Tag: Education

College Programs Support Holistic Student Basic Needs

About three in five college students experienced some level of basic needs insecurity during the 2024 calendar year, according to survey data from Trellis Strategies. Over half (58 percent) of respondents said they experienced one or more forms of basic needs insecurity in the past 12 months.

Student financial challenges can negatively impact academic achievement and students’ ability to remain enrolled. About 57 percent of students said they’ve had to choose between college expenses and basic needs, according to a 2024 report from Ellucian.

While a growing number of colleges and universities are expanding support for basic needs resource centers—driven in part by state legislation that requires more accommodations for students in peril—not every campus dedicates funds to the centers. A 2024 survey by Swipe Out Hunger found that of 300-plus campus pantries, two in five were funded primarily through donations. Only 5 percent of food pantries had a dedicated budget from their institution as a primary source of funding.

Inside Higher Ed compiled four examples of institutions that are considering new or innovative ways to address students’ financial wellbeing and basic needs on campus.

Penn State University—School Supplies for Student Success

Previous research shows that when students have their relevant course materials provided on day one, they are more likely to pass their classes and succeed. Penn State’s Chaiken Center for Student Success launched a School Supplies for Student Success program that offers learners access to free supplies, including notebooks, writing utensils and headphones, to help them stay on track academically.

Students are able to visit the student success center on the University Park campus every two weeks to acquire items, which are also available at two other locations on campus. Learners attending Penn State Altoona and Penn State Hazleton can visit their respective student success center for supplies, as well.

The program is funded by a Barnes & Noble College Grant program and is sustained through physical and monetary donations from the university community.

Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts—Essential Needs Center

The Essential Needs Center was developed from a Service Leadership Capstone course, which required students to complete a community-based service project. One group of students explored rates of basic needs insecurity and established a food pantry to remedy hunger on campus.

“The program started as a drawer at my desk,” said Spencer Moser, assistant dean for Student Growth and Wellbeing, who taught the course. “Then it grew to fill a shelving unit, a closet and eventually its own space on campus.”

The center, now a one-stop shop for basic needs support on campus, provides students with small appliances, storage containers, personal care items and seasonal clothing, as well as resources to address housing and transportation needs, including emergency funding grants. Students can also apply for a “basic needs bundle” to select specific items they may require.

Paid student employees maintain the center but it’s also left “unstaffed” at some hours to address the stigma of seeking help for basic supplies. Between November 2023 and January 2025, over 1,300 students engaged with the center.

University of New Hampshire—Financial Wellness

A lack of financial stability can also have a negative impact on student thriving and success. To support students’ learning and financial wellbeing, the University of New Hampshire created an online digital hub that provides links to a budget worksheet, financial wellness self-evaluation, college cost calculator and loan simulator.

Students can also schedule an appointment to talk with an educator to discuss financial wellness or engage in a financial wellness workshop.

Roxbury Community College—the Rox Box

Most colleges operate on an academic calendar, with available hours and resources falling when class is in session. Roxbury Community College in Massachusetts launched a new initiative in winter 2023 to ensure students who were off campus for winter break didn’t experience food insecurity.

Before the break, staff at the college’s food pantry, the Rox Box, handed out Stop & Shop gift cards and grab-and-go meals, as well as a list of local places students could visit for meals over break.

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

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May 12, 2025
Higher education can cut through the immigration debate with a focus on quality

The surge for Reform in the recent local elections in England has increased fears in the higher education sector that Labour may feel compelled to focus on driving down immigration at the expense of its other priorities and missions – James Coe has set out the risks of this approach on Wonkhe.

Vice chancellors are understandably frustrated with the public debate on immigration and do not relish the prospect of rehearsing the same political cycle in the wake of the forthcoming white paper on legal migration. All can reel off data point after data point demonstrating the value of international student recruitment to their regions and communities, which according to the most recent London Economics calculations for the academic year 2022–23 brought £41.9bn a year in economic returns to the UK. That data is well supported by polling that suggests the public is generally pretty unfussed about international students compared to other forms of legal migration. The latest insight from British Future on the public’s attitudes to international students found:

International students are seen to boost the UK economy, fill skills gaps, improve local economies and create job opportunities for locals and make cities and towns more vibrant and culturally diverse.

Heads of institution also add that of all the many and varied problems and complaints that arise from engagement with their local communities and regions, international students have never once featured. The problem, they say, is not policy, it is politics. And when politics tilts towards finding any means to drive down overall migration, higher education inevitably finds itself in the position of being collateral damage, despite the economic and reputational harm done – because it’s much easier to reduce student numbers than to tackle some of the more complex and intransigent issues with immigration.

Standing the heat

To give the government its due, the signal it wants to send on student visas is not currently about eroding the UK’s international competitiveness as a destination for study, and much more about reducing the use of that system for purposes for which it was never designed, particularly as a route to claiming asylum. Measures proposed are likely to include additional scrutiny of those entering from Nigeria, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, an approach that may sit uncomfortably as making broad assumptions about a whole cohort of applicants, but at least has the benefit of being risk-based. That nuance may be lost, however, in how the public conversation plays out both within the UK and in the countries where prospective international students and their governments and media pay close attention to the UK international policy landscape and associated mood music.

The political challenge is not limited to higher education. Recognising the derailing effect of constant short-term reactive announcements in immigration policy, a number of influential think tanks including the Institute for Government, the Institute for Public Policy Research, the Centre for Policy Studies, Onward, and British Future have called on the government to create an annual migration plan. The Institute for Government’s explanation of how it envisages an annual migration plan would work sets out benefits including clarity on overall objectives for the system with the ability to plan ahead, the segmentation of analysis and objectives by route, and the integration of wider government agendas such as those on skills, or foreign policy.

For the higher education sector, an annual planning approach could make a big difference, creating space for differentiated objectives, policy measures and monitoring of student and graduate visas – something that in many ways would be much more meaningful than removing student numbers from overall published net migration figures, or presenting them separately. It could open up a sensible discussion about what data represents a meaningful measure, what should be adopted as a target and what should be monitored. It could also open up space for a more productive conversation between higher education representatives and policymakers focused on making the most of the connections between international education, regional and national skills needs, and workforce planning.

In the weeks and months ahead the government is also expected to publish a refreshed international education strategy, which should give the sector a strong steer about what the government wants to see from international higher education. But it will be critical for that strategy to have a clear line of sight to other government priorities on both the economy and the wider immigration picture, to prevent it being siloed and becoming dispensable.

The fate of the last government’s international education strategy tells an instructive tale about what happens when government is not joined up in its agenda. Three years ago the sector and its champions in Westminster celebrated the achievement of a core objective of that strategy – attracting 600,000 students to the UK – eight years earlier than planned. But that rapid growth provided both unsustainable, as numbers dropped again in response to external shocks, and politically problematic, as students bringing dependents drove up overall numbers and the government responded with another shift in policy. The credibility and longevity of the refreshed strategy will depend on the government’s willingness to back it when the political heat is turned up in other parts of the immigration system.

Quality is our watchword

The higher education sector is justifiably proud of its international offer and keen to work with government on developing a shared plan to make the most of opportunities afforded by bringing students to the UK to study. The focus has to be on quality: attracting well-qualified and capable applicants; offering high-quality courses focused on developing career-relevant skills, particularly where there is strategic alignment with the government’s industrial strategy; and further enhancing the global employability of UK international graduates, whether it’s through securing a good job via the Graduate route, or elsewhere.

The value of international recruitment is not always very tangible to people living in communities in terms of valuable skills and cultural capital – and that breaks down to telling stories in ways that people can connect with. As one Labour Member of Parliament suggested to us, many parts of Britain are in the process of reimagining their collective identities, and part of the job is building a compelling identity connection with the new economy rather than harkening back to an imagined past. That is work that sits somewhat apart from simply explaining the value of international students, but may also turn out to be intimately connected to it.

Higher education institutions can work with employers, the regional and national policymakers concerned with skills, innovation and growth, and in local communities, to further that agenda, but they need the breathing space afforded by policy stability and a clear plan from government they can trust will be sustainable. To create that space, the sector will need to demonstrate that it has a high standard of practice and will not tolerate abuse of the system. “Abuse” is a loaded word; many of the practices that raise alarm are technically legal, but they put the system as a whole in jeopardy. The sector has a great track record on developing a shared standard of practice through instruments like the Agent Quality Framework, but it may also need to collectively think through whose job it is to call out those who fall short of those standards, to avoid the whole sector being tarred with the brush of irresponsible practice.

While the landscape is complicated and at times disheartening, UK higher education can cut through the noise by sticking like glue to its quality message. Many universities are bigger and longer standing than Premier League football clubs – but those bastions of community pride have also had to work through challenges with their places and update their practice as the landscape has shifted. There is an opportunity with the forthcoming white paper and international education strategy to get the government and the sector on the same side when it comes to international higher education. Both parties will need to show willing to hear where the other is coming from to avoid another five years of frustration.

This article is published in association with IDP Education. It draws on a private discussion held with policymakers and heads of institution on the theme of international higher education’s contribution to regional economic growth. The authors would like to thank all those who took part in that discussion.

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May 12, 2025
Different kinds of value, different kinds of higher education

If Lionel Robbins – author of the first major review of higher education in 1964 – could have glimpsed the future, he would no doubt have been pleased with much of what he saw.

Back then, only about five per cent of young people attended university. His ambition was to extend opportunities to all who could benefit from a degree – and much of what he envisioned has come to pass.

Yet after years of expansion, universities are in a funding crisis, students are struggling with costs, many question the benefit of a degree, and both international and domestic student demand is under threat.

This is why I now find myself frequently debating how best to measure the value of higher education – for fear we may lose what we have failed to adequately value.

In research

The value of university research is perhaps the least disputed aspect. The UK, home to just one per cent of the world’s population, produces six per cent of global research output and over 13 per cent of the most highly cited articles, according to Universities UK. Over 60 per cent of this research involves international collaboration, and a third of academics come from abroad.

Whether measured by citations, publications, Nobel Prizes, or the ability to attract international talent, UK research performs strongly and is undeniably valuable. At the Leverhulme Trust, we certainly appreciate this. We receive far more outstanding ideas than we can support, and the research produced is extraordinary.

However, university research is not a standalone activity. In many, though not all, institutions, research and teaching are intertwined – and not only in a financial sense. Research informs teaching, and teaching shapes research.

Connectedness

Without a strong flow of talented students, the future of UK research looks bleak. This is why, with our mission to support research, we invest a lot in doctoral students. Calculations of value (and indeed policy) need to take this connectedness into account – tricky with different government departments responsible for research and teaching, and a one-size-fits-all funding model with cross-subsidy of research built in.

The sector’s status as a major export industry is also undeniable, contributing around £27 billion to national exports. But HE’s contribution to the national accounts does not capture its broader social impact, and I suspect Robbins might have been most heartened by the strides made to widen access.

Putting a value on this is tricky, but opportunities for individuals from working-class backgrounds to attend university have improved dramatically. Despite setbacks in recent years, it is noteworthy that nearly 30 per cent of students eligible for free school meals now progress to higher education. Remarkably, around half do in London. More than 60 per cent of Black students go on to university. The fact that the system is far more open to all students is of great value and worthy of celebrating.

Perceptions

But what about the value for students in this expanded sector? Various metrics have been employed to assess the worth of a degree: student satisfaction surveys, employment rates, job quality and wages. Each of these measures is limited in different ways. However, with taxpayers’ money funding a significant portion of costs, even such imperfect measures of value are necessary and informative.

On average, graduates earn more than their non-graduate peers, but averages are not helpful in understanding the scepticism among some students about the value of their degree. In regions lacking investment, transport and thriving industries, there is insufficient demand for graduate skills. Therefore, many graduates who are unable to relocate do poorly in the labour market.

Earnings and employability, particularly measured early in a graduate’s career, do not, of course, capture the full value of a degree. This is perhaps most obvious for those in jobs with high social value, such as nurses, or those in low-paid but creative jobs.

Demands

Nonetheless, in repeated surveys, students and graduates report concern about their job prospects. Many are struggling to find graduate jobs.

At the same time, there continue to be skill shortages in some fields. Skills England has the difficult task of addressing national skills needs, including any mismatch between supply and demand, and this must include consideration of graduate skills. Helping students make informed choices and ensuring that all degrees, irrespective of discipline, equip them with a broad, adaptable skill set is crucial. But we need to acknowledge that even in tough labour markets, this will still not ensure great jobs for all.

It is in those left behind areas with weak labour markets that assessing the value of universities for their local communities and economies is more difficult but vital. Universities can catalyse local growth – the evidence on agglomeration effects is substantial. Some institutions contribute nationally; others drive local innovation and regeneration.

In deprived areas, universities serve as social anchors and must help retrain adults for emerging jobs. Some universities in struggling regions have played critical roles not only in equipping students with skills for the modern economy but also in providing a sense of community and purpose during periods of industrial decline and economic hardship.

Risks

In the short term, as the UK grapples with its economic challenges and the sector with the funding crisis, we need to be alert to the risks of a shrinking HE system. Loss of teaching capacity will lead to loss of research capacity, and vice versa. If we are to preserve the sector’s strength, we need to recognise the varied roles that institutions play across teaching, research, local development and social mobility.

Looking forward, universities will continue to make a crucial contribution to economic growth by developing the skills of the workforce, but only if accompanied by other types of investment.

Above all, with such a diverse sector, a one-size-fits-all approach cannot work. Policy needs to actively shape the system and enable different universities to focus on where they can add the most value.

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May 11, 2025
Turning Wounds into Wisdom | Diverse: Issues In Higher Education

Dr. Vicki Patterson DavidsonCongresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) delivered a moving speech at Tougaloo College’s commencement ceremony earlier this month. While listening to her speech, I remembered the three times someone called me the ‘N’ word – once as an elementary school student, once as a high school student, and once as a sophomore at Tougaloo College. Each time, the racial epithet was uttered by a white male.

My family was one of the first to integrate the North Pike School District in Pike County, Mississippi in the 1970s – fifteen years after Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. I knew it was ignorance that drove others to call me the ‘N’ word during the 1980s and 1990s.

My daughter experienced a similar remark while growing up in central Mississippi in the mid-2000s. A classmate told her during recess that he “did not play with Black girls.” Heartbroken, I shared two quotes and a song with her later that evening. “Nothing in the whole world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity,” by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and one by Oprah Winfrey, a native Mississippian, who told Wellesley College graduates in 1997 to “turn your wounds into wisdom.”

That evening we listened to “I’m Here” from the Broadway musical, The Color Purple – a song which resonates with so many Black girls and women across our nation. “I’m Here” would later be performed at the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors celebrating Winfrey. My daughter decided to dress like Winfrey during Black History Month that school year. My daughter had turned her wounds into wisdom.

Mirroring the courage and strength of Fannie Lou Hamer, a prominent activist who frequently visited Tougaloo College during the Civil Rights Movement, Congresswoman Crockett addressed the state of American civil rights and liberties under the Trump administration. Crockett’s commencement speech was not disturbing. Her speech, full of wisdom, rang with relevance as she stood near the historic steps of the Woodworth Chapel below the steeple bell. The cowardly threats and reactions which followed are what continue to ring with prejudice, hatred, and ignorance nearly fifty-four years after Hamer delivered her famous “Is It Too Late?” speech at Tougaloo in the summer of 1971.

Known for its educational excellence and activism in higher education, Tougaloo College is no stranger to controversy. A private, historically Black liberal arts college that has hosted and graduated prominent civil rights leaders and politicians for years, Tougaloo is the same institution that educates and prepares future physicians, scientists, lawyers, educators, and researchers who serve Mississippi and the global community.

Tougaloo College students, faculty, staff, alumni, friends, and community stand together in wisdom without fear. We are not invisible. We are not silent. We are here.

Dr. Vicki Patterson Davidson is an alumna and an Assistant Professor of Education and Chair of the Department of Education at Tougaloo College.

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May 11, 2025
House Republicans Propose Significant Endowment Tax Increase

Efforts to raise endowment taxes are in motion as the House Ways and Means Committee reportedly plans to unveil changes next week that will increase rates and include more colleges.

Education leaders have worried about such a rate increase for months. Now the GOP-led committee is expected to propose raising endowment excise taxes from 1.4 percent to up to 21 percent, depending on endowment value per student, Punchbowl News, Politico and other outlets reported.

The proposed endowment tax would only apply to private institutions, as it does currently.

Under the proposed formula, institutions with endowments of $750,000 to $1.25 million per student would reportedly be hit with 7 percent excise tax. That number would climb to a 14 percent tax for colleges with endowments valued at $1.25 to $2 million per student. Colleges at the highest level with endowments of $2 million or more per student would pay 21 percent. (Currently, colleges with endowments worth $500,000 per student or more pay the 1.4 percent tax.)

The specifics of the tax increase aren’t final and could shift before the committee’s hearing Tuesday.

Republicans are preparing to move forward with endowment tax increases as part of a broader effort known as reconciliation to cut billions in federal spending and pay for President Donald Trump’s priorities. Other House committees have unveiled their proposed cuts for reconciliation, including a sweeping plan to upend the student loan system, but the Ways and Means bill is crucial to this process.

GOP motivations for the tax increase appear to be twofold in that it would help fund tax cuts and serve as a punitive measure for colleges they believe have gone “woke.” In 2023, a total of 56 universities paid roughly $380 million in endowment excise taxes.

“Seven years ago, the Trump tax cuts sparked an economic boom and provided needed relief to working families,” committee chairman Rep. Jason Smith, a Missouri Republican, said in a Friday statement. “Pro-family, pro-worker tax provisions are the heart of President Trump’s economic agenda that puts working families ahead of Washington and will create jobs, grow wages and investment, and help usher in a new golden age of prosperity. Ways and Means Republicans have spent two years preparing for this moment, and we will deliver for the American people.”

The proposal comes amid the president’s full blown attack on higher education, which has seen the federal government clamp down on research funding, go after colleges for alleged antisemitism, take aim at diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, and attempt to deport international students.

Since the 1.4 percent endowment excise tax was passed in 2017 during the first Trump administration higher education leaders have long worried that the president would raise it in his second term.

As universities increased their lobbying efforts in the early days of Trump 2.0, the potential increase to the endowment tax has been a key concern. Recent lobbying reports show that Harvard University, which has the largest endowment, recently valued at more than $53 billion, Princeton University, Northwestern University, and multiple others, have pressed Congress on the issue. (Northwestern’s chief investment officer said last week that the potential increase would be “destructive.”)

Smaller institutions, some of which had never hired federal lobbyists before 2025, have also raised concerns about how expanding the endowment tax would harm their educational mission.

According to an analysis from James Murphy, director of career pathways and post-secondary policy at Education Reform Now, only three universities would pay the highest rate at 21 percent – Princeton, Yale University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Another 10 universities, including Harvard, would get hit with the 14 percent rate.

An analysis published last month by the investment firm Hirtle Callaghan noted that recently proposed changes to the endowment excise tax would “significantly broaden the universe of colleges and universities that pay the tax from large, wealthy institutions to smaller, regional ones.” That analysis warned that such increases “threaten to do irreparable damage to many schools which are significantly weaker financially than the schools paying the current tax.”

Multiple higher education associations have previously expressed opposition to the increase.

Last fall, American Council on Education president Ted Mitchell sent a letter to Congress, co-signed by 19 other associations, calling for the repeal of the existing endowment tax, arguing that “this tax undermines the teaching and research missions of the affected institutions without doing anything to lower the cost of college, enhance access, or address student indebtedness.”

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May 10, 2025
Higher Education Inquirer : Rutger Bregman

Higher Education Inquirer : Rutger Bregman – “Moral Ambition” (The Daily Show)

Rutger Bregman – “Moral Ambition” (The Daily Show)

Historian and best-selling author Rutger Bregman joins Jon Stewart to unpack his latest book, “Moral Ambition,” which is a call to action for people, especially those with education and privilege, to devote their talent and resources to careers and causes that make the world a better place. He describes how the political left has often made the mistake of placing moral purity above political relevance, and what they can learn from conservatives about building small movements into a larger, results-oriented coalition. Bregman also addresses the problem of what he calls our “inverse welfare society,” in which most high-paying, high-status jobs are inessential, and how his organization, The School for Moral Ambition, aims to reverse that structure by helping people quit their corporate jobs and transition into careers of positive impact.

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May 9, 2025
This week in 5 numbers: Trump eyes 15.3% cut for Education Department

The number of college presidents who testified before the House Committee on Education and Workforce this week about how they’ve handled alleged campus incidents of antisemitism. While Republicans have said they’re trying to combat antisemitism, some Democrats accused GOP lawmakers of using those concerns to quell constitutionally protected speech during the hearing with the leaders of Haverford College, DePaul University and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

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May 9, 2025
Choice, culture and commitment in learning, part two
As I explored in part 1, the implications of Michael Godsey’s article for higher education are profound, particularly in the way it highlights disparities in student motivation, engagement and academic culture between different types of institutions.

His observations about the buy-in effect at private K-12 schools—where students and their families actively choose and invest in the educational experience—find a parallel in higher education, where the most selective colleges tend to foster stronger academic engagement, often by self-selecting for motivation as much as talent.

Selective Colleges and the Culture of Academic Commitment

Just as Godsey observes that students at private schools like his daughter’s exhibit greater enthusiasm and self-discipline, students at elite colleges and universities often display a higher level of academic investment. This is not necessarily because they are inherently more talented but because they have been filtered through a selection process that prioritizes motivation, work ethic and demonstrated academic dedication.
- Students at these institutions expect rigorous coursework and embrace the challenge rather than resisting it.
- Faculty are less preoccupied with maintaining order and more focused on deep intellectual engagement because the students themselves uphold a culture of academic seriousness.
- The peer effect reinforces engagement—when all students around you are driven, it’s harder to disengage without standing out.
This dynamic is similar to tracking in K-12 schools, where students deemed more academically capable are placed in advanced or honors programs, shielding them from the distractions of less engaged peers. The difference is that in higher education, this sorting happens through admissions rather than within schools.

The Motivation Gap Across Different Types of Colleges

At broad-access institutions, such as regional public universities or community colleges, faculty often encounter a wide spectrum of student engagement—some highly dedicated, others struggling with external obligations and some with little intrinsic motivation for academic work. This presents a challenge similar to what Godsey describes in public high schools:
- Many students don’t see themselves as having bought in to the academic experience. They may be there out of necessity (to qualify for a better job or a chance to participate in athletics) rather than a deep commitment to intellectual growth.
- External distractions—jobs, family responsibilities, financial pressures—compete with academic priorities, making it harder to sustain focus and engagement.
- A culture of disengagement can take hold, just as in the public school classrooms Godsey describes, making it difficult for even motivated students to thrive.
Should Higher Education Track Students More Explicitly?

One implicit takeaway from Godsey’s argument is that students benefit when they are surrounded by peers who share their academic enthusiasm. This raises a controversial but important question for higher education: Should colleges do more to track students into different learning environments based on motivation and engagement, rather than simply ability?

In some ways, this already happens:
- Honors programs at public universities function as internal selective institutions, grouping together highly motivated students and giving them smaller, discussion-driven courses with top faculty.
- Gated entry into high-demand majors is widespread, often driven to enhance a particular college’s rankings.
- Specialized cohorts and living-learning communities create subgroups of engaged students who reinforce each other’s academic commitment.
- Highly structured programs (such as those in STEM and pre-professional tracks) implicitly filter for motivation by their demanding course sequences.
Yet, tracking within higher education is far less explicit than in K-12 schools. At many institutions, faculty find themselves teaching classes with highly diverse levels of motivation, which can lead to tensions:
- Should professors lower expectations to accommodate less prepared or less motivated students?
- Should they hold firm on rigor and risk alienating or failing a significant portion of their class?
- How can institutions better cultivate a culture of academic commitment, particularly in settings where students do not automatically arrive with strong buy-in?
Bridging the Motivation Gap in Higher Education

Rather than creating rigid tracking systems that could exacerbate educational inequalities, colleges need to find ways to embed buy-in within all types of institutions. Possible strategies include:
- Creating more cohort-based learning models: Small, high-impact learning communities, similar to honors programs but available to all students, can cultivate shared academic identity and accountability.
- Rethinking advising and orientation: Encouraging intentional major selection and career goal setting early on can help students see education as a personal investment rather than an obligation.
- Using pedagogical strategies that reinforce engagement: Active learning, project-based work and immersive real-world applications can encourage students to see their studies as meaningful.
- Reinforcing faculty-student relationships: At elite institutions, students benefit from close faculty mentorship; replicating this at other colleges through structured faculty-student interactions could increase motivation and accountability.
The Best Schools Don’t Just Teach—They Create a Culture of Learning

At first glance, the purpose of education seems straightforward: Schools exist to teach students knowledge and skills. But the most effective institutions do far more than simply deliver content. The best schools create an intellectual culture—a shared commitment to curiosity, critical thinking and lifelong learning.

This distinction is especially relevant in higher education, where student engagement, institutional culture and faculty mentorship shape not just what students learn, but how they learn and apply knowledge beyond the classroom.

The Difference Between Teaching and Cultivating a Learning Culture

This distinction is critical. If universities merely teach, students may approach their studies passively, checking off degree requirements with minimal engagement. But when institutions create a vibrant learning culture, students take ownership of their education. They become active participants in discussions, independent researchers and engaged citizens who seek knowledge not just for grades, but for its intrinsic value.

How a Learning Culture Manifests in Higher Education

A learning culture is shaped by many factors, including institutional values, faculty engagement, student expectations and extracurricular opportunities. The best colleges and universities foster this culture in several ways:
1. High-impact educational practices: Research has shown that certain experiences—such as undergraduate research, study abroad, service learning and collaborative projects—dramatically enhance student learning. Institutions that embed these practices into coursework ensure that students don’t just passively absorb information but engage with real-world applications of knowledge. For example:
  
  Portland State University incorporates service learning into its capstone courses, requiring students to work on community-based projects.
  
  CUNY’s Macaulay Honors College integrates research experiences into its curriculum, ensuring students engage in inquiry-driven learning from their first year.
2. Faculty as mentors, not just lecturers: At institutions with strong learning cultures, faculty members do more than deliver lectures—they mentor students, involve them in research and challenge them to think critically. Close faculty-student relationships create opportunities for intellectual exchange outside the classroom. Some universities institutionalize this by:
  
  Encouraging faculty-student lunches or informal discussion groups (e.g., the University of Michigan’s M-PACT mentoring program).
  
  Embedding research experiences in first-year courses (e.g., the University of Texas at Austin’s Freshman Research Initiative).
3. Intellectual curiosity beyond the classroom: The best colleges cultivate a campuswide intellectual atmosphere. This happens through:
  
  Public lectures, symposia and visiting scholar programs that expose students to ideas beyond their coursework.
  
  Student-driven initiatives like debate societies, interdisciplinary discussion groups and maker spaces.
  
  Engagement with the arts and humanities, ensuring that even students in technical fields experience creative and philosophical inquiry.
4. Challenging, not just accommodating, students. Many institutions focus heavily on student retention and satisfaction, sometimes at the cost of intellectual rigor. A true culture of learning, however, challenges students. The best universities set high academic expectations while providing the support needed to meet them. Examples include:
  
  Honors programs and cohort-based learning communities that create rigorous academic environments within broader universities.
  
  Writing-intensive courses across all disciplines, reinforcing analytical skills that extend beyond students’ majors.
  
  Project-based and interdisciplinary coursework that requires synthesis of ideas rather than rote memorization.
Implications for Colleges and Universities

If higher education institutions want to cultivate a true learning culture, it must move beyond simply delivering content and reimagine how it engages students. Some key implications include:
- Rethinking how we measure success: Universities often emphasize graduation rates, job placement and standardized learning outcomes. While these metrics are important, they do not necessarily reflect a thriving intellectual culture. Institutions should also assess engagement: Are students participating in meaningful discussions? Are they involved in research? Are they developing the habits of lifelong learners?
- Ensuring high-impact practices are accessible to all students: Many transformative experiences—such as study abroad and research opportunities—are disproportionately available to students at elite institutions. Public universities and community colleges must find ways to embed these experiences into the curriculum, making them accessible to part-time, commuter and first-generation students.
- Prioritizing faculty-student interaction: Universities must incentivize mentorship by valuing faculty engagement with students in promotion and tenure decisions. Large lecture-based institutions should integrate more small-group learning experiences to facilitate faculty-student connections.
- Encouraging intellectual risk-taking: A culture of learning is not about teaching students to parrot back information but about encouraging them to take intellectual risks. This means fostering open debate, embracing interdisciplinary inquiry and encouraging creative problem-solving.
- Creating a campus climate that values inquiry: Universities must ask themselves: Do students feel that intellectual curiosity is encouraged? Are there informal spaces for discussion and debate? Are students challenged to think critically about complex issues rather than being shielded from uncomfortable ideas?
The University as a Catalyst for Lifelong Learning

A true learning culture does not end at graduation. The best colleges and universities equip students with the intellectual tools to continue learning throughout their lives. This means fostering habits of critical inquiry, a passion for ideas and the ability to adapt to new knowledge.

The best schools, like the most impactful professors, don’t just teach; they inspire curiosity, cultivate resilience and shape the way students engage with the world. If higher education is to fulfill its democratic and intellectual promise, it must embrace this mission—not just to produce degree holders, but to create lifelong learners.

Steven Mintz is professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin and the author, most recently, of The Learning-Centered University: Making College a More Developmental, Experiential and Equitable Experience.
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May 9, 2025
Gates Foundation to Spend $200B Before Closing in 2045

Bill Gates is planning to close his philanthropic foundation in 2045, but not before he ramps up spending on health research and other humanitarian efforts.

STAT News reported Thursday that the Gates Foundation, which launched in 2000, will spend $200 billion over the next two decades—double the $100 billion it spent on global health, development, gender equity and other work during its first 25 years. The announcement comes amid President Trump’s directives to cut billions of dollars in federal research funding to universities, effectively shutter the United States Agency for International Development and withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization.

In an interview with The New York Times, Gates said some of those decisions stunned him and predicted that unless there’s a big reversal of the Trump administration’s policies, “we’ll probably go from 5 million to 6 million” child deaths a year instead of earlier projection that child deaths would decrease by one million.

“The world’s richest man has been involved in the deaths of the world’s poorest children,” he said, referring to the unelected billionaire bureaucrat Elon Musk, who runs the Department of Government of Efficiency, which ordered the decimation of USAID. “He put it in the wood chipper because he didn’t go to a party that weekend.”

Over the next 20 years, the Gates Foundation will focus its resources on achieving three goals: that “no mom, child or baby dies of a preventable cause”; that “the next generation grows up in a world without deadly infectious diseases”; and that “hundreds of millions of people break free from poverty, putting more countries on a path to prosperity.”

“There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people. That is why I have decided to give my money back to society much faster than I had originally planned,” Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, wrote in a blog post. “I will give away virtually all my wealth through the Gates Foundation over the next 20 years to the cause of saving and improving lives around the world.”

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May 9, 2025
SIU Trains Safety Officers to Respond to Mental Health Crises

Southern Illinois University in Carbondale is investing in a new dedicated team of first responders to provide care for students experiencing mental health challenges.

A $290,000 grant from the Illinois Board of Higher Education will fund training and support for a crisis response team to engage students during emergency calls. Student Health Services at SIU developed a response model based on best practices that ensures students, particularly those from vulnerable populations, receive immediate support and direct connection to appropriate treatment.

The grant is designed to expand and enhance the existing services mandated by the state’s 2020 Mental Health Early Action on Campus Act, which requires two- and four-year colleges to implement various preventative measures and clinical care services for student mental health, including increasing awareness of support services, creating partnerships for mental health services and implementing peer-support networks.

SIU leaders hope the new model, CAPS Plus, will both improve safety for students in critical moments and promote retention and success for students by connecting them with relevant support resources for ongoing care.

What’s the need: Rates of anxiety and depression, as self-reported by students, have grown over the past five years, with about one-third reporting moderate or severe anxiety or depression symptoms, according to the 2024 Healthy Minds study.

While a large number of college students experience poor mental health or have struggled with mental health challenges, connecting students with relevant resources when they need them remains an obstacle to timely care.

About one-third of college students say they don’t know where to seek help on campus if they or a friend are experiencing a mental health crisis, according to a spring 2023 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse. Roughly one in five students said they have not received services for mental or emotional health because they prefer to deal with issues on their own or with support from friends and family, according to the 2023 Healthy Minds survey.

SIU’s Department of Public Safety responded to almost 50 mental health-related incidents in the past year. Student focus groups revealed that participants were aware of the ways encounters with law enforcement have escalated, sometimes resulting in death for the person in crisis. Similarly, past research shows that police involvement can exacerbate mental health challenges, and individuals from marginalized communities are less likely to trust the police.

“We recognize that those in crisis may benefit from intervention services not specifically provided by a law enforcement agency,” said Benjamin Newman, SIU’s director of public safety and chief of police, in an April press release.

A 2022 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed found that about one-third of all respondents had “a great deal” of trust in campus safety officers, but only 19 percent of students who had negative interactions with police growing up said the same. Almost half (46 percent) of respondents said they felt safer with police on campus, but Black and Hispanic students were less likely to say they felt this way.

Over 38 percent of survey respondents also said they want colleges and universities to expand mental health supports to improve safety and security on campus, the most popular response.

Put in practice: The university’s Department of Public Safety and the Counseling and Psychological Services office created a collaborative response team to engage students who may need mental health support. Now, if an officer encounters a community member in crisis, a mental health professional is contacted to assist, Newman said.

The collaborative mental health response teams first started in February. The group includes the Department of Public Safety, Counseling and Psychological Services, clinicians, campus administrators, faculty members and external partners, including local emergency room staff.

Team members completed critical incident response and crisis intervention training, in which they learned to identify symptoms of mental illnesses, developmental disabilities, trauma, dementia and delirium as well as de-escalation techniques, intervention steps and transition to treatment services.

Additionally, dispatchers receive training on how to screen and de-escalate calls that could involve mental health concerns so they can effectively alert the crisis team.

In addition to using the grant funding, the university also implemented a mental health and wellness fee for the upcoming academic year to support continued access to services.

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May 9, 2025