Tag: Events

Policy Impact Undervalued by Universities

Barely a third of social scientists believe their university would promote them based on the strength of their research impact, a global poll of researchers has found.

Asked whether their institution would promote or give tenure to a scholar for their efforts to apply research outside academia, only 37 percent of 1,805 social scientists surveyed by Sage agreed.

Only 28 percent of respondents said their efforts to make a difference outside academia would lead to additional research funding from their institution, while just 35 percent said their university offered awards or prizes to recognize impact.

Thirty percent of the survey’s respondents, who came from 92 countries, say they receive no recognition at all for this work.

Instead, the survey by the U.S.-based social sciences publisher suggested institutions tend to value and reward publication in highly cited journals more than academics. Asked whether the ultimate goal of research is to make a positive impact on society, 92 percent agreed this is the case for themselves, but only 68 percent believe it’s true for institutions.

“I don’t care about impacting my colleagues and being cited—I want to impact practice in the field,” explained one U.S.-based respondent, who added there is “no good way to know if this happens.”

“All the other metrics (like rejection rates, Google scores) are internal to the discipline and don’t really measure anything useful,” the researcher continued, according to the Sage report, titled “Do Social Scientists Care If They Make Societal Impact?” and published Tuesday.

Similarly, 91 percent of researchers agree the ultimate goal of research is to build on the literature and enable future research, but only 71 percent think the leaders at their institution agree with this.

That perceived misalignment between the motivation of social scientists and institutions should prompt a rethink on whether prestige metrics used in academia are misaligned with values, argues the Sage report.

It notes that researchers value peer regard more than citation metrics, yet they perceive that administrators prioritize impact factors, creating tension in tenure and promotion decisions.

“At times, this means we have to challenge the status quo of what matters in higher education—for example, by moving beyond an overemphasis on scholarly impact measures [and] toward recognizing research that benefits people through policy, practice and public life,” said Ziyad Marar, president of global publishing at Sage.

“It’s important that we listen closely to researchers themselves as we do this work—understanding what motivates them, where they focus their efforts and what barriers stand in their way. This report does exactly that,” he added.

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December 12, 2025
Harvard Health and Human Rights Director Stepping Down

Officials also announced that the center will hone its primary focus to children’s health.

John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe/Getty Images

The director of Harvard University’s François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights will step down in January after seven years at the helm, dean of the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health Andrea Baccarelli announced Tuesday. News of her departure follows months of criticism of the center’s Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights.

Mary Bassett’s last day as director will be Jan. 9, 2026, after which she will remain a professor of practice in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Department. Kari Nadeau, a professor of climate and population studies at Harvard, will serve as interim director. Bassett did not respond to a request for an interview Thursday. A Harvard spokesperson did not answer Inside Higher Ed’s questions about Bassett’s departure, including whether she was asked to step down, and instead pointed to Baccarelli’s message.

Baccarelli also announced that the center will shift its primary focus to children’s health.

“Over the past years, FXB has worked on a wide range of programs within the context of human rights, extending across varied projects, including those related to oppression, poverty, and stigma around the world,” he wrote. “We believe we can accomplish more, and have greater impact, if we go deeper in a primary area of focus.”

The center’s Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights drew increased scrutiny after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel, including from former Harvard president Larry Summers and New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik. In previous years, the program partnered with Birzeit University in the West Bank, but Harvard declined to renew that partnership in the spring. In their April report on antisemitism on campus, Harvard officials detailed complaints from students about the program’s webinars, in which speakers allegedly “presented a demonizing view of Israel and Israelis.”

“One student told us that the FXB programming created the impression that ‘Israel exists solely to oppress Palestinians, and nothing else,’” the report stated.

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December 12, 2025
College Aid Previews Aim to Improve Early Decision

With the imminent arrival of early-decision results comes a new round of hand-wringing about the admissions practice, which affords students a better chance of getting accepted to their top institution but requires them to commit if admitted.

Critics argue that the practice disadvantages low- and middle-income students, who fear being locked into attending a college before they know if they can afford it—although many colleges with an early-decision option allow students to back out over financial constraints. It also prevents applicants from comparing financial aid offers across multiple institutions.

“Because there is so much uncertainty, families with high incomes are more likely to choose early decision and therefore benefit from its more favorable odds. It’s the perfect tool for maximizing revenues at schools positioned as luxury products, with price tags to match,” wrote Daniel Currell, a former deputy under secretary and senior adviser at the Department of Education from 2018 to 2021, in a New York Times op-ed published Wednesday that argued for the end of early decision. Indeed, Common App data about the fall 2021 freshman class showed that students from the wealthiest ZIP codes were twice as likely to apply early decision.

But despite the criticisms, some institutions are aiming to make the practice more equitable. A handful of small liberal arts colleges have introduced initiatives in recent years to allow students to preview their financial aid offers before they decide whether or not to apply early, which admissions leaders say they hope will make lower-income students feel more comfortable taking the leap.

Reed College, a selective liberal arts college in Oregon, began offering early-decision aid reviews this year, which allow early-decision applicants to request and view their full financial aid packages before they receive an actual decision from the university. Just like an official aid offer, the preview is calculated by financial aid staff using the College Scholarship Service profile.

If they aren’t entirely comfortable with the amount of aid they’re set to receive—or they’d rather compare offers from other institutions—they can drop their application down into the early-action pool.

“I just think that this anxiety that people have over not getting the best financial deal for their family has been a barrier for people saying, ‘This is my first-choice school and I want to do everything I can to increase my chances for admission,’” said Milyon Trulove, vice president and dean of admission and financial aid at Reed.

Early financial aid offers are among the various steps institutions have taken in recent years to improve cost transparency and, in many cases, show students that their institutions are affordable. Others include improved cost estimators and campaigns offering free tuition for families under a particular income limit. Institutions hope that such innovations will help prevent students from writing off their institutions—particularly selective institutions that offer significant aid—due to their sticker prices.

So far, Reed’s reviews appear to be doing a good job of enticing applicants who otherwise might not have applied early; the number of early-decision applicants this year increased 60 percent compared to last admissions cycle. Only one student has opted to switch to early action, which is nonbinding, after receiving their estimated offer.

Similar programs at other institutions have also proven successful. Whitman College in Washington began offering early financial aid guarantees in 2020 to any prospective student who had filled out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The initiative wasn’t created specifically to promote early decision, said Adam Miller, vice president for admission and financial aid. But he said he hoped that making it clear to families that Whitman is affordable would also open doors for students interested in applying early decision but nervous about costs.

Early-decision applications haven’t increased at Whitman like they did this year at Reed. But Miller noted that the college’s early-decision applicants are as socioeconomically diverse as the institution’s overall applicant pool, rather than skewing wealthier.

“As we think about these nationwide conversations and the very valid criticism of early decision, we think that our approach allows us to have kind of a win-win,” he said. “We still get the benefit of students who are applying early, [so] that we can start to build our incoming class with some confidence,” while also eliminating financial uncertainty for families.

Last year, the university’s four-person financial aid staff handled 546 requests for early aid guarantees. It’s an extra lift for the tiny office, but, Miller said, 410 of those students ended up applying—“so it’s not like we were doing a lot of extra work for students that we weren’t going to be doing it for anyway.”

Macalester College also launched such a program in 2021. The institution, which typically admits between 35 and 40 percent of its incoming class from early decision, implemented aid previews in conjunction with a number of other steps aimed at improving access, including going test-optional and eliminating its application fee.

“If we have an opportunity to do something that we think might be helpful to an individual student or family, I guess I feel as responsibility as an enrollment manager to try to initiate a new practice or new policy,” said Jeff Allen, vice president for admissions and financial aid at Macalester.

Boosting Cost Transparency

Financial aid experts said they see early financial aid calculations as a good option for institutions hoping to make the early-decision process—and college costs over all—more transparent.

Students should be able to “apply early decision to a school where they know it’s the place for them and they don’t need to be saying, ‘But I need the financial aid so maybe this isn’t a good choice,’” said Jill Desjean, director of policy analysis at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. “That option should be available to anyone that finds the school where they really feel like they belong via early decision without having to factor in their finances, so any kind of early estimates, accurate early estimates—anything like that is a positive thing.”

She noted that such programs might be too heavy of a lift for institutions receiving massive numbers of applications every year, but also that larger institutions have more resources and staffing to accommodate such requests.

James Murphy, a senior fellow at Class Action, an advocacy organization focused on “reimagining elite higher education,” said that while he sees early aid previews as a positive step toward transparency, they don’t address some of his key concerns about early decision. At many expensive private high schools, he said, nearly every student applies early decision, whereas public high school students often aren’t even aware of the option.

“There’s kind of a culture thing. If you go to Georgetown Prep … everybody’s applying early decision, or most students are applying early decision, unless they’re applying to Harvard or Stanford that don’t have it … When you look at public schools, that’s not nearly as common,” he said. “I think raising awareness of early decision as a viable option for more students is one step that higher education could take to make it a little bit more equitable.”

He also noted that some institutions admit over half of their incoming classes from early-decision applicants, which dramatically lowers the chances for regular-admission applicants to be admitted.

“The New York Times had that op-ed about banning it. That’s not going to happen. Colleges will fight so hard to make that not happen,” he said. But, he said, “what I would love to see is caps” on the percentage of students that can be admitted early decision.

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December 12, 2025
In Defense of Berkeley Instructor Peyrin Kao

Peyrin Kao, a University of California, Berkeley, computer science lecturer, was suspended from teaching for a semester after UC Berkeley decreed that Kao’s criticism of Israel had violated campus bans on “political advocacy” in class. There are two significant problems with this action: Kao didn’t engage in advocacy in his class, and Berkeley’s rules don’t restrict political advocacy.

The suspension of Kao reflects two alarming possibilities: Either Kao is being targeted for his criticism of Israel and there is selective persecution of faculty for leftist political beliefs, or Kao’s suspension shows a new, broader ban on all political speech in the classroom.

The fact that this repression is happening at UC Berkeley—a top university in a blue state legendary for the Free Speech Movement and liberal politics—indicates how widespread censorship is across the country today.

As Kao noted, “The university loves to talk about how they are ‘the free speech university,’ ‘the home of the free speech movement’ … but when it comes to Palestine: ‘Sorry, we’re drawing the line, your free speech does not apply.’”

In October, UC Berkeley executive vice chancellor and provost Benjamin Hermalin wrote a letter determining that Kao was guilty of violating Regents Policy 2301 in two incidents.

In 2023, Kao, after dismissing class, spoke for four minutes about ethics and technology, and expressed criticism of the Israeli government. In 2024, Kao informed students that he was on a hunger strike (without explaining why).

It’s shocking that such trivial examples of advocacy could ever justify such a severe punishment. In the first case, Hermalin makes a ridiculous argument that what happens after a class is over is in fact part of the class.

He writes, “Nothing in Regents Policy 2301 can be read to indicate it doesn’t apply when a course goes into ‘overtime.’” While it’s true that the rules about behavior during classes apply when instructors extend a class beyond the normal time (“overtime”), those limits end when the class is over. The Provost even quotes Kao’s words: “It is 2pm so class is officially over.” Once Kao says that, there is no overtime. There is only after-class time, and that time is not regulated by the Policy 2301 for course content. Of course, Kao’s brief comments on ethics in technology should be fully protected during a computer science class, but the fact that they happened outside of class means they cannot be regulated by these rules about classroom speech.

The second alleged violation is even more ridiculous. Kao is accused of breaking the rules by uttering 20 words: “I’m currently undergoing a starvation diet for a cause that I believe in. If that sounds interesting, there’s a link.”

The provost concluded, “I find Mr. Kao to have misused the classroom for the purpose of political advocacy, an action that constitutes a violation of Regents Policy 2301.”

No, he didn’t, and no, it isn’t. Telling students that you’re on a starvation diet isn’t “political advocacy”; if Kao was ill or dieting for health reasons, he would be fully entitled to warn students of this fact in case it affected him, and nothing about these words is “political advocacy.” The same logic applies to a medical condition induced for political reasons.

But the provost is also wrong on a much deeper level: There is no prohibition on “political advocacy” in Policy 2301. The word “advocacy” never appears in Policy 2301. Yet the provost proceeds to wonder “whether the instructor’s intent is to advocate” and frequently quotes his interviews rather than focusing on what he said in class and what Policy 2301 says. Political advocacy in the classroom is fundamentally protected by academic freedom.

Astonishingly, the provost even asked, “To what extent is a hunger strike an in-class advocacy activity precluded by Regents Policy 2301?” In what bizarro world could a hunger strike ever be deemed “in-class advocacy”? Refusing to eat during class is not “advocacy” at all. The suggestion that Regents Policy 2301 could be interpreted to require teachers to eat outside the classroom is insane.

The provost noted, “His actions are no different from those of an instructor who repeatedly wore a t-shirt when teaching that had on it a very visible political symbol or a picture of a political candidate.” Wait, does the provost actually think that professors are banned from wearing T-shirts with symbols on them? Will a professor with a peace symbol T-shirt be hauled before the provost for dress code violations? Wait until the provost finds out that some professors wear crosses while teaching—I’m sure that will be quickly prohibited by any fair-minded ban on advocacy.

Perhaps UC Berkeley professors need to start wearing T-shirts with the First Amendment on them to remind the provost why we must not allow political commissars to dictate what teachers wear, say or think.

Zach Greenberg of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression argued, “If you’re going on tangents during class or expressing a political advocacy to students during class as a professor, you’re on company time.” But the whole concept of academic freedom is a rejection of “company time.” Academic freedom in the classroom means that the instructor, not the company, decides what is taught. The classroom is “professional time” where instructors must meet professional standards. But professional standards allow for wide leeway to go on tangents, discuss broader issues and even chat with students about nonprofessional topics. If there is a professor who has never uttered any words in any class unrelated to the course topic, I would love to meet that weirdo.

If a professor is wasting half of every class on a tangent unrelated to the course, then that professor should be disciplined. But the reason for the discipline must be politically neutral and disconnected from any viewpoint discrimination. A professor who expresses political views in class is no different from a professor who expresses views about the football team or a professor who discusses the weather (in a class unrelated to it). All of them are engaging in speech not germane to the class.

But no one can seriously argue that a four-minute statement after class about ethics in technology or a 20-word comment about being on a hunger strike could possibly describe an instructor who is failing to teach the content of the class by going on constant tangents.

The fact that Kao’s words were repeatedly described as “political” is not evidence of Kao’s guilt, but proof of the administration’s guilt. By targeting Kao purely for his political speech, and applying standards that would never be used for similar noncontroversial speech, the Berkeley administration is confessing to its violation of the First Amendment and standards of academic freedom that protect faculty from retaliation for their views.

Policy 2301 is a terrible policy, enacted in 1970 by the regents to suppress free speech, and it violates standards of academic freedom and the First Amendment by targeting “political indoctrination” (rather than all “indoctrination”) and therefore engages in viewpoint discrimination against disfavored political views.

But even Policy 2301 does not allow the kind of repression demanded by the provost, which is why he doesn’t quote any of its specific provisions in claiming Kao’s alleged violation of it.

The provost repeatedly accuses Kao of being “at odds with the spirit of Regents Policy 2301” but fails to quote anything in the policy he actually violated. Suspensions cannot be justified by “spirits”; they can only be legitimate if there is a clear violation of the rule.

The provost’s report is so grossly incompetent—fabricating clauses about “advocacy” that don’t exist in a policy he apparently hasn’t read—that it shows how arbitrary this act of political retaliation was.

Writing that the punishment was “up to you,” the provost gave his subordinates an implicit order to suspend Kao with only one other option: “I would have no objection if you wished to impose a more severe disciplinary action than the one I proposed.” Obviously, he would object to anything less than a suspension, and the resulting suspension is not surprising to anyone. It is highly unprofessional for a top administrator to personally intervene in a discipline case in order to manipulate the outcome and decree what punishment must be given.

The repressive administrative overreaction at Berkeley is precisely why we must give enormous freedom to instructors to do things that we think are wrong. Unless you protect the right of faculty to say dumb and inappropriate things in their classes, people driven mad by the possession of administrative power will seek to fire professors for what they say and do outside of class.

We should want professors who feel free to express their values and their ideas openly, even when it offends some people. We should reject a world where every professor must fear saying a disapproved word in a classroom where every utterance is monitored for wrongthink.

I don’t agree with Kao’s goals of campus divestment from Israel. I don’t agree with Kao’s tactics of engaging in a hunger strike. And I don’t agree with Kao’s methods of discussing his views in or after his classes.

But Kao did not violate any university rules, and it is fundamentally unjust to suspend him for purely political reasons. People are free to criticize him for his ideas, but not to censor him or punish him for expressing them.

UC Berkeley administrators have violated Kao’s academic freedom and the First Amendment in their shameful punishment of him for his free speech, and they deserve condemnation not only for this unjust act against Kao but also for the much larger chilling effect this repression will cause across the University of California.

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December 12, 2025
Purdue Allegedly Rejecting Chinese, Other Grad Students

Purdue University is allegedly rejecting large numbers of Chinese graduate student applicants.

wanderluster/iStock/Getty Images

Current and prospective Purdue University graduate students say the institution rejected a slew of Chinese applicants from its grad programs for this academic year. Also, one grad student says the university told grad admissions committees in the past couple of months that it’s highly unlikely to accept students from any “adversary nation” for next year.

Faculty were told those countries are China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela, said Kieran Hilmer, a teaching assistant on the leadership committee of Graduate Rights and Our Wellbeing (GROW), a group trying to unionize Purdue grad workers. That list broadly matches the commerce secretary’s catalog of foreign adversaries.

Hilmer said the university conveyed this prohibition verbally. “They didn’t write any of this down,” he said.

Purdue isn’t commenting on the allegations. The university has faced scrutiny from members of Congress about its ties to China. In May, the Trump administration briefly said it would revoke Chinese students’ visas nationwide. The president has since changed his tune and said he would welcome more students from China.

A Chinese student who wished to remain anonymous because he’s still trying to get into Purdue told Inside Higher Ed he received an offer to be a research assistant last February, meaning his funding was secure to become a Purdue grad student this academic year. But, in April or May, he said, the Office of Graduate Admissions told him that his application was denied.

The redacted two-paragraph letter that he provided to Inside Higher Ed said admission “is competitive and many factors are carefully considered,” but “we are not able to provide specific feedback.”

The student, who said he got his master’s degree in the U.S. and wishes to remain here, said he had already moved to West Lafayette, where Purdue’s flagship campus is, signed a lease and turned down other institutions’ offers. He said the rejection could impact his visa.

“I may get deported,” he said.

He said he learned through social media that at least 100 other Chinese students were similarly rejected.

Purdue spokespeople also didn’t provide a response to the Lafayette Journal & Courier and the Exponent student newspaper when asked about this issue. The Journal & Courier, which first reported the story, cited four faculty members from “a wide range of departments” who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retribution from the university.

Multiple heads of graduate admissions committees didn’t respond to Inside Higher Ed’s requests for comment Thursday; one who answered the phone referred a reporter to the press office, which didn’t respond. Emails sent to Office of Graduate Admissions employees went unanswered.

While Purdue won’t explain what actions it’s taking or why, the U.S. House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party said in a September report that it’s been investigating Purdue and five other universities—Stanford and Carnegie Mellon Universities and the Universities of Maryland, Southern California and Illinois at Urbana-Champaign—all year “regarding the presence and research activities of Chinese national students on their campuses.”

Hilmer said Purdue is rejecting Chinese applicants in “a specific attempt to comply with the U.S. Select Committee.” (The committee didn’t comment Thursday on whether it pressured Purdue to go as far as it allegedly has.) But Hilmer also said the “hostility and malice” the university is showing these students goes further than what the committee requested.

“As Purdue said in its response to the House Select Committee, international students are fully vetted by the United States government when they apply for their visas,” Hilmer said. “And, on top of that, in order to work on projects related to national security, they need to get further security clearance. So there’s no reason for Purdue to make this unilateral extralegal decision to ban all of these students.”

He said many of these students were already in the U.S.

“This policy is obviously discriminatory and immoral, and, on top of that, it violates Purdue’s policy on nondiscrimination,” he said. The Chinese student told Inside Higher Ed that he doesn’t accept the committee pressure rationale, because Purdue wasn’t the only university under investigation.

If Purdue is responding to the committee’s pressure, it’s another example of a selective American institution bending to the federal government’s efforts to reduce international enrollment and to particularly target Chinese students and scholars. During President Trump’s first term in office, the Justice Department launched the controversial China Initiative, which investigated faculty ties to China.

Republicans said the initiative sought to counter espionage, but Democrats, education lobbyists and Asian American advocates argued it was ineffective and instead justified racial profiling and discrimination. A study suggested the initiative’s investigations may have caused valuable researchers of Chinese descent to leave the U.S. for China.

Hilmer said Purdue’s rejection of Chinese students will harm its reputation and ability to recruit the best students and workers.

“Even if they’re not international students, they’re going to say, ‘Why would I ever accept an offer from Purdue if there’s no guarantee that it’s actually an offer?’” he said. “Why would they ever feel comfortable accepting an offer from Purdue if they could go anywhere else?”

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December 12, 2025
Willamette and Pacific Universities Plan Merger

If approved, the merger between Willamette (above) and Pacific would create the largest private university in Oregon.

Pacific University and Willamette University have signed a letter of intent to merge, pending approval, which would create the largest private institution in Oregon if the deal is finalized.

Together the two institutions have a collective study body of about 6,000 students.

“If finalized and approved, this merger would be a defining moment for private higher education in the region. Pacific and Willamette are both deeply rooted in Oregon’s history and have educated thousands of leaders who have helped make the Pacific Northwest synonymous with innovation and excellence,” Willamette president Steve Thorsett said in a news release.

Pacific president Jenny Coyle emphasized a shared “commitment to addressing the region’s most pressing workforce needs while preserving the personalized, mission-driven education that defines both of our institutions” and the opportunity to leverage “our collective strengths.”

The combined entity would be known as the University of the Northwest.

The two institutions plan to operate under a shared administrative structure but maintain their respective campuses, admissions requirements, academic programs and athletic teams. Their main campuses are located roughly an hour apart; Willamette is in Salem and Pacific in Forest Grove. Willamette also has a campus in Portland that houses an art college.

The merger will require approval from regulatory bodies, including the Department of Education.

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December 11, 2025
Youngkin Loses Battle Over Board Picks

Governor-elect Spanberger will now get to select 22 board members.

Matt McClain/The Washington Post/Getty Images

The legal battle over whether Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin’s university board appointees will take their seats is over after a judge set a trial for 2026, Virginia Business reported. Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger will assume office next month, rendering the lawsuit moot.

The case will be dismissed, shutting down an effort to install the Republican governor’s board picks, many of whom had previously worked for or donated to the GOP and were rejected by Virginia Democrats. Now Spanberger, a Democrat, will be able to name 22 board members that otherwise would have been appointed by Youngkin, giving her the opportunity to shift the political balance of boards away from the right.

Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares had sought to expedite the legal fight by asking Virginia’s Supreme Court to review a lower court ruling that determined that blocked board picks could not take their seats. Youngkin has argued the board appointments must be rejected by the full Senate, not just the Democrat-led Privileges and Elections Committee, which voted down multiple picks.

However, Virginia’s Supreme Court declined to hear the case, remanding it to a lower court.

Spanberger and state Democrats are expected to quickly fill multiple vacancies that have left boards hobbled, including at George Mason University, which does not have a quorum. GMU’s board met recently, despite the lack of a quorum and legal questions about their ability to do so.

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

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December 11, 2025
ED Seeks Public Comment on Accreditation Reform
President Trump signed an executive order in April to reform accreditation.

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Reforming the accreditation process has been a key focus for the Trump administration. Officials from the Education Department reinforced that Wednesday when they announced a request for information to solicit public feedback on updating the accreditation handbook.

The aim, the department said in a news release, is to reduce “unduly burdensome and bureaucratic requirements” and increase “transparency and efficiency.”

“Instead of driving high-quality programs that better serve students, the antiquated accreditation system has led to inflated tuition costs and fees, administrative bloat, and ideology-driven initiatives at colleges across the country,” Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education David Barker said. “We are excited to receive feedback on how best to update the Handbook, streamline guidance, and eliminate bureaucratic headaches for accrediting agencies and associations.”

The request falls in line with an April executive order to “reform and strengthen” the accreditation system. It also comes less than a week before the next meeting of the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, the group that weighs in on accreditation issues and reviews accrediting agencies.

The department is planning to draft new rules and regulations for accreditors sometime next year.

Commenters will have 45 days to provide feedback on the following questions:
- What policies or standards are encouraging innovation or reducing college costs within the postsecondary education sector and should be retained in or added to the new version of the handbook?
- How can the handbook be designed to be less burdensome?
- Is the handbook serving its intended purpose?
- How can it better assist accrediting agencies and associations in evaluating the quality of educational institutions and programs or in applying for federal recognition?
- How could accreditation standards be updated to incentivize intellectual diversity on campus?
- What guidance or standards, if any, can the handbook provide to institutions and programs to help achieve this goal?
- What methods should be incorporated into the handbook to determine appropriate assessment benchmarks, and what data sources or validation methods could be used to ensure those benchmarks reflect student competency?
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December 11, 2025
Stop Blaming AI. Start Preparing Students for Work

AI isn’t the only reason new graduates can’t get a job, but it is changing the job market they’re entering. Economic uncertainty and a surplus of college graduates are contributing far more to high unemployment among young degree holders than job-thieving robots.

A recent Federal Reserve analysis showed that the unemployment gap between high school and college graduates has been narrowing since the 2008 recession and now sits at around 2.5 percentage points, down from an average of five percentage points from roughly the 1980s to early 2000s. The National Association of Colleges and Employers’ 2026 Job Outlook Survey found that employers expect hiring for the Class of 2026 to remain flat. Next year’s job market likely won’t improve for college graduates.

But even though huge corporations like Amazon, Target and Klarna say they are laying off tens of thousands of employees because of AI, they do not represent the majority of employers. Like the rest of us, most companies are still figuring out AI. In the NACE survey, nearly 59 percent of employers said they are not planning to or are unsure whether they’ll augment entry-level jobs with AI, and just 25 percent said they’re currently discussing it.

Meanwhile, in a recent Substack post, economist and CUNY Graduate Center professor Paul Krugman argued it’s too soon for AI to have such a drastic impact on unemployment for college-educated workers; instead, he blamed the crummy job market on tariffs, uncertainty in the economy and even DOGE cuts flooding the job market with laid-off, educated federal workers.

These market challenges coincide with intensifying pressure from the federal government and the general public for colleges to show that their degrees are valuable. Just this week, the Department of Education rolled out a new feature in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid alerting students if the institutions they’ve applied to produce graduates who earn less than people with just high school degrees.

While the state of the economy is out of higher education’s control, institutions should heed employer calls for graduates with real-world experience. Career-ready students will be able to adapt to the evolving world of work and see that their degrees are worth the investment. The most promising response is for colleges to embrace experiential learning.

A survey of employers released this week by the American Association of Colleges and Universities showed that college graduates who are proficient in applying knowledge to the real world and who understand teamwork are the most likely to be hired. Students agree: They cited paid internships and building stronger connections with employers as the top things colleges can do to help them get career-ready.

Focusing on work-based learning will achieve two things: get students the real-world experience employers demand and set them up for long-term economic success. The college premium may be eroding, but it persists. And while high school graduates might be getting jobs more quickly than recent college graduates, those with degrees stay employed longer once they do find jobs.

Regional economies will benefit from graduates with real-world experience, too. Students who participate in internships or apprenticeships are more likely to find local jobs after they graduate. Studies even show that underemployed graduates, those working jobs that don’t require a college degree, land in roles with higher intrinsic value—think less physical labor, more respectful treatment and better opportunities for skill development.

Some institutions are further along than others. A program at Harvey Mudd College pairs undergraduates early in their degrees with alumni around the country for summer job shadows. Others target career support to individual student groups, such as neurodiverse students and veterans. Virginia recently announced a partnership with Handshake to provide each student at a public institution at least one form of work-based learning in an effort to keep talent in the state. And the Delaware Workforce Development Board gave the University of Delaware’s Lerner College of Business and Economics a grant to create a yearlong co-op program with businesses across the state, partly to “keep homegrown talent here in Delaware,” the chair of the board said.

The economic forces impacting the job market aren’t going away, and neither is AI’s transformational influence on how work gets done. The solution for colleges is simple: Students need real-world experience and employers are explicit about wanting to hire graduates who have it. Colleges must start building employer relationships and embedding experiential learning into the curriculum now. The institutions that get it right will be the ones whose graduates never question the value of their degree.

Sara Custer is editor in chief at inside Higher Ed.

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December 11, 2025
SUNY Service Corps Fights Food Insecurity in New York

As food insecurity continues to rise across New York, the State University of New York’s public service program has stepped in to address the growing need.

The SUNY Empire State Service Corps, a paid, student-driven initiative with more than 500 members, has ramped up its on-the-ground efforts in recent months.

Launched in May 2024, the group was funded with $2.75 million from the state budget and is New York’s largest AmeriCorps program. SUNY Corps students assist New York residents in high-need communities with K–12 tutoring, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and basic needs outreach, peer mental health support, sustainability projects, hate and bias prevention, nonpartisan civic engagement, and FAFSA completion.

SUNY chancellor John B. King Jr. said the program played an integral role during the federal government shutdown this fall as New York residents faced cutbacks to federal food-assistance benefits.

“The threats to the SNAP program presented a huge challenge for New York,” King said. “Many of our food pantries saw a significant uptick in usage before the shutdown, and then certainly during the shutdown as people anticipated not being able to access SNAP benefits.”

SUNY chancellor John B. King Jr. (center, in light blue shirt) joins students and staff as they pack backpacks with supplies for New York elementary students.

State University of New York at Binghamton

In response, New York governor Kathy Hochul provided $200,000 in additional funding to bring on more SUNY Corps students to help families at risk of losing aid. The funding will support the added students for the remainder of the academic year.

King said the additional paid hours were essential and allowed campuses to quickly mobilize students to support food pantries and community centers.

“Many of our students know what it’s like to be in a situation where your family finances feel incredibly fragile,” King said. “So when our students see classmates who are food insecure, who are skipping meals in order to make ends meet or who are distracted in class because they’re hungry, they worry a lot about them.”

Inside the Service Corps

SUNY Corps students dedicate at least 300 hours to paid community service and are eligible to receive an AmeriCorps Segal Education Award of up to $1,500.

“They’re from every part of the state, every socioeconomic background, every ethnic background, every faith background, and they are excited to work together to make the community better,” King said. “It’s exactly what we should be doing in higher ed, and it’s exactly what we need as a country.”

More than 500 students from 45 SUNY campuses participated in the program this year, and interest continues to outpace availability; applications exceeded campus placements by more than three to one over the last two years.

Sarah Hall, an Empire State Service Corps coordinator and senior assistant director at the State University of New York at Binghamton, said her campus received more than 200 applications for just 50 spots this year.

“Every time I talk to a student who is part of our Empire State Service Corps, you can really feel how meaningful this is to their own personal and professional growth,” Hall said. “I really think this is setting them on a path of service in their future.”

Sarah Hall, an Empire State Service Corps coordinator at SUNY Binghamton.

State University of New York at Binghamton

Following the federal government shutdown, Hall said, her students quickly mobilized a meal kit assembly effort after Hochul provided the additional funding.

“We purchased over $4,000 worth of food … so when families go to a pantry or food bank, they’re able to just pick up an entire meal that will feed a family of four,” Hall said, adding that her students put together more than 560 kits.

Beyond Binghamton, the first cohort of SUNY Corps students statewide, logged over 100,000 hours of service and served more than 70,000 New York residents during the 2024–25 program year.

“It’s a reflection that young people really want to serve and want to contribute to the community and are eager for these opportunities,” King said.

What’s Next

The chancellor said the government shutdown underscored how essential sustained investment in public service programs will be in the years ahead.

“I’d love to see federal investment in this space,” King said. “There continues to be bipartisan support for the AmeriCorps program, so my hope is that we can continue to grow national service efforts around the country.”

He noted that New York was recently selected as one of four states—along with California, Colorado and Kentucky—to join the Service Year Alliance, an inaugural cohort seeking to grow the number of paid service opportunities throughout the United States.

Looking ahead, King said the SUNY Empire State Service Corps could serve as a model for colleges and states seeking to build or expand their public service initiatives because it’s “highly replicable.”

“There’s a lot of reasons for people to feel discouraged about the health of our democracy,” King said. “But when you’re with these students who are committing 300 hours plus a year to service, it makes you quite hopeful.”

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December 11, 2025