Tag: Education

  • Harvard Prof to Leave U.S. After Immigration Arrest

    Harvard Prof to Leave U.S. After Immigration Arrest

    At the time of his initial arrest, Gouvea said he was hunting rats.

    APCortizasJr/iStock/Getty Images

    Immigration authorities arrested Carlos Portugal Gouvea, a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, on Wednesday after his J-1 visa was revoked for shooting a BB gun outside of a Boston-area synagogue Oct. 2, the day of Yom Kippur. Gouvea agreed to voluntarily leave the United States rather than be deported. 

    The Department of State revoked Gouvea’s visa Oct. 16, and a month later, Gouvea accepted a plea deal “on the charge of illegal use of the air rifle while his other charges for disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, and vandalizing property were dismissed,” the Department of Homeland Security wrote in a news release. 

    Gouvea shot the pellet gun outside Temple Beth Zion in Brookline, Mass., just a few miles south of the Harvard campus, The New York Times reported. Private security guards for the synagogue heard a loud noise outside, and the temple was put in a lockdown. When a guard saw Gouvea behind a tree and attempted to arrest him, they engaged in a brief physical struggle and then Gouvea fled, the Times reported. He was later arrested by Brookline police. Gouvea fired two total shots, one of which police later discovered had shattered a car window. Harvard officials put Gouvea on administrative leave shortly after his October arrest.

    In its news release, the Department of Homeland Security called the act an “anti-Semitic shooting incident,” a characterization federal officials have maintained since the incident. 

    “It is a privilege to work and study in the United States, not a right. There is no room in the United States for brazen, violent acts of anti-Semitism like this. They are an affront to our core principals as a country and an unacceptable threat against law-abiding American citizens,” Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at DHS, said in a statement. “We are under zero obligation to admit foreigners who commit these inexplicably reprehensible acts or to let them stay here. Secretary Noem has made it clear that anyone who thinks they can come to America and commit anti-American and anti-Semitic violence and terrorism should think again. You are not welcome here.” 

    At the time of his initial arrest, Gouvea said he was “hunting rats.” He was not charged with a hate crime by local police, and leaders from Temple Beth Zion told the Times they did not believe the shooting was motivated by bias. 

    “From what we were initially told by police, the individual was unaware that he lived next to, and was shooting his BB gun next to, a synagogue, or that it was a religious holiday,” Benjamin Maron, the synagogue’s executive director, and Larry Kraus, its president, wrote in the statement to the Times. “It is potentially dangerous to use a BB gun in such a populated spot, but it does not appear to have been fueled by antisemitism.”

    A lawyer for Gouvea also told the Times in October that the matter was “a total misunderstanding of an entirely innocent situation.”

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  • Coach Buyouts Boom to Record Highs

    Coach Buyouts Boom to Record Highs

    Earlier this year, Pennsylvania State University announced it would close seven campuses due to financial constraints, while Louisiana State University implemented a hiring freeze and other cost-cutting measures.

    Months later both institutions fired their head football coaches—for a price. Despite Penn State’s financial challenges, administrators were willing to pay more than $45 million to make head coach James Franklin go away after the Nittany Lions posted a 6-3 record. LSU fired Brian Kelly after a 5-3 start and gave him a buyout of $54 million.

    Franklin’s total buyout was ultimately reduced to $9 million when he landed the head coaching job at Virginia Tech, and Kelly’s exit package will also shrink should he find another position. But the eye-popping compensation numbers are adding up—and setting new records at a time when many colleges and universities are cutting costs.

    Record Buyouts

    Recent data compiled by the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics shows that failing is a lucrative business for college football coaches. Fifteen fired football coaches have already racked up collective buyouts of nearly $228 million from public universities, compared to $120 million in fiscal year 2024. (Those totals are for Football Bowl Subdivision coaches only, formerly known as Division I-A, and only include public universities, since private institutions don’t release such contract details.)

    Former LSU coach Brian Kelly landed one of the largest buyouts in the history of college sports.

    Gus Stark/LSU/University Images/Getty Images

    The Knight Commission noted that individual coaching buyouts this year “are the second, third, fourth, and fifth highest severance pay obligations in history.” The top slot still belongs to Texas A&M University, which fired Jimbo Fisher in 2023 with an exit package of more than $75 million.

    Looking across a longer timeline, the commission estimates that universities shelled out a total of $852 million in severance pay for football coaches, including assistants, between 2012 and 2024.

    University Responses

    Universities often stress that coaching buyouts are paid with donor funds, not public money. Even so, some experts argue that paying vast sums of money to fire coaches is problematic and damages faculty and staff morale, especially at universities that are slashing jobs and budgets.

    Penn State defended its recent buyout to Inside Higher Ed by emphasizing that its athletic program is among the few in the nation “that is self-sustaining and therefore does not use any tuition or taxpayer dollars.” In addition, the university said, it has a major economic impact on the surrounding area.

    “Decisions regarding budgets and operations of the academic enterprise are separate and distinct,” a spokesperson wrote in an emailed response to a question about closing rural campuses across Pennsylvania. “As noted, no tuition or tax dollars are used for athletics. The difficult but necessary decisions Penn State has made impacting campuses and unit budgets, have been made with a core focus on setting our students up with the best opportunities for success.”

    LSU did not provide a statement to emailed questions prior to publication.

    Congressional Scrutiny

    While Congress has deliberated capping pay for college athletes—whom institutions can now pay directly, as of earlier this year—Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics CEO Amy Privette Perko has encouraged lawmakers to rein in coaching salaries.

    “As Congress debates the merits of federal legislation to place limits and guardrails on college athlete compensation, it should also examine the conditions that allow for the continued growth of excessive compensation and severance for football coaches at non-profit universities,” she said in a statement accompanying the organization’s report on buyouts.

    Some members of Congress appear interested in taking on runaway salaries and buyouts.

    In October, Representative Michael Baumgartner, a Washington Republican, introduced the Correcting Opportunity and Accountability in Collegiate Hiring Act, a proposal that would cap annual pay for all athletics department employees. Baumgartner’s proposed bill would limit annual pay to no more than 10 times the cost of in-state tuition for undergraduate students.

    While new LSU coach Lane Kiffin is set to make $13 million a year, his annual salary would be dramatically lower—about $280,000—under the pay scheme proposed by Baumgartner.

    Multiple state attorneys general have already voiced opposition to the proposal.

    Lane Kiffin speaks at a press conference as he is introduced as the new head football coach of the LSU Tigers. He is a white man with short brown hair, wearing a blue suit with a purple tie and patterned shirt.

    New LSU coach Lane Kiffin is poised to make $13 million a year.

    Tyler Kaufman/Getty Images

    Some lawmakers have also questioned whether college sports should remain tax-exempt. Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat representing Washington, wrote a letter to the Joint Committee on Taxation earlier this year, seeking an analysis of the implications of stripping the NCAA, member institutions and athletic conferences of their ability to continue as tax-exempt organizations.

    “Given the evolving market dynamics of college sports coupled with changes in the legal framework affecting college athletes, legitimate questions have been raised about whether it is time to rethink the tax-exempt regime under which college sports currently operates,” she wrote.

    But so far, legislation to alter the college sports landscape has proven difficult to pass. The latest effort to overhaul athletics—which would have limited student transfer eligibility and how much universities can spend on name, image and likeness deals—collapsed short of the end zone last week when House members balked on the GOP-backed bill and sponsors pulled it from a vote.

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  • Conservative Think Tank AEI Names Ben Sasse Senior Fellow

    Conservative Think Tank AEI Names Ben Sasse Senior Fellow

    Former University of Florida president Ben Sasse is now an American Enterprise Institute fellow.

    The American Enterprise Institute, a prominent conservative-leaning think tank, has named former U.S. senator and university president Ben Sasse a nonresident senior fellow, AEI announced Friday. Its website says his work there will focus on “higher education, innovation, technology, American history and culture, and national security.”

    Sasse’s AEI post and his continuing voice at other major conservative institutions—The Wall Street Journal has run at least three op-eds by him this year, including one calling on university board members across the country to stand up to faculty “radicals” and “encourage greater intellectual diversity”—shows he’s not persona non grata after his abrupt exit from the University of Florida last year.

    Sasse attributed his resignation from UF to his wife’s health, though the student newspaper, The Independent Florida Alligator, has reported the board may have forced him out. During the first year of his roughly 18-month presidency, his office spent more than $17 million. Sasse denied wrongdoing and argued that driving new initiatives at UF required major investments.

    Sasse, a Republican who represented Nebraska in the Senate, remains a professor in UF’s Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education. He previously was president of Midland University.

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  • Reimagining Education: A Future of Equity, Innovation, and Collaboration – Faculty Focus

    Reimagining Education: A Future of Equity, Innovation, and Collaboration – Faculty Focus

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  • Reimagining Education: A Future of Equity, Innovation, and Collaboration – Faculty Focus

    Reimagining Education: A Future of Equity, Innovation, and Collaboration – Faculty Focus

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  • WEEKEND READING: Knowledge and skills in higher education: coherence, conflict or confusion?

    WEEKEND READING: Knowledge and skills in higher education: coherence, conflict or confusion?

    Join HEPI for a webinar on Thursday 11 December 2025 from 10am to 11am to discuss how universities can strengthen the student voice in governance to mark the launch of our upcoming report, Rethinking the Student Voice. Sign up now to hear our speakers explore the key questions.

    This blog was kindly authored by Dr Adam Matthews, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham.

    Skills have dominated the policy and political discourse in recent years. In a recent HEPI blog, Professor Ronald Barnett observed how the education policy world has been dominated by the language of skills, whilst academic discourse has focused on education and knowledge. Professor Barnett argues that these two discourses are speaking past each other, disconnected and polarising.

    In this blog I look at how skills have come to dominate policy, political and institutional discourse, present some speculations and provocations as to why this might be, and call for precision in language when it comes to knowledge and skills policy. Here, in both simple and more philosophical terms, we are looking at discursive binaries which are concerned with doing (skills) and knowing (knowledge) in higher education.

    The 2025 Post-16 Education and Skills whitepaper is clear in its opening:

    Skills are at the heart of our plan to deliver the defining mission of this government – growth.

    The skills turn in policy and political discourse has, in many cases, sidelined or muted knowledge. This is not the case in academic literature. The Oxford Review of Education, recently published a special issue Knowledge crises and democratic deficit in education.

    Where does this then leave many universities who are, and have been for centuries producers, co-producers and distributors of knowledge? Burton Clark summed up a universities’ core mission well in 1983:

    If it could be said that a carpenter goes around with a hammer looking for nails to hit, then a professor goes around with a bundle of knowledge, general or specific, looking for ways to augment it or teach it to others. However broadly or narrowly we define it, knowledge is the material. Research and teaching are the main technologies.

    This is despite many universities starting life in the 20th century as civic institutions with a focus on the training of professions. Immanuel Kant described these two sides as a Conflict of the Faculties in 1798. In The Conflict of the Faculties, Kant argues that universities contain a necessary tension between “higher” faculties that serve the state’s skills needs and train professionals, and the “lower” faculty of philosophy, which must remain autonomous to pursue knowledge through free inquiry.

    The Post-16 Education and Skills Government white paper, uses the word ‘skills’ 438 times and ‘knowledge’ just 24 times. So, what has happened to knowledge in higher education? Professor Barnett thinks that there is something else going on other than the traditional liberal (education and knowledge) and vocational (skills) polarisation.

    With all of this in mind, I was interested in how universities described their teaching practice in the 2023 TEF submissions (a corpus of 1,637,362 words and 127 qualitative provider submissions). The pattern of a focus on skills continued. Across the whole corpus, in total, ‘skills’ was used 4,785 times, and ‘knowledge’ 1284 times – that means that skills trumped knowledge by a ratio of 3.7.

    I wondered if it made a difference about the type of institution. We might think large, research-intensive universities would be more interested in knowledge in educational terms or, be more balanced on knowledge and skills. So, I divided those numbers up by institution type using the handy, KEF classifications.

    Cluster Skills (per thousand)  Knowledge (per thousand)  Ratio difference 
    All   4785 (2.92)  1284 (0.78)  3.7 
    ARTS (Specialist) 648 (2.28)  220 (0.77)  2.9 
    STEM (Specialist) 384 (4.27)  89 (0.99)  4.31 
    E (Large broad disciplines) 1243 (2.94)  350 (0.82)  3.55 
    J (Mid-size teaching focus) 411 (2.74)  109 (0.72)  3.77 
    V (Very large, research-intensive) 745 (3.28)  184 (0.81)  4.05 
    M (Smaller with teaching focus) 672 (2.9)  197 (0.85)  3.41 
    X (Large, research-intensive, broad discipline) 682 (2.93)  135 (0.58)  5.05 

    As shown above, the pattern holds – skills are being written about more than knowledge.  Institutions in the clusters X and V (large and very large, broad-discipline and research-intensive) show the widest disparity in the balance between knowledge and skills (with the balance in favour of skills). This is surprising as these are the institutions, one might think are more interested in knowledge production alongside and integrated with education.

    Taking a slightly different line of inquiry, the shift does not appear to be drawn within political party lines. In 2022, Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education, Robert Halfon spoke at the Times Higher Education Conference as Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education (no ‘knowledge’ in his job title) and used the word ‘knowledge’ just once.

    At the turn of the century, the political discourse was dominated by knowledge and a knowledge economy, and then Prime Minister, Tony Blair claimed in 2002 that this was the route to prosperity:

    This new, knowledge-driven economy is a major change. I believe it is the equivalent of the machine-driven economy of the industrial revolution.

    This was just as the internet became accessible to all and globalisation dominated, promising an opening up and democratising of knowledge. As we enter the AI revolution, why have skills become the dominant policy and political narrative? Skills-based or knowledge-rich curricula debate has been linked to the emergence of AI technologies.

    Ideologically, knowledge and skills have produced dividing lines in education systems politically. Moreover, knowledge and skills are hotly contested in binary terms in schooling.

    In 2016, the Conservative Party held that knowledge was the route to economic growth, arguing that higher education played a key part in achieving success as a knowledge economy. In the same year, the UK voted to leave the European Union, kicking off a decade of political instability, coinciding with political orders being disrupted globally.

    During the liberal consensus of the Blair to Cameron era, governments in England aimed to keep taxes low and markets open, whilst expanding the nation’s knowledge capabilities through graduates and research. They had a broad faith in the benefits of growing knowledge and stimulating enterprise, rather than shaping the economy. They also expected communications technologies to empower citizens in a climate of open debate.

    Now, as we enter 2026, the pendulum has swung firmly toward skills dominating policy and political discourse. Rather than swinging between the two polarising discourses, it is important to develop a practical coherence between skills and knowledge.

    Professor Barnett calls for a rebalancing in debates, our language and our practice. Surely, it’s reasonable for educators, students, researchers, policy makers and politicians to expect higher education to consider doing (skills) and knowing (knowledge) as equals rather than sides to be taken. It can be argued that separating these two very human capabilities is not possible at all. However, Skills England have developed a new classifications for skills which could prove useful but needs careful integration with higher education curriculum, knowledge production and pedagogy.

     The question of why the pendulum has swung towards skills at this current moment, I can only speculate and offer provocations to be picked up in the HEPI blog and beyond:

    • The push towards a knowledge economy and 50% of young people attending university failed to result in economic growth (we might argue that the 2008 financial crash, Brexit, pandemic and many other things could have contributed too).
    • Liberalism, globalisation and knowledge came together within the notion of a knowledge economy and society. A populist backlash to knowledge and liberal higher education has resulted in a shift towards skills.
    • A genuine attempt to remedy a left behind 50% of the population who do not pursue a knowledge based academic degree.
    • The internet did not deliver on social or economic positives and growth – as Peter Thiel famously said “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters”.
    • Artificial intelligence is, or could disrupt knowledge and white collar work.
    • Often, knowledge and skills are used as synonyms for each other leading, to confusion.

    Knowing (knowledge) and doing (skills) should be at the heart of economic growth, social change and flourishing societies and not two binaries to be fought over. Precision in the language we use to make these cases needs to be sharpened and made clearer in order to avoid confusion and aid policy and practice.

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  • The Higher Education Inquirer is requesting all emails from the US Department of Education regarding selling off the student loan portfolio.

    The Higher Education Inquirer is requesting all emails from the US Department of Education regarding selling off the student loan portfolio.







    Higher Education Inquirer : The Higher Education Inquirer is requesting all emails from the US Department of Education regarding selling off the student loan portfolio.




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  • WEEKEND READING: On legal education: is AI churning out super or surface-level lawyers?

    WEEKEND READING: On legal education: is AI churning out super or surface-level lawyers?

    Join HEPI for a webinar on Thursday 11 December 2025 from 10am to 11am to discuss how universities can strengthen the student voice in governance to mark the launch of our upcoming report, Rethinking the Student Voice. Sign up now to hear our speakers explore the key questions.

    This blog was kindly authored by Utkarsh Leo, Lecturer in Law, University of Lancashire (@UtkarshLeo)

    UK law students are increasingly relying on AI for learning and completing assessments. Is this reliance enhancing legal competence or eroding it? If it is the latter, what can be done to ensure graduates remain competent?

    Studying law equips students with key transferable skills – such as evidence-based research, problem solving, critical thinking and effective communication. Traditionally, students cultivate doctrinal (and procedural) knowledge by attending lectures, workshops and going through assigned academic readings. Thereafter, they learn how to apply legal principles to varying facts through assessments and extracurriculars like moot courts and client advocacy. In this process, they learn how to construct persuasive arguments and articulate ideas, both orally and in writing. However, with widely available and accessible Gen AI, students are taking shortcuts in this learning process.

    The HEPI/Kortext Student Generative AI Survey 2025 looked into AI use by students from a range of subjects. It paints a grim picture: 58% of students are using AI to explain concepts and 48% are using it to summarise articles. More importantly, 88% are using it for assessment related purposes – a 66% increase compared to 2024.

    Student Generative AI Survey 2025, Higher Education Policy Institute

    Rooted in inequality

    Students are relying on shortcuts largely due to rising economic inequality. Survey data published by the National Union of Students shows 62% of full-time students work part-time to survive. This translates into reduced studying time, limited participation in class discussions and extracurriculars. Understandably, such students may find academic readings (which are often complex and voluminous) as a chore, further reducing motivation and engagement. In this context, AI offers a quick fix!

    Prompt and output generated by perplexity.ai on 7 November 2025 showing AI-produced case summaries.

    The problem with shortcuts

    Quick fixes, as shown above, promote overreliance: resulting in cognitive replacement. Most LLB first-year programmes aim to cultivate critical legal thinking: from the ability to apply the law and solve problems in a legal context to interpreting legislative intent to reading/finding case law and developing the skills to spot issues, weigh precedents and constructing legal arguments. Research from neuroscience shows that such essential skills are acquired through repeated effort and practice. Permitting AI usage for learning purposes at this formative stage (when students learn basic law modules) inhibits their ability to think through legal problems independently – especially in the background of the student cost-of-living crisis. 

    More importantly, only 9 out of more than 100 universities require law degree applicants to sit the national admission test for law (LNAT) – which assesses reasoning and analytical abilities. This variability means we cannot assume that all non-LNAT takers possess the cognitive tools necessary for legal thinking. This uncertainty reinforces the need to disallow AI use in first-year law programmes to ensure students either gain or hone the necessary skills to do well in law school.

    Technical discussion

    Furthermore, from a technical perspective, the shortcomings of AI summaries are well known. AI models often merge various viewpoints to create a seemingly coherent answer. Therefore, a student relying on AI to generate case summaries enhances the likelihood of detaching them from judicial reasoning (for example, the various structural/substantive principles of interpretation employed by judges). It risks producing ill-equipped lawyers who may erode the integrity of legal processes (a similar argument applies to statutes).

    Alongside this, AI systems are unreliable: from generating fake case-law citations to suggesting ‘users to add glue to make cheese stick to pizza.’ Large language models (LLMs) use statistical calculation to predict the next word in a sequence – therefore, they end up hallucinating. Despite retrieval-augmented generation – a technique for enhancing accuracy by enabling LLMs to check web sources – the output generated can be incorrect if there is conflicting information. Furthermore, without thoughtful use, there is an additional concern that AI sycophancy will further validate existing biases. Hence, despite the AI frenzy, first year students will be better off if they prioritise learning through traditional primary and secondary sources.   

    How to ensure this?

    Certainly, we cannot prohibit student’s from using AI in a private setting; but we can mitigate the problem of overreliance by designing authentic assessments evaluated exclusively through in-person exams/presentations. This is more likely to encourage deeper engagement with the module. Now more than ever, this is critical. Despite rising concerns of AI misuse and the inaccuracy of AI text detection primarily due to text perplexity (high false positives; especially for students for whom English is not their first language), core law modules (like contract law and criminal law) continue to be assessed through coursework (for either 50% or more of the total module mark).

    However, sole reliance on in-person exams will not suffice! To promote deeper module engagement (and decent course pass rates), the volume of assessments will need to be reduced. As students are likely to continue working to support themselves, universities could benefit from the support and cooperation of professional bodies and the Office for Students. In fact, in 2023, the Quality Assurance Agency highlighted that universities must explore innovative ways of reducing the volume of assessments, by ‘developing a range of authentic assessments in which students are asked to use and apply their knowledge and competencies in real-life’.   

    To promote experiential learning, one potential solution could be to offer assessment exemption based on moot-court participation. Variables such as moot profile (whether national/international), quality of memorial submitted, ex-post brief presentation on core arguments, and student preparation could be factored to offer grades. Admittedly, not all students will pursue this option; however, those who choose to participate will be incentivised.

    Similarly, summer internships or law clinic experiences can be evaluated through patchwork assessment where students can complete formative patches of work on client interviews, case summaries and letters before action, followed by a reflective stitching piece highlighting real world learning and growth.

    Delayed use of gen AI – year II and onwards

    It is crucial to emphasise that despite the critique of Gen AI, its vast potential to enhance productivity cannot be overlooked. Nevertheless, what merits attention is that such productivity is contingent on thoughtful engagement and basic domain specific knowledge – which is less likely to be found in first year law students.

    Thus, a better approach is to delay approved use of AI until the second year of law. To ensure graduates are job ready, modules such as Alternative Dispute Resolution and Professional Skills could go beyond prompting techniques to include meaningful engagement with technology: through domain specific AI tools, contract review platforms and data-driven legal analytics ‘to support legal strategy, case assessment, and outcomes’.

    Communication skills remain key

    Above all, despite advances in tech, law will remain a people-centred profession requiring effective communication skills. Therefore, in the current climate, law school education should emphasise oral communication skills. Prima facie, this approach may seem disadvantageous to students with special needs, but it can still work with targeted adjustments.

    In sum, universities have a moral responsibility to churn out competent law graduates. Therefore, they must realistically review the abilities of AI to ensure the credibility of degrees and avoid mass-producing surface-level lawyers.

    Acknowledgement: I am grateful to Rachel Nir, Director of EDI at the School of Law and Policing, University of Lancashire, for her insightful comments and for kindly granting the time allowance that made this research possible.

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  • Higher education faces ‘deteriorating’ 2026 outlook, Fitch says

    Higher education faces ‘deteriorating’ 2026 outlook, Fitch says

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    Dive Brief:

    • Fitch Ratings on Thursday issued a “deteriorating” outlook for the higher education sector in 2026, continuing the gloomy prediction the agency issued for 2025.
    • Analysts based their forecast on a shrinking prospective student base, “rising uncertainty related to state and federal support, continued expense escalation and shifting economic conditions.” 
    • With its report, Fitch joins Moody’s Ratings and S&P Global Ratings in predicting a grim year for higher ed — Moody’s for the sector overall and S&P for nonprofit colleges specifically.

    Dive Insight:

    Fitch’s report details a dour year for higher ed, but one that affects colleges unequally.

    The shifting federal landscape, for example, will have “a wide but uneven impact on the sector,” the report said, citing possible changes to research funding and the Republicans’ massive spending bill that passed this summer. The analysts specifically pointed to new federal lending limits for graduate programs, set to take effect in July, which could limit colleges’ pricing power.

    Fitch also expects international enrollment to falter. Preliminary surveys about fall 2025 enrollment have found colleges reporting a drop in international students, especially those enrolled in graduate programs.

    International enrollment can be a financial boon to colleges, especially those heavily dependent on tuition revenue, as these students often pay full sticker price.

    But under President Donald Trump, the federal government has repeatedly attacked foreign students, from expanding the vetting process to revoking their visas by the thousands. It has also moved to tighten international student visa programs.

    “This fragile pipeline will become another area of increasing competition for fewer students and may further erode any meaningful student fee revenue growth prospects for 2026 and beyond,” the report said.

    The number of high school graduates is expected to peak this year after years of growth, according to the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. In the coming years, the number of traditional-age college students is expected to drop, leaving colleges fighting for fewer attendees.

    Overall enrollment in the sector has recovered from the pandemic, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. 

    But those gains have been largely concentrated at two-year institutions, according to Fitch. The report noted that these institutions offer increasingly popular certificate programs and dual enrollment, which allows students to take college courses while in high school. However, those options may not ultimately lead to more transfer students at four-year colleges, it said.

    Amid these factors, colleges will face “strained revenue growth prospects,” according to Fitch Senior Director Emily Wadhwani.

    “A vulnerable international student pipeline, a shrinking domestic student base and rising scrutiny on the value proposition of a higher education degree are likely to erode any meaningful student fee revenue growth prospects in the coming year,” Wadhwani said in the report.

    The number of colleges merging or closing is expected to “continue at an elevated pace” in 2026, Fitch analysts said.

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  • Education Department outlines potential Workforce Pell regulations

    Education Department outlines potential Workforce Pell regulations

    The U.S. Department of Education recently released a draft proposal of regulatory language that outlines how short-term programs could become — and remain — eligible for the newly created Workforce Pell Grants. 

    The Workforce Pell program will allow students in programs as short as eight weeks to receive Pell Grants. It was created as part of the massive spending and tax package that Republicans passed this summer and takes effect in July 2026. 

    The Education Department released the draft proposal ahead of negotiations next week to hash out the regulatory language governing how the program will operate. 

    In a process known as negotiated rulemaking, stakeholders representing different groups affected by the regulations are to meet Monday to begin discussing the policy details of the Workforce Pell program. Participants include students, employers and college officials. 

    If they reach consensus on regulatory language, the Education Department will have to use that when formally proposing regulations for Workforce Pell. If the stakeholders don’t reach consensus, the agency will be free to write its own regulations. 

    The draft proposal outlines the steps state officials will have to take for workforce programs to begin qualifying for Workforce Pell Grants and what student outcome metrics they would need to hit to remain eligible for the grants. 

    How would programs get approved for Workforce Pell?

    The massive budget bill expands Pell Grants to certain workforce-training programs lasting between eight to 15 weeks. For programs to be eligible, governors must consult with state boards to determine if they prepare students to enroll in a related certificate or degree program, meet employers’ hiring needs, and provide training for high-skill, high-wage or in-demand occupations, among other requirements.

    Under the Education Department’s draft proposal, each state’s governor would work with its workforce development board to establish which occupations are considered high-skill, high-wage or in-demand and publicly share how the state made those determinations. Governors would also have to seek feedback from employers to develop a written policy for determining whether programs meet local hiring needs. 

    As established in the spending bill, short-term programs must then receive approval from the Education Department’s secretary before they can qualify for Workforce Pell. Under the statute, programs have to exist for at least one year before they can get approval. 

    The Education Department’s proposal adds that the secretary wouldn’t be able to approve a program until “one year after the Governor determines that the program met all applicable requirements.” 

    This means that “all programs would need to wait an additional year before becoming eligible, even if they had already existed for more than a year,” according to a Thursday analysis of the draft from James Hermes, associate vice president of government relations at the American Association of Community Colleges. 

    AACC plans to work with negotiators to push for that provision to be changed, Hermes said. 

    How will programs maintain eligibility?

    Under the Education Department’s draft language, programs would need to maintain a job placement rate of 70% to remain eligible during the first two years of the Workforce Pell program. But after the 2027-28 award year, they would need 70% of their graduates to specifically land jobs in fields for which they’re being trained, according to the proposal. 

    During each award year for Workforce Pell, the statute bars programs from posting tuition and fee prices that are higher than the “value-added” earnings of their students. It calculates that difference by subtracting 150% of the federal poverty line from the median earnings of students who completed their program three years prior. 

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