Tag: Education

The Push for Viewpoint Diversity Misses the Point (opinion)

Much of the controversy around the Trump administration’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” has focused on its push for viewpoint diversity and the claim that open inquiry does not exist in our classrooms. That push builds on a long-standing conservative critique that today makes hay out of the fact that the vast majority of faculty in U.S. colleges and universities lean left.

Recent data supports that claim. In elite institutions, like Duke and Harvard Universities, surveys suggest the number of faculty identifying as liberal exceeds 60 percent. The percentages differ not only by type of institution but by discipline, with the humanities and social sciences leaning more liberal than STEM. Some even claim that political bias corrupts academic disciplines.

Liberal faculty and commentators on higher education sometimes take the bait and respond defensively to what often is a politically motivated attack. In an op-ed in The Guardian, Lauren Lassabe Shepherd argued that the purpose of the conservative critique has been “to delegitimize the academy … [and] return colleges to a carefully constructed environment not to educate all, but to reproduce hierarchy.”

Whether or not she is right, you don’t have to look hard to see that institutions of higher education are feeling growing pressure to right their ships—to create campuses and classrooms where open inquiry flourishes, where students feel free to say what they think and to challenge ideas they disagree with. Colleges have responded by scrambling to incorporate more ideological diversity into their course offerings, to implement new programming and to recruit guest speakers who challenge progressive thinking.

All this misses the point and distracts us from the work that needs to be done to further improve the quality of the education students receive in American colleges and universities. Put simply, instead of fixating on who is in the classroom and whether they are liberal or conservative, we should be focused on how we are in the room.

Higher education’s greatest challenge to achieving open inquiry is not one of ideology or viewpoint diversity, but of disposition. Harvard University’s 2024 report from a working group on open inquiry gestured in this direction but did not flesh it out.

If we are to truly commit to open inquiry, we need to step back, pause and reflect not just on what we think, but on how we acquire knowledge, how we think, whether we are interested in learning more or if we are content with what we already know.

You can decorate campuses with all the colors of the political rainbow but not make them better places to learn.

The issue is how we show up with others. Data suggests that students in our classrooms don’t feel comfortable pushing back on each other or on their professors when they disagree. They engage in what psychologists Forest Romm and Kevin Waldman call “performative virtue-signaling.”

In conversations with students at Amherst College, we have heard that they are not just constraining their expression in academic settings but in social settings, too. It seems we are afraid of each other.

It is no wonder. The academic and public squares have not proven themselves to be especially kind or generous as of late. We need look no further than the vitriolic reactions to Charlie Kirk’s murder, and the as-vitriolic reactions to the reactions to his murder. When we do, we can see that the rush to righteousness operates across the ideological spectrum.

The work of college education is to dislodge the instinct to judge and replace it with a commitment to rigorous listening. The work of college teachers is to model an approach to the world that puts empathy before criticism.

What if instead of just talking about the right to speech, we emphasized the right to listen? But we don’t just mean any kind of listening; we mean listening in a certain way. Deep listening. The kind of listening that takes in ideas in slow, big gulps and lets them settle deeply, and sometimes uncomfortably.

It is listening that seeks to catch ideas in flight and carry them further. This is a disciplined kind of listening that resists defensiveness and instead burrows into curiosity.

To foster it, we have to cultivate in ourselves and in our students a disposition to wonder. Why does someone think that way? What experiences, places, relationships, institutions and social forces have shaped their thinking? How did they get to that argument? How did they get to that feeling? How is it that they could arrive at a different perspective than I did?

This is the heart of open inquiry, and it is much harder to achieve than it is to bring more conservatives to campus. Without the disposition to wonder, doing so will produce enclaves, not engagement, on even the most ideologically diverse campus.

This kind of open inquiry would demand that we remove the stance of moral certainty and righteousness from our ways and practices of thinking. That is the real work that needs to animate our colleges and universities.

It is hard, slow work. There is no magic bullet. Teachers and their students, liberals and conservatives, have to commit to it.

While open inquiry is a social disposition, it is also about how we orient our thinking when we are alone. We need to challenge our students to wonder not just about others but about themselves.

What would happen if we all got into the habit of asking ourselves: When was the last time we changed our mind about something? When was the last time we left a conversation or finished a text and actually grappled with our orientation to a subject?

We yearn for our students to practice open inquiry not just when they are in our classrooms, but when they are in the library or in their dorm room with a book to read, an equation to solve, a painting to finish.

The promise of this type of inquiry is exhilarating, freeing. And it opens up great possibilities of seeing the world differently or in more complicated ways.

At the end of the day, the literary scholar Peter Brooks gets it right when he says, “To honor, even only nominally, the call for ‘viewpoint diversity’ is to succumb to a logic that is at its heart hostile to the academic enterprise.” At the heart of that enterprise is a belief that viewpoint diversity is not the same thing as open inquiry. That belief requires changing the culture of learning on our campuses.

Maybe the shift does not seem responsive to the political clamor of the moment. Maybe it sounds like it demands too much and will be hard to assess.

But whatever the case, it feels revolutionary to us.

Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College.

Leah Schmalzbauer is the Clarence Francis 1910 Professor in the Social Sciences and associate provost and associate dean of the faculty at Amherst College.

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November 4, 2025
Teaching students how to talk: why dialogue belongs at the heart of higher education

UK universities are under mounting financial pressure. Join HEPI and King’s College London Policy Institute on 11 November 2025 at 1pm for a webinar on how universities balance relatively stable but underfunded income streams against higher-margin but volatile sources. Register now. We look forward to seeing you there.

This blog was kindly authored by Estefania Gamarra, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, and Marion Heron Associate Professor in Educational Linguistics, both from the University of Surrey Institute of Education. It was also authored by Harriet R. Tenenbaum Professor in Developmental and Social Psychology and Lewis Baker Senior Lecturer in Chemical and Process Engineering – Foundation Year, both from the University of Surrey.

Today’s higher education sector faces a need to increase student progression and improve retention. This goal is especially necessary for Foundation Year programmes. A proposed solution is active learning. Yet amid the push to make lectures more interactive, one approach stands out – dialogue.

Dialogue transforms students from passive listeners into active participants. But while universities increasingly encourage discussion in classrooms and put students in pairs, they often overlook a crucial question: do students know how to talk to each other in academic contexts?

For years, the emphasis has been on teaching students how to write academically, while teaching them how to engage in academic talk – how to reason aloud, build on others’ ideas, and disagree respectfully – has been largely ignored. Academic dialogue is not a natural skill: it is a learnt one. For many students, particularly those from ethnic minoritised or first-generation backgrounds, the language of higher education can feel like a second language. Expecting them to navigate complex, often implicit norms of discussion without support risks reproducing the very inequalities universities seek to address.

What we mean by educational dialogue

Educational dialogue refers to purposeful, structured talk that supports reasoning, collaboration, and shared understanding. It differs from casual conversation because it asks participants to listen actively, build connections between ideas, and make their thinking explicit. In this way, dialogue makes learning visible – students co-construct understanding through talk.

Despite a growing body of research in schools showing the benefits of educational dialogue for reasoning, collaboration, and attainment, there has been little work examining how this plays out in higher education. Our project, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, aimed to fill that gap by exploring how Foundation Year students across six UK universities talk to one another when given structured opportunities for dialogue – and whether a targeted intervention could enhance the quality of these interactions.

What we found

We observed clear disciplinary differences in the ways students engaged in dialogue. Psychology students, for instance, tended to make more connections to topics beyond the classroom, while Engineering students often built on one another’s ideas in a collaborative effort to solve the problems presented. Recognising these differences is crucial: subject cultures shape how students learn to talk, and this understanding can help educators design more inclusive, discipline-sensitive approaches to active learning. At the same time, if our goal is to prepare students for an increasingly interdisciplinary world, we must also help them become aware of how other disciplines talk and encourage them to develop the flexibility to communicate across disciplinary boundaries.

The intervention itself had a tangible effect. Discussion time increased, and we observed a higher frequency of dialogic moves such as connecting ideas and making reasoning explicit. In simple terms, students were not just talking more; they were engaging in higher-quality dialogue.

Both students and teachers noticed the change. Students reported greater confidence in contributing to class discussions and felt more comfortable expressing disagreement respectfully. Teachers in the intervention group described classroom talk as ‘more professional’ and ‘more purposeful’, noting that students participated more readily and that discussions felt more structured.

Why this matters for policy

These findings underscore a simple yet powerful message: if universities want students to collaborate effectively and communicate professionally, they must teach them how to talk.

This is not merely a matter of classroom technique but of educational equity. All students are expected to adopt the norms of academic discourse without being taught what these norms are. By treating dialogue as a teachable skill – much like academic writing – universities can make participation more equitable and support a sense of belonging for all learners.

Embedding educational dialogue within curricula also has broader policy implications. It aligns directly with the sector’s commitments to widening participation, student engagement, and the development of graduate attributes. In an increasingly interdisciplinary world, helping students learn how to communicate across disciplinary and cultural boundaries is not an optional extra – it is essential preparation for both professional and civic life.

A call to action

Universities already invest heavily in teaching academic writing. It is time to afford talk the same status. Embedding structured opportunities for educational dialogue – and explicitly teaching the skills that underpin it – can help create classrooms where every student, regardless of background, can find and use their voice.

If higher education is serious about inclusion, engagement, and progression, it must teach students not just what to say, but how to say it.

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November 4, 2025
Higher education should back a national digital skills wallet

Across the UK, millions of people struggle to prove what they’re capable of. From students juggling part-time work, to graduates volunteering in their communities, much of their learning sits outside formal qualifications and is effectively invisible to employers and institutions.

That invisibility costs everyone. It holds back individuals who can’t evidence their abilities and employers who struggle to identify the right talent, and it also drags on national productivity.

Last month the RSA and Ufi VocTech Trust published the final report of the Digital Badging Commission, From Skills to Growth: A Plan for Digital Badging in the UK. The conclusion is clear: the UK urgently needs a national digital skills wallet, linked to emerging plans for a national digital ID and built on open, interoperable standards. It would allow people to collect, store and share digital badges and credentials for their skills and capabilities that sit alongside their formal qualifications for a more holistic approach to education.

This recommendation now aligns directly with the UK government’s post-16 education and skills white paper which commits to a digital-first, lifelong learning system and the development of a national digital identity infrastructure. The commission’s proposals are therefore timely, practical and well placed to support the government’s agenda.

The missing infrastructure

While individual institutions issue transcripts in pdf format, and some pioneer digital badges alongside them, there’s no shared infrastructure to make those records connected nor visible across different sectors. As education and work become increasingly digital, paper certificates should be giving way to verifiable, portable digital records, alongside digital badges and credentials.

These are not just icons of achievement, but verified records embedded with information about who issued them, what they recognise and when they were awarded. Built on open standards, they can be issued by any organisation that follows the same open technical framework, ensuring compatibility across sectors.

Globally, digital badges and credentials are part of richer digital profile infrastructures, including Comprehensive Learner Records (CLRs) and Learning and Employment Records (LERs). CLRs capture academic, professional and co-curricular achievements, while LERs extend this to employment history, creating a portfolio of verified experience. Both can be stored in digital wallets, secure platforms that give individuals control over how and when they share their data with employers or education providers.

Together, these systems represent a shift towards lifelong, learner-owned digital records, combining qualifications, skills and experience into one trusted framework. This is precisely the direction outlined in the government’s white paper, which calls for a more joined-up and data-driven post-16 education landscape.

The Digital Badging Commission’s modelling shows that a trusted digital credentialing ecosystem could unlock billions in productivity across the wider economy through faster hiring and retention. But the gains go deeper than economics: visibility of skills drives inclusion. It means every learner, whatever their route, can have their capabilities recognised.

Keeping up with global trends

The use of digital skills wallets and LERs is accelerating worldwide. In the UK, the idea of a skills passport is not new – in 2022, the Council of Skills Advisers, chaired by David Blunkett, proposed a Learning and Skills Passport, a modular, assessment-based record built over a lifetime, linked to Individual Learning Accounts. More recently, under the industrial strategy, government confirmed that Skills England will work with industry to develop such passports.

Across Europe, the EU’s Digital Identity Wallet is being piloted in several member states ahead of full rollout in 2026. It will let citizens store and share verified digital credentials, from qualifications to identity documents, through a secure mobile app integrated with Europass. The system aims to make skills and qualifications transferable across borders, supporting the EU’s vision for a flexible, skills-based digital economy.

The Digital Badging Commission is calling for interoperable skills wallets that begins as an evolution of the Department for Education’s digital Education Record (which will be rolled out to all school pupils from August 2026). It will initially hold GCSEs for school-leavers but could expand to become a lifelong, portable record – potentially linking to whatever comes out of emerging plans for a national digital ID.

Here the white paper is welcome but incomplete. It describes an “education record app” focused on qualifications and support information, yet it does not set out how essential, non-accredited learning (workplace skills, volunteering, micro-credentials) will be imported. To avoid a two-tier system, the government should seize the chance to ensure one integrated wallet – rather than a separate “skills app” – so a person’s full skillset is represented, not just formal assessments. Not only that, but individuals should be able to choose what they share, and with whom.

This directly complements the white paper’s ambition for a unified skills and qualifications framework, ensuring that learning follows the individual, not the institution, across life and work.

Crucially, it must adopt open standards so that every education provider can issue records that align with it, and can be exported into a shared national wallet or interoperable proprietary ones. Degree transcripts from universities would no longer be in pdf format, but living records exported to the same technical rules as other credentials. A learner could move a verified transcript directly into a skills and qualifications wallet, combine it with badges from professional training or volunteering, and share it securely with employers anywhere in the UK.

That interoperability matters. Without it, the Education Record risks excluding lifelong learning altogether. With it, we can create a single, trusted architecture connecting higher education, workplace learning and civic participation. For universities, it means the qualifications they issue remain visible and valuable in a joined-up system.

What higher education stands to gain

There’s a strategic choice here. Universities can either wait until government or private platforms dictate the standards or help design them now.

By engaging early, HEIs can enhance their reputation and competitiveness by being seen as innovators in trusted digital credentials. This will strengthen their global profile and appeal to learners and employers seeking transparent, skills-focused education. They can provide better learner outcomes by meaningfully capturing students’ broader skills, placements and co-curricular learning, improving employability and lifelong learning pathways – taking the former Higher Education Achievement Record to its natural digital conclusion, and making lifelong learning tangible, rather than rhetorical, to students. Moreover, early involvement will mean a smoother integration with existing systems (VLEs and student records), reducing future compliance costs and avoiding disruptive retrofitting when standards are mandated.

The post-16 white paper’s call for a coherent digital skills framework reinforces this opportunity for universities to lead, not follow, in shaping the standards and technology that will define post-16 learning.

The obvious concerns are trust, quality and cost. Without consistent quality assurance, digital credentials risk being untrusted markers of skill. That’s why the Commission also calls for a national registry for digital credential quality assurance – a registry that defines standards, metadata requirements and approved issuers.

Quality is not the enemy of flexibility in this case; it is the enabler of trust. If universities lead in shaping these standards, they can ensure rigour and learner protection are built in from the start.

Adopting open standards in education and digital skills systems will not necessarily be straightforward, particularly in environments where legacy systems have been modified incrementally over years. For many institutions, both large and small, modifying student information systems and integrating open standards to bring them into line will require significant overhaul of systems, as well as underpinning investment in staff training.

However, the implementation of the LLE is requiring all institutions to explore the extent to which their student record systems are fit for purpose, and this represents a real opportunity to think broadly about what systems will be required in the future.

A call to lead, not follow

The RSA once helped invent the modern exam system. Today we need the same leap of imagination for the digital age. If we want an inclusive, high-trust and high-skill economy, recognition must catch up with reality.

Universities are uniquely placed to lead this transition, rooted in evidence, trusted by learners and central to the national conversation about growth. The question is not whether digital credentials will become part of our landscape, but who will set the standards and values that shape them.

By engaging with open standards for degree transcripts and flexing VLEs to deliver digital badges, higher education can ensure that the national digital skills wallet reflects academic quality, learner autonomy and social purpose. In the wake of the government’s post-16 white paper – and with clarity now needed on integrating non-accredited learning – the timing could not be better. It’s an opportunity to turn invisible learning into visible value.

You can download the Digital Badging Commission’s final report, From Skills to Growth: A Plan for Digital Badging in the UK here.

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November 4, 2025
Trump Partially Funds SNAP, Colleges Scramble

In the last week, campuses scrambled to shore up resources as 42 million Americans, including over a million college students, prepared to lose federal assistance to buy food. Payments for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, didn’t go out on the first of the month as they normally would amid the ongoing government shutdown.

Now the Trump administration plans to dole out some of the benefits this month—but not all—in response to two federal court orders.

In court filings Monday, the Trump administration agreed to expend emergency reserves to issue partial benefits this month, but also said the funds will only cover half of eligible households’ current benefits. And for at least some states, payments could take months to come through because of bureaucratic hurdles.

Erika Roberson, senior policy associate at the Institute for College Access and Success, said she worries students who rely on SNAP will still get less food than they need.

“Some food is not nearly enough food—especially when students are left to decide between finding their next meal and studying for an exam,” Roberson said in a statement to Inside Higher Ed. “Food should not be a luxury, but today, sadly, many college students are finding themselves in a position where that’s their reality.”

And while partial benefits are better than none at all, some questions remain unanswered. It’s unclear whether all SNAP recipients will get half of their benefits or whether some will get less than others this month, said Mark Huelsman, director of policy and advocacy at the Hope Center for Student Basic Needs at Temple University. He also expects payments to be delayed.

“I think that it still holds that campuses and food pantries and community organizations are going to be stretched pretty thin in the coming weeks,” Huelsman said, “even if the courts did the right thing here and stepped in and made sure that people’s benefits weren’t completely withheld.”

Campuses ‘Plan for the Worst’

Colleges and universities across the country have been furiously stocking up their campus pantries and expanding on-campus food programs in preparation for a pause in SNAP.

Southeast Community College in Nebraska typically runs a food drive in November for the food pantries on its three campuses. But this year, the college started its drive a month early, predicting a surge of students in need. Already, the Lincoln campus’s pantry went from serving 49 students two years ago to 505 students this September, said Jennifer Snyder, communications specialist at Southeast Community College. That number is only expected to grow. The college also plans to run a fundraising campaign for its emergency scholarship fund in case more students need aid than usual.

Ramping up these supports comes with challenges, Snyder said. Campus pantries used to be able to stock up by buying items at a low price from local food banks, but food banks are holding on to more of their goods as they also prepare for increases in demand. As campus pantries become harder to fill, Snyder worries staff members will have to make difficult decisions about how much food students can take.

“The need is there, and the demand is there, but the supply just keeps dwindling,” Snyder said. “So, how do you make it even? How do you make it fair for everybody so that everybody has access?”

Snyder said the Trump administration’s promise to partially fund SNAP this month hasn’t changed the college’s plans.

“If it’s partial funding, that’s a benefit,” she said. But “you just don’t know when it’s going to be taken away, so we should plan for the worst.”

Keith Curry, president of Compton College in Los Angeles, also sprang into action when he realized his students’ SNAP benefits were at risk.

The college already offers students one free meal per day through a partnership with the nonprofit Everytable. Starting Wednesday, the college is upping the number to two free meals daily for students participating in CalFresh, the state’s SNAP program, and CalWORKs, a state benefit program for low-income families. CalWORKs students will also get $50 in grocery vouchers per week, and students in either program get an extra $20 in farmers market vouchers per week.

Compton College also has a data-sharing agreement with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services that helps the college identify students who are eligible for CalFresh and CalWORKs to offer them extra supports, if students sign a waiver allowing it. The college plans to lean on that partnership to verify more students participating in these programs who are now eligible for Compton College’s new supports. The college and Everytable are splitting the costs of the additional free meals, and the college plans to reassess the political situation every Friday to determine whether the extra measures are still needed.

“We’re moving forward, because we don’t know what the impact will be to our students,” Curry said. “We don’t know how much they will actually receive. And our students need us more now than ever before. People are waiting for their benefits, and they’ve got to figure it out. Students are in a precarious position where they already have other needs.”

The Foundation for California Community Colleges expects more than 275,000 students in the system will be affected by SNAP payment delays, according to an emergency fundraising campaign launched Monday.

Grant Tingley, 41, is one of those students. He’s a student at Cypress College and an ambassador for the foundation whose job is to spread information about student food and housing resources. He’s also a SNAP recipient himself. In preparation for SNAP’s lapse, he’s been working with community organizations and other students to create a database of local food pantries and is pushing his campus food pantry to expand its hours.

Tingley emphasized that hunger makes it harder for the most vulnerable students to focus on their schoolwork. He’s also a student worker at Rising Scholars, a support program for formerly incarcerated students, students with incarcerated family members or students recovering from substance use, like himself. He fears these students in particular are at risk of losing academic momentum.

“They’re a group of people that have been beaten down repeatedly, time after time, and sometimes a small roadblock can really be a huge impediment for them going forward and continuing on their path,” he said. “Every little roadblock that we put in front of these students is almost make or break.”

Huelsman, of the Hope Center, encouraged colleges and universities to keep pushing forward plans to bolster student food supports and emergency aid as students divert funds they use for housing and other necessities to groceries. The Hope Center also put out a guide to help colleges navigate how to support students through disrupted SNAP benefits.

Even with partial benefits flowing, “every contingency plan and every preparation that institutions were making to help students weather this is still live,” he said. “Students are going to still feel a pretty severe disruption. And there’s just general confusion about what’s next.”

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November 3, 2025
“Peak Higher Education” Book Debuts January 6, 2026 (Bryan Alexander)

Peak Higher Ed: How to Survive the Looming Academic Crisis by Bryan Alexander debuts January 6, 2026. Here’s a synopsis.

Over the past decade, American colleges and universities have seen enrollment decline, campuses close, programs cut, faculty and staff laid off, and public confidence erode. In Peak Higher Ed, futurist Bryan Alexander forecasts what the next decade might hold if we continue down this path. He argues that the United States has passed its high-water mark for postsecondary education and now faces a critical turning point. How will higher ed institutions respond to this wave of change and crisis?

Combining data-driven research with scenario modeling, Alexander outlines a powerful framework for understanding what led to this moment: declining birthrates, surging student debt, rising tuition, shifting political winds, and growing skepticism about the value of a college degree. He maps out how these forces, if left unchecked, could continue to reshape academia by shrinking its footprint, narrowing its mission, and jeopardizing its role in addressing the planet’s most pressing challenges, from climate change to artificial intelligence. Alexander explores how institutions might adapt or recover, presenting two possible futures: a path of managed descent and a more hopeful course of reinvention.

Peak Higher Ed examines the fraying of the “college for all” consensus, the long shadow of pandemic-era disruptions, and the political polarization that has placed universities in the crosshairs. Written for educators, policymakers, students, and anyone invested in the future of higher learning, this book offers a deeply informed, unflinching look at the road ahead and the choices that will determine whether colleges and universities retreat from their peak or rise to a new one.

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November 3, 2025
What research says about Mamdani and Cuomo’s education proposals
by Jill Barshay, The Hechinger Report
November 3, 2025

New York City, where I live, will elect a new mayor Tuesday, Nov. 4. The two front runners — state lawmaker Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, running as an independent — have largely ignored the city’s biggest single budget item: education.

One exception has been gifted education, which has generated a sharp debate between the two candidates. The controversy is over a tiny fraction of the student population. Only 18,000 students are in the city’s gifted and talented program out of more than 900,000 public school students. (Another 20,000 students attend the city’s elite exam-entrance high schools.)

But New Yorkers are understandably passionate about getting their kids into these “gated” classrooms, which have some of the best teachers in the city. Meanwhile, the racial composition of these separate (some say segregated) classes — disproportionately white and Asian — is shameful. Even many advocates of gifted education recognize that reform is needed.

Related: Our free weekly newsletter alerts you to what research says about schools and classrooms.

Mamdani wants to end gifted programs for kindergarteners and wait until third grade to identify advanced students. Cuomo wants to expand gifted education and open up more seats for more children.

The primary justification for gifted programs is that some children learn so quickly that they need separate classrooms to progress at an accelerated pace.

But studies have found that students in gifted classrooms are not learning faster than their general education peers. And analyses of curricula show that many gifted classes don’t actually teach more advanced material; they simply group mostly white and Asian students together without raising academic rigor.

In my reporting, I have found that researchers question whether we can accurately spot giftedness in 4- or 5-year-olds. My colleague Sarah Carr recently wrote about the many methods that have been used to try to identify young children with high potential, and how the science underpinning them is shaky. In addition, true giftedness is often domain-specific — a child might be advanced in math but not in reading, or vice versa — yet New York City’s system labels or excludes children globally rather than by subject.

Because of New York City’s size — it’s the nation’s largest public school system, even larger than 30 states — what happens here matters.

Policy implications
- Delaying identification until later grades, when cognitive profiles are clearer, could improve accuracy in picking students.
- Reforming the curriculum to make sure that gifted classes are truly advanced would make it easier to justify having them.
- Educators could consider ways for children to accelerate in a single subject — perhaps by moving up a grade in math or English classes.
- How to desegregate these classrooms, and make their racial/ethnic composition less lopsided, remains elusive.
I’ve covered these questions before. Read my columns on gifted education:

Size isn’t everything

Another important issue in this election is class size. Under a 2022 state law, New York City must reduce class sizes to no more than 20 students in grades K-3 by 2028. (The cap will be 23 students per class in grades 4-8 and 25 students per class in high school.) To meet that mandate, the city will need to hire an estimated 18,000 new teachers.

During the campaign, Mamdani said he would subsidize teacher training, offering tuition aid in exchange for a three-year commitment to teach in the city’s public schools. The idea isn’t unreasonable, but it’s modest — only $12 million a year, expected to produce about 1,000 additional teachers annually. That’s a small fraction of what’s needed.

The bigger problem may be the law itself: Schools lack both physical space and enough qualified teachers. What parents want — small classes led by excellent, experienced educators — isn’t something the city can scale quickly. Hiring thousands of novices may not improve learning much, and will make the job of school principal, who must make all these hires, even harder.

For more on the research behind class-size reductions, see my earlier columns:

Contact staff writer Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or [email protected].

This story about education issues in the New York City mayoral election was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Proof Points and other Hechinger newsletters.

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November 3, 2025
A Tumultuous Tenure Leading the Nation’s Diversity Officers

Paulette Granberry Russell is stepping down as president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education after a dramatic and unpredictable five years at the helm.

She represented campus diversity professionals amid the national racial reckoning that accompanied the Black Lives Matter movement, and then through the dizzying years that followed as anti-DEI laws swept the country. She also spent 22 years as a diversity professional at Michigan State University.

Granberry Russell told Inside Higher Ed she never planned to stay at NADOHE longer than five years, so she’s ready to move on and facilitate a “smooth transition and handoff.”

But what a tenure it’s been.

She spoke with Inside Higher Ed about how she navigated the headwinds facing diversity professionals and the future of diversity, equity and inclusion work on campuses. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Over the course of your term, from 2020 to 2025, the landscape for diversity professionals in higher education radically shifted. What has it been like for you to represent DEI professionals then and now?

A: When I came into the role, my goals were to do a few things, which, not only were intended to build on our past successes, but also [to] develop new initiatives that would enhance a few areas, [including] increasing our membership but also providing our support for them. It included, for example, enhancing our industry influence but also sustainability of the organization.

I came into the role in March of 2020, and what happened in March of 2020? The pandemic, which altered much of what was going on in higher education and how we were doing our work, whether that was remotely, but also with threats in terms of both student experiences but also student support. And then in May of 2020, the murder of George Floyd, and all of the ways in which our institutions were reacting and responding and certain commitments were made to enhance antiracism efforts on our campuses.

When I think about my first few months, it was something very different than what I anticipated. And I’m certain that’s true for higher education as well. I lived in this state of shifting priorities, having to think about ways to best support members who were having to adjust to significant shifts on their campuses. We were also dealing with significant challenges around freedom of speech and disruption on our campuses prior to these more recent experiences.

And the politics are very different. When you shift from an environment of enhanced commitment built on an understanding that our campuses had to deal with issues around race and expanding opportunities more broadly across identity to now pushback—it was causing quite a shift in equilibrium. And that’s true for our members as well as the organization. And because of the evolution of diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education historically, as painful as a lot of this was, I believe we were better prepared than we understood ourselves to be.

Q: You touched on how you started at NADOHE in this moment in 2020, when campuses made commitments and investments in thinking about race and racial inequities, and now campuses are rolling back so much of those efforts in response to anti-DEI legislation. How did these policy shifts change NADOHE’s work and change your work as its leader? How did you have to pivot?

A: Our successes, I think, resulted in some of the pushback. The pushback was evolving. Expanding on opportunities [created by diversity initiatives] beyond race, so that people understood that diversity was more inclusive than they initially understood it to be—we did not do as good a job as we could have and should have.

But [we] are beginning to do [it] now, in broadening people’s understanding that diversity is and should be interpreted very broadly. I think that the narrative was hijacked, meaning it was easy to unfortunately define diversity narrowly on the basis of race, gender and sexuality. And others used that narrative to create fear and apprehension that somehow others were being advantaged, versus understanding that we all have benefited from the ways in which we were adjusting our efforts on campus to broaden access, to broaden opportunities, to increase equitable outcomes, understanding that [it’s] not one-size-fits-all, and we had to tailor and adjust our efforts to accommodate the broad range of interests and identities that presented on our campuses and have always presented on our campuses. What we failed to do well was messaging both the communities impacted by our work and the work that was being done to expand opportunities as well.

Q: How did the backlash shift your priorities, if at all?

A: When we think about the early challenges, some [opponents] would point to critical race theory. I don’t know that they necessarily understood it very well, and [they] were having a difficult time messaging it. But it was easier to talk about diversity, because for many people, that conjures up issues around race, it harkens back to earlier views of affirmative action and I think it became an easier message to divide higher ed both internally as well as externally.

It was important for NADOHE to emphasize—whether it was around academic freedom, First Amendment rights and freedom of speech and freedom of expression—that diversity, equity and inclusion are embedded in those. Freedom of expression cannot be sanitized. Our research, for example, or our curriculum is going to touch on issues that may impact communities broadly—and diverse, marginalized, underserved communities. And the work that we do in higher education as diversity leaders requires evidence-based research that informs our work. In the absence of that, you’re guessing at strategies and interventions that will support all students.

This work is not going to go away. We’re not going to go back to a time when opportunities were constrained, when fairness did not extend to certain communities. That’s unacceptable.”

—Paulette Granberry Russell

And so, I don’t know that it was as much a shift in our priorities as much as it was helping higher ed internally, as well as audiences outside of higher ed, to understand that access and opportunity are not limited to any one demographic or a few demographics. If there was a shift in priorities, it was hopefully helping broader audiences understand that there’s nothing to fear, especially in the ways that diversity, equity, inclusion was being demonized. This work is not intended to grant preferential treatment to some and deny others opportunities.

Q: So, you found yourself having to do a lot of explaining about what’s actually meant when people say “DEI” in a higher ed context.

A: That’s right. And it’s also saying to folks, don’t use the acronym. Because the acronym, unfortunately, supported a very narrow way of defining efforts.

Diversity is not defined narrowly. Equity is intended to reduce barriers that may result in differential impact, and those differential impacts are not limited to any one category. Inclusion doesn’t happen just naturally. We know individuals feeling included allows them to be themselves but also allows them to be more successful. If I don’t feel like I belong, what do I do? I tend to retreat, or I don’t access the resources that are there, resources that may benefit me, resources that are accessible to all, with an understanding that, again, we’re not monolithic. It is helping people differently understand, and hopefully better understand, that there are no threats here. Diversity on our campuses is a reality, period. And it’s not going to change, certainly not as long as organizations like NADOHE are here to defend access and opportunities.

Changes in nomenclature happen. How we define our work, how we label our work, how we tag our work has always changed. If we think historically, going back 20, 30 years, we talked about affirmative action. We talked about multiculturalism. We talked about diversity. We talked about equal opportunity. We talk about fairness. We talk about equity. We talk about belonging. We talk about inclusion. Terminology evolves over time, given how the work itself evolves.

Q: As campuses close centers associated with DEI and get rid of diversity roles, what do you see as the next phase of the work? How do campus diversity professionals move forward from here? And what does the DEI movement look like now and into the future?

A: At least for this moment in time, we need to more closely scrutinize the systems that have been designed that have resulted in barriers to success. And how do we redesign, or how do we begin to design systems that differently support our campuses?

There’s no single office or individual that can do this work alone. Certainly, in my own career at an institution that was a large public land-grant with over 40,000 students at that time and 14,000 faculty and staff, there was no way that a person with two staff was going to be able to dramatically impact change. [Change comes from] working with others and understanding that it’s going to take what I would call a whole institution approach, which means that our leadership, our policies, budget, people, culture have to be aligned. That also means that we have to take a look at the policies, practices, procedures that we have in place that may be having differential impacts, and how do we make adjustments in those? Not to grant preferential treatment, not to discriminate, but to say, can we design systems that work better?

We’re talking about a systems approach for structural change. When I say a systems approach, this is going to be far more extensive than I think many of us are prepared to do, but I think that it’s the future. [In the past], unfortunately, we didn’t [always] look at connections between the needs of our students, the capacity of faculty to meet those needs, the capacity of staff to meet those needs and connecting our students to potential employers. Things were very siloed. Things are still very siloed. We have to think about the life cycle of a student. And we do that, but it’s not that we are always very deliberate in how we do it.

When I grew up as a child, the expectation was that I would go to college, but my family by all definitions was very low income. [When] I got to my undergraduate experience, there were no tools in the way that there are now. There were no interventions. There were no programs that I could access that connected me to all of the resources that would allow me to be successful. I was a low-income Black female who arrived on a campus with no prior experience, not knowing how to navigate the space, not knowing where the resources were, not knowing how to fund my education. I was a person with a dream and a family that really wanted me to be successful, but they didn’t have the tools to provide that. It’s a very different world we live in today.

[The goal is] helping that student understand where the resources are, and then helping faculty understand the differences of those students that come into your classroom, ways that you as faculty can support them, connecting those faculty with the advisory services that those students might need. We have to design [systems] in ways that reduce barriers, that acknowledge the differences that exist and with the goal of those individuals being successful [and] reducing the barriers for faculty to be successful.

Q: After leaving NADOHE, what’s next for you?

A: My entire trajectory, my entire life, I have always been this person who believed in fairness. I always believed in opportunities. I’m always that person who fought for not only myself, but for others to be treated fairly, because I grew up in a family where my history included ancestors who were formerly enslaved.

At 16 years old, I decided I wanted to increase participation in voting. In 12th grade, I remember I had a speech class, and I was that person giving speeches on the slaughtering of baby seals. I was the person who was giving speeches on sexuality and treating people differently based on how they identified. I was that person who gave speeches on the Black Power movement, civil rights, Martin Luther King. And as I reflect now, as I transition, I’m not going to be any different than what I have always been. I will find new ways to [apply] my experiences and my advocacy. Because I have no choice. I realized that about myself.

My time with NADOHE has been to build on the successes of my predecessors. I believe that I have done that. I achieved the goals that I set out to achieve, both for myself and for the organization, whether that is increasing our membership, our influence within higher ed [and] beyond higher ed. We’ve done that.

This work is not going to go away. We’re not going to go back to a time when opportunities were constrained, when fairness did not extend to certain communities. We’re not going back to a time when discrimination on the basis of identity was lawful, certainly in the context of race, gender, sexuality, sexual orientation. That’s unacceptable. We’re not going back.

My next move is, I’m going to breathe. I’m going to take a little bit of time for myself. But I know I will always find my way back to what I have always been committed to, that I want people to be treated fairly. I want people to have opportunities.

Q: Whoever takes over your position is going to face significant headwinds. What would be your advice to them?

A: Bring your passion. Bring your commitment. Coming into this role, it’s going to be exhausting, but you have to decide that there’s no other way forward. Too many lives depend on it. This country, our democracy, depends on it.

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November 3, 2025
Collective Punishment, Early Decision Edition (opinion)

Tulane University’s admissions office has banned students from four high schools from applying to Tulane through early decision this fall, according to reporting from The New York Times. Though three of the schools have not been publicly identified, the one-year ban (or “suspension”) for Colorado Academy comes after a student from that school backed out of the early-decision agreement they signed when they applied to Tulane last year.

For those who aren’t card-carrying college admission geeks like I am, early decision is an application option and enrollment management strategy in which students apply earlier and promise to enroll if admitted, in exchange for receiving an earlier decision offer. The binding nature of early decision means that a student can apply to only one college through early decision.

In most cases students applying through early decision are asked, along with a parent and their school counselor, to sign an early-decision agreement attesting to their understanding of the commitment to enroll if admitted. Early decision is in no way legally binding, but colleges take the early-decision commitment seriously and are appalled and disgusted when students back out of the commitment. The one agreed-upon reason for backing out of an early-decision commitment is when an institution can’t meet a student’s financial need (as determined by the college’s financial aid formula, not what a family thinks it can pay).

I have had admission deans tell me that they would hold it against a school whose students did not follow through on the early-decision commitment, but Tulane is the first college I’ve seen publicly penalize schools. The Tulane ban raises some interesting and thorny ethical questions.

The most obvious is whether it is permissible to punish students in the Class of 2026 for offenses committed by students in the Class of 2025. Retribution may be fashionable these days, but punishing the innocent because you have no way to punish the guilty is not retribution, just wrong.

But that may be just me. The National Association for College Admission Counseling has an “Ethical Dilemmas in College Admission” page on its website that includes a hypothetical case study in which a student wants to back out of an early-decision commitment. Among the suggested advice for counselors is to caution the student and parents that withdrawing could have negative consequences for future applicants from the school. Even if that might be the case, that’s terrible advice from NACAC, making it seem like colleges punishing future applicants is acceptable and normal.

At least Tulane is being transparent with its early-decision ban for the schools. As bad as that is, there is a scenario that would be worse, if Tulane ostensibly welcomed early-decision applications from the four schools when it had no intention of admitting any of them.

The Times article didn’t provide any details about the circumstances leading up to the ban for the four schools, but Tulane’s position seems to be, as the Times paraphrased it, that the schools “failed to uphold the expectations of the early decision agreement.” Let’s examine that claim a little more closely.

What is a school’s responsibility in advising students wanting to apply early decision? As a counselor, I always advised students and parents that it was a binding commitment, not to be taken lightly. I don’t remember any of my students backing out of an early-decision commitment, but on several occasions I had students who told me on Friday they planned to apply early decision to one college and then a different college on Monday. My response was that they were not ready to apply early decision at all if their thinking was that fluid.

It’s hard for me to imagine how the schools would have failed in their responsibilities. The counselor part of the early-decision agreement states, “I have advised the student to abide by the early decision commitment outlined above.” As long as they have done that, are they responsible for policing the student’s actions? The school could withhold sending transcripts to other colleges, but in today’s litigious environment, it could face legal action from parents for doing so. I have learned that parents who are lawyers are especially skeptical of the early-decision commitment. If the student wanted to renege on early decision, I would require the student to inform the college. An applicant owes the college that courtesy. Beyond that, schools can’t be expected to enforce early decision.

There are several other issues that deserve scrutiny. One is Tulane’s claim in a statement to the Times that “A last-minute withdrawal without explanation unfairly impacts other applicants who may have missed opportunities due to the limited number of early-decision offers a university can make.” Excuse me, my BS detector is going off. Tulane has no restriction that I am aware of in the number of students it can admit through early decision, as suggested by the fact that, in recent years, it’s admitted more than 60 percent of its freshman class using early decision, and it has other opportunities to make up for any loss through early decision 2, early action and regular decision.

There is also an interesting philosophical question about the nature of the early-decision binding commitment. At what point does the binding commitment kick in? Or, more to the point, when does Tulane believe that the commitment is binding?

The common understanding across the world of college admission is that students take on the binding commitment either as soon as they sign the early-decision agreement, or at least as soon as they are accepted. Tulane’s application instructions state that early decision is binding and that students are expected to withdraw all other applications once accepted and issued a financial aid offer, but there are two other points in the same instructions that bring into question whether Tulane really believes that students are committed as soon as accepted.

The first bullet point in Tulane’s instructions for early decision defines it as an “application timeline for students whose first choice is Tulane and who are prepared to enroll soon after (italics mine) being admitted and receiving a financial aid offer.” The use of the phrase “soon after” suggests that there is a period of time after acceptance when the student is not yet committed.

In addition, Tulane expects accepted early-decision applicants to submit a $1,000 enrollment deposit by Jan. 15. Asking for a deposit is not unique to Tulane, but if the student is committed to attend Tulane as soon as they sign the early-decision agreement or upon acceptance, why require an enrollment deposit? If a student is accepted early decision but doesn’t then make the deposit, have they broken the commitment or does that commitment only kick in with the deposit? Am I the only one who sees a contradiction here? (The answer may well be yes, and it wouldn’t be the first time.)

The broader issue here has to do with early decision itself. Early decision has been around since the 1950s, and it’s controversial. The early-decision “bargain” can be argued to benefit both colleges and students, but it is far more beneficial to institutions as a way to manage enrollment. It doesn’t work well for students for whom financial aid is essential or those who come from schools without savvy college counselors who understand the early-decision game.

Tulane is the poster child for how colleges and universities use early decision to manage both enrollment and prestige. Its admit rate has declined precipitously in recent years largely through strategic use of early decision. According to its most recent Common Data Set, about 63 percent of the freshman class was admitted through early decision (that’s assuming a 100 percent yield rate for early-decision admits).

That may actually understate the impact of early decision. Another 20 percent of the class was admitted off the wait list (the CDS shows the number of students admitted off the wait list but does not break it down in terms of enrollments, but there are universities that only admit students off the wait list if they know they will enroll, almost a form of “early decision 3”).

The heavy use of early decision means that there is a huge variance in the admit rates for early decision and other admissions plans at Tulane (it also has nonbinding early action). According to the Common Data Set, the admit rate for early decision was 59 percent, compared with 11 percent for all other options. That’s not new. A 2022 Inside Higher Ed article reported that Tulane had admitted only 106 students in regular admission. In any case, the numbers suggest that not applying early decision is hugely disadvantageous at Tulane, which makes the ban even more punitive.

I am trying to be sympathetic to Tulane’s hurt feelings over being dissed by students they admitted in early decision, but I would hope the university’s admissions office will take to heart the wisdom of Gilbert and Sullivan, as well as the Ramones, and let the punishment fit the crime.

Jim Jump recently retired after 33 years as the academic dean and director of college counseling at St. Christopher’s School in Richmond, Va. He previously served as an admissions officer, philosophy instructor and women’s basketball coach at the college level and is a past president of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. He is the 2024 recipient of NACAC’s John B. Muir Excellence in Media Award.

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November 3, 2025
Minor in Holistic Wellness Advances Student Career Wellness

Most, if not all, colleges and universities provide mental health support and wellness resources to encourage resiliency and thriving among students, who report high rates of mental health concerns.

At Rutgers University at New Brunswick, staff are taking health education one step further, offering a new minor in holistic wellness to support students’ personal well-being as well as to provide practical skills so they can share well-being principles in their workplaces.

The minor, developed by ScarletWell, the university’s well-being division, is open to any student on campus. It is designed to empower a new generation of workers who demonstrate wellness in all dimensions of their lives.

What’s the need: One of the key features of the holistic wellness minor is that it expands education beyond personal well-being into teaching and creating a culture of wellness, said ScarletWell director Peggy Swarbrick. Included in the learning outcomes are an understanding of policies that foster wellness, wellness communication and program development.

“These skills will make Rutgers students more attractive for jobs, regardless of their career or discipline of focus, because they will be able to work with leadership to improve sense of community and belonging and overall health of the workforce,” ScarletWell leaders wrote in the minor proposal to administrators.

Burnout is a frequent concern among American workers and can be a threat to both student and worker retention. One survey published earlier this year found that 66 percent of American employees say they’re experiencing some sort of burnout; young adults (ages 18 to 24) were even more likely to say they’re burned out (81 percent).

Providing wellness education is one way to support student success and give workers the tools they need to be impactful in their roles, Swarbrick noted.

In addition, wellness as an industry has grown, meaning more sectors—including schools and police departments—are looking to hire individuals with a focus on organizational wellness, said chief wellness officer Josh Langberg. More employers are also seeking individuals with a background in wellness.

Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows wellness-focused jobs are expected to grow at a faster pace over the next decade than the current 5 percent average for all workers.

What’s involved: Any student in any major at Rutgers’s New Brunswick campus can enroll in the 18-credit minor. Students complete three core courses that provide a foundational understanding of well-being as well as a range of skills and strategies courses, which focus on practical applications of wellness, including exercise, journaling or other self-regulation methods.

ScarletWell staff helped develop the program, but the minor is housed in the school of environmental and biological sciences. Students complete courses from a variety of disciplines including the arts, nutrition, sociology and horticulture.

This is the first academic program at Rutgers to have “wellness” in the title. It’s distinct from the offerings of other institutions in the state because of its holistic focus, Langberg noted.

What’s next: The minor was approved in spring 2025 and soft launched this fall with the course Wellness Learning Community, which enrolled a range of students across disciplines at Rutgers. The course teaches students the eight dimensions of wellness—physical, social, intellectual, spiritual, emotional, financial, environmental and occupational wellness—developed by Swarbrick, as well as how to reflect on their own definitions of wellness and how to apply what they’ve learned to their future occupations.

Students were also introduced to various resources on campus including Harvest, an on-campus dining option that focuses on sustainability, economic responsibility and reducing food waste.

Initial feedback from students indicated they valued the course content and wished they had taken it sooner in their academic careers, said Amy Spagnolo, senior program coordinator of ScarletWell. Students also said they appreciated being in classes outside of their disciplines with peers from other majors across campus.

Swarbrick hopes to enroll between 40 and 60 students in the minor. So far, the program has grown through word of mouth.

In addition to the minor, students and staff can engage in digital badging to be credentialed as a Wellness Champion or peer support leader. Since the program launched last year, 60 staff and faculty have participated in the peer-support program.

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

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November 3, 2025
From talk to action: collaboration and shared services in higher education
This guest blog was kindly authored by Heidi Fraser-Krauss, Chief Executive Officer at Jisc.

The power of collaboration and shared services is now widely recognised in the higher education sector as an effective way for institutions to continue delivering outstanding student experiences, world-class teaching, and research and innovation, all against a backdrop of financial pressures. Jisc has played a leading role in driving these conversations, in partnership with UUK, KPMG and university leaders. However, it is now time to put our words into action and make collaboration the norm.

Achieving better outcomes collectively

Recent sector-wide initiatives, including the Transformation and Efficiency Taskforce commissioned by Universities UK, have explored opportunities for efficiency and innovation through shared services. Jisc contributed to practical strands of this work, focusing on collaboration utilising digital, data and technology. A UK-wide questionnaire inviting insights from the sector on which actions should be taken was distributed. More than 30 ideas were submitted, and three were explored in depth.

Shared services is the first of these three. The premise is simple: through sharing, collaboration and working together (whether by pooling knowledge, sharing risk or combining scarce skills) universities can achieve better outcomes together than they could alone.

Tools for collaboration already exist – so let’s put them to work

The sector already has examples of institutional collaboration – demonstrating the benefits of collective effort. However, not all services lend themselves well to being shared. For example, ambitious but complex projects such as a shared student record system for the sector is not an ideal place to begin.

We must also be careful not to assume that shared services are automatically more efficient simply by virtue of their being shared. Despite this, there are many that can be. Good examples of collaboration, involving sharing back-office functions (for example a joint out-of-hours IT service, or forming a consortium to strengthen research bids) already exist. In fact, both of these examples were highlighted by the then Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Peter Kyle during his speech at the recent Universities UK conference.

One of the key findings of the report, was that, although there are many shared services across the sector already, very few are used by large numbers of institutions. Many have been running for years and could achieve far greater impact if more institutions engaged with them. The lesson is clear: make better use of what already exists. An example of this is UMAL, the non-profit mutual insurer for universities and colleges across the UK.

Plenty of questions still to be answered

As collaboration gains momentum, important questions remain. Can processes be standardised? Can AI-enabled tools be developed jointly to avoid duplication, and could collaboration extend to industry and public sector partnerships, such as health? Examples like Cardiff’s Mental Health University Liaison Service and the Greater Manchester Universities Mental Health Service – both university–NHS collaborations – could be replicated elsewhere. Science Parks across the UK also show how universities and industry can work successfully together.

These are all important questions, and although we may not yet have all the answers, we shouldn’t let this get in the way of change.

What should happen now?

There are a number of practical steps we can take together in the very short term to make shared services a genuine force for positive change across higher education. For example, the creation of a central catalogue of existing shared services would raise awareness and uptake.

The sector must adopt a ‘shared services first’ mindset. Leaders should consider whether proven, collaborative solutions are already available – and use them. Where duplication exists, regional mergers or the strategic transfer of services into national bodies could strengthen sustainability and reduce wasted effort.

Government has an important role to play. Adopting the British Universities Finance Directors Group (BUFDG) proposa [CA1] ls for improving VAT treatment of cost-sharing groups could unlock further progress.

For their part, institutions sharing data on spend and contract reviews would help to provide an evidence base for smarter sector-wide decisions. In some cases, institutions should also consider mergers or broader consolidation of services across the sector, where combining resources offers long-term efficiencies and sustainability.

Supporting universities to collaborate

Collaboration isn’t idealism – it’s a rational response to cost pressures, and the means to make it happen is already in our hands. We can adopt a ‘shared services first’ approach – it just needs a firm commitment from institutional leaderships to make it happen.

At Jisc, our role remains to convene senior stakeholders, define shared negotiation objectives, and support universities to move from strategy to implementation – after all, everyone knows that actions speak louder than words.

Recommendations

To support a shift towards collaborative models, here are practical recommendations for institutions, sector networks, shared service operators and government.

Individual Institutions
- Adopt a ‘shared services first’ mindset for new requirements
  
  Evaluate existing shared services before creating an in-house service or procuring a commercial solution, prioritising long term value over short term cost savings
- Collaborate with neighbouring institutions to replicate successful models
  
  Explore regional opportunities to address shared needs and challenges where shared models have proved successful
- Reassess internal operations and consider where there are opportunities to share services
  
  Evaluate any area that could benefit from a shared service, except in student recruitment
Sector Networks and Membership Organisations

(e.g. Universities UK, BUFDG, UCISA, regional consortia)
- Increase awareness of existing shared services through a central shared service catalogue
  
  Create and promote a catalogue of shared services structured for direct contract awards or competitive tendering.
- Convene groups of institutions, to consider potential joint commitments to subscribe to existing shared services, increasing their scale
  
  Use sector networks to bring universities together for collective commitments to shared services, leveraging procurement rules that permit direct contracting with sector-owned organisations (known as the Teckal exemption) where appropriate.
Shared Service Operators

(e.g. UMAL, sector-owned IT or procurement services)
- Shared service operators should meet regularly to increase coordination
  
  Establish regular meetings between sector-owned shared services to improve collaboration and avoid duplication.
  
  Consider forming a UK Shared Services Council to unify efforts, similar to UK Universities Procurement Consortia (UKUPC).
- Regional shared services should consider merging, where online working has removed the original advantage of a regional operation
  
  Non-profit operators in the same niche should merge to avoid unnecessary competition and improve service delivery. Merging can create more efficient, focused providers.
- Individual universities operating shared services should consider transferring ownership of their shared service to other organisations, but only when natural opportunities arise
  
  Universities should transfer shared services to sector agencies when it aligns naturally, allowing focus on core missions.
Government
- Government should implement one of BUFDG’s proposed improvements to VAT Cost Sharing Groups. This would create new opportunities for shared services in areas currently considered unworkable due to an additional 20% VAT charge.
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November 3, 2025