Tag: Education

Colleges Need to Tell Their Stories, Then Live Up to Them

According to Gallup, after reaching an all-time low in the past two years, American confidence in higher education has risen to where those expressing “quite a lot” or “a great deal” of confidence is now 42 percent (up from 36 percent), while those with little or no confidence has decreased from 32 percent to 23 percent.

A poll out of New America shows that Democrats and Republicans align with about 42 percent of respondents from both parties saying that higher education is “fine as it is.”

Higher education appears to be experiencing the “thermostatic model” of public opinion, where opinion moves in opposition to government action. The Trump administration attacks on higher ed have triggered some measure of backlash among public opinion, creating a certain rallying effect around the sector. Republicans saying that higher ed is “fine as it is” is essentially a declaration that they’d like to see institutions left alone.

Considering the scope and severity of the attacks, this is not particularly good news, but it is interesting news, and it is news that higher ed institutions should note and make use of moving forward. One of the realities I think everyone in higher ed must embrace is that the future is going to be different from the past and attempts to return to the past are unlikely to be successful, particularly since the return will be predicated on a rose-colored-glasses view of that past, rather than recognizing the real tensions prior to the present assault.

I am a believer in the thinking of Brendan Cantwell, a Michigan State professor who works on issues of institutional structure and operations and who believes in an “impoverished” future. As Cantwell says, “I do not believe Trump will be able to destroy American higher education, but his administration will try, and the sector will suffer.”

The aftermath of the suffering and how public opinion may ameliorate that suffering is what we’re talking about here.

During my post–grad school career as a market research consultant, I learned about something called SWOT analysis, where you draw a plus sign to make four quadrants, headlining the individual boxes with “strengths,” “weaknesses,” “opportunities” and “threats” and then listing the things you can think of that fit under the different categories in the individual boxes.

I will admit, I rolled my eyes the first time I witnessed this exercise, and continued to roll my eyes many times after that, because it often felt like a SWOT analysis was just something to do because you have to do something, rather than a truly useful tool.

For example, when “no one likes our product because it doesn’t work like we claim” is in the weakness category, whatever you might find in the opportunity box isn’t relevant.

That said, when there is something solid and meaningful at the core, threats often do come bundled with opportunities. My messaging around teaching writing and large language models has been to acknowledge the threat, but also to suggest that the existence of these text extruders can be viewed as an opportunity to move toward work that is meaningful to humans.

If we are in the midst of a rise in positive feeling toward higher education, the opportunity to shape public opinion around the attacks and to bolster the defenses must be seized.

Deeper in the data from New America, we see specific alignment around what institutions should be doing. As reported by Kathryn Palmer here at IHE, interpreting the results, “the vast majority of Americans, including both Republicans and Democrats, believe higher education should function as more than a transaction. They say it should not only equip students with the skills and knowledge to succeed in their chosen fields (97 percent of Democrats; 98 percent of Republicans), but also help students become informed citizens (97 percent of Democrats; 89 percent of Republicans) and critical thinkers (97 percent of Democrats; 92 percent of Republicans).”

People also want colleges and universities to do what colleges and universities do. They believe in education and opportunity and research and helping people reach their potential. Those of us who work within or are close observers of higher education understand that while these institutions are significantly flawed and could do better at this work, they also, often and for millions of people … work.

It’s important to recognize that this increased confidence has nothing to do with actions universities have taken thus far. If thermostatic politics are at work—and I think the evidence is significant—it is the outside attacks that have fueled it. It seems as though figures like Chris Rufo are overplaying their hand, as he did again recently in a statement published at the Manhattan Institute in which he declares, “Now, the truth is undeniable. Beginning with the George Floyd riots and culminating in the celebration of the Hamas terror campaign, the institutions of higher education finally ripped off the mask and revealed their animating spirit: racialism, ideology, chaos.”

The recent public opinion polling cited above suggests that a core plurality or majority of the public does not believe this. This is an opportunity.

The unfortunate wrinkle in seizing this opportunity is that what bipartisan supermajorities want from higher ed institutions (skills and knowledge to succeed, informed citizens, critical thinkers) is open to many different interpretations when it comes to actual institutional operations.

Indiana University has recently pivoted to becoming a place where the humanities are almost absent. Those currently in power at the University of Virginia are apparently trying to revivify the past, when it was primarily a finishing school for landed gentry. Florida has put their money down on being “anti-woke.”

Some schools will insist that the future is AI. Others will go the opposite way. As vague as those public desires are, and as unhelpful as they are in determining the specific path an institution must take, they are an excellent guide for how to frame the work of your institution, whatever it might be doing.

It is also a way to push back against things like the gutting of the student loan program, an initiative that will make it hard to impossible to do these things everyone wants colleges to do.

The assault on universities, first prosecuted by people like Rufo and partially fueled—whether intentional or not—by groups like Heterodox Academy before being put to work by Trump, was a narrative not really based in reality but sufficiently plausible to enough people to make things happen.

Resistance starts with a counternarrative. We have enough data to get going.

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July 18, 2025
An Ultrarunner’s View on Higher Ed Leadership (opinion)

Last weekend, I completed my third 12-hour ultramarathon, finally achieving my goal of logging 50 miles (51.3 miles, to be exact!). For the past two years, I’ve finished the same course with exactly 47.5 miles each time. This year’s personal best felt both within reach and incredibly distant during my training. Reaching it required not just physical preparation, but strategic thinking and flexibility.

Leading up to the race, as I fine-tuned my training plan, adjusted my fueling strategy and mapped out rest intervals, I was struck by how much this preparation mirrors the leadership challenges in higher education today. Just as I could not control the weather on race day or predict which mile would test my resolve, today’s college and university leaders cannot anticipate every funding cut, technological disruption or student crisis that will demand our immediate attention and creative response.

The parallels run deep. Both ultrarunning and higher education leadership require what I’ve come to recognize as “adaptive preparation”—the ability to plan meticulously while remaining nimble enough to pivot when circumstances change.

Scenario Planning on the Trail and in the Boardroom

During my ultramarathon training, I spend considerable time visualizing different race-day scenarios. What if temperatures soar beyond those forecasted? What if my nutrition strategy fails at mile 30? What if an injury forces me to completely restructure my pacing? These aren’t pessimistic exercises—they’re strategic preparations that allow me to respond rather than react when challenges arise.

Higher education leaders must engage in similar scenario planning, particularly as we navigate an increasingly volatile landscape. Will federal funding for essential student support programs face cuts? How will evolving AI capabilities reshape our academic programs, student support services and the ways we engage with donors?

Just as I map out multiple fueling stations and gear adjustments, we must develop multiple contingency plans for our institutions. The leader who only prepares for the best-case scenario—whether on a 50-mile trail or in a strategic planning meeting—will find themselves unprepared when reality delivers its inevitable surprises.

The Creativity of Endurance

People often assume ultrarunning is about grinding through pain with sheer determination. While mental toughness matters, the most successful ultrarunners are creative problem-solvers. When your planned nutrition strategy isn’t working at mile 25, you don’t quit—you improvise. When equipment fails, you find workarounds.

This creative problem-solving has become essential for higher education leaders. Traditional approaches to student retention and institutional sustainability aren’t sufficient in our current environment. We need leaders who can think like ultrarunners: methodical in preparation, creative in execution and resilient in the face of setbacks.

Consider how institutions have had to reinvent student support services in response to changing needs. At Holyoke Community College, our foundation exemplifies this adaptive creativity. Rather than limiting support to traditional scholarships, the HCC Foundation distributed more than $5.5 million this past year across an innovative spectrum of student and institutional needs: a six-week faculty training program on trauma-informed practices, a menstrual equity initiative ensuring feminine products are available in high-traffic restrooms, funding for student travel to leadership development conferences and essential equipment for theater, science labs and our radio station. Like that runner who creatively problem-solves when their original strategy isn’t working, our foundation recognized that supporting today’s students requires addressing the full ecosystem of their educational experience, not just the financial barriers.

The Collaborative Nature of Solitary Pursuits

Ultrarunning appears to be the ultimate individual challenge, but successful runners know better. Every long training run depends on a network of support: the running group that motivates you through dark winter mornings, the crew that will meet you at aid stations, the community that shares advice and encouragement. Even in the loneliest miles of a race, you’re drawing on collective wisdom and support.

Higher education leadership, despite its often-isolating responsibilities, must embrace this same collaborative spirit. The challenges facing our institutions—from enrollment pressures to mental health crises to technological disruption—are too complex for any single leader to solve alone. We need cross-functional teams that can respond as dynamically as an ultrarunner adjusting strategy midrace.

The most effective higher education leaders I know have built networks that extend far beyond their campus boundaries. They’re learning from peers at other institutions, collaborating with community partners and drawing insights from sectors beyond academia. Like ultrarunners who study the strategies of athletes in other endurance sports, these leaders understand that innovation often comes from unexpected sources.

Training for the Unknown

As I prepared for my 50-mile goal, I knew that no amount of training can eliminate uncertainty. Weather patterns can shift, my body might respond differently than expected and race-day dynamics will present challenges I hadn’t anticipated. The certainty of uncertainty is precisely why my training needed to be comprehensive and adaptable.

The same principle applies to higher education leadership. We cannot predict every challenge our institutions will face, but we can develop the skills and mindsets necessary to respond effectively. This means building diverse teams, fostering cultures of innovation and maintaining the kind of institutional fitness that allows for quick pivots when circumstances demand them.

The leaders who will guide higher education through its current transformation are those who understand that preparation and flexibility aren’t opposing forces—they’re complementary strengths. Like ultrarunners who train obsessively while remaining ready to throw out their race plan if conditions change, effective leaders combine rigorous planning with adaptive execution.

The question, on race day or in our day-to-day work, isn’t whether we’ll face unexpected obstacles. The question is whether we’ve developed the endurance, creativity and collaborative spirit necessary to navigate them successfully. In both arenas, the longest distances are covered not by those who avoid challenges, but by those who have learned to run through them.

Amanda E. Sbriscia, Ed.D., is vice president for institutional advancement and executive director of the HCC Foundation at Holyoke Community College.

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July 18, 2025
Higher education postcard: Oh I do like to be beside the seaside!

Student life can mean lots of things, but for some universities it means the seaside! And I’m not talking here about universities in towns by the sea, I mean ones where the seaside is literally on their doorstep.

Now I’m not claiming that this is a comprehensive survey of UK seaside universities – I haven’t visited them all, and I’m almost certain to have missed some. But let’s visit three.

First of all, the University of the Highlands and Islands. Which, as the name suggests, includes some campuses on islands. And the Stornoway campus is in Lews castle, overlooking the sea. I wrote about UHI a couple of years ago – here’s a link – and it’s highly likely that some of the other campuses are right by the sea too. But I don’t have postcards, so I can’t really check.

Secondly, going widdershins, is Aberystwyth. The old college, which is in the card, is no longer the hub of the university, but it is still part of the university. And it is literally on the seafront. I’ve written about Aberystwyth a few times – here’s one on the university, here’s one about student representation, and here’s one about the university court.

And finally, here’s Swansea. The university’s old campus is right next to the coast – you can see the coast road, the now-gone railway and the edge of the beach at the bottom right of the card above. Swansea has a new campus too, further round the bay and still on the sea front. Here’s a blog I wrote about Swansea almost three years ago now.

So what other universities are right by the sea? Let me know in the comments below, and I’ll try and find postcards and add them to my list of future bogs.

Anyway, here’s a jigsaw of the three postcards, pinned, as it were, on the cork-board in your office. It’s a tougher one then normal!

Thank you for reading, and for all of the comments and feedback. I hope you have a great summer, and I’ll be back again with some more higher education postcards in September.

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July 17, 2025
AI and Art Collide in This Engineering Course That Puts Human Creativity First – The 74

I see many students viewing artificial intelligence as humanlike simply because it can write essays, do complex math or answer questions. AI can mimic human behavior but lacks meaningful engagement with the world.

This disconnect inspired my course “Art and Generative AI,” which was shaped by the ideas of 20th-century German philosopher Martin Heidegger. His work highlights how we are deeply connected and present in the world. We find meaning through action, care and relationships. Human creativity and mastery come from this intuitive connection with the world. Modern AI, by contrast, simulates intelligence by processing symbols and patterns without understanding or care.

In this course, we reject the illusion that machines fully master everything and put student expression first. In doing so, we value uncertainty, mistakes and imperfection as essential to the creative process.

This vision expands beyond the classroom. In the 2025-26 academic year, the course will include a new community-based learning collaboration with Atlanta’s art communities. Local artists will co-teach with me to integrate artistic practice and AI.

The course builds on my 2018 class, Art and Geometry, which I co-taught with local artists. The course explored Picasso’s cubism, which depicted reality as fractured from multiple perspectives; it also looked at Einstein’s relativity, the idea that time and space are not absolute and distinct but part of the same fabric.

What does the course explore?

We begin with exploring the first mathematical model of a neuron, the perceptron. Then, we study the Hopfield network, which mimics how our brain can remember a song from just listening to a few notes by filling in the rest. Next, we look at Hinton’s Boltzmann Machine, a generative model that can also imagine and create new, similar songs. Finally, we study today’s deep neural networks and transformers, AI models that mimic how the brain learns to recognize images, speech or text. Transformers are especially well suited for understanding sentences and conversations, and they power technologies such as ChatGPT.

In addition to AI, we integrate artistic practice into the coursework. This approach broadens students’ perspectives on science and engineering through the lens of an artist. The first offering of the course in spring 2025 was co-taught with Mark Leibert, an artist and professor of the practice at Georgia Tech. His expertise is in art, AI and digital technologies. He taught students fundamentals of various artistic media, including charcoal drawing and oil painting. Students used these principles to create art using AI ethically and creatively. They critically examined the source of training data and ensured that their work respects authorship and originality.

Students also learn to record brain activity using electroencephalography – EEG – headsets. Through AI models, they then learn to transform neural signals into music, images and storytelling. This work inspired performances where dancers improvised in response to AI-generated music.

The Improv AI performance at Georgia Institute of Technology on April 15, 2025. Dancers improvised to music generated by AI from brain waves and sonified black hole data.

Why is this course relevant now?

AI entered our lives so rapidly that many people don’t fully grasp how it works, why it works, when it fails or what its mission is.

In creating this course, the aim is to empower students by filling that gap. Whether they are new to AI or not, the goal is to make its inner algorithms clear, approachable and honest. We focus on what these tools actually do and how they can go wrong.

We place students and their creativity first. We reject the illusion of a perfect machine, but we provoke the AI algorithm to confuse and hallucinate, when it generates inaccurate or nonsensical responses. To do so, we deliberately use a small dataset, reduce the model size or limit training. It’s in these flawed states of AI that students step in as conscious co-creators. The students are the missing algorithm that takes back control of the creative process. Their creations do not obey AI but reimagine it by the human hand. The artwork is rescued from automation.

What’s a critical lesson from the course?

Students learn to recognize AI’s limitations and harness its failures to reclaim creative authorship. The artwork isn’t generated by AI, but it’s reimagined by students.

Students learn chatbot queries have an environmental cost because large AI models use a lot of power. They avoid unnecessary iterations when designing prompts or using AI. This helps reducing carbon emissions.

The Improv AI performance on April 15, 2025, featured dancer Bekah Crosby responding to AI-generated music from brain waves.

The course prepares students to think like artists. Through abstraction and imagination they gain the confidence to tackle the engineering challenges of the 21st century. These include protecting the environment, building resilient cities and improving health.

Students also realize that while AI has vast engineering and scientific applications, ethical implementation is crucial. Understanding the type and quality of training data that AI uses is essential. Without it, AI systems risk producing biased or flawed predictions.

Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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July 17, 2025
Deborah F. Rutter | Diverse: Issues In Higher Education

Deborah F. RutterDeborah F. Rutter, the former president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., has been appointed vice provost for the arts at Duke University.

From 2014 to 2025, Rutter was the first woman to serve as president of the Kennedy Center, the nation’s cultural center and living memorial to President Kennedy. Under Rutter’s leadership, the center experienced a period of transformative programmatic growth; opened the REACH, a physical expansion of the campus; and strengthened its financial position through increases in its endowment and working capital reserves.

Rutter is a graduate of Stanford University, where she majored in music and German, and earned an MBA from the University of Southern California. Trained in piano and violin, she previously served as president of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association and executive director of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. She also held executive leadership roles with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Rutter received an honorary Doctor of Arts degree from Duke in 2023.

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July 17, 2025
The Enshitification of Higher Education in the United States

Cory Doctorow’s theory of enshitification—originally coined to describe how digital platforms decay over time—perfectly captures the grim evolution of U.S. higher education. Institutions that once positioned themselves as public goods now exist primarily to sustain themselves, extracting revenue, prestige, and labor at the expense of students, faculty, and the broader public.

In the post–World War II era, higher education in the United States was broadly seen as a driver of social mobility, economic growth, and democratic citizenship. The GI Bill and substantial state funding opened college doors to millions. Tuition at public institutions was minimal or nonexistent. Academic freedom, faculty governance, and research for the common good were foundational ideals.

By the 1980s, neoliberal policies began to reshape the higher education landscape. Public disinvestment led institutions to rely more heavily on tuition, philanthropy, corporate partnerships, and student debt. Universities became more bureaucratic and brand-conscious. Students were reframed as consumers, and education as a commodity. Faculty positions gave way to underpaid adjunct labor, and Online Program Managers like 2U, Academic Partnerships (aka Risepoint) and Kaplan emerged to monetize digital learning. Marketing budgets ballooned. Classrooms and research labs became secondary to enrollment targets and revenue generation.

A 2019 Higher Education Inquirer report revealed how elite universities joined the downward spiral. Institutions like Harvard, Yale, and USC outsourced online graduate programs to 2U, employing aggressive recruitment tactics that resembled those of discredited for-profit colleges. Applicants were encouraged to take on excessive debt for degrees with uncertain returns. Whistleblowers likened it to fraud-by-phone—evidence that even the most prestigious universities were embracing an extractive model.

Doctoral education offers a deeper glimpse into how enshitification has hollowed out academia. Sold as a noble pursuit of truth and a path to secure academic employment, the Ph.D. has become, for many, a journey into economic instability, psychological distress, and underemployment. Only a small percentage of doctoral students land tenure-track jobs. Graduate schools continue to admit far more students than they can responsibly support, while providing little preparation for careers outside academia. Mentorship is often lacking, and financial support is frequently inadequate. Many graduate students rely on food pantries, defer medical care, or take on gig work just to survive. Meanwhile, universities benefit from their labor in teaching and research.

International graduate students face even steeper challenges. Promised opportunity, they instead encounter a saturated job market, low wages, and immigration precarity. Their labor props up U.S. research and rankings, but their long-term prospects are often bleak.

The rise of career-transition consultants—like Cheeky Scientist and The Professor Is In—has become a booming cottage industry, a byproduct of the failed academic job pipeline. For most Ph.D.s, what was once considered “alternative academia” is now the only path forward.

Financial hardship compounds the crisis. Graduate stipends in many programs are far below local living wages, especially in high-cost cities like San Francisco, Boston, or New York. Few programs provide retirement benefits or financial literacy resources. The financial toll of earning a doctorate is often hidden until students are years deep into their programs—and years behind in wealth accumulation.

Meanwhile, university medical centers—often affiliated with elite institutions—offer a parallel example of institutional enshitification. These hospitals have long histories of exploitation, particularly of poor and minority patients. Even today, these facilities prioritize affluent patients and donors, while relying on precariously employed staff and treating marginalized communities as research subjects. The disparities are systematic and ongoing. The rhetoric of innovation and healing masks a legacy of racial injustice and extractive labor practices.

Legacy admissions further entrench inequality. While race-conscious admissions have been rolled back, legacy preferences remain largely untouched. They serve to maintain elite networks, ensuring that wealth and access remain intergenerational. These policies not only contradict the rhetoric of meritocracy but also deepen structural inequities in the name of tradition.

Today, higher education serves itself. Institutions protect billion-dollar endowments, award executive salaries in the millions, expand sports programs and real estate portfolios, and depend on underpaid faculty and indebted students. Campuses are rife with inequality, surveillance of student protest, and performative gestures of inclusion, even as DEI initiatives are gutted by state governments or internal austerity.

The consequences are clear. Enrollment is declining. Campuses are closing. Faculty are being laid off. Public trust is eroding. And even elite institutions are feeling the strain. Doctorow’s theory suggests that once a system has fully enshittified, collapse becomes inevitable. The College Meltdown is not hypothetical—it’s here.

And yet, collapse can be a beginning. Higher education must be radically reimagined: public investment, tuition-free education, student debt relief, labor protections, honest admissions policies, and genuine democratic governance. The alternative is more of the same: a system that costs more, delivers less, and cannibalizes its future to feed its prestige economy.

Selected Sources

Caterine, Christopher L. Leaving Academia: A Practical Guide. Princeton University Press, 2020.

Cassuto, Leonard. The Graduate School Mess: What Caused It and How We Can Fix It. Harvard University Press, 2015.

Kelsky, Karen. The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your Ph.D. into a Job. Three Rivers Press, 2015.

Roberts, Emily. Personal Finance for Ph.D.s. https://www.pfforphds.com

Shaulis, Dahn. “2U Expands College Meltdown to Elite Universities.” Higher Education Inquirer, Oct. 4, 2019. https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2019/10/college-meltdown-expands-to-elite.html

Shaulis, Dahn. “The Dark Legacy of Elite University Medical Centers.” Higher Education Inquirer, Mar. 13, 2025. https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2025/03/the-dark-legacy-of-elite-university.html

Doctorow, Cory. “TikTok’s Enshittification.” Pluralistic.net, Jan. 21, 2023. https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/

American Association of University Professors. Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2023. https://www.aaup.org

National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Current Term Enrollment Estimates, 2024. https://nscresearchcenter.org

Newfield, Christopher. The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016.

Goldrick-Rab, Sara. Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream. University of Chicago Press, 2016.

Roth, Gary. The Educated Underclass: Students and the Promise of Social Mobility. Pluto Press, 2019.

Teen Vogue. “The Movement Against Legacy Admissions.” Jan. 2, 2025. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/movement-against-legacy-admissions

The Guardian. “‘Affirmative Action for the Privileged’: Why Democrats Are Fighting Legacy Admissions.” Aug. 11, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/aug/11/college-legacy-admissions-affirmative-action-democrats

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July 17, 2025
Ideological Agendas Undermine Effective Governance (opinion)

Higher education has reached its canary-in-a-coal-mine moment: The recent resignation of the University of Virginia president under intense political pressure isn’t just another leadership transition but an indicator of hazards ahead, with similar pressures mounting George Mason University. Higher education governing boards cannot ignore these urgent warning signs that signal peril for the governance structures that have supported our universities and colleges for centuries.

U.S. higher education is built on a unique model of governance in which independent citizen trustees exercise fiduciary oversight, set policy, safeguard institutional autonomy, support fulfillment of the mission and act in the best interests of the university or college as stewards of the public trust. This model of self-governance has preserved the academic freedom and driven the innovation that are hallmarks of U.S. higher education and that form the foundation of the profound societal impact and global prominence of the sector.

Today, this governance model faces significant disruption. At both public and private institutions, trustees are being encouraged by policy-driven think tanks to serve as ideological agents and interfere with management rather than act as true fiduciaries. This violation of institutional autonomy is destabilizing and harmful to governance, yielding fractured boards, diminished presidential authority, politicized decision-making, academic censorship and loss of public trust.

Boards must take this warning very seriously and take a hard look at whether their decisions reflect independent judgment aligned with the institution’s mission or, instead, the influence of external agendas. If governance fails, academic freedom is compromised, academic quality is weakened, public trust is eroded and the promise of U.S. higher education and its role in a democracy will disappear.

To guide boards in upholding institutional autonomy and mission stewardship, the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges recently launched the Govern NOW initiative with support from a Mellon Foundation grant. As part of this initiative, AGB developed a models of governance comparison and checklist for governance integrity. These tools help board members distinguish between effective governance and ideologically driven overreach and provide a framework to assess their practices and recommit to their fiduciary responsibilities.

This is especially critical due to growing misinformation about the role of trustees. Without a true understanding of their responsibilities, they might act independently of board consensus, undermine governance norms, overstep management boundaries and pursue ideological agendas. These actions not only weaken governance by harming board cohesion and culture but also threaten the institutional stability and mission that trustees are charged to uphold.

This moment is not about partisan politics. It is about leadership and whether we will allow institutional governance to be hijacked by ideological conflict. At stake is the integrity of the governance system that has been the foundation on which the strength and distinction of U.S. higher education has been built.

To every trustee, I implore you to look inward. Ask whether your board is governing with independence and as stewards of mission and public trust. Use the tools AGB developed to evaluate your culture and boundaries. Engage in real dialogue with your president. Lead together with courage and clarity to secure higher education’s promise.

Ross Mugler is board chair and acting president and CEO of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges.

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July 17, 2025
Closed Limestone University Owes Students Money

Limestone University, which shuttered abruptly in May after years of financial woes and a failed fundraising effort, owes nearly $400,000 to students affected by the closure, The State reported.

Tuition refunds reportedly promised by university officials have not yet been disbursed.

Altogether, Limestone owes $381,405 to 281 students, according to a report submitted to the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education by a consulting firm managing the university’s assets. A representative from that firm, Aurora Management Partners, declined to tell the newspaper when students may be reimbursed, noting that their agreement was confidential.

While students are due an average of more than $1,350 each, some are owed more.

Michael Thielen, a former graduate student affected by the closure, told the newspaper that Limestone owes him more than $4,000, but he hasn’t heard from officials in almost two months. He bemoaned the university’s lack of accountability and transparency.

“Everyone has washed their hands of this,” Thielen said.

The private Christian university was one of the more jarring closures of the year, given how quickly it folded amid clear warning signs of financial distress, as noted in its latest audit.

In April, Limestone officials punted on the closure decision, indicating they were in talks for a $6 million lifeline that would keep the university open. But that funding source never materialized, prompting a reversal from leadership and the abrupt closure of the 180-year-old institution.

Former employees also sued Limestone recently over how it handled mass layoffs.

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July 17, 2025
Morningside University to Absorb St. Luke’s College

Morningside University in Iowa is absorbing nearby St. Luke’s College, officials announced.

St. Luke’s, which is focused on nursing and other health-care professions, is part of Unity Point Health, a hospital system with locations in Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin. It will merge with Morningside in a deal that is expected to be finalized in late 2026, pending regulatory approvals.

The two institutions have previously collaborated on bachelor’s degrees in radiologic technology and respiratory therapy, according to the announcement. Now Morningside will expand its health-related degree offerings as part of the merger, adding associate degrees in the above fields, an associate of science in nursing and an accelerated bachelor of science in nursing.

Morningside, the larger of the two institutions, enrolled 2,056 students last fall. Nursing is one of the university’s most popular majors with 113 students in that field, according to its fact book.

“Our commitment to excellence in nursing education is stronger than ever as we prepare to greet the talented students of St. Luke’s College,” said Jackie Barber, dean of the Nylen School of Nursing and Health Sciences at Morningside, in a news release. “We are excited to expand our program and offer these students support to help their academic journeys.”

Morningside interim president Chad Benson called the merger “pivotal” for the nursing program.

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July 17, 2025
How Colleges and States Can Make Workforce Pell a Reality

Community colleges secured a massive legislative win earlier this month after more than a decade of advocacy. Workforce Pell, at long last, is en route to become a reality.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law July 4, extends Pell Grants to low-income students enrolled in eligible short-term programs, between eight and 15 weeks long. The policy shift is expected to put money in the pockets of hundreds of thousands of students per year to help them afford these quicker, increasingly popular programs—and bring an influx of funds to the institutions that offer them.

But realizing those gains will take some time, and with the policy scheduled to get off the ground next summer, some experts are worried a year won’t be long enough to parse the program’s details and ensure a smooth rollout.

Lawmakers in Congress and colleges have been working toward some form of workforce Pell since former senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana pushed it forward as a part of the JOBS Act in 2014.

Since then, multiple attempts to enact the Pell expansion have failed even as the idea gained more bipartisan support. And for a moment in late June, workforce Pell seemed dead in the water when a nonpartisan Senate official, known as the parliamentarian, claimed it violated the rules of the Senate’s reconciliation process. Senators ultimately kept it in their version of the bill but limited the new Pell funds to accredited providers, appeasing the parliamentarian.

“We’re very thankful to the persistence of our champions in Congress on this legislation from both parties in both chambers, for the commitment they made to this legislation,” said David Baime, senior vice president of government relations at the American Association of Community Colleges, noting that while the bill was partisan, support for this provision has been “bipartisan all down the line.”

Community college leaders are “extremely enthusiastic” about the policy change after the immense “political effort that’s gone into this,” he added. “We consistently hear reports from our campuses about the importance of finding financing sources for low-income students to participate in these programs.”

Others, however, feel trepidation, as workforce Pell is on the precipice.

Wesley Whistle, project director for student success and affordability at New America, a liberal think tank, said for-profit colleges and online program managers, which set up short-term online programs for community colleges and other institutions, have also been eagerly awaiting the policy shift. Despite safeguards built into the legislation, such as job-placement rates, he worries students will still be lured into subpar programs at for-profits or slapdash, mass-produced online programs also eligible for the funds.

“I hope I’m wrong,” he said. “We’re talking about our most vulnerable students.”

Despite the bill’s passage, debates over workforce Pell are hardly over. Now, the hard work of planning for implementation begins.

What Happens Next

Workforce Pell is slated to take effect next July. But for that to happen, numerous details need to be hashed out by the U.S. Department of Education, states and program providers in the coming months.

Under the legislation, short-term programs need to meet a set of standards to be eligible for Pell money. And the task of making sure programs meet the qualifications is divvied up between states and the federal government.

The Education Department is responsible for checking that programs have existed for at least a year, boast completion and job-placement rates of at least 70 percent, and charge tuitions below graduates’ median “value-added earnings,” or the degree to which their income exceeds 150 percent of the federal poverty line three years out of the program.

State governors must ensure short-term programs prepare students for high-skill, high-wage or in-demand jobs. The resulting credentials also must be “stackable and portable across more than one employer,” unless preparing students for jobs with just one recognized credential. Credentials need to count toward academic credit for a certificate or degree program, as well.

Still, many questions linger about how workforce Pell will operate—likely to be answered through negotiated rule making, a lengthy process by which the Education Department creates rules and regulations by convening and listening to key stakeholders and experts, as well as public comment.

“There isn’t a lot of meat on the bones of the outline of what implementation would look like,” said Katie Spiker, chief of federal affairs for the National Skills Coalition, a research and advocacy organization focused on workforce training. “A whole lot of decisions and next steps … that will ultimately decide how impactful and effectively short-term Pell rolls out are still left to be determined.”

For example, some states already have quality frameworks in place for short-term programs and have spent more than $5 billion subsidizing these programs; it’s unclear how federal workforce Pell will work alongside these existing state-level initiatives. The legislation also doesn’t say who’s involved in deciding how “high-skill, high-wage or in-demand” jobs are defined. Spiker hopes those decisions draw on input from business leaders, education providers and state workforce agencies to make “public workforce and education systems better aligned.”

Whistle agreed some of the guardrails need ironing out. He was heartened to see a tuition limit based on graduates’ salaries—a new addition since earlier versions of the policy—but he finds aspects of the requirement murky. For example, bachelor’s degree holders qualify for workforce Pell under the law, so he worries their higher salaries could throw off the metric, intended to ensure tuitions are reasonable relative to what graduates will earn. The measure is also based on graduates’ earnings three years down the line, raising questions about how to ensure programs younger than three years don’t rip students off, he said.

Colleges’ To-Do List

As the department works through the policymaking process, colleges will also have their own work to do to get workforce Pell ready.

Higher ed institutions that want to participate will need to collect the data to prove they meet eligibility metrics, said Jennifer Stiddard, senior director of government relations at Jobs for the Future, an organization focused on the intersection between education and the workforce. If they don’t have that data, they’ll need to build up the reporting infrastructure.

In addition to measuring completion and job-placement rates, “do they think they have the data to prove a program is in demand?” Stiddard said. “Are they going to be able to demonstrate that the program articulates for credit?”

She expects community college systems in some states will be more ready than others to answer those questions, based on their states’ existing investments in short-term programs. For example, Virginia community colleges already have outcomes data on hand because of the FastForward program, which offers short-term training for jobs locally in high demand, with the state covering much of the cost. Institutions in other states, like Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, North Carolina and Texas, may have a head start, as well, she said. And some colleges that are further behind could decide it’s not worth it.

Baime, of AACC, said the association plans “to work as closely as we can with the administration to ensure that institutions are able to make their programs eligible as soon as possible.”

Among community college leaders, “the overwhelming feeling, of course, is positive,” he added, “but there are issues of implementation that need to be ironed out sometime hopefully before next July 1 so we can get this program up and running.”

An ‘Aggressive’ Timeline

Some experts guffawed at the yearlong timeline set for implementing workforce Pell.

Karishma Merchant, associate vice president of policy and advocacy at Jobs for the Future, called the July 2026 deadline “aggressive” but “possible” if the department gets started immediately. (Workforce Pell is just one item on the department’s task list for the next year, and experts are skeptical that the agency can get all the work done.)

Even if the process could be done in a year, Spiker believes it shouldn’t be. She said a year doesn’t seem like an “effective and reasonable” amount of time to solicit feedback from different stakeholders and disentangle how the program aligns with the patchwork of existing state investments in short-term training.

“We will be encouraging the department and states to take the time to be able to do a successful implementation that enables short-term Pell to grow over time and to serve more students and more workers, instead of pushing just to meet a relatively arbitrary timeline,” Spiker said.

She emphasized that the process comes on the heels of drastic staff cuts at the Education Department and a larger plan to dismantle the agency, which so far includes shifting career and technical education and adult basic education programs to the Department of Labor.

These changes are “taxing already on the agency,” she said, “and then to be spearheading an implementation simultaneous with all of those huge shifts … just makes the path forward even more difficult.”

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July 17, 2025