Tag: Education

  • Jay Bhattacharya Confirmed as NIH Director

    Jay Bhattacharya Confirmed as NIH Director

    The Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the National Institutes of Health on Tuesday. 

    Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford University health economist who gained notoriety for his criticism of the NIH’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, secured the confirmation with a 53-to-47 party-line vote, The New York Times reported. 

    His confirmation as NIH director comes as the agency, which sends billions in funding each year to researchers at more than 2,500 universities, faces dramatic funding cuts and a shake-up of its research priorities. In the two months since Trump took office, the NIH has eliminated some 1,200 staff, effectively paused grant reviews and sent termination letters to many researchers whose NIH-funded projects allegedly conflict with Trump’s orders to eliminate support for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and other topics.

    The NIH also issued guidance in February that would cap the funding it gives to universities for the indirect costs of research, such as building maintenance, hazardous waste removal and adhering to patient safety protocols. A federal judge blocked that guidance after numerous universities, research and higher education advocacy organizations, and 22 Democratic state attorneys general sued the NIH, arguing that the plan will hurt university budgets, local economies and the pace of scientific discovery. 

    At a confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions earlier this month, Bhattacharya said that if confirmed, he would “fully commit to making sure that all the scientists at the NIH and the scientists that the NIH supports have the resources they need to meet the mission of the NIH.” However, he offered few specifics on how he’d do that and wouldn’t commit to axing the agency’s plan to cut indirect costs by more than $4 billion.

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  • Youngkin Removes Controversial UVA Board Member

    Youngkin Removes Controversial UVA Board Member

    Virginia’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, abruptly removed Bert Ellis—one of his own appointees—from the University of Virginia Board of Visitors, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

    Youngkin confirmed the move in a letter to Ellis posted online.

    “While I thank you for your hard work, your conduct on many occasions has violated the Commonwealth’s Code of Conduct for our Boards and Commissions and the Board of Visitors’ Statement of Visitor Responsibilities,” Youngkin wrote.

    Youngkin, who appointed Ellis to UVA’s board in June 2022, reportedly disapproved of his combative style. The Post reported that the governor had asked him to step down, but Ellis balked at working with the administration to craft a statement about his resignation. Following that hesitation, Youngkin reportedly took the unusual step of removing Ellis from UVA’s board.

    Ellis was serving a four-year term set to end next June.

    As a member of UVA’s Board of Visitors, Ellis frequently caused controversy. Among other things, he insulted university staffers and sought to downplay the history of slavery at UVA, which was founded by Thomas Jefferson. Before he was appointed to the board, Ellis, who is a UVA graduate, sparked controversy for removing a poster that read “fuck UVA” from a student’s door on campus. Ellis has also been criticized for his connections to the Jefferson Council, a conservative alumni organization, which he led, that is frequently critical of UVA leadership.

    Neither UVA nor Ellis responded to requests for comment from Inside Higher Ed.

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  • Embracing Workforce Diversity in Higher Education for a Sustainable Future

    Embracing Workforce Diversity in Higher Education for a Sustainable Future

    • Professor Antony C. Moss is Pro Vice Chancellor Education and Student Experience at London South Bank University.

    The recent announcement from Universities UK that it will be setting up a taskforce to look at efficiency and transformation across the higher education sector is very welcome, if not long overdue. As our sector faces existential challenges regarding financial sustainability, it is absolutely right that we look more critically at the way we organise ourselves and run our institutions. This means more than looking at shared professional service models, moving IT systems into the cloud, or diversifying income streams. The argument I want to develop here is that we desperately need a more diverse workforce to support a higher education sector which serves a far broader purpose for society than it did when our current workforce model was first established.

    The Uneven Growth of the Higher Education Sector

    It is a fascinating exercise to visualise the growth of the UK higher education sector over time. Robbins reported the total number of full-time UK students in 1960 was just short of 200,000. Fast forward to the latest data available via the Higher Education Statistics Agency, and in 2022/23, that number has grown to almost three million. While that 1960 figure does not include student numbers enrolled in the polytechnics of the day (which of course mostly became universities in 1992, stimulating a sudden burst of growth in student numbers), this remains an extraordinary expansion by any standard.

    As a sector, we have weathered much criticism in recent years regarding the extent to which we are recruiting too many students. While this might be a tempting conclusion given the figures cited above, it is worth keeping in mind that the needs of our labour market have also changed dramatically since 1960. For example, in 2021/22, over 160,000 of the 2.25 million students in higher education that year were studying towards a nursing qualification. In other words, the nursing student population of 21/22 equates to more than three-quarters of the entire full-time UK university student population in 1960. We all benefit from advancements in modern medicine, but this requires us to invest in a workforce with an ever-increasing level of technical knowledge and skill. This same argument could be made for the workforce in many other sectors of our economy, and so we should continue to expect expansion and diversification of our education sector to support the types of jobs and skillsets required for the future.

    While we might debate and reflect on the number of students entering higher education, it is less common to hear debates and discussions on the size of the workforce who are the backbone of our own sector. While I have been unable to locate accurate workforce data as far back as 1960, the Higher Education Statistics Agency have published data from 2005/6. At that time, UK higher education providers employed a total of 355,410 staff, of which 164,875 were in academic roles. Moving ahead to 2022/23, we now employ 480,845 staff, of whom 240,420 are in academic roles. In itself, this is a significant workforce expansion – a total increase in staffing of over a third, and a 50% increase in academic staff numbers over a 17-year period. Or in more human terms, that is a net increase of 75,545 full-time equivalent academic staff.

    What is perhaps most remarkable is that this expansion of our workforce has been, at a national level, an organic process. We have no whole-sector workforce plan and no sector-wide discussion around the shape and size of the workforce we need in 5, 10, or 25 years’ time. In their 2021 review of HE sector workforce changes, Alison Wolf and Andrew Jenkins illustrated both the expansion and changing shape of the sector workforce but also demonstrated that this has been largely reactive and not driven by a clear set of principles or plans.

    The reason this all matters in the context of discussions about financial sustainability is that the expansion of the higher education sector has been uneven in terms of the growth of our different areas of activity. As illustrated in Figure 1, over the past ten years, the overwhelming majority of our income growth has been linked to teaching.

    Figure 1: Income of UK Higher Education Providers by income type and academic year (£ millions)

    From a workforce perspective, with teaching income rising sharply against relatively stable income for research, it would be reasonable to assume that the additional 75,454 academic staff noted above would be almost entirely focused on teaching. However, the best available data we have on the proportion of time spent by academics on different activities – the Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC) returns published by the Office for Students – shows that there has been almost no change in the proportion of academic staff time spent on research activity. For years where there are comparable TRAC data, we can see that in 18/19, research activity accounted for 35.3% of academic activity, while in 22/23 that figure was 34.1% (and from Figure 1, we can see that teaching-related income grew over this period by over £7bn, while research income only grew by £821m). If research income to the sector had been growing at the same rate as teaching income, these figures would not be a concern – but that is very clearly not the case.

    One interpretation of these figures could simply be that this is how higher education has always operated. Tuition fees are, in part, spent on recruiting academic staff, and academics are typically recruited on contracts which include an expectation of them engaging in research and scholarly activities. Moreover, the argument goes, this is fundamental to the mission of universities, which is not solely to teach degree courses but also to generate new knowledge.

    This argument is flawed, however, due to a decade of tuition fee freezes set alongside the massive growth in student numbers, which far outstrips growth in research-related income. Our workforce model cannot simply continue growing in a linear fashion while the demands and expectations placed on the workforce are changing as significantly as they have. To provide an analogy, if the government were to announce a massive boost in research funding for universities, and the sector were to respond to this by indicating that around a third of this money would actually be spent on teaching, I would expect eyebrows to be raised across the board. But this is precisely what we have been doing, over a long period of time, in relation to teaching-related income.

    Developing a Workforce Model for the Future

    As noted above, our sector does not have a workforce plan; we have essentially grown our workforce using traditional contract types and workload models. On the other hand, the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan is an example of taking a whole-sector approach to reflect on workforce needs for a large and complex sector. Importantly, the plan proposes a significant expansion of its workforce, which will depend heavily on the capacity and ability of our further and higher education sectors to deliver. This does not simply entail the expansion of current training routes for existing professions, but the diversification of the types of qualification we offer, and continued development of curricula to ensure the skills being taught reflect long-term workforce needs.

    There are many examples of other sectors and, indeed, government departments developing workforce plans and strategies which similarly rely upon the capacity and expertise of further and higher education institutions to fulfil education and training needs. What is invariably missing from such plans is any meaningful reflection on the assumptions made about the capacity and structure of our tertiary education sector. Shortages in teachers can be addressed by funding more training, but are we confident that we have a large enough workforce of teacher-educators to meet this demand? Similarly for nurses, doctors and allied healthcare professionals and, indeed, for any other sector who may be assuming that the tertiary sector is ready and waiting to absorb a continued expansion of students to meet their own future workforce needs.

    Moving beyond subject expertise and whether we can simply recruit a large enough workforce to teach, the higher education sector has also changed beyond recognition in terms of the range of qualifications we offer. The three-year undergraduate degree remains the most common study route, but higher education providers now also offer degree apprenticeships, higher technical qualifications, and a growing number of professional and technical qualifications which are quite different to traditional university study. These differences arise due to the type of students they attract, the content of the qualifications themselves, and also the very different regulatory frameworks which underpin their delivery and monitoring.

    These changes place a very different set of needs and expectations on our workforce – both academic and professional services colleagues. Degree apprenticeship programmes require a different pedagogic approach to a traditional undergraduate degree, and come with a significant set of additional regulatory expectations. Very few academics will have ever encountered the Education and Skills Funding Agency prior to the growth of apprenticeships standards, and Ofsted was the regulator of everyone except us (outside of university education departments). These changes are not trivial, but they have happened rapidly, and without overt consideration of the way we need to support, develop and expand our own workforce.

    While 1960s higher education was, in relative terms, a fairly monolithic sector, today’s higher education sector is extraordinarily diverse and delivers massive economic and societal benefits, which are incomparable to the past. Our sector has changed, and I would strongly argue it has changed for the better. However, in the current climate of deep financial challenge, we must also reflect critically on the way we develop and diversify our own workforce. This, in my view, means stepping outside the well-trodden path of introducing so-called ‘teaching only contracts’ for academics – essentially, academic contracts where the focus is on professional practice and pedagogic leadership, which still retain a career pathway through to the highest academic ranks. Rather, we need to invest in developing a new segment of our workforce, of expert educators who are specialised in areas such as skills development and technical education. If done well, this has the potential to deliver a range of benefits:

    1. Stabilising the financial precarity of our sector. When teaching income is rising faster than research income, we need to ensure we are not disproportionately growing the cross-subsidy of research from teaching income (while recognising that some degree of cross-subsidy is part of the higher education funding model).
    2. Improving the quality of education. By developing more specialised roles within the sector, we can deliver better experiences and outcomes for students, and ensure that they are better able to succeed beyond their time in higher education.
    3. Improving working conditions for all staff. Through the creation of more specialised roles and career pathways which are better aligned to the needs of the sector as a whole.
    4. Supporting our national ambitions for Growth and Skills. As Skills England looks at our future workforce needs, it is critical that we have a stable and high-performing education sector to educate and train the workforce. We cannot continue to take for granted that our education sector can organically bend itself to meet changing industrial and economic needs, without a strategy to support the reforms which will be required.

    Universities UK and its taskforce on efficiency and transformation should, I suggest, prioritise a review of our underpinning workforce model to ensure that we are collectively fit for the future. But this work cannot happen in isolation. Our sector will be able to respond more effectively to changing demands if we work together with Skills England and the Department for Education to better understand the role that higher education can play in delivering on national ambitions for growth and skills development.

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  • Fascism Scholars, Trump Critics Leave Yale for Canada

    Fascism Scholars, Trump Critics Leave Yale for Canada

    As the Trump administration escalates its attack on universities, three fascism scholars and vocal Trump critics are leaving Yale University for the University of Toronto. But their given reasons for crossing the border vary.

    Jason Stanley, Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale and author of multiple books—including How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them—said he finally accepted Toronto’s long-standing offer for a position on Friday after seeing Columbia University “completely collapse and give in to an authoritarian regime.”

    In a move that has unnerved faculty across the country, Columbia’s administration largely conceded to demands from the Trump administration, which had cut $400 million of the university’s federal grants and contracts for what it said was Columbia’s failure to address campus antisemitism. Among other moves, the Ivy League institution gave campus officers arrest authority and appointed a new senior vice provost to oversee academic programs focused on the Middle East.

    “I was genuinely undecided before that,” Stanley said. Now he’s leaving Yale to be the named chair in American studies at Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. According to the university, the intent is for Stanley also to be cross-appointed to the philosophy department. Two popular philosophy blogs previously reported the move.

    “What I worry about is that Yale and other Ivy League institutions do not understand what they face,” Stanley said. He loves Yale and expected to spend the rest of his career there, he said; while he still hopes for the opportunity to return some day, he’s nervous Yale “will do what Columbia did.”

    Stanley said Toronto’s Munk School “raided Yale” for some of its prominent professors of democracy and authoritarianism to establish a project on defending democracy internationally—an effort that began long before the election.

    Also leaving Yale for the Munk School is Timothy Snyder, author of books including The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America, and Marci Shore, author of The Ukrainian Night: An Intimate History of Revolution and other works. Snyder and Shore are married.

    Stanley said Toronto reached out to him back in April 2023, during the Biden administration, and he restarted conversations after the election. He finally took the job Friday. The university told Inside Higher Ed it had been trying to recruit Snyder and Shore for years, saying, “We’re always looking for the best and brightest.”

    Snyder, the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale, will become the Munk School’s inaugural Chair in Modern European History, supported by the Temerty Endowment for Ukrainian Studies. A spokesperson for Snyder said he made his decision for personal reasons, and he made it before the election.

    In an emailed statement Wednesday, Snyder said, “The opportunity came at a time when my spouse and I had to address some difficult family matters.” He said he had “no grievance with Yale, no desire to leave the U.S. I am very happy with the idea of a move personally but, aside from a strong appreciation of what U of T has to offer, the motivations are largely that—personal.”

    But when asked for her reasoning, Shore told Inside Higher Ed in an email that “the personal and political were, as often is the case, intertwined. We might well have made the move in any case, but we didn’t make our final decision until after the November elections,” she wrote.

    Shore, a Yale history professor, will become the Munk School Chair in European Intellectual History, supported by the same endowment as her husband.

    “I sensed that this time, this second Trump election, would be still much worse than the first—the checks and balances have been dismantled,” she wrote. “I can feel that the country is going into free fall. I fear there’s going to be a civil war. And I don’t want to bring my kids back into that. I also don’t feel confident that Yale or other American universities will manage to protect either their students or their faculty.”

    She also said it didn’t escape her that Yale failed to publicly defend Snyder when Vice President JD Vance criticized him on X in January. After Trump nominated Pete Hegseth as defense secretary, Snyder—who has repeatedly excoriated the Trump administration in the media—posted that “a Christian Reconstructionist war on Americans led from the Department of Defense is likely to break the United States.”

    Vance reposted that with the caption “That this person is a professor at Yale is actually an embarrassment.” Elon Musk, X’s owner, responded in agreement.

    ‘They Need to Band Together’

    Leaving for Canada might sound like a futile move, given that Trump has threatened to annex it.

    “That’s why I’m definitely not thinking of it as fleeing fascism; I’m thinking of it as defending Canada,” Stanley said. “Freedom of inquiry does not seem to be under threat in Canada,” he said, and moving there will allow him to be engaged in “an international fight against fascism.”

    Nonetheless, he said it’s heartbreaking to leave the Yale philosophy department. He would consider returning to Yale “if there’s evidence that universities are standing up more boldly to the threats,” he said. “They need to band together.”

    Yale spokesperson Karen Peart told Inside Higher Ed in an email that Yale “continues to be home to world-class faculty members who are dedicated to excellence in scholarship and teaching.” She added, “Yale is proud of its global faculty community which includes faculty who may no longer work at the institution, or whose contributions to academia may continue at a different home institution. Faculty members make decisions about their careers for a variety of reasons and the university respects all such decisions.”

    To be sure, the Yale professors are not the first or only U.S. faculty to accept academic appointments outside the country. European universities, at least, have been trying to recruit American researchers. But before Trump’s re-election, there was a dearth of data on the previously rumored academic exodus from red states to blue, supposedly spurred by conservative policy changes.

    Isaac Kamola, director of the American Association of University Professors’ Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom, said he’s now had conversations with multiple faculty members who are naturalized citizens “and still think that the administration might be coming after them.”

    And while star professors at Ivy League institutions are more likely than other faculty to have the opportunity to leave, Yale law professor Keith Whittington, founding chair of the Academic Freedom Alliance, said he thinks such professors are more likely to take those opportunities now.

    “I’ve seen efforts by high-quality academic institutions in other countries to start making the pitch to American academics,” Whittington said. He noted that even faculty at prestigious and well-endowed universities have concerns that their institution and higher ed as a whole are “not as stable as one might once have thought.”

    He said the Trump administration has targeted specific universities with “quite serious efforts to threaten those institutions with crippling financial consequences if they don’t adopt policies that the administration would prefer that they adopt.” And such a playbook could easily be repeated “at practically any institution in the country,” he said.

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  • Why doesn’t higher education make a difference?

    Why doesn’t higher education make a difference?

    by Amir Shahsavari and Mohammad Eslahi

    This blog is based on research reported in Shahsavari, A, & Eslahi, M (2025) ‘Dynamics of Imbalanced Higher Education Development: Analysing Factors and Policy Implications’ in Policy Reviews in Higher Education.

    Our study addresses the paradox of expanding higher education, particularly in Iran, failing to translate into substantial societal impact. We adopted an interpretive research paradigm to explore participants’ experiences and perspectives, emphasising qualitative inquiry. Specifically, we applied a basic qualitative research approach, focusing on thematic data analysis to understand underlying meanings and patterns. We conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 23 professionals from Iran’s higher education system, including executive experts and academic scholars. The data was analysed using qualitative theme analysis with the thematic network approach. It highlights the interplay of internal and external factors driving this imbalance and offers practical recommendations for policymakers and university administrators. The study identifies multiple external and internal factors contributing to the imbalanced development of Iranian higher education.

    External Factors:

    1. Conflicting Political Discourse: Political divisions create inconsistent policy directions that hinder higher education reform. The resulting instability restricts universities from pursuing coherent strategies for social development.
    2. Deficient Decision-Making Structures: Inefficient policy frameworks restrict universities’ ability to align with national development goals. This limits their capacity to engage in long-term planning, research commercialization, and innovation.
    3. Lack of Social and Cultural Cohesion: Weak societal integration reduces higher education’s ability to contribute to social progress. Universities struggle to connect their knowledge outputs to broader societal needs without a shared cultural framework.
    4. Low Demand for Science and Technology in the Economy: Limited integration of scientific advancements into economic sectors hinders universities’ relevance. Weak industry-university linkages prevent research outcomes from driving innovation and economic growth.
    5. International Sanctions: Economic constraints and restricted access to global knowledge networks impede higher education progress. This isolation limits opportunities for research collaboration, technological exchange, and funding access.

    Internal Factors:

    1. Limited Engagement with National and Local Ecosystem Needs: Universities lack meaningful interaction with regional industries and communities. This disconnect limits their ability to address localized development challenges.
    2. Insufficient Attention to Territorial Advantages in Development Planning: Universities often fail to leverage local strengths and opportunities, weakening their contribution to regional economic development.
    3. Weak Endogenous Creativity: Overreliance on Western educational models stifles innovative academic approaches. As a result, Iranian universities struggle to develop unique solutions suited to local challenges.
    4. Promotion of Emigration: University environments inadvertently encourage student and faculty migration, reducing local impact. This trend diminishes the human capital available to drive national innovation.

    This study contributes new insights by highlighting the interplay between external political pressures and internal university strategies. While previous studies have emphasized government interventions and economic constraints, this research reveals the disruptive effects of conflicting political ideologies and weak social cohesion. Additionally, the study expands on the “quadruple helix” model by illustrating the absence of place-based leadership and strategies as critical gaps in Iranian higher education. The study also introduces a framework for integrating participatory governance models into university decision-making processes, enhancing institutions’ responsiveness to societal needs. The study emphasizes three key strategies for improving higher education’s societal impact:

    1. Promoting National Dialogues via Universities: Encouraging open dialogue among academic leaders and policymakers can bridge ideological divides, fostering consensus on long-term educational goals. This step is vital to mitigate political interference and improve strategic planning for university development. Higher education can contribute to national stability and long-term planning by positioning universities as mediators in political debates.
    2. Increasing Science and Technology Demand: Policymakers should enhance economic incentives for scientific research integration. Encouraging industrial partnerships and market-driven research will amplify universities’ role in economic growth. By creating a more dynamic innovation ecosystem, universities can expand their influence on industry practices and economic modernization.
    3. Developing Science and Technology Diplomacy: Expanding diplomatic ties to bypass sanctions can enhance Iranian universities’ access to global scientific collaboration, fostering innovation and knowledge exchange. Such efforts include developing partnerships with international research centers and increasing participation in global academic networks.

    The study to address internal factors recommends:

    • Expanding participatory teaching models, such as service learning, to connect universities with community development. These models empower students to engage with social challenges directly, enhancing their sense of responsibility and practical skills.
    • Aligning government support for universities based on regional strengths, promoting competition, and enhancing educational quality. By linking funding models to regional priorities, universities can better tailor their strategies to local economic and social needs.
    • Supporting creative teaching and research initiatives to foster academic innovation. This includes incentivising faculty to develop unconventional teaching methods and interdisciplinary research projects.
    • Encouraging initiatives that promote national pride and social responsibility among students and faculty, mitigating emigration trends. Universities can strengthen students’ connection to local development through values-based education and encourage talent retention.

    The study highlights a critical limitation: its participants were drawn solely from the supply side of the science and technology ecosystem (university faculty and administrators). Future research should include stakeholders from the demand side, such as industry leaders, policymakers, and civil society representatives, to develop a more comprehensive understanding of higher education’s role in societal development. Exploring the interplay between social values, economic incentives, and political frameworks would provide deeper insights into higher education’s transformative potential.

    This research underscores the need for a holistic approach to higher education reform. By addressing internal and external challenges, policymakers can create an educational landscape promoting social, economic, and political progress. Universities must evolve beyond expanding access to higher education and focus on fostering creativity, engagement, and accountability to enhance their contributions to society. Developing partnerships with industry, embracing participatory governance, and promoting inclusive dialogues will empower universities to become key drivers of social and economic transformation.

    Amir Shahsavari is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, Iran. His academic interests lie in higher education policy, academic management and planning, and teaching and learning, mainly focusing on higher education studies in Iran. Drawing on his research, he seeks to contribute to a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing Iranian universities to inform policy and improve educational practices. [email protected]

    Mohammad Eslahi holds a PhD in Higher Education from the University of Tehran, Iran, specializing in Educational Administration and Planning. His research interests focus on the economics of higher education and the economics of university research. He is a lecturer and research assistant at the University of Tehran, actively contributing to teaching and scholarly endeavors in these fields. [email protected]

    Author: SRHE News Blog

    An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

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  • AAUP, Middle East Studies Group Sue Trump Over Deportations

    AAUP, Middle East Studies Group Sue Trump Over Deportations

    Accusing the Trump administration of creating a “climate of repression and fear on university campuses,” two faculty groups sued the federal government Tuesday to stop the president’s efforts to deport noncitizen students and faculty who have participated in pro-Palestinian protests.

    The Middle East Studies Association and the American Association of University Professors argue in the lawsuit that what they call Trump’s “ideological-deportation policy” violates the First and Fifth Amendments and the Administrative Procedure Act. They are asking a federal judge to rule that the policy is unconstitutional. This is the second lawsuit challenging the policy, though this legal action includes more faculty and students.

    The litigation comes after immigration officers have, over the past month, targeted international students and postdoctoral fellows for alleged participation in pro-Palestinian protests, raiding their dorm rooms and revoking their visas.

    Tuesday afternoon, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from deporting a Columbia student, who moved to the United States from Korea when she was 7 but is now a legal permanent resident. The New York Times reported that the government argued Yunseo Chung’s “presence in the United States hinders the administration’s foreign policy goal of stopping the spread of antisemitism.”

    But the judge said Tuesday that “nothing in the record” showed that Chung posed a “foreign-policy risk,” according to the Times.

    Chung has not yet been detained. She’s just the latest student to come under fire from the administration’s crackdown on those who protested the Israel-Hamas war. That crackdown has included revoking the visas of students and faculty, giving universities names of students to target, and a social media surveillance program, according to the AAUP lawsuit.

    The MESA and AAUP lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts, specifically cites the cases of Chung; Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown University postdoc; and Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate. Judges have also blocked the government from deporting both men.

    “While President Trump and other administration officials have described pro-Palestinian campus protests as ‘pro-Hamas,’ they have stretched that label beyond the breaking point to encompass any speech supportive of Palestinian human rights or critical of Israel’s military actions in Gaza,” the suit says. “They have left no doubt that their new policy entails the arrest, detention and deportation of noncitizen students and faculty for constitutionally protected speech and association.”

    Attorneys from the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia are among the lawyers representing the scholarly groups.

    MESA and the AAUP—along with the AAUP chapters at Harvard, New York and Rutgers Universities—filed the suit against the federal government, Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem and Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director Todd Lyons, plus their agencies.

    A DHS spokesperson said in a statement that “taking over buildings, defacing private property, and harassing Jewish students does not constitute free speech.”

    “It is a privilege to be granted a visa to live and study in the United States of America,” the spokesperson added. “When you advocate for violence and terrorism that privilege should be revoked, and you should not be in this country.”

    The White House provided a similar statement from a Justice Department spokesperson, who said, “This department makes no apologies for its efforts to defend President Trump’s agenda in court and protect Jewish Americans from vile antisemitism.”

    Beyond the immediate implications for students and faculty who face deportation, the policy has a broader chilling effect on campus free speech, the lawsuit argues.

    “Out of fear that they might be arrested and deported for lawful expression and association, some noncitizen students and faculty have stopped attending public protests or resigned from campus groups that engage in political advocacy,” the suit says. “Others have declined opportunities to publish commentary and scholarship, stopped contributing to classroom discussions, or deleted past work from online databases and websites. Many now hesitate to address political issues on social media, or even in private texts.”

    The lawsuit adds the policy harms the plaintiff associations “because they are no longer able to learn from and engage with noncitizen members to the extent they once did, and because they have had to divert resources from other projects to address the all-too-real possibility that their noncitizen members will be arrested, imprisoned, and deported for exercising rights that the Constitution guarantees.”

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  • Banning DEI Is Catastrophic for U.S. Science (opinion)

    Banning DEI Is Catastrophic for U.S. Science (opinion)

    Our scientific enterprise in the United States is the envy of the world. Top scientists from around the globe want to come to work here, specifically because of the environment that we have fostered over decades to support scientific innovation and intellectual freedom. Federal investment in research is one of the primary foundations upon which this extraordinarily successful system has been constructed.

    It is not simply the dollar amount of federal funding that makes this system so successful. It is also about how we allocate and distribute the funds. Long before “DEI” was common parlance, we made robust efforts to distribute funds broadly. For example, instead of concentrating funding only in the top research institutions, as many other countries do, we created programs such as EPSCoR (1979) to direct funding to support research and development throughout the entire country, including rural areas. This was done in recognition that excellence in research can be found anywhere that and colleges and universities serving rural and impoverished communities deserve to benefit from and contribute to the economic and scientific engine that the federal government can provide.

    The National Science Foundation also implemented Broader Impacts in its grant review process (originating in the 1960s and formalized in 1997). The goal of the NSF review criteria for broader impacts was to ensure that every federally funded project would have some benefit for society. These broader impacts could take a wide variety of forms, including but not limited to new tools and innovations, as well as efforts to grow the STEM workforce by supporting those historically and economically excluded from becoming scientists.

    Diversity, equity and inclusion funding is one of the mechanisms that we use to continue this legacy of equity in federal funding of scientific research. This approach has also helped reduce public mistrust of science and scientists—a mistrust attributable to science’s historical abuses—by ensuring that the benefits of scientific progress are shared widely and equitably and by making the work of scientists more transparent and accessible.

    Until fairly recently in history, science was primarily an activity for the wealthy. Training as a scientist requires many years of deferred salary, due to the extensive education and practical skill development needed to conduct independent research and start a laboratory. For those who make it through this training, research jobs can be scarce, and the salaries are not high, considering the highly specialized skills required and the high demands of the job. Many of the best and brightest minds have been excluded from the scientific process by this economic reality. Federal funding provides critical support for science workforce development, primarily through stipends and salaries for undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. These stipends ease (but do not erase) the economic burden of training as a scientist.

    When you hear “DEI in science,” this is largely what we are talking about. A vast portion of federal DEI funds in the sciences goes directly to support highly talented and accomplished trainees who have deferred their personal economic progress for the opportunity to contribute to science in the U.S. This wise national investment helps to ensure that our science workforce can recruit the most meritorious trainees, regardless of their economic backgrounds. Without these initiatives, our science workforce would be much smaller with a narrower set of perspectives. Our national investment in science training is not altruistic—it is the very reason why the U.S. is a global leader in science and technology. This leadership contributes to our nation’s safety and capacity to deal with the existential problems we now face.

    The framework of DEI recognizes that systemic economic and social injustices are present in our society, due to historical and contemporary realities such as slavery, Jim Crow, genocide of Native peoples, redlining, a broken immigration system, educational and health-care disparities, and discriminatory practices in housing and employment against nonwhite, disabled and LGBTQ+ communities. These disparities have resulted in a lack of intergenerational wealth and resources among many communities in the U.S., leading to unequal access to scientific training and careers.

    The claim, now made by our federal government, that a meritocracy can be achieved by ignoring these injustices is simply false and illogical. DEI is not only about diversity training and hiring practices. In the sciences, it is essential and existential to the goal of developing the most robust, talented and highly skilled science workforce in the world.

    With Executive Order 14151, issued by the Trump administration, this funding is under attack, undoing decades of progress that have fostered some of the most talented and brilliant minds of our time. Rigorous training programs are being canceled, graduate students are losing their funding and the training of an entire generation of scientists is being jeopardized. Science will lose an extraordinary amount of talent, necessary for our nation’s industrial and economic leadership, because of this executive order.

    Furthermore, this removal of funding is being enacted on the basis of identity, effectively endorsing a form of government-imposed segregation of science. Advancements in science are often determined by the demography of those doing the science, and a diversity of perspectives and research questions is necessary for scientific innovation. For example, sickle cell disease is chronically underfunded and underresearched, despite the severity of the disease, likely because it affects descendants of people from regions with high instances of malaria, including many African Americans. Indeed, some scientific breakthroughs and technologies may never materialize or be greatly delayed due to the exclusion of talented individuals on the basis of their identity. This is a fundamental threat to scientific progress and academic freedom.

    The federal banning of DEI programs is a slap in the face to every person who has struggled to become a scientist in the face of systemic injustices. These trainees, past and present, have missed out on economic opportunities, deferred building their families and made many personal sacrifices so that they can create innovative solutions to our nation’s most pressing scientific and technological challenges. The creation of these DEI programs came from the extraordinary efforts of thousands of people, many of whom have overcome injustices themselves, working tirelessly across many decades so that the most meritorious and talented individuals all have an opportunity to succeed as scientists.

    Referring to these efforts as “shameful discrimination,” as the Trump administration has now done, is a cruel attempt to destabilize the emotional well-being of everyone who has created and been supported by these essential programs. It is an example of blaming the victims of past and ongoing injustice for their plight in society, rather than working to dismantle the systems that perpetuate inequality and limit access to a fair and just future, where a true meritocracy in science becomes possible.

    We believe that the efforts to ban, diminish and misrepresent DEI and diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs should be immediately stopped and reversed to avoid the most serious negative impacts of these new policies. Removal of DEI programs will demoralize and disincentivize an entire generation of scientists in training. It will greatly reduce the scientific workforce and remove top talent from our training programs as funding mechanisms are dismantled.

    Our graduate students, undergraduates, postdoctoral fellows and other early-career scientists are those most greatly impacted by the removal of this support. This will severely jeopardize the status of the U.S. as a global leader in science, and the catastrophic impacts will be felt for decades. We stand by those most affected by the DEI ban, especially our trainees, and we demand an immediate reinstatement of DEI funding.

    We are speaking out using the speech and intellectual freedoms afforded to us by the U.S. academic system and the U.S. Constitution. We are calling on our institutions to stand with us in defense of DEI in science. Institutions and professional societies must reaffirm their own commitments to DEI. Some institutions have already made strong statements of reaffirmation of these values, but others have begun to remove their internal and external DEI initiatives pre-emptively. We understand the need for institutions to protect their employees and students from adverse consequences, but we argue that the consequences of dismantling diversity programs are much greater for our communities, as these steps usher in a new era of segregation in science and academia.

    We urge the public, our lawmakers and politicians to stand with us. We believe that DEI is foundational to science and an attack on DEI is an attack on the core of science itself in the United States.

    Joseph L. Graves Jr. is the MacKenzie Scott Endowed Professor of Biology and the director of the Genomic Research and Data Science Center for Computation and Cloud Computing at North Carolina A&T State University.

    Stacy C. Farina is an associate professor of biology at Howard University.

    Parvin Shahrestani is an associate professor of biological science at California State University, Fullerton.

    Vaughn S. Cooper is a professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at the University of Pittsburgh.

    Gilda A. Barabino is president and professor of biomedical and chemical engineering at Olin College of Engineering.

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  • Faculty Organizations Sue on Behalf of Columbia Members

    Faculty Organizations Sue on Behalf of Columbia Members

    Days after Columbia University yielded to a list of demands from the Trump administration, the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers filed a lawsuit on behalf of members at Columbia over $400 million in frozen federal research funding.

    The lawsuit names multiple government agencies, including the Departments of Justice, Education and Health and Human Services and the General Services Administration.

    Columbia had been in a standoff with the Trump administration over the decision to freeze federal research funding due to alleged antisemitism stemming from pro-Palestinian student protests last year. Ultimately, university leaders decided to avoid a legal fight, even as legal scholars at Columbia and in conservative circles questioned whether the demands were lawful.

    In a news release Tuesday, the same day they filed the lawsuit, the AAUP and AFT alleged that the Trump administration used “cuts as a cudgel to coerce a private institution to adopt restrictive speech codes and allow government control over teaching and learning.”

    The 87-page lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of New York.

    The AAUP and AFT have cast Trump’s demands and the freezing of $400 million in grants and contracts as a “coercive tactic” that undermines institutional autonomy and harms scientific research. Plaintiffs are asking the court to order the Trump administration to lift its freeze on Columbia’s research funding and declare the government’s demands for reform unlawful. They have also requested unspecified damages.

    “We’re seeing university leadership across the country failing to take any action to counter the Trump administration’s unlawful assault on academic freedom,” Reinhold Martin, president of Columbia-AAUP and a professor of architecture, said in the statement announcing the lawsuit. “As faculty, we don’t have the luxury of inaction. The integrity of civic discourse and the freedoms that form the basis of a democratic society are under attack. We have to stand up.”

    The Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.

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  • Three Questions With Lee Bradshaw on the Evolving Online Program Landscape

    Three Questions With Lee Bradshaw on the Evolving Online Program Landscape

    Last time we checked in with Lee Bradshaw, the founding CEO of Rhodes Advisors, he shared insights into how universities might grow online programs without breaking the bank. As a follow-up, I wanted to pick Lee’s brain about what he is hearing from the higher education leaders he works with on the evolving online program landscape.

    Q: As the online program ecosystem has grown and a few large universities have invested heavily in scaling their offerings, do you still see room for colleges and universities to enter the online degree market?

    A: Yes, the demand is still there, but the landscape has changed. We’re supporting universities launching new programs that achieve substantial first-term numbers—even in saturated markets. Growth is happening, but expecting 1,000 percent five-year ROIs like a decade ago isn’t realistic. Universities must temper expectations and/or focus on innovative, sustainable wins. That said, as we address in your third question later, I’m unaware of many investments an institution can make that carry a 275 percent ROI over five years. 

    If institutions want to launch online degrees that start strong and stay strong, here are four things they should prioritize.

    1. Market research that drives big decisions. Legacy OPMs excelled at data-driven market research before launching a program. Universities taking control of their growth need to do the same. Predictive, high-quality market research isn’t cheap or easy, but it’s indispensable. I’m bullish on how AI-facilitated deep research is advancing—within two years, I expect the cost to drop by 90 percent or more. However, the need for sound, evidence-based planning remains the same.
    2. Regionalization for most institutions. The earliest entrants focused on scaling national brands. But for universities growing in-house, regional strategies pay off, too. Think targeted regional marketing, employer partnerships tied to local workforce needs and even weaving apprenticeships or other learn-and-earn models directly into degree pathways. It’s not about being everywhere—it’s about playing to your strengths in your region.
    3. Breaking down silos to build relevant programs. One trend I like and am supporting is cross-campus collaborations leading to hybrid or interdisciplinary graduate programs. Northeastern’s combined majors model is well-known in undergraduate circles. We’re seeing more deans replicate that at the graduate level—joint programs, additional tracks and revenue-sharing agreements between schools. They’re savvy partnerships that pull together institutional strengths rather than competing internally.
    4. Scrutinize your tech stack. When I started the company, I assumed going inside universities would be illuminating. I wasn’t prepared for the delta in capability between OPM and campus technology stacks. Technology should be frictionless to the point that it’s invisible. And you should feel your stack moving from software as a service to results as a service. Before spending hundreds of thousands or millions in digital marketing to grow, I suggest a rigorous evaluation and professionally led tech discovery phase before doing any significant online endeavors. We’ve begun doing assessment and development work on Salesforce, Slate, WordPress, Drupal and more to unlock technological gains for our partners. Candidly, it wasn’t on my 2025 bingo card. But it’s critical work, so we had to add it as a service.

    Q: Given the pricing pressures on online degrees, with some well-known universities offering sub-$30,000 online master’s, how might institutions unable to offer lower-cost online degrees compete?

    A: Josh, I founded my first business in high school and my second in college—so I always nerd out on the entrepreneurial edges of higher education. And, of course, I’m in favor of lowering the cost of degrees while preserving quality. Some innovative higher education leaders and friends I deeply respect have entered the low-cost arena. They’ve gone to market with the support of MOOC platforms, which point millions of course takers’ eyes to the programs. 

    And if you’ve spent enough time around John Katzman, you’ve probably heard him say, “Low cost generally means low faculty.” That’s stuck with me. So, if that’s the architecture, we need to ask ourselves where the “low-faculty” model can work before stripping away any components required for quality learning outcomes. For example, I wouldn’t point that strategy at clinical nursing, education or health sciences degrees anytime soon. And frankly, we haven’t seen rigorous, long-term research on these $30,000 degrees yet, outside of self-published enrollment and graduation rates. Before diving in headfirst, I’d argue it’s worth conducting objective studies on the ROI for learners.

    To your question about institutions that might not have access to that scale, I’d advise them to call me. My team will sign an NDA and pressure-test their plan as a favor. I won’t tiptoe around this: I predict a MOOC-fed degree correction within a year from now. So, Rhodes Advisors is architecting solutions that leverage a next-gen course platform, AI-guided admissions and fresh tactics to drive lead volume, should that correction happen.

    MOOC platforms (and, to an extent, significant B2B relationships) are the only proven route for low-cost degrees to compete at scale in the hand-to-hand combat environment of online degree growth. Why? Fundamentally, platforms reduce your marketing overhead and let you tap into sophisticated conversion practices they’ve been working hard on.

    If you’re using a low-cost degree to serve a mission-driven purpose, you don’t need millions of learners from a platform. I’d suggest covering the delta in tuition with a foundation or donor. And I’d focus heavily on messaging and positioning so learners see you’ve struck the right balance between value and price. Rhodes Advisors is often brought in to do that work, too.

    Q: Let’s talk numbers. Say a university wants to build a new online master’s degree or certificate program. How much money does developing, launching, recruiting and running that program cost? To set some boundaries, let’s say that the online master’s tuition is about $50,000 and the target enrollment at steady state is 150. Help us understand the economics of the online learning business.

    A: I prefer talking numbers and using them to cut through the noise, so I’m glad you went there. We’ve recently run this analysis for several universities evaluating alternative revenue strategies. I’ll extend this answer beyond the basic analysis data and into some significant trends I’m seeing that your readers will find helpful. 

    But first, any degree analysis requires a few caveats—there are a lot of variables when estimating costs to launch a stand-alone program. But assuming you have a competent tech stack, a skilled team and you’re building something the market favors, you can launch a 30-credit online master’s degree for roughly $900,000 to $1.2 million in the early years before breaking even as enrollment comes in. As your readers know, most of those costs fall into course development, faculty compensation and marketing/enrollment services. Assuming steady demand, the five-year ROI will land around 275 percent, or about $3.7 million. Anyone quoting a smaller up-front investment number is likely at a small private with fully centralized operations—or running programs with a few dozen students, not 150-plus as you asked about. And anyone quoting a significantly larger ROI has been lucky enough to find a niche.

    On the certificate side, launching a 12-credit stand-alone certificate typically requires $200,000 to $400,000 up front, with a best-case five-year ROI of around 70 percent or $500,000 total return. But certificates face steeper competition: They’re up against degrees in the digital keyword bids, and the market heavily favors industry certifications (Google, Microsoft, etc.) or programs offered by elite universities in business, tech, or licensure-required fields. So, while master’s degrees demand more up front, long-term economics almost always favor them.

    Reducing costs while maintaining growth has never been more critical than it is in 2025. Improving ROI, especially in new ventures, requires scrutinizing every operational lever—especially in learning design, marketing and enrollment management. There are two things I’m seeing play out that have a material impact on efficiency:

    1. Integrating core online and in-person program operations and functions like admissions, recruitment, student services, alumni affairs and career services has become essential. When universities unify these areas, they eliminate redundancies, lower operational costs and deliver a seamless experience for students moving between all modalities. That said, I typically see skill and knowledge gaps surface quickly when tasking a residentially focused function with online program efforts, so we’ll usually dedicate capacity-building and training efforts during a transitional period.
    2. Anywhere AI can streamline effort or lower direct costs should be surfaced immediately and prioritized. For instance, we’ve worked closely with the University of Virginia this year, and they have been able to drive down centralized course production directionally by applying AI tools in specific and strategic ways. Another partner is preparing to launch a master’s degree in our co-pilot DIY model, intentionally designing enrollment operations to be AI-first. Applicants interact with an AI chat bot to handle basic program details before reaching a human adviser. Early signs suggest that approach will cut costs by more than 50 percent—though we’ll let the data speak as it matures.

    I hope this check-in was helpful. And I’d love to come back and share more as we continue down an exciting and fulfilling path at Rhodes Advisors!

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  • ‘How can I know what I think till I see what I say?’: How AI is changing education and writing

    ‘How can I know what I think till I see what I say?’: How AI is changing education and writing

    • Following HEPI’s recent Policy Note on students’ use of artificial intelligence (AI), HEPI Director Nick Hillman reviews a new book from the United States on what AI means for writing.

    ‘ChatGPT cannot write.’ It’s a bold statement but one near the start of the new book More Than Words: How to Think about Writing in the Age of AI that explains what comes in the following 300 pages.

    The author John Warner’s persuasive argument is that generative AI creates syntax but doesn’t write because ‘writing is thinking.’ (I hope this is the only reason why, when asked to write a higher education policy speech ‘in the style of Nick Hillman’, ChatGPT’s answer is so banal and vacuous…) People are, Warner says, attracted to AI because they’ve not previously been ‘given the chance to explore and play within the world of writing.’

    Although Warner is not as negative about using ChatGPT to retrieve information as he is on using it to write wholly new material, he sees the problems it presents as afflicting the experience of ‘deep reading’ too: ‘Reading and writing are being disrupted by people who do not seem to understand what it means to read and write.’

    The book starts by reminding the reader how generative AI based on Large Language Models actually works. ChatGPT and the like operate as machines predicting the next word in a sentence (called a ‘token’). To me, it is reminiscent of Gromit placing the next piece of train track in front of him as he goes. It’s all a bit like a more sophisticated version of how the iPhone Notes app on which I’m typing this keeps suggesting the next word for me. (If you click on the suggestions, it tends to end up as nonsense though – I’ve just done it and got, ‘the app doesn’t even make a sentence in a single note’, which sounds like gibberish while also being factually untrue.)

    ‘The result’, we are told of students playing with ChatGPT and the like, ‘is a kind of academic cosplay where you’ve dressed up a product in the trappings of an academic output, but the underlying process is entirely divorced from the genuine article.’

    Writing, Warner says, is a process in which ‘the idea may change based on our attempts to capture it.’ That is certainly my experience: there have been times when I’ve started to bash out a piece not quite knowing if it will end up as a short blog based on one scatty thought or flower into a more polished full-length HEPI paper. Academics accustomed to peer review and the slow (tortuous?) procedures of academic journals surely know better than most that writing is a process.

    The most interesting and persuasive part of the book (and Warner’s specialist subject) is the bit on how formulae make writing mundane rather than creative. Many parents will recognise this. It seems to me that children are being put off English in particular by being forced to follow the sort of overweening instructions that no great author ever considered (‘write your essay like a burger’, ‘include four paragraphs in each answer’, ‘follow PEE in each paragraph’ [point / evidence / explain]). Warner sees AI taking this trend to its logical and absurd conclusion where machines are doing the writing and the assessment – and ruining both.

    Because writing is a process, Warner rejects even the popular idea that generative AI may be especially useful in crafting a first draft. He accepts it can produce ‘grammatically and syntactically sound writing … ahead of what most students can produce.’ But he also argues that the first draft is the most important draft ‘as it establishes the intention behind the expression.’ Again, I have sympathy with this. Full-length HEPI publications tend to go through multiple drafts, while also being subjected to peer review by HEPI’s Advisory Board and Trustees, yet the final published version invariably still closely resembles the first draft because that remains the original snapshot of the author’s take on the issue at hand. Warner concludes that AI ‘dazzles on first impression but … has significantly less utility than it may seem at first blush.’

    One of the most interesting chapters compares and contrasts the rollout of ChatGPT with the old debates about the rise of calculators in schools. While calculators might mean mental arithmetic skills decline, they are generally empowering; similarly, ChatGPT appears to remove the need to undertake routine tasks oneself. But Warner condemns such analogies: for calculators ‘the labor of the machine is identical to the labor of a human’, whereas ‘Fetching tokens based on weighted probabilities is not the same process as what happens when humans write.’

    At all the many events I go to on AI in higher education, three areas always comes up: students’ AI use; what AI might mean for professional services; and how AI could change assessment and evaluation. The general outcome across all three issues is that no one knows for sure what AI will mean, but Warner is as big a sceptic on AI and grading as he is on so much else. Because it is formulaic and based on algorithms, Warner argues:

    Generative AI being able to give that “good” feedback means that the feedback isn’t actually good. We should instead value that which is uniquely human. … Writing is meant to be read. Having something that cannot read generate responses to writing is wrong.

    The argument that so many problems are coursing through education as a result of new tech reminds me a little of the argument common in the 1980s that lead pipes brought down the Roman Empire. Information is said to become corrupted by AI in the way that the water supposedly became infected by the lead channels. But the theory about lead pipes is no longer taken seriously and I remain uncertain whether Warner’s take will survive the passage of time in its entirety either.

    Moreover, Warner’s criticisms of the real-world impact of ChatGPT are scattergun in their approach. They include the ‘literal army of precarious workers doing soul-killing tasks’ to support the new technology as well as the weighty environmental impact. This critique calls to mind middle-class drug-takers in the developed world enjoying their highs while dodging the real-world impact on developing countries of their habit.

    In the end, Warner’s multifarious criticisms tot up to resemble an attack on technology that comes perhaps just a little too close for comfort to the attacks in the early 1980s by the Musicians’ Union’s on synthesisers and drum machines. In other words, the downsides may be exaggerated while the upsides might be downplayed.

    Nonetheless, I was partially persuaded. The process of writing is exactly that: a process. Writing is not just mechanical. (The best young historian I taught in my first career as a school teacher, who is now an academic at UCL, had the worst handwriting imaginable as his brain moved faster than his hand / pen could manage.) So AI is unlikely to replace those who pen words for a living just yet.

    Although, paradoxically, I also wished the author had run his text through an AI programme and asked it to knock out around 40% of his text. Perhaps current iterations of generative AI can’t write like a smart human or think like a smart human, but they might be able to edit like a smart human? Perhaps AI’s biggest contribution could come at the end of the writing process rather than the beginning? Technology speeds up all our lives, leaving less time for a leisurely read, and it seems to me that all those ‘one-idea’ books that the US floods the market with, including this one, could nearly always be significantly shorter without losing anything of substance.

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