Tag: Efforts

  • One State’s Collaborative Efforts to Improve Transfer

    One State’s Collaborative Efforts to Improve Transfer

    Recent “Beyond Transfer” articles have garnered a lot of attention and discussion among many in the transfer world, including those of us involved in transfer work in Virginia. The reactions to these articles demonstrate just how complex transfer is, and while we may not all agree, the importance of the work is undeniable. One state has taken steps to reduce the complexity and clarify transfer for students and colleges.

    The article “The Transfer Credit Myth: How Everything We Know About Excess Credits May Be Wrong,” while narrow in scope, highlighted several important aspects of transfer that should be reiterated: Early and consistent academic planning support is imperative. Additionally, we know program changes, prerequisites and financial aid exhaustion can have serious implications to progress whether a student transferred or not. Furthermore, as highlighted in a response article, we cannot forget about state- and system-level policies that may impact these efforts, for better or worse.

    In recognition of these complexities, Virginia passed legislation in 2018 to improve transfer, which addressed three elements: general education, transfer pathways and a state transfer tool. In response and through a collaborative effort between the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV), the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) and two- and four-year institutions, the Transfer Virginia initiative was born. Its goal is to remove barriers while improving credit efficiency, reducing time to transfer and boosting degree-attainment rates.

    • General education: A two-year institutional general education package, known as the Uniform Certificate of General Studies (U.C.G.S.), was created to apply to lower-level general education at all Virginia public four-year institutions and many participating private four-year institutions.
    • Transfer pathways: Common curricula have been developed to provide the foundation for the transfer pathways—or student-facing transfer guides—which are created with the goal of mapping associate degree curricula, including the U.C.G.S., to baccalaureate degrees to strengthen credit efficiency and applicability. Each guide includes a curricular section showing the student exactly what to take at both the two-year institution and the remaining requirements at the four-year institution for a true 2+2. There is also a “Transfer Guidance” section that includes information about the college/university, major, admission—including guaranteed admission—as well as important dates, deadlines and links, serving as a one-stop shop for transfer information. There are currently over 500 transfer guides, representing over 30 pathways to four-year institutions, with approximately 150 to 200 guides submitted each year. These work very well when a student has identified a transfer plan. For those who would like to explore further, these and many other resources are available in the portal.
    • State transfer tool: The Transfer Virginia portal, officially launched in 2021, is designed to be a robust repository to assist students at any point in their higher education journey, including dual enrollment. The portal provides standardized information for more than 60 Virginia colleges—two-year and four-year, public and private—all in one place. Users can compare institutions, explore program listings, find colleges offering their major, see how their coursework transfers, create a portfolio and connect with transfer specialists directly.

    For states looking to effect change, a good place to start is identifying commonalities between general education curriculum at both two- and four-year institutions to craft a statewide pathway. However, the work cannot be done in silos. Collaboration and commitment from the two- and four-year institutions and state administrative agencies is vital. For Virginia, legislation ignited the initiative, but the teamwork between all stakeholders keeps the momentum going.

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  • Efforts to build belonging may get the problem the wrong way around

    Efforts to build belonging may get the problem the wrong way around

    Back in January 2024, John Blake, the now-departing Office for Students’ Director for Fair Access and Participation, was talking about the future of access and participation plans.

    Alongside announcing additional groups of students who might be at risk – service children, young carers, prisoners, commuter students, parents, and Jewish students – noted that “sense of belonging” had appeared in lots of evidence reviews as relevant to many of the risks.

    I’d urge providers to think hard about practical, enduringly impactful work they might do around that idea as part of new APPs.

    Now that all the approved APPs are in, I’ve had a look at what providers are actually proposing.

    I’ve reviewed approved access and participation plans from across the sector in England, extracting every mention of belonging as a strategic priority, every identification of belonging deficits as a risk, and every intervention designed to address them.

    The result is a picture of how the sector understands and responds to belonging challenges. The pattern I’ve found is so consistent across provider types, mission groups, and geographical locations that it ought to amount to a sector-wide consensus about how to “do” belonging.

    The problem is that that consensus appears to be fundamentally at odds with what research tells us about how belonging actually works.

    The deficit model at scale

    Nearly every university identifies that specific disadvantaged groups – Black students, mature students, care-experienced students, disabled students, commuter students, students from IMD Quintile 1 – report lower belonging scores than their peers.

    They then design targeted interventions to address this deficit – peer mentoring schemes for Black students, mature student networks and “mingles”, care-experienced student buddy schemes, disability-specific student groups, commuter-specific transition support.

    The interventions are pretty homogeneous. Birkbeck is running “sustained programmes of Black Unity Events” to “provide a space for Black students to authentically be themselves, form connections and friendships”. Leeds Arts has created “My/Your/Our Space” – a “safer space and community relevant to background” specifically for students of minoritised ethnicities. Northampton has developed a “Black Excellence Programme” designed “to empower Black undergraduate students early on in their transition to level 4 courses with the confidence, sense of belonging and mattering to become resilient leaders and role models”.

    Greenwich has implemented the “Living Black at University Project to support BAME students develop a sense of belonging and community outside of the classroom”. Liverpool John Moores is “developing a Black students peer network via JMSU, focusing on creating a black student community”.

    It’s not just ethnicity. For mature students, East Anglia will “continue specific co-created sense of belonging opportunities for groups of students to meet socially” through a mature student network. Leeds is expanding a “middle ground network pilot” – “co-creating spaces (virtual, physical) for mature and ‘younger mature’ students to help develop a greater sense of belonging”. Bristol is implementing “enhanced mature student community building through mingles, student advocate-led events, and an extended mature student welcome and transition programme”.

    The pattern is almost identical across every characteristic. Care-experienced students get targeted belonging interventions at York (“Achieve HE program aims for increased sense of belonging socially and academically”), Durham (“dedicated mature learners coordinator” aims for “increased sense of belonging”), and Portsmouth (specialist support for “enhanced sense of belonging”). Disabled students get belonging-focused societies and groups. Commuter students get special spaces. And so on.

    Nearly every institution frames belonging as something that specific groups lack, and that requires special intervention to remedy. The language is consistent – students from disadvantaged backgrounds “may struggle to feel they fit in”, “can lack a sense of belonging at university”, “feel disconnected from their academics/tutors and/or fellow students”, and “feel isolated or unsupported from the moment they arrived at University”.

    The Wisconsin problem

    I’ve talked about this before here, but about a decade ago, there was a problem at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Across a collection of STEM courses, there was a significant achievement gap between marginalised groups (all religious minorities and non-White students) and privileged students.

    Psychology professor Markus Brauer had an idea based on his previous research on social norms messaging – communicating to people that most of their peers hold certain pro-social attitudes or engage in certain pro-social behaviours.

    He started by trying out posters, then showed two groups of students videos. One saw an off-the-shelf explanation of bias and micro-aggressions. The other saw lots of students describing the day-to-day benefits of diversity – a “social norms” video revealing that 87 per cent of students actively supported diversity and inclusion.

    The latter video had a strong, significant, positive effect on inclusive climate scores for students from marginalised backgrounds. They reported that their peers behaved more inclusively and treated them with more respect.

    But by the end of the semester, the achievement gap was completely eliminated. Not through remedial support for struggling students, not through special programmes for disadvantaged groups, but through changing what everyone believed about what everyone else valued.

    The Wisconsin intervention didn’t create a “Black Student Success Program”, didn’t offer “enhanced support for marginalised students”, and didn’t build “safe spaces” for specific groups or train “allies” to support disadvantaged students. It told all students the truth about what their peers already valued – and behaviour changed dramatically.

    The research found that while most students genuinely valued diversity, they incorrectly believed their peers didn’t share these values, and the misperception created a false social norm that discouraged inclusive behaviour.

    Students who might naturally reach out across cultural boundaries held back, thinking they’d be the odd ones out. When you correct that misperception – when you say “actually, 87 per cent of your peers actively support diversity” – you transform intervention from an exceptional act requiring special training into standard behaviour.

    But most elements of the dominant APP approach do the opposite:

    • Wisconsin said: “Most students already value diversity – here’s proof”. UK universities say: “We need to create spaces where Black students can feel they belong”
    • Wisconsin said: “Inclusive behaviour is normal here”. UK universities say: “We’ll train mature students how to access support networks”
    • Wisconsin said: “Let’s change what everyone thinks everyone else believes”. UK universities say: “Let’s give disadvantaged groups the resources they lack”

    The Wisconsin research explicitly warns against the dominant approach. As the researchers note:

    “…empowering marginalised groups through special initiatives can paradoxically highlight their ‘different’ status, reinforcing the hierarchies we’re trying to dismantle.

    Power and perception

    To understand why the targeted approach fails, we need to examine how power operates in university settings. Brauer’s research identifies several key dynamics.

    Power shapes perception – those with social power tend to stereotype less powerful groups while seeing their own group as diverse individuals. Power also affects behaviour – powerful individuals act more freely, take bigger risks, and break social rules more often. In seminars, confident students dominate discussions while others remain silent – not because they lack ideas, but because power dynamics constrain their behaviour.

    Most importantly, power creates attribution biases. When powerful people succeed, we attribute it to their personal qualities. When less powerful people fail, we blame their circumstances. This creates self-fulfilling prophecies that reinforce existing hierarchies.

    The dynamics explain why traditional EDI initiatives often fail. Telling powerful groups they’re biased can actually reinforce stereotyping by making them defensive. Meanwhile, “empowering” marginalised groups through special initiatives paradoxically highlights their “different” status, reinforcing the hierarchies we’re trying to dismantle.

    For Brauer, the students don’t lack belonging. The institution lacks inclusive structures that make belonging feel normal. There’s a profound difference between “you need help fitting in because you’re different” and “this is how we all do things here – welcome to the crew.”

    Ticking the boxes

    So why are universities doing this? Partly because OfS asked them to think about belonging, partly because APP spend has to be “on” the disadvantaged groups, and partly because “we’re doing a thing” makes sense in a compliance environment.

    It’s easily documented, measurable by group, defensible to regulators, and demonstrably “doing something”. The Wisconsin approach would be much harder to report in an APP. How do you document “we told everyone that most students already value diversity”? Which “target group” got the “intervention”? What’s the “spend per head”? How do you prove that changing perceived social norms reduced the achievement gap when you didn’t target any specific demographic?

    As such, the APP architecture itself pushes providers toward deficit-model interventions. You can’t write “we’re going to make peer support universal and student-led because that’s just how induction works here”, because that doesn’t read as an access and participation intervention.

    You can’t write “we’re going to survey students and publicize that 78 per cent actively welcome international students”. That doesn’t look like you’re spending money on disadvantaged groups, or map onto the OfS risk register.

    The result is targeted compliance theatre that the evidence suggests will entrench the hierarchies it claims to dismantle.

    To be fair, universities are also responding to a genuine perception that students from disadvantaged backgrounds need additional support to succeed. And they’re not wrong about the support needs – they may be wrong about the delivery mechanism.

    When continuation, completion, and attainment gaps persist for Black students, care-experienced students, and students from deprived areas, the institutional instinct is to create support structures for those specific groups – it feels like the responsible, caring response. But in practice, they are initiatives that are characteristic first, student second. You need special help because you’re different.

    What would actually work

    What would an alternative approach entail? The research suggests five key departures from current practice.

    First is normalising rather than targeting. Instead of creating programmes that make intervention seem exceptional, universities would need to reveal what’s already normal. The Wisconsin approach costs almost nothing – a video, an email, some posters showing that 87 per cent of students actively support diversity. But it requires actually surveying students to discover (they probably would) that most already hold pro-social attitudes, then making that visible. “We surveyed 2,000 students here – 78 per cent actively welcome international students” changes the perceived norm without targeting anyone.

    Universal design rather than special fixes also matters. This means asking different questions. Not “what enhanced personal tutoring do disadvantaged groups need?” but “what if the default tutorial system worked properly for everyone?” Not “what mature student networks should we create?” but “what if study groups and peer support were structured to include all ages and backgrounds by default?” Not “what transition support do care-experienced students need?” but “what if induction assumed zero prior knowledge and no family support for everyone?”

    This wouldn’t mean removing targeted financial support or specialist services (hardship funds, mental health provision, disability services). Those remain separate. It’s about ensuring the basic architecture of belonging – induction, peer support, community-building – works for everyone by default rather than requiring special programmes for specific groups.

    Student leadership of essential functions matters too. European models show students running welcome week, managing housing cooperatives, delivering careers support, organizing social activities – not as add-ons but as how the institution functions. Belonging becomes structural rather than programmatic.

    The challenge there is that UK universities have spent decades professionalizing student engagement – student experience teams, transition coordinators, wellbeing advisors, residence life programmes, delivered by professionals, for students, rather than by students, for each other. Reversing this requires actually giving functions back to students, with appropriate support structures and (dare we say) compensation for significant roles.

    But most important is working on the advantaged. If you want Black students to feel they belong, the Wisconsin research suggests you work with white students to change what they believe about what their peers value. The achievement gap closed partly because white students changed their behaviour.

    If you want mature students to feel integrated, you create structures where all students work together on meaningful projects, where collaboration across demographics is normal and expected. If you want care-experienced students to feel they matter, you create environments where all students contribute to running their community, where everyone assumes they’ll both need help and provide it to others.

    Little of this appears in approved APPs, which at best read as well-meaning, and at worst like victim blaming. Whether alternatives could appear in a future APP iteration – whether the architecture of the APP process would even recognise these as access and participation interventions – is an open question.

    What happens now

    The challenge both for OfS and for universities is significant. Every APP currently includes detailed commitments to targeted belonging interventions, complete with evaluation frameworks and expected outcomes. Universities have staff, allocated budgets, designed programmes, and set objectives based on the deficit model approach. Rowing back isn’t straightforward.

    But the evidence is increasingly clear that the approach, however well-intentioned, is unlikely to work – and may indeed backfire. More fundamentally, the sector needs to grapple with some uncomfortable questions. If most UK students already hold pro-social and pro-diversity attitudes (and research suggests they probably do), why don’t they act on them? What structural barriers prevent students from forming friendships and study groups across demographic boundaries?

    John Blake asked for “practical, enduringly impactful work” around belonging. What universities have delivered is well-intentioned, carefully designed, and probably counterproductive.

    The good news is that what actually works – changing social norms, creating universal structures, enabling student leadership – is arguably easier and cheaper than what the sector is intending. The bad news is that it requires the sector to admit it’s been thinking about the problem the wrong way around.

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  • Indiana AG sues Indianapolis Public Schools for hindering ICE efforts

    Indiana AG sues Indianapolis Public Schools for hindering ICE efforts

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    Dive Brief:

    • Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita alleges Indianapolis Public Schools has multiple policies that violate state laws by prohibiting local government entities from limiting or restricting federal immigration enforcement.
    • In a lawsuit filed Thursday, Rokita claims the 30,000-student district has policies barring federal immigration officers from accessing nonpublic areas on school property without a judicial warrant, and that these policies are illegal under Indiana law and pose “grave risks to public safety.”
    • Rokita’s lawsuit also cited an incident on Jan. 8, 2025, in which IPS’ policies “directly contributed to the failure” of federal immigration officers attempting to deport an undocumented Honduran man.

    Dive Insight:

    The IPS Board of School Commissioners said in a Thursday statement that Rokita’s lawsuit is a “heavy burden” and “silly litigation and political posturing” that impacts students, families and taxpayers. 

    “Every dollar spent on defensive legal posture is a dollar not spent on instructional support, teacher development, student services, or enrichment,” the board said. “In this case, Mr. Rokita prefers those dollars go to fight gratuitous political battles, as has too often been the case.”

    The board emphasized that it has always upheld the law and will continue to do so while ensuring “safe, supportive, and welcoming learning environments for all students.”

    Beyond denying access to immigration enforcement officers to school property without a judicial warrant, IPS also requires its employees to not assist immigration efforts unless legally required and authorized by the superintendent, according to Rokita’s lawsuit. The other IPS policy challenged in the complaint is that district staff are prohibited from collecting, maintaining or sharing information about the immigration status of a student, their parents or a school employee.  

    The IPS Board of School Commissioners said it has been “actively collaborating” with Rokita’s office to go over relevant policies of concern. The board said, however, that Rokita only gave the district five business days to review and respond to his opinion on the policies.

    “Yet, these important issues deserve thoughtful, deliberative weighing of important legal rights — not impulsive, superficial efforts for political gain,” the board said.

    The IPS policies being challenged, however, are a common practice in other school districts looking to protect students affected by the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration enforcement in communities nationwide this year.

    In fact, immigration lawyers have advised districts across the country to train their principals and teachers to know that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers cannot enter school property without a warrant signed by a judge.

    Immigration advocates have also pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1982 decision in Plyler v. Doe, which ruled that states cannot constitutionally deny students a free public education based on their immigration status. Additionally, other state and local guidance has reminded school administrators this year that districts must maintain the confidentiality of all personally identifiable information in education records related to students under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

    As ICE efforts go on near school communities, some district leaders — most recently at Chicago Public Schools — are calling for virtual schooling for students and families living in fear of federal immigration enforcement presence. Educators, advocates and child psychology experts are continuing to sound the alarm on the traumatic impacts immigration enforcement has on students, including school avoidance and stress.

    But in Indiana, Attorney General Rokita said in a Thursday statement that sanctuary policies like those in place at IPS “are bad in any context, but they are especially troubling in our schools.” He added that, “schools across the country are vulnerable to infiltration by criminal illegal aliens — it’s happened in many other states — and it is essential that ICE be able to take action when that occurs to help keep our kids safe.”

    Rokita’s lawsuit also alleged that in January, ICE’s efforts to deport an undocumented Honduran man living in Indiana were thwarted because IPS did not let the man’s son, who is an IPS student, reunite and leave the U.S. on a flight with his father, who volunteered to board. 

    “IPS took the position that it would not release the child to an ICE officer unless the officer had a judicial warrant or other court order,” the lawsuit said. “ICE responded that it simply was asking that the son be released to the father so that they could depart the country as the father had agreed to do and that such action did not require a court order.”

    Because the father was unable to get custody of his son to board the flight with him, the father missed his flight, and the voluntary departure order expired, according to the complaint. As a result, the lawsuit said that “an illegal alien who should have departed the United States — who had voluntarily agreed to depart the United States — therefore remained in the United States because of IPS’s actions.”

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  • Congress Accuses GMU President of Lying About DEI Efforts

    Congress Accuses GMU President of Lying About DEI Efforts

    House Republicans have accused George Mason University President Gregory Washington of lying to Congress about diversity practices at his institution, ratcheting up pressure on the president to step down.

    The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee alleged in a report released Thursday night that Washington made “multiple false statements to Congress” in testimony about diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at GMU. The public university has been under fire for months over allegedly illegal DEI practices as the Trump administration has sought to crack down on such initiatives, claiming they are discriminatory and violate federal civil rights law. The Judiciary Committee report also alleged that the university “likely violated federal civil rights law by discriminating based on race in its hiring practices to advance Dr. Washington’s diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative.”

    Washington has denied breaking the law through efforts to diversify GMU’s faculty and staff, telling Congress that the university did not practice illegal discrimination under his leadership.

    The report is the latest salvo from Republicans who have launched federal investigations into GMU over its hiring policies, including demands that the embattled president apologize for allegedly discriminatory practices, which he has refused to do as he denies any wrongdoing.

    What’s in the Report

    The House Judiciary Committee’s report zoomed in on an effort by GMU, launched shortly after Washington took office in July 2020, to diversify employee ranks. The Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence initiative the president introduced aimed to make faculty and staff “mirror student Demographics” at GMU, which is among the most diverse institutions in the country. As part of that effort, GMU tasked schools and departments with hiring more underrepresented individuals.

    But in Congressional testimony, Washington denied the initiative was a strict mandate.

    “These are overall goals and they’re aspirational in focus,” Washington said, according to a transcript of his Sept. 17 interview released by the House Judiciary Committee Thursday.

    Though the Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence initiative stemmed from his office, Washington told Congress that faculty in each department developed plans for their unit. He also cast the creation of such plans as optional, telling Congress “if units did not want to develop a plan, they did not have to.”

    But the House Judiciary Committee claimed Washington lied about that.

    “Documents and testimony obtained by the Committee … show that Dr. Washington and his deputies actively sought to punish schools that did not comply with his racial discrimination mandates,” the committee report states. “A senior GMU official told the Committee that GMU financially punished any school that resisted Dr. Washington’s unconstitutional initiative.” 

    Congress pointed to testimony from Ken Randall, the dean of George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, as evidence that Washington lied about the plan being optional.

    “You’d get fired if you didn’t have a plan,” Randall said, according to an interview transcript.

    Washington also denied the administration formally reviewed plans to diversify faculty hiring. Republicans accused him of lying about that, too, pointing to internal remarks from then-vice president of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Sharnnia Artis (who now has a different title), in which she said the DEI team “consistently reviewed, monitored, and supported” such plans.

    “Again, the evidence contradicts Dr. Washington’s testimony,” the report states.

    However, Douglas Gansler, a lawyer representing the GMU president sharply disrupted claims that his client lied to Congress, which he accused of carrying out a “political lynching” in an emailed statement to Inside Higher Ed.

    “The political theater of the politicians accusing Dr. Washington of misrepresenting anything to them is unadulterated nonsense. Dr. Washington has never discriminated against anybody for any reason and did not utter one syllable of anything not verifiably completely true,” Gansler wrote.

    What Happens Next

    The GMU Board of Visitors has said little in the immediate aftermath of the report.

    “Today, the Board of Visitors received an interim staff report from the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary. We are reviewing the report and consulting with University counsel and counsel for Dr. Washington,” board members wrote in a brief statement. “The Board remains focused on serving our students, faculty and the Commonwealth, ensuring full compliance with federal law and positioning GMU for continued excellence.”

    While the board is reviewing the report, it appears unlikely members would be able to take action against Washington. GMU’s board, which is stocked with GOP donors and political figures appointed by Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, is currently without a quorum after Virginia Democrats blocked multiple appointments in recent months. Now a legal battle over those blocked appointments is slowly winding its way through the judicial system. While the Virginia Supreme Court heard arguments in the case last month, it has yet to issue a ruling on the matter. In the meantime, with only six of its 16 seats filled, GMU’s board is hobbled.

    Youngkin’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.

    The George Mason chapter of the American Association of University Professors offered a fiery defense of Washington, arguing in a statement the committee was carrying out a politically motivated attack designed to erode institutional autonomy and impose partisan control over the public university.

    “The Committee’s unfounded accusations, dependence on clearly compromised sources, and selective presentation of ‘evidence’ represent an unprecedented abuse of congressional power—designed not to find the truth, but to silence leadership that refuses to yield to political pressure,” the GMU-AAUP chapter wrote in an emailed statement to Inside Higher Ed.

    GMU students, employees and community members rallied in support of president Gregory Washington earlier this year, amid concerns the board would fire him.

    With Washington under pressure from Congress, state and national Democrats have rallied to his defense, accusing the GOP of waging an ideological war on universities and hypocrisy by focusing on the GMU president’s alleged dishonesty while federal officials brazenly lie in court.

    “In Donald Trump’s Gangster State, they pick the target first and figure out the charges later,” House Judiciary Democrats wrote on X. “Today’s target: GMU President Gregory Washington. The Trump Education Department failed to find evidence of employment discrimination at GMU. So [House Judiciary committee] Chairman [Jim] Jordan opened his own investigation. When that one only confirmed Dr. Washington followed Virginia law, Jordan pivoted and conjured up an absurd and convoluted criminal referral based on an alleged lie that takes 8 pages to explain.”

    Representative James Walkinshaw—a Democrat in Virginia’s 11th district, which includes GMU—called Washington “an exemplary leader” in a biting statement posted on Bluesky.

    “Make no mistake, this is an attack on free speech and academic freedom,” Walkinshaw wrote. “It’s cancel culture at its worst and the American people are tired of right-wing snowflakes like Jim Jordan trying to silence anyone who doesn’t bend the knee to their bizarre MAGA ideology.”

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  • Defunding Level 7 apprenticeships will undermine widening participation efforts in Higher Education

    Defunding Level 7 apprenticeships will undermine widening participation efforts in Higher Education

    This blog was kindly authored by Professor Abigail Marks, Associate Dean of Research, Newcastle University Business School, and member of the Chartered Association of Business Schools Policy Committee.

    From January 2026, public funding for the vast majority of Level 7 apprenticeships in England will be withdrawn for learners aged 22 and over. Funding will remain for those aged 16 to 21, alongside narrow exceptions for care leavers and learners with Education, Health and Care Plans. Current apprentices will continue to be supported. Ministers present the change as a rebalancing of spending toward younger learners and lower levels, where they argue returns are higher and budgets are more constrained.

    At first sight, this decision looks like a simple trade-off: concentrating scarce resources on school-leavers and early career entrants, while expecting employers to bear the costs of advanced, Master’s-level training. For business schools, however, particularly those that have invested in Level 7 pathways, such as the Senior Leader Apprenticeship, the implications for widening participation are likely to be profound. The Senior Leader Apprenticeship is often integrated with an MBA or Executive MBA. Alongside this, many institutions align Level 7 apprenticeships with specialist MSc degrees, often with embedded professional accreditation. In essence, Level 7 apprenticeships in business schools provide structured, work-based routes into advanced leadership and management education, usually culminating in an MBA or MSc.

    Why Level 7 apprenticeships matter for widening participation

    Since the apprenticeship levy was introduced in 2017, Level 7 programmes have provided business schools with a powerful route to widen participation, particularly among groups that have been historically excluded from postgraduate education. According to the Department for Education’s 2023 Apprenticeship Evaluation, almost half (48 per cent) of Level 7 apprentices are first-generation students, with neither parent having attended university, and around one in five live in the most deprived areas of the country. Analysis by the Chartered Association of Business Schools shows that in 2022/23, a quarter of business and management Level 7 apprentices held no prior degree qualification before starting, with a small minority having no formal qualifications at all. The age profile further underscores the differences between these learners and conventional Master’s students, with 88 per cent of business and management Level 7 apprentices aged over 31, indicating that these programmes primarily serve mature learners and career changers rather than recent graduates.

    This picture contrasts sharply with the traditional MBA market, both in the UK and internationally. Research on MBA demographics from the Association of MBAs in 2023 highlights that students are typically in their late twenties to early thirties, often already possessing a strong undergraduate degree and professional background, and participation is skewed toward those with access to significant financial resources. An Office for Students analysis of Higher Education Statistics Agency data shows that conventional graduate business and management entrants are disproportionately from higher socio-economic backgrounds, with lower representation from disadvantaged areas compared to undergraduate cohorts. In practice, this means that the subsidised Level 7 apprenticeship route has been one of the few mechanisms allowing those without financial capital, prior academic credentials, or family background in higher education to gain access to advanced management education in business schools.

    The economic and societal cost of defunding Level 7

    Employer behaviour is likely to shift in predictable ways once the subsidy is removed. Some large levy-paying firms may continue to sponsor a limited number of Level 7 places, but many smaller employers, as well as organisations in the public and third sectors, will struggle to justify the full cost. Data from the Chartered Management Institute suggests that 60 per cent of Level 7 management apprentices are in public services such as the NHS, social care, and local government. Less than 10 per cent are in FTSE 350 companies. Consequently, there is a risk of further narrowing provision to those already in advantaged positions.

    The progression ladder is also threatened. Level 7 apprenticeships have been a natural progression for people who began at Levels 3 to 5, building their qualifications as they moved into supervisory roles. Closing the door at this point reinforces the glass ceiling for those seeking to rise from technical or frontline work into leadership. With data from the Department for Education reported in FE Week reporting that 89 per cent of Level 7 apprentices are currently aged over 22, the vast majority of those who have benefited from these opportunities will be excluded from January 2026.

    The consequences extend beyond widening participation metrics. Leadership and management skills are consistently linked to firm-level productivity and the diffusion of innovation. Studies such as the World Management Survey have shown that effective management correlates strongly with higher productivity and competitiveness. Restricting adult access to advanced apprenticeships risks slowing the spread of these practices across the economy. For business schools, it reduces their ability to act as engines of regional development and knowledge transfer. At a national level, the UK’s prospects for growth depend not only on new entrants but also on upskilling the existing workforce. Apprenticeships have been one of the few proven ways of achieving this. If opportunities narrow, it is possible that firms may struggle to adopt new technologies, deliver green transitions, or address regional productivity gaps. The effects may also be felt in export performance, scale-up survival, and international competitiveness.

    The removal of public funding for adults over 21 threatens to dismantle a pathway that has enabled business schools to transform the profile of their postgraduate cohorts. Where once mature students, first-generation graduates, and learners from deprived regions could progress into Master’s-level management education, the policy shift risks returning provision in England to a preserve of the already advantaged. In contrast, our European counterparts, where degree and higher-level apprenticeships retain open access for adults, will continue to allow business schools to deliver on widening participation commitments across the life course.

    Lessons from Europe

    Germany’s dual study system has expanded, with degree-apprenticeship style programmes now making up almost five per cent of higher education enrolments. Data from the OECD shows that the proportion of young adults aged 25–34 with a tertiary degree in Germany has risen to around 40 per cent, driven partly by these integrated vocational–academic routes. Switzerland shows even more dramatic results: between 2000 and 2021, the share of 25–34-year-olds with a tertiary qualification rose from 26 to 52 per cent. Crucially, Switzerland also leads Europe in lifelong learning, with around 67.5 per cent of adults aged 25–65 participating in continuing education and training. For Swiss business schools, this creates a mature, diverse learner base and allows firms to continually upgrade leadership and management capacity. Both countries demonstrate how keeping lifelong pathways open is central to sustaining firm-level productivity, innovation, and international competitiveness.

    Conclusion

     The decision to defund most adult participation at Level 7 thus represents more than a budgetary tweak. It narrows opportunities in advanced management education and risks reversing progress in widening participation. Unless English business schools, employers, and policymakers act swiftly to design new pathways, the effect will be a return to elite provision. More worryingly, England risks falling behind international counterparts in building the leadership capacity that underpins innovation, productivity, and growth.

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  • Financial Aid Advisers Question Trump’s ID Verification Efforts

    Financial Aid Advisers Question Trump’s ID Verification Efforts

    Many financial aid advisers are worried that the Trump administration’s latest effort to bolster identity verification in the student aid system could have unintended consequences. Instead of simply catching fraudulent grant applicants and borrowers, some fear that the verification process could also prevent real, eligible students from accessing public benefits.

    Education Department officials, however, assure aid advisers that one of their top priorities is to distribute aid smoothly to the students who have a right to it, even as they protect the integrity of the taxpayer-funded programs.

    In an electronic announcement published Aug. 12, Federal Student Aid officials said they would be checking the identities of an additional 300,000 aid applicants, on top of the 125,000 students already flagged in June. Some college advisers said they were alarmed by the sheer scale of the requests—especially given what they describe as a very tight timeline.

    While aid officers generally support the concept of catching identity thieves, they fear that requiring students to complete the verification process so quickly could delay or even block aid access for some legitimate students, putting them in a financial hole. FSA says the program will eventually be automated, limited to first-time students and managed by agency officials. But at the moment, it’s a manual process that can affect students midway through their program; financial aid officers say it is becoming increasingly complicated and burdensome.

    “Schools have been asking for help on how to find these people and prevent fraudulent identities from obtaining Title IV aid, so we’re very supportive of the Department of Ed’s attempts to assume responsibility,” said Karen McCarthy, vice president of public policy and federal relations at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. “Unfortunately, the timing and how long it took ED to get this off the ground means that it’s August … We are entering, if not already in, the season of really large-scale disbursement. If verification is outstanding, schools may have to hold disbursements for those students.”

    The largest unknown seems to be what the consequences of an incomplete or overdue identity verification will be.

    The majority of students in the latest wave of verification requests are returning to college and need to verify their identity for the 2024–25 academic year as well as secure their awards for 2025–26. But some were flagged solely for last academic year and in most instances have already graduated or stopped out, making it harder to track them down and complete the process.

    Verification results for 2025–26 can be submitted up to 60 days after the data portal opens Aug. 31. At the same time, according to a Federal Register notice, verifications and any other changes to aid applications for 2024–25 must be completed by Sept. 13, making for a busy two weeks for students and aid officers.

    Experts have raised a number of questions about whether missing this tight deadline for 2024 could have repercussions. Some fear it could block students from completing future identity verifications or receiving upcoming disbursements; others worry that aid already disbursed in 2024–25 will need to be retracted. Either way, they say, it could have a crippling effect on low-income students.

    “There’s going to be a variety of impact,” one financial aid adviser said. “The monetary impact could be anything from a few hundred dollars to 10-, 15- or 20,000.”

    However, the Office of Federal Student Aid told Inside Higher Ed that missing that deadline shouldn’t be a problem—except in rare situations.

    Verifications for 2024 don’t have to be reported through the portal the same way upcoming 2025 ones do, one agency official said on background. Rather, aid officers just need to verify the student’s identity and determine internally whether a student’s 2024 aid should be awarded; therefore, “there’s no deadline that people are going to hit and fall afoul of,” he added.

    And in the “rare” scenario where an institution discovers inaccuracies on a 2024 FAFSA form, the department said, colleges can reach out to FSA to ensure a student’s eligibility is not impacted.

    ‘We Are Not Blocking Students’

    “If anyone has any examples of that Sept. 13 deadline actually being a blocker for students, we can move the deadline back, because we are here to make sure we are not blocking students,” the FSA adviser said. “There is no reason” a 2024 verification delay should affect a student’s ability to complete the 2025 process and have their award disbursed.

    Department officials also noted that they have streamlined the process to reduce the administrative burden, cutting steps such as making students provide a statement of purpose or notarizing the verification.

    And of the 300,000 aid applicants flagged in the most recent set of verification requests, the external vendor that helped identify them says that at least 50,000 are examples of fraud. The vendor is “very confident” that the other 250,000 are as well, the FSA official said, but the agency is playing it safe and having colleges check each case for good measure before stripping those recipients of aid.

    Ellen Keast, the department’s deputy press secretary, said it’s all part of the agency’s “student- and taxpayer-first mentality.”

    “We are committed to ensuring that every single dollar is spent on eligible students, not fraudsters,” she said. “This is not about putting a burden on postsecondary institutions; it’s about warning them, before they disburse both taxpayer money and their own, that the ‘student’ in front of them is most likely not a real person.”

    But representatives from NASFAA and college financial aid officers are still not clear on how the process will play out.

    Caleb Williams, director of enrollment management at Northern Arizona University, said that in addition to the typical verifications that occurred before the Trump administration’s new campaign was announced, selection rates for 2024–25 verification at his institution rose by 54 percent in June and another 13 percent in August. As he understands it, he added, a student “flagged for Identity verification cannot receive aid in any year until the process is completed.”

    Meanwhile, Charles Mayfield, the director of financial assistance at Northwest Missouri State University, believes that if an institution misses the September deadline for 2024 verifications, it will not be able to reinstate any of last year’s aid. But it would still be able to complete the 2025 verification and process that year’s aid.

    Mayfield hopes that the department will put out clarified guidance to relieve aid advisers’ confusion and explain exactly what the September deadline means, how it will be enforced and what the consequences will be for students. But like the staff at NASFAA, he said his greatest frustration is not the general need for clarification but its timing at the end of an academic year.

    “These students have received financial aid for the whole academic year, and now it’s all going to be taken away, and they’re at risk of not being able to enroll for the next academic year,” he said. “In the industry, we all know that students who stop out are much less likely to finish their degree.”

    It would be one thing if these concerns and challenges were specific to one college, Mayfair said, but when there are 15 or 20 colleges expressing the same confusion on a Listserv on the same day, the department should be more responsive.

    “It feels like when something doesn’t go right, we have to prove to the FSA that it didn’t work the way it was supposed to,” he said. “And until we can outright prove that—using data that’s on their system, that they should already have access to—they won’t acknowledge it.”

    McCarthy from NASFAA said that what the department told Inside Higher Ed about 2024 and 2025 verification being handled separately “sounds promising,” but as of Aug. 22 she hadn’t received the same notification from FSA.

    Other smaller concerns, such as whether the system for flagging fraud is accurate and if the new portal is functional, also have yet to be addressed, she added.

    “It’s an awful lot of work being pushed onto schools,” she explained. “So we want to make sure that it’s useful, beneficial work and that these are actual, really concerning applications, not sloppy work on the Department of Ed which then leads to delays for students.”

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  • Will the Detroit School District’s Enrollment Efforts Pay Off? – The 74

    Will the Detroit School District’s Enrollment Efforts Pay Off? – The 74


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    Despite the summer heat, Toyia Diab came out to the Summer on the Block at Pulaski Elementary-Middle School to learn what it had to offer the four grandchildren she had in tow.

    The family made their way to about a dozen tables snaking around the lawn on the side of the school. Diab listened to staff from the Detroit school district detail all of its resources over the pulsing base of loud music.

    Diab’s family was one of many the Detroit Public Schools Community District courted this summer as part of its efforts to retain families and boost enrollment. With the loss of more than 92,000 students in the last 20 years, district officials devote some of the summer break each year to getting word out about what the city’s schools have to offer.

    This year, the district ramped up efforts. It sent 40 people to canvas communities and held 19 events to create excitement about the start of school — nearly double that of previous years. It also started new initiatives, such as putting up billboards around the city. In all, the school system budgeted around $3.5 million for marketing this year. School starts Aug. 25.

    Though the district has “done a fairly good job” of recruiting new students in previous years, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti told school board members at a meeting earlier this month that the main challenge is keeping them.

    As a result, this year the school system also has focused on reenrollment rates. Those numbers have become a metric the district uses to “hold schools accountable,” Vitti said, though he didn’t share how many students the district typically loses during the school year.

    “We have emphasized … the need to improve customer service and parent engagement, so that parents feel more welcome,” he said. “And we fight harder to keep students at the schools that they’re at, rather than having more of an attitude of, ‘Well, if you don’t like it here, then you can find another school.’”

    Sharlonda Buckman, assistant superintendent of family and community engagement, told Chalkbeat the district has seen a lot of “good signs” for this school year because of the number of people her office reached in the summer.

    “It’s noticeable for me, and I’ve been at this for a long time,” she said. “We’ll see what that boils down to, in terms of enrollment.”

    This year, Buckman said nearly 5,000 people went to the Summer on the Block events, parties held at schools that both serve as a vehicle to sell families on sending their kids to the district and connect them with free resources.

    “As a parent, you have to bring your kids to school every day in order to get the education that they need,” Diab said at the Pulaski back-to-school event. “But then you’ll find some schools, they just don’t have enough resources to keep them interested to come to school, to stay in school.”

    All of the district’s summer efforts produced 532 leads on parents interested in enrolling their kids by mid-August. Around 80 of those students completed enrollment, according to the district.

    Though initial enrollment numbers are up, officials say, the full impact of the district’s efforts won’t be known until the end of the 2025-26 school year.

    Myriad factors have affected enrollment in DPSCD

    Boosting student numbers has been among the district’s top priorities for years.

    The numbers of students attending schools are crucial for districts in Michigan, where school funding is tied to enrollment.

    Now that COVID relief dollars are gone and the federal government has signaled it will not renew various other funding sources, districts are bracing to rely more on local money.

    A number of factors affected the district’s enrollment over the years, including population declines in the city, lower birthrates, the state’s emergency management of the district, and the pandemic. The district also faces competition from Detroit charter schools, where around half of kids in the city go to school.

    High student mobility rates, or the rate at which kids move to different homes, contribute to the district’s difficulty in keeping children enrolled. Chronic absenteeism rates also have a direct impact on enrollment.

    Enrollment in the district was more than 156,000 in the 2002-03 school year. Last year, it was 49,000.

    When DPSCD was created and the school system began being phased out of emergency management in the 2017-18 school year, enrollment shot up to more than 50,800 from 45,700 during the 2016-17 school year.

    The district has struggled to move the needle much since, especially after drops during pandemic-era school closures and the years that followed.

    At the beginning of this month, there were 50,890 students enrolled in the district, Vitti said at the board meeting.

    “We have about 1,400 more students than we did at the end of the year enrolled in DPSCD as of today, and about 500 more as compared to the first day of school,” he said, adding that “ “enrollment is trending in a positive direction.”

    Early enrollment numbers for the district are usually higher than official headcounts made in October. The number of students recorded on “Count Day” is used by the state to calculate funding for districts.

    Making the case for DPSCD face-to-face

    Three days before the Summer on the Block at Pulaski, more than 20 people squeezed into a sun-filled classroom at the Detroit School of Arts.

    The group was contracted by the district to canvas homes in areas where attendance is low compared to the number of school-aged children living there.

    This summer, the district sent canvassers to more than 78,000 homes to inform families about its schools and programs.

    The group at the School of Arts was gathered to get their assignments for the day. They waited to pick up hand-out materials, including fliers listing Summer on the Block dates and pamphlets highlighting programs at application schools.

    To get the energy up in the classroom before they headed out, the canvassers stood up to form a circle. Buckman, the assistant superintendent, asked them to share what they heard door-knocking.

    “We’re getting a good response in terms of some of those students coming back to the district,” said one woman.

    Others expressed residents’ hesitations to open their doors or to give their contact information for the district to follow up with them.

    Laura Gomez, who has been canvassing for three years, said through a translator that this summer has been different in southwest Detroit, which is home to many immigrant and newcomer families.

    People in the neighborhood say they have seen more community members detained and deported in recent months, including a student at Western International High School.

    “There are some people that are really happy we’re going out to the houses because that way they don’t have to leave their home because they don’t feel safe,” she said.

    After the canvassers broke out into teams, they drove to the areas they were assigned to for the day.

    Tanya Shelton and her son, David, arrived in the Crary St. Mary’s neighborhood in the northwest corner of the city.

    “We’ll ask them what school district are they in, and if they are interested in DPSCD, we give some information on it,” she said as she made her way down a long block adjacent to the Southfield Freeway.

    In her conversations with families, Shelton said the district’s free school lunches piqued their interest. Other canvassers said parents were interested in learning more about the academic interventionists available to students.

    Most of the doors Shelton knocked on that day, though, went unanswered. She left the district’s literature at dozens of houses.

    Families weigh programming, academics, and transportation in selecting schools

    At Pulaski’s Summer on the Block Alexa Franco-Garcia saw more students signing up to attend the school than she has in past years.

    “Right now, I have three enrollment packets in my hand, so that means they’ve completed enrollment,” she said during a break from talking with families.

    Another three parents left their contact information and said they would return the paperwork the next day.

    Considering it was about 30 minutes into the event, that was a strong number, said Franco-Garcia, who works in the Office of Family and Community Engagement.

    In her time working in the district, Franco-Garcia has learned what kinds of questions families ask: They want to know about the curriculum, extracurricular activities, and class sizes. They wonder whether their children will be supported in special education and if they will get a bus ride to school.

    Most of the sign-ups at the Pulaski event were for kindergartners who were new to the district, Franco-Garcia said.

    Enrolling early learners is one of the districts’ top growth strategies.

    There were 457 students enrolled in prekindergarten by the beginning of August, according to the district, up about 10 compared to the same time last year.

    Diab, the grandmother, brought four kids ages 5 to 12 out to learn more about the school. They heard about the district’s community health hubs, parent academy, and mental health resources.

    Teachers from the school gathered around a welcome table ready to answer questions as Principal Tyra R. Smith-Bell floated around talking with parents.

    The fresh produce boxes, ice cream truck, free books, and kids’ activities also enticed more than 350 people to come – many more than in previous years, Buckman said.

    Linn Flake was the first second-grader of the day to enroll at Pulaski, said Franco-Garcia. It would be his first experience at a neighborhood school, she added.

    His mom, Roxanne Flake, chose DPSCD over the charter school Linn went to last year.

    “I just wanted a different start,” she said.

    The charter school didn’t provide transportation, said Flake, which was an inconvenience because she doesn’t currently have a car. But the Detroit school district offered bus service for Linn to Pulaski, the mother said.

    Diab said she had more research to do before her family committed to Pulaski.

    “We’re gonna come here and we’re gonna figure everything out – ask questions, all of that stuff, and then if it’s the right fit for them, then we’re gonna put them in,” she said.

    Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.


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  • A Framework for Organizing Student Success Efforts (opinion)

    A Framework for Organizing Student Success Efforts (opinion)

    From declining enrollments to equity gaps and growing concerns about student belonging, the pressures on colleges and universities—especially those serving first-generation and regional student populations—are intense and unrelenting. We have all read about the enrollment cliffs and seen firsthand how small, regional institutions are being asked to do more with less while still delivering transformational experiences to diverse and increasingly nontraditional learners.

    While there is no single solution to these complex and multifaceted challenges, I believe we can and must do better to organize and focus our collective efforts. In my two decades of experience as a mathematics education professor, interim dean, student success leader and first-generation college graduate, I have repeatedly seen the power of synthesizing widely known but often disconnected strategies into coherent, institutionwide models for student success.

    That experience led me to develop the ACCESS framework, a holistic and memorable approach that integrates six core pillars essential to supporting students from recruitment through graduation and beyond. These pillars—affinity, community, career, early alert, support and storytelling—are not novel in isolation. However, woven together, they offer a powerful and practical road map for institutions striving to create environments where students not only persist but thrive. Importantly, ACCESS also addresses what I see as a common and costly issue in higher education: fragmentation. Too often, well-intentioned programs exist in silos, failing to produce the sustained, cross-campus impact we seek. ACCESS offers a way to unify these efforts into a clear, student-centered strategy.

    Affinity: Fostering Belonging From Day One

    Students are more likely to succeed when they feel they belong. This is especially true for first-generation students, underrepresented populations and those navigating higher education in rural or regional settings where campus may feel unfamiliar or disconnected from prior experiences.

    Affinity strategies focus on helping students quickly form meaningful connections with peers, faculty and the institution itself. Examples include first-year experience programs, peer mentorship initiatives, themed housing and proactive advising. Institutions that intentionally create these touch points early and often can increase students’ sense of belonging and purpose, which research has shown to be critical predictors of retention and achievement.

    Affinity is about more than social engagement—it is about students seeing themselves as valued and capable members of the campus community.

    Community: Building Meaningful and Reciprocal Connections

    Beyond personal belonging, students benefit from opportunities to engage in shared purpose.

    Community-focused strategies emphasize service learning, civic engagement, student organizations and collaborative learning experiences that help students feel connected not only to campus but to broader societal goals. Partnerships with local community and nonprofit organizations create reciprocal value: Students gain real-world experience and social capital while institutions strengthen ties with the communities they serve.

    Moreover, community-building activities enhance peer support networks. Students engaged in study groups, cohort models or co-curricular leadership roles often demonstrate higher retention and graduation rates. Creating purposeful, inclusive spaces for students to connect with one another should be viewed as essential, not optional.

    Career: Connecting Learning to Life After College

    Students increasingly expect—and deserve—a clear connection between their academic experience and future opportunities. Career-connected learning, designed to deepen students’ classroom experiences by connecting skills to real-world occupations, has been shown to increase engagement, motivation, broader sense of purpose and sense of preparedness for employment. But career integration must go far beyond the traditional career center model. It should be infused throughout the student journey.

    ACCESS emphasizes career as a core pillar, with a focus on early and ongoing exposure to career pathways, industry partnerships and hands-on learning. Microcredentials, internships, alumni mentoring and project-based courses all help students articulate the value of their degree and build the confidence to pursue their aspirations. When students can see the relevance of their studies to their goals, their motivation, persistence and sense of belonging increase substantially.

    Early Alert: Leveraging Data to Intervene and Support

    While many institutions have adopted early-alert systems, ACCESS emphasizes the importance of using data in intentional, coordinated ways across campus. A study of more than 16,000 students at a regional university found an early-alert system was effective at identifying students at significantly higher risk of dropping out, even when controlling for academic performance and demographic characteristics. Early-alert systems are not simply about identifying struggling students—they are about creating a culture where faculty, advisers and staff collaborate to proactively support students before issues become crises. Effective systems involve mobilizing cross-campus teams to conduct outreach—through emails, phone calls or in-person check-ins—to improve retention rates and remove barriers ranging from financial hardship to emotional stress.

    Early alert requires more than technology. It requires buy-in, training and shared ownership. When done well, it sends a powerful message to students: “You matter, and we are here to help you succeed.”

    Support: Providing Comprehensive, Seamless Services

    Students’ lives are complex, and so are the challenges they face. ACCESS recognizes that academic success cannot be separated from wellness, financial stability and mental health. Institutions must offer robust, coordinated support systems that meet students where they are and that encompass everything from advising, tutoring and accessibility services to counseling, financial aid navigation and basic needs support. Centralized student success centers, coordinated case management models and wraparound services are all effective ways to ensure that no student falls through the cracks.

    Wraparound student support services, especially when delivered through relational, trauma-informed and personalized case management, foster deeper connection and institutional engagement. This in turn supports retention and persistence outcomes. Importantly, support must be framed as a strength, not a deficiency. Normalizing help-seeking behavior and reducing stigma are essential to creating an environment where students feel safe accessing the resources they need.

    Storytelling: Creating a Culture of Pride and Narrative

    Finally, ACCESS includes a pillar that is often overlooked but profoundly impactful: storytelling. Students are more likely to persist and complete their degrees when they can see themselves as protagonists in their own educational journeys.

    Institutions should prioritize sharing student and alumni stories—through social media, newsletters, admissions materials and campus events—to reinforce the value and relevance of the college experience. Equally important is empowering students to reflect on and tell their own stories, helping them make meaning of their experiences and building a sense of pride and ownership. Research suggests that as students reshape their narrative identities, seeing themselves not as outsiders but as capable contributors, they become more engaged and persistent in their academic work.

    In my leadership roles, I have seen how storytelling humanizes data and drives institutional momentum. Donors connect emotionally to stories of transformation. Prospective students see possibilities reflected in the experiences of peers. Faculty and staff are reminded of their purpose. Storytelling, when done authentically, becomes a unifying force.

    Putting ACCESS Into Action

    The ACCESS framework is not prescriptive or rigid. Rather, it is an adaptable model that provides institutions with a common language and conceptual map for aligning efforts across recruitment, retention, student support and advancement.

    I am mindful that the individual strategies embedded in ACCESS are not new. What is new—and, I believe, urgently needed—is a simple, memorable framework that helps institutions avoid fragmented initiatives and instead build integrated, student-centered ecosystems.

    Importantly, ACCESS should not exist outside of the academic mission. Its greatest potential lies in integration with the curriculum. Faculty play a vital role in fostering belonging, connecting coursework to careers, identifying students in need of support and empowering students to reflect on their learning. When academic and co-curricular strategies align, student success becomes not a separate initiative but a seamless and transformative part of the college experience.

    ACCESS can serve as a guide for cabinet-level planning, cross-departmental working groups, strategic enrollment management and assessment. It offers a way to bring together academic affairs, student affairs, advancement and community partners around a shared vision for student success.

    As higher education faces unprecedented challenges, we must embrace models that are not only evidence-based but also intuitive and human-centered. I invite my colleagues across higher education to consider how ACCESS—or similar integrative models—might provide clarity, cohesion and inspiration as we work collectively to support the students we serve.

    Laura J. Jacobsen is the chair of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics and a professor of mathematics education at Radford University.

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  • Efforts to Restrict or Protect Libraries Both Grew This Year – The 74

    Efforts to Restrict or Protect Libraries Both Grew This Year – The 74


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    State lawmakers across the country filed more bills to restrict or protect libraries and readers in the first half of this year than last year, a new report found.

    The split fell largely along geographic lines, according to the report from EveryLibrary, a group that advocates against book bans and censorship.

    Between January and July 2025, lawmakers introduced 133 bills that the organization deemed harmful to libraries, librarians or readers’ rights in 33 states — an increase from 121 bills in all of 2024. Fourteen of those measures had passed as of mid-July.

    At the same time, legislators introduced 76 bills in 32 states to protect library services or affirm the right to read, the report found.

    The geographic split among these policies is stark.

    In Southern and Plains states, new laws increasingly criminalize certain actions of librarians, restrict access to materials about gender and race, and transfer decision-making power to politically appointed boards or parent-led councils.

    Texas alone passed a trio of sweeping laws stripping educators of certain legal protections when providing potentially obscene materials; banning public funding for instructional materials containing obscene content; and giving parents more authority over student reading choices and new library additions.

    Tennessee lowered the bar to prosecute educators for sharing books that might be considered “harmful to minors.”

    A New Hampshire bill likewise would’ve made it easier for parents or the state attorney general to bring civil actions against school employees for distributing material deemed harmful to minors, but it was vetoed by Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte.

    In Nebraska, a new law allows for real-time alerts for parents every time a student checks out a book. South Dakota requires libraries and schools to install filtering software. New laws in Idaho heighten the requirements to form library districts and mandate stricter internet filtering policies that are tied to state funding.

    In contrast, several Northeastern states have passed legislation protections for libraries and librarians and anti-censorship laws.

    New Jersey, Delaware, Rhode Island and Connecticut have each enacted “freedom to read” or other laws that codify protections against ideological censorship in libraries.

    Connecticut also took a major step in modernizing libraries in the digital age, the report said, becoming the first state in the nation to pass a law regulating how libraries license and manage e-books and digital audiobooks.

    Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at [email protected].

    Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: [email protected].


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  • AAUP v. Rubio Reveals Details of Deportation Efforts

    AAUP v. Rubio Reveals Details of Deportation Efforts

    Today is the final day of the American Association of University Professors v. Rubio trial, in which the association, its chapters at Rutgers and Harvard Universities, and the Middle East Studies Association sued to stop the Trump administration from the “ideological deportation” of international students.

    The lawsuit argues that the deportations violate international students’ right to free expression and their Fifth Amendment right not to have laws enforced against them arbitrarily or discriminatorily. It also claims that the arrests of student protesters chilled speech on campuses—something witnesses corroborated.

    The trial, conducted during the last two weeks, revealed new details about the administration’s targeting of international students, including high profile cases like those of graduate students Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk, who were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in March. (Both have since been released.)

    Here are some of the key takeaways from the trial ahead of the parties’ closing statements.

    1. Dossiers about the targeted students included information about their protest activities.

    On Friday, John Armstrong, the most senior official at the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, testified that the memos written by state department officials recommending deportation actions and visa revocations contained details about student and faculty members’ activism.

    The memos have been designated as for “attorneys’ eyes only”—the most restrictive possible designation for sensitive information in a trial, which prevents even the plaintiffs and defendants from viewing them. But attorneys and witnesses quoted excerpts of them during the trial.

    The action memo for Öztürk highlighted an op-ed she had co-written supporting a call for her institution, Tufts University, to divest from companies with ties to Israel, Armstrong said, according to trial transcripts published by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which is representing the plaintiffs. But he insisted that the op-ed was not a “key factor” in the decision to revoke her visa and detain her.

    Another memo, regarding Columbia student activist Mohsen Mahdawi, specifically noted that “a court may consider his actions inextricably tied to speech protected under the First Amendment,” according to an excerpt read by Alexandra Conlon, an attorney for the plaintiffs.

    2. Investigators weren’t given guidance about what constitutes antisemitism.

    The State Department hasn’t release any guidance as to what, exactly, should be considered antisemitism, Armstrong acknowledged on Friday. He also stated that, to his knowledge, the officials who have written action memos about protesters haven’t received any training about what constitutes antisemitism.

    That’s significant, because at least one memo, Mahdawi’s, referred specifically to “antisemitic conduct.”

    “I do know that there’s a common understanding in our culture, in our society of what antisemitism is,” Armstrong said.

    When U.S. District Judge William G. Young pushed him to describe that “common understanding,” he responded: “In my opinion, antisemitism is unjustified views, biases, or prejudices, or actions against Jewish people, or Israel, that are the result of hatred towards them.”

    3. ICE officials leaned on the Canary Mission website to find students and professors to target.

    For over a decade, the anonymously operated site Canary Mission has been publishing the identities of students and professors they deem antisemitic. Several of those listed on the website, including Khalil, Mahdawi and Öztürk, have been targeted since the Trump administration began taking aim at student protesters.

    On the third day of the trial, Peter Hatch, a senior ICE official, stated that “many of the names, even most of the names” on a list of noncitizen students presented to ICE’s “Tiger Team” for investigation came from the Canary Mission site.

    Hatch said that other names came from Betar USA, the American chapter of an international Zionist organization, which the Anti-Defamation League has labeled an extremist group.

    4. ICE agents said they prioritized the arrest of activists at the urging of their higher-ups.

    ICE agents who oversaw the arrests of Öztürk, Khalil, Mahdawi, and Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown University professor, said last Tuesday that the cases were unusual not just because of the legal grounds on which the activists were detained but also because the orders came from high-ranking officials in the organization.

    Patrick Cunningham, an agent with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations office in Boston, said that the agency’s leaders were “inquiring” about Öztürk’s case, leading his office to prioritize her arrest.

    “I can’t recall a time that it’s come top-down like this with a Visa revocation, um, under my purview anyway,” Cunningham said, according to the transcript. “And so with the superiors that were, you know, inquiring about this, it made it a priority, because we worked for them.”

    5. Students and faculty confirmed they stopped protesting out of fear.

    Over the trial’s first two days, five noncitizen faculty members took the stand to describe how news about activists being targeted had caused them to stop engaging in various political activities. They said they decided not to attend protests or sign statements related to Israel’s war in Gaza after hearing about Khalil’s and Öztürk’s arrests.

    One Brown University professor, Nadje Al-Ali, said she cancelled longstanding plans to travel to Beirut and Baghdad for research into women artists and gender-based violence in the Middle East.

    “Following the arrest and the detention and the threat of deportation of several students, graduate students, and also I think one post-doc—I mean, most prominently Mahmoud Khalil but others as well—I started to think that it is not a good idea,” she said. “I felt that it was too risky for me to do research in the Middle East, come back, and then my pro-Palestinian speech would be flagged. And as a green card holder and also as a prior director for the Center For Middle East Studies that had been under attack, and there are a lot of sort of false allegations about, I felt very vulnerable.”;

    The fear also extended beyond speech related to the Middle East; Al-Ali also refrained from attending a protest on No Kings Day, a massive day of demonstration that opposed President Donald Trump’s policies in his second presidency, including cutting federal government offices, defunding research and social services, and his mass deportation campaign.

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