vote. Bills have to pass both chambers and undergo negotiations to settle legislative differences before they go to the White House to become law. And that doesn’t include potential road bumps like the Senate filibuster.
Long story short, it’s a tedious process that can take months or even years. That’s why having support from Republicans on the education-focused committees—especially committee chairs—is critical to gaining momentum this year.
As Guillory said, “There are other members of Congress that are introducing legislation in the higher education space, but it doesn’t mean that those bills will necessarily have legs and actually be able to move through regular order.”
Bills Higher Ed Is Watching
Much of lawmakers’ attention right now is on reconciliation as they work to cut billions in dollars from the federal budget in order to pay for tax cuts and Trump’s other priorities. But outside of that just a handful of bills have received a hearing and/or a markup session so far. One of the most notable and concerning to higher ed advocates is the DETERRENT Act.
Scheduled for a vote on the House floor next week, this bill would require colleges to submit much more information about the foreign gifts and contracts that they receive. Republicans have claimed for years that colleges aren’t sufficiently complying with Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, which requires them to disclose twice a year all foreign gifts and contracts totaling $250,000 or more.
The legislation, which supporters say would discourage foreign influence in higher education, would lower the threshold to $50,000. For gifts and contracts from countries of concern—China, Russia, Iran and North Korea—colleges would have to report gifts and contracts of any amount. Institutions that fail to comply could lose access to federal student aid.
The House passed a nearly identical bill last Congress, but it died in the then-Democrat controlled Senate. House Republicans argued that as tensions with communist countries like China rise, universities have not taken their reporting obligations and vetting processes for international students seriously and in doing so are risking national security by granting foreign governments access to American research.
But institutional advocates say this bill goes well beyond what Section 117 of the Higher Education Act ever intended, making an already time consuming and confusing process more difficult.
Sarah Spreitzer, ACE’s chief of staff for government relations, said that these added steps and the processing workload that will come with it for the shrinking Education Department could lead to major delays in launching countless research collaborations and study abroad programs
In addition to the DETERRENT Act, Guillory said ACE is also paying attention to any measures focused on accountability, affordability and transparency of institutional data, many of which represent threads of last year’s College Cost Reduction Act (CCRA).
For example, the Graduate Opportunity and Affordable Loans Act would put a cap on the amount of loans available to graduate students and terminate their access to PLUS loans. The Endowment Tax Fairness Act would increase the amount of excise tax private institutions pay each year. And the Ensuring Distance Education Act would reverse some components of the Education Department’s 90-10 rule.
“In a lot of ways, CCRA is still alive, even though it has not been reintroduced this Congress,” Guillory said.
Lastly, he noted that many of the bills echo the Trump administration’s focus on more culture war facing topics like campus protests and immigration. The Laken Riley Act, which has already been passed, could impact visa access for international students from countries with a large number of undocumented immigrants. And several bills focused on antisemitism are likely to be discussed in the HELP Committee’s first education-specific hearing, Guillory said.
In general, he noted, a lot of the agenda is left to be determined. “I think it’s a matter of what can we accomplish in reconciliation first? Then, after that, what would we have to move through regular order?”
College administrators know that technology can be a powerful tool for improving operations and boosting student success. However, given the rapid pace of technological change and the shrinking pool of qualified IT professionals, getting a real return on IT investments can be a major challenge.
While change can seem daunting, IT outsourcing can significantly improve overall IT management and strategic focus while mitigating risk and reducing cost. It’s about more than just maintaining IT infrastructure and operations –– it’s about using technology strategically to create better student experiences and drive institutional success.
One of the primary concerns I hear from administrators is the perceived complexity of moving to an outsourced IT model. Such a move impacts people, processes, and technology – so if not managed thoughtfully, unintended consequences could occur.
However, a well-structured transition plan significantly simplifies the process and minimizes risk to business operations during the transition. At Collegis, we employ a phased approach, starting with a thorough assessment of an institution’s current IT ecosystem, including resources, processes, financials, systems, infrastructure, projects, operations, etc. This assessment forms the foundation of a customized transition plan designed around the institution’s unique needs, outlining each step – from stabilization and standardization to technology optimization and, finally, transformation.
A key element of our approach is the stabilization phase, where we address immediate pain points and ensure that systems are secure and able to support day-to-day operations with no disruptions. This initial phase creates the foundation from which to build on and, ultimately, a level of confidence that sets the stage for longer-term improvements.
By breaking the transition into manageable phases and providing clear communication throughout the process, we alleviate much of the anxiety associated with change. Instead of a big “lift and shift,” the multi-year transition plan means current systems and processes continue to be supported. Administrators often express relief once they understand our structured approach and how it addresses their specific needs.
For example, our managed IT services solution for Saint Francis University involved stabilizing the core technology and infrastructure, standardizing expectations through strong IT governance (including installing a virtual CIO), and optimizing business processes and infrastructure for increased efficiency. This identified $200,000 in budgetary waste that was able to be reallocated toward technology upgrades.
Cost is, of course, a major factor in any IT outsourcing decision. Administrators are understandably concerned about the financial implications of outsourcing.
Studies show that many higher education institutions spend more than 75% of their IT budgets on basic support and technology maintenance. This is partially due to the technology debt that accrues after years of neglect and a lack of the precise skill sets needed to address deficiencies and create more efficient and effective operations. Just think of the impact technology could make if schools could reduce this amount by 25%+ and reallocate these dollars to improving student experiences or driving institutional cost savings.
Outsourcing can free up these valuable financial resources, enabling institutions to focus on projects that drive growth and enhance the student experience. Collegis partners typically experience:
Predictable budgeting: We offer all standard IT management services through a clear and transparent fixed fee mutually determined for the life of the partnership so institutions know exactly what they spend for IT management every year. There are no surprises.
Access to top IT talent: While Collegis goes out of its way to assess existing staff and rebadge those who have the needed skill sets and cultural fit, we also bring a team of more than 185 IT professionals to our partnerships, ensuring schools have access to the right skillsets at the right time.
Better contract negotiations: Schools benefit from Collegis’s expertise in IT contract negotiations and cross-institutional expertise during all technology contract negotiations. We have long-term relationships with third-party vendors and can negotiate from a position of strength because we support dozens of similar institutions.
Lower cybersecurity costs: We handle network, application, and data security, reducing a school’s need for additional resources or security solutions. Our partnerships have also helped many schools successfully stabilize or even reduce their cybersecurity insurance premiums.
Elimination of consulting fees: Our model also eliminates the need for expensive consultants to fill staffing gaps or deliver strategic projects.
Most schools find that an IT managed services partnership with Collegis either saves them money or is cost-neutral. Our economies of scale enable us to provide expert services at a lower cost than most institutions could achieve in-house. Plus, we provide clear service level agreements (SLAs) to ensure accountability.
Beyond cost savings, outsourcing can also improve ROI by ensuring technology investments deliver their intended value. By leveraging the expertise of a dedicated IT partner, institutions can optimize their systems and ensure they are getting the most out of their technology investments.
Some administrators worry about losing control when they outsource IT. They’re concerned about relinquishing oversight of critical systems and data. However, a well-designed outsourcing agreement includes clear governance structures and communication channels, ensuring they retain control.
One way we’ve addressed this concern is by establishing a steering committee for IT governance that includes representatives from the institution’s leadership and fosters collaboration and shared decision-making.
Data security is paramount, and we understand the sensitivity of institutional data. We are a SOC 2-compliant organization that undergoes regular external audits to ensure the security and integrity of the data we manage.
Our dedicated information security officers (CISOs) work closely with each institution to implement best practices and address any security concerns. We also proactively monitor systems for potential threats, leveraging our experience working with multiple institutions to identify and mitigate risks before they escalate.
Outsourcing IT management in higher education can be a game-changer for institutions looking to navigate the complexities of the evolving IT landscape. Working with a partner that focuses on open communication, a phased approach to transitioning, a stronger cybersecurity posture, and leveraging your technology’s true potential can eliminate concerns about complexity, cost, and control while enabling schools to achieve strategic goals.
Finally, when considering IT outsourcing, institutions cannot underestimate the importance and value of cultural fit. Finding a partner who shares your values and can be trusted to run a critical function for your institution is just as important as any of the other considerations I’ve highlighted above.
— Kim Fahey, CEO Collegis Education
Innovation Starts Here
Higher ed is evolving — don’t get left behind. Explore how Collegis can help your institution thrive.
In the rush to adopt artificial intelligence, many institutions are making a critical mistake: assuming that off-the-shelf AI solutions will seamlessly integrate into their unique academic environments. This oversight undermines the very essence of what makes each institution distinct and valuable.
Higher education stands at a unique crossroads. Our institutions possess three powerful advantages that make us ideally suited to shape AI implementation:
Deep expertise in learning science and pedagogy,
A fundamental commitment to inclusion and accessibility, and
Vast repositories of specialized knowledge across disciplines.
Consider this: Every institution has its own distinctive DNA—unique terminology, specific policies, particular processes and individualized pathways for student success. A campus chat bot trained on generic data can’t possibly understand that your first-year experience program is called Launch Pad or that your student success center is actually The Hub. These aren’t just semantic differences; they reflect your institution’s culture, values and approach to education.
The stakes are high in an era of contracting budgets, unpredictable enrollment patterns, information overload, and increasing student needs. We cannot afford to misallocate our most valuable resource: human talent.
The Real Power of Properly Trained AI
When AI is trained with your institution’s specific context, it becomes more than a cost-cutting tool. It becomes a force multiplier that:
Handles routine queries with institutional accuracy,
Identifies at-risk students before they struggle,
Directs resources where they’re needed most, and
Frees staff to focus on meaningful student interactions
AI transforms our approach from broadcasting general information to providing targeted support. Imagine AI that recognizes your unique early alert indicators, understands your specific financial aid processes, knows your specific mental health resources and protocols, and speaks in your institution’s voice and values.
Relying on vendor-trained AI means that you are missing crucial institutional context, perpetuating generic solutions and losing opportunities for personalized support or potentially misguiding students with incorrect information.
Higher education institutions must take an active role in training their AI systems. Remember: Every time you allow an untrained or generic AI to interact with your students, you’re missing an opportunity to provide the personalized, institution-specific support that sets your school apart.
Breaking It Down
A generic AI is like a new employee who has read every manual but doesn’t understand your institution’s unique culture, language or processes—it has broad knowledge but lacks specific context. Untrained AI systems, while powerful in general applications, are essentially operating on publicly available information without the benefit of the institutional expertise, proprietary processes or specific student success patterns that make your organization unique.
Fear of Failure
The fear of AI implementation manifests in various ways across higher education, often masquerading as practical concerns while hiding deeper anxieties. Like an untrained AI system that lacks institutional context and produces generic responses, an unprepared organization can generate resistance that undermines successful AI adoption.
Process guardians: These experienced professionals, while openly complaining about overwhelming workloads, harbor deeper concerns. They worry that AI might not just streamline their processes but potentially replace their expertise. Their resistance often appears as skepticism about AI’s accuracy or reliability—a valid concern that actually points to the need for proper AI training rather than AI avoidance.
Generational tensions: Some view AI adoption through a generational lens, suggesting that retirement is the solution to resistance. This perspective misses a crucial point: Seasoned professionals possess valuable institutional knowledge that should be captured and used to train AI systems, not lost to retirement. Their experience isn’t an obstacle; it’s an asset for effective AI implementation.
Faculty concerns: In academia, faculty members wield significant influence in approval processes. Their hesitation often stems from legitimate concerns about academic integrity and the quality of education. However, this anxiety about reopening settled decisions can be addressed through proper training and demonstration of how AI can enhance, rather than diminish, academic rigor.
The Bottom Line
In higher education, we don’t just need AI—we need AI that understands our individual institutional contexts, speaks our unique language and supports our specific student success goals. This level of customization only comes through intentional, institution-specific training.
Our mission isn’t just to adopt AI; it’s to shape it into a tool that authentically represents and serves our individual institutions and students. The time and resources invested in proper AI training today will pay dividends in more effective, personalized student support tomorrow.
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A change of government has not changed the government’s power to intrude upon the autonomy of providers of higher education, which is constrained chiefly by its being limited to the financial. Government can also issue guidance to the regulator, the Office for Students, and that guidance may be detailed. Recent exchanges give a flavour of the kind of control which politicians may seek, but this may be at odds with the current statutory framework.
As Secretary of State for Education, Gillian Keegan sent a Letter of Guidance to the Office for Students on 4 April 2024. She stated her priorities, first that ‘students pursue HE studies that enable them to progress into employment, thereby benefitting them as well as the wider economy’. She also thought it ‘important to provide students with different high-quality pathways in HE, notably through higher technical qualifications (HTQs), and degree apprenticeships’ at Levels 4 and 5. These ‘alternatives to three-year degrees’, she said, ‘provide valuable opportunities to progress up the ladder of opportunity’. As a condition of funding providers were to ‘build capacity’ with ‘eligible learners on Level 4 and 5 qualifications via a formula allocation’. The new Higher Technical Qualifications were to attract ‘an uplift within this formula for learners on HTQ courses’. ‘World leading specialist providers’ were to be encouraged and funded ‘up to a limit’ of £58.1m for FY24/25.
The change of Government in July 2024 brought a new Secretary of State in the person of Bridget Phillipson but no fresh Letter of Guidance before she spoke in the Commons in a Higher Education debate on 4 November, 2024. Recognising that many universities were in dire financial straits, she suggested that there should be ‘reform’ in exchange for a rise in tuition fees for undergraduates which had just been announced. That, she suggested, would be needed to ensure that universities would be ‘there for them to attend’ in future.
However, commentators quickly pointed out that Phillipson’s announcement that there would be a small rise in undergraduate tuition fees from £9,250 to £9,535 a year would not be anywhere near enough to fill the gap in higher education funding. The resulting risks were recognised. When the Office for Students reviewed the Financial sustainability of higher education providers in Englandin 2024 in May 2024 it had looked at the ‘risks relating to student recruitment’ by providers in relation to the income from their tuition fees.
Phillipson was ‘determined to reform the sector’. She called for ‘tough decisions to restore stability to higher education, to fix the foundations and to deliver change’ with a key role for Government. Ministers across Government must work together, she said, especially the Secretary for Education and the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology in order to ‘deliver a reformed and strengthened higher education system’. This would be ‘rooted in partnership’ between the DfE, the Office for Students and UK Research and Innovation’.
“… greater work around economic growth, around spin-offs and much more besides—I will be working with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology on precisely those questions.”
In the debate it was commented that she was ‘light on the details’ of the Government’s role’. She promised those for the future, ‘To build a higher education system fit for the challenges not just of today but of tomorrow’. She undertook to publish proposals for ‘major reform’. There were some hints at what those might include. She saw benefits in providers ‘sharing support services with other universities and colleges’. Governing bodies, she said, should be asking ‘difficult strategic questions’, given the population ‘changing patterns of learning’ of their prospective students. The ‘optimistic bias’ she believed, needed to be ‘replaced by hard-headed realism’. ‘Some institutions that may need to shrink or partner, but is a price worth paying as part of a properly funded, coherent tertiary education system.’ She saw a considerable role for Government. ‘The government has started that job – it should now finish it.’
Like her predecessor she wanted ‘courses’ to provide individual students as well as the nation with ‘an economic return’. She expected providers to ‘ensure that all students get good value for money’. Other MPs speaking in the debate pressed the same link. Vikki Slade too defined economic benefit in terms of the ‘value for money’ the individual student got for the fee paid.Laura Trott was another who wanted ‘courses’ to provide individual students as well as the nation with ‘an economic return’. Shaun Davies asked for ‘a bit more detail’ on ‘the accountability’ to which ‘these university vice-chancellors’ were to be held in delivering ‘teaching contact time, helping vulnerable students and ensuring that universities play a huge part in the wider communities of the towns and cities in which they are anchor institutions’.
Government enforcement sits uncomfortably with the autonomy of higher education providers insisted on by the 2017 Higher Education and Research Act. This Act created the Office for Students as ‘a non-departmental public body’, ‘accountable to Parliament’ and receiving ‘guidance on strategic priorities from the Department for Education’. Its ‘operations are independent of government’, but its ‘guidance’ to providers as Regulator is also heavily restricted at s.2 (5) which prevents intrusion on teaching and research. That guidance may not relate to ‘particular parts of courses of study’; ‘the content of such courses’; ’the manner in which they are taught, supervised or assessed’; ‘the criteria for the selection, appointment or dismissal of academic staff, or how they are applied’; or ‘the criteria for the admission of students, or how they are applied’.
This leaves the Office for Students responsible only for monitoring the financial sustainability of higher education providers ‘to identify those that may be exposed to material financial risks’. Again its powers of enforcement are limited. If it finds such a case it ‘works with’ the provider in a manner respecting its autonomy, namely ‘to understand and assess the extent of the issues’ and seek to help.
Listed in providers’ annual Financial Statements may be a number of sources of funding to which universities may look. These chiefly aim to fund research rather than teaching and include: grants and contracts for research projects; investment income; donations and endowments. The Government has a funding relationship with Research England within UKRI (UK Research and Innovation). UKRI is another Government-funded non-departmental public body, though it is subject to some Government policy shifts in the scale of the funding it provides through the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
Donations and endowments may come with conditions attached by the funder, limiting them for example to named scholarships or professorships or specific new buildings. However they may provide a considerable degree of financial security which is not under Government control. The endowments of Oxford and Cambridge Universities are substantial. Those made separately for their Colleges. may be very large, partly as a result of the growth in value of land given to them centuries ago. Oxford University has endowments of £1.3 billion and its colleges taken together have endowments of £5.06 billion. Cambridge University has a published endowment of £2.47 billion, though Cambridge’s Statement for the Knowledge Exchange Framework puts ‘the university’s endowment ‘at nearly £6 billion’. Cambridge’s richest College, Trinity, declares endowments of £2.19 billion.
The big city universities created at the end of the nineteenth century are far less well-endowed. Birmingham had an endowment of £142.5 million in 2023, Bristol of £86 million. Of the twentieth and twenty-first century foundations, Oxford Brookes University notes donations and endowments of £385,000 and Anglia Ruskin University of £335,300. The private ‘alternative’ providers of higher multiplying in recent decades have tended to have a variety of business and commercial partnerships supporting their funding. Categories of funding provided by such gifting remain independent of Government interference.
The Review of Post-18 Education and Funding(May 2019) chaired by Philip Augur stated ‘Principles’ including that ‘organisations providing education and training must be accountable for the public subsidy they receive’, and that ‘Government has a responsibility to ensure that its investment in tertiary education is appropriately spent and directed’. ‘Universities must do more to raise their impact beyond their gates’, Phillipson said, so as ‘to drive the growth that this country sorely needs’ including by ‘joining with Skills England, employers and partners in further education to deliver the skills that people and businesses need’.
In the same Commons debate of 4 November Ian Roome, MP for North Devon, was confident that in his constituency ‘universities work in collaboration with FE sector institutions such as Petroc college’. Petroc College offers qualifications from Level 3 upwards, including HNCs, higher-level apprenticeships, Access to HE diplomas, foundation degrees and honours degrees (validated by the University of Plymouth) and ‘in subjects that meet the demands of industry – both locally and nationally’. Roome saw this (HC 4 November 2024) as meeting a need for ‘a viable and accessible option, particularly in rural areas such as mine, for people to access university courses?’ Phillipson took up his point, to urge such ‘collaboration between further education and higher education providers’. Shaun Davies spoke of the £300 million the Government had put into further education, ‘alongside a £300 million capital allocation’, invested in further education colleges’.
However in an article in the Guardianon 4 November 2024,Philip Augur recognised that ‘the systems used by government to finance higher and further education are very different’. ‘Universities are funded largely through fees which follow enrolments’, in the form of student loans of £9,250, now raised to £9,535. ‘Unpaid loans are written off against the Department for Education’s balance sheet’. At first that would not be visible in the full government accounts until 30 years after the loan was taken out. Government steering had become more visible following the Augur Report, with the cost of student loans being recorded ‘in the period loans are issued to students’, rather than after 30 years.
By contrast the funding of individual FE colleges is based on annual contracts from the Education and Skills Funding Agency, an executive agency of the DFE for post-18 education. They may then spend only within the terms of the contract and up to its limit. The full cost of such contracts is recorded immediately in the public accounts. This makes a flexible response to demand by FE colleges far from easy. Colleges may find they cannot afford to run even popular courses such as construction, engineering, digital, health and social care, without waiting lists for places. The HE reform Phillipson considered in return for a rise in tuition fees had no immediate place in FE.
Government funding control maintains a pragmatic but very limited means of means of giving orders to universities. This depends on regulating access to taxpayer-funded student loans. The Office for Students measures a provider’s teaching in terms of its ‘positive outcomes’. These are set out in the OfS ‘Conditions’ for its Registration, which are required to make a provider’s students eligible for loans from the Student Loans Company. Condition B3 requires that a provider’s ‘outcomes’ meet ‘numerical thresholds’ measured against ‘indicators’: whether students continue in a course after their first year of study; complete their studies and progress into managerial or professional employment.
The government’s power to intrude upon the autonomy of providers of higher education continues to be constrained, but chiefly by its being limited to the financial, with many providers potentially at risk from their dependence on government permitting a level of tuition fee high enough to sustain them.
GR Evans is Emeritus Professor of Medieval Theology and Intellectual History in the University of Cambridge.
