Tag: Events

  • Community college to reconsider removed DEI materials

    Community college to reconsider removed DEI materials

    Des Moines Area Community College is planning to reintroduce to its website some materials related to diversity, equity and inclusion that it had removed in anticipation of anti-DEI legislation, The Iowa Capital Dispatch reported.

    The college first removed information about DEI on Jan. 25 in response both to President Trump’s executive order banning DEI “preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities” and to a state bill that would have prohibited DEI offices at community colleges. That bill was later tabled.

    The institution’s president, Rob Denson, told the Board of Trustees that the institution is now reviewing what information can be returned to its website. “What can come back, will come back,” he said.

    Source link

  • When the chair-president “marriage” goes sour (opinion)

    When the chair-president “marriage” goes sour (opinion)

    In a conversation recently with someone whose presidency and mine overlapped (1992–2003), we talked about how even though we worked 24-7 and lost a fair amount of sleep, we mainly loved what we did and even had lots of fun doing it. That is not what I am hearing today from presidents I know, nearly all of whom use language like “I’m worn out” and “I can’t wait to retire.” It is therefore not surprising that the average presidential tenure, according to a recent American Council on Education survey, has decreased significantly in recent years (from 8.5 years to 5.9).

    As I have often learned during my 18 years as a higher ed consultant, short presidential tenures take a toll on their institutions. Even in the best of circumstances, presidential transitions are time-consuming. Searches frequently take nine or more months, during which time planning and even implementation of previously approved plans often get put on hold. Departing presidents are frequently viewed as lame ducks, while interim presidents are often seen as placeholders, whose presence similarly delays institutional progress.

    Then, too, during the first year of a new presidency, campus communities generally are trying to decide if the new president is trustworthy and capable. If the previous president left under negative circumstances, people on campus are likely to be especially skittish about new leadership. Moreover, many new presidents are so focused on learning about the institution and its people that they defer important decisions until their second year.

    That used to make things difficult; now in these fraught times for higher education, it can be catastrophic.

    Successful presidents simultaneously serve a variety of different groups (students, faculty, staff, alumni, the community, donors and the board), many of whom have conflicting interests and concerns. As I tell presidents I coach, their board has the responsibility to hire and fire them, so their board is inevitably their most important constituency.

    Given the array and complexity of presidential responsibilities, many of which require confidentiality, it’s not surprising that a campus community doesn’t know all the ins and outs of how their presidents spend their time and the issues with which they deal. Indeed, on most campuses and even for some board members, the issues presidents must contend with are a black box.

    In this context, the president’s connection to the board is typically opaque to the broader campus community. Indeed, as is also true for most marriages, it’s almost impossible for those not in the relationship to know what really happens inside it. And of course, if a board loses confidence in the president, the result is a divorce in which the president is the one who leaves. (Two personal confessions come to mind in this regard: First, as a former Faulkner scholar, I am mindful of the importance of narrative, am alert to unreliable narrators and am always aware that history, culture and memory affect perception. And second, despite the fact that I have never taken a course in clinical psychology, I sometimes believe that clients with unhealthy board-president relationships may need a marriage counselor in addition to a higher ed consultant.)

    In any case, when the president-chair relationship is troubled, it is almost always presidents who find themselves on shaky ground. And although I am happy to say that the majority of president-chair relationships that I have observed are positive, I have been recently observed what seems to be an uptick in the souring of such relationships.

    Specifically, a dozen presidents—at least half of whom were in a second contract—have described their relationship with their chair as deeply problematic. In a number of these instances, I should stress, the chair who was in place when the president was hired has rotated out of that position and the new chair is for various reasons less invested in the president’s success. (Note: In the interest of confidentiality, none of my examples derive from clients with whom I have begun to work in the last year. In fact, a number of these examples come from institutions with which I’ve not had a consulting relationship but where I know well the president and/or the chair.)

    The most common complaint I hear is from presidents who characterize their chair as a micromanager who is inappropriately engaged in operational decisions—despite the fact that in every institution I know, board bylaws call for the trustees to delegate operational responsibility to the president. As a result, these boards often spend their time in the proverbial weeds rather than focusing on their primary fiduciary responsibility and their responsibilities for strategy and policies.

    I also have heard about chairs who have—without presidential knowledge much less involvement—talked directly with faculty and staff (and sometimes even students), ignoring the best practice that all trustees, including the chair, who wish to interact with those on campus should work with and through the president or, if the president so specifies, the board secretary. (The exception to this is trustee committee chairs who have direct conversations about the work of their committee with their administrative liaison, typically a vice president. At the same time, in healthy institutions presidents are fully informed about and often participate in such conversations.)

    Some examples:

    • A chair at a research university crossed the boundary from governance into management by inappropriately meeting with individual faculty members without the president’s knowledge in his quest to gain support for his personal belief that the provost should be let go, even though he knew the president wished to retain the provost.
    • The board chair at a liberal arts college met with individual faculty members without the president’s knowledge to dissuade them from addressing diversity or gender in their classes.
    • The board chair at a small comprehensive college met with members of the campus community off-site to seek reasons to let the president go.

    The first two presidents subsequently left the institution they were leading, dismayed that their chair was ignoring the fact that as president, they were the board’s only employee and that all other employees essentially work for the president. The third president ended up being fired, based on the chair’s conversations.

    Why has this happened? My suspicion is that it is related to the coarsening of discourse generally and the growing partisanship in this country and beyond. Until roughly the last decade, I was struck by how much those of us in the academy—faculty, staff, administrators and trustees—truly placed a high value on civil discourse, with colleges and universities typically priding themselves on being places where people could disagree passionately but with mutual respect, or at least the appearance of that respect. But in recent years, this is no longer the case. Instead, as we are seeing, families and friends are torn apart by differing points of views. Congress, which was once a place where people argued fervently with those with whom they disagreed but then spent congenial social time together, is now similarly torn apart. And although colleges and universities ideally should not be the playground for partisan politics, that is no longer the case.

    I believe that in this context, particularly at a time when so many colleges and universities are vulnerable (think for example about the enrollment cliff), the president-chair relationship is even more critical than ever. Presidents and boards, especially their chairs, are entrusted in different ways with the health and integrity—financial and academic—of the institutions they serve. Successful presidents and chairs both have a clear understanding of and respect for their differing roles and responsibilities. In the most successful of these relationships, chairs see themselves as the president’s strategic partner and presidents see the board as a strategic advantage to the institution.

    But in those instances where the relationship is strained, entire communities of faculty, staff, students, alumni, donors and others are often negatively affected even if few if any of them are aware of this problematic leadership dynamic. Indeed, members of the campus community in these cases are like families and friends of those in a fragile marriage—they don’t know what’s really going on, but they know enough to be unsettled.

    So what do we do about all of this? Although I know enough now to know that we aren’t likely to change the larger culture, I do recommend that college and university boards set aside time—certainly in new trustee orientation and at least once a year for the entire board in an executive session—to address the question of how trustees interact with one another and with the campuses that they have committed to serve. I further recommend that boards commit to a regular process by which they are reviewed. For example, if a board has retained an outside consultant to do a 360-degree review of the president, I suggest that they ask that same consultant to make recommendations about the board’s functioning, particularly in terms of its behavior in relation to the president and the senior leadership team. But most of all, I hope that trustees, who at their best are focused on the health and integrity of the institution, will understand how important it is that they model respect for others and the civil discourse that is necessary not only for board service but for the health of our larger society.

    Susan Resneck Pierce is president of SRP Consulting, president emerita of the University of Puget Sound and author of On Being Presidential (2011) and Governance Reconsidered (2014), both published by Jossey-Bass and sponsored by Inside Higher Ed.

    Source link

  • The Common App welcomes community colleges

    The Common App welcomes community colleges

    The Common App allows students to submit applications to more than 1,100 higher ed institutions. But until now, none of its members were community colleges focused on granting associate degrees.

    The organization announced a first-of-its-kind partnership with the Illinois Community College Board last week, adding Sauk Valley Community, Rend Lake, Carl Sandburg and Black Hawk Colleges to its ranks. Three more two-year institutions will join next admissions cycle: Lincoln Land Community, Oakton and Triton Colleges.

    When the Common App launched 50 years ago, it offered high school students a streamlined application path to 15 private institutions. Since then, hundreds of others have signed on, most of them fairly selective four-year colleges and universities. The new move raises a question: What do open-access institutions, which accept all students, stand to gain from joining the application platform?

    Brian Durham, executive director of the Illinois Community College Board, said most importantly, it boosts their visibility.

    Starting this year, the Common App is partnering with the Illinois Board of Higher Education to support its direct admissions program to eight public universities in the state. As a part of the partnership, eligible high school students who apply to any college through the Common App will be notified of their direct admissions offers from these universities. Durham wants those students to receive notice about their local community college choices, too.

    “We want to make sure that community colleges are seen as an option on that list”—even “potentially a first choice for students,” Durham said. “It’s ultimately about exposing them to that as an option.” He added that students who gain admission to universities sometimes realize later that “they can’t afford it, or it’s not right choice for them.” This way, if they come to that conclusion after filling out the Common App, they’ll know which community colleges are “right there” and ready to serve them.

    Research suggests the move could offer community colleges an enrollment bump. The National Bureau of Economic Research published a paper in 2019 that found that institutions that joined the Common App enjoyed on average a 12 percent increase in admissions compared to the years before they joined, according to an analysis of Common App data from 1990 to 2015.

    Durham hopes that eventually all 45 of the state’s public two-year colleges offer a Common App application route in addition to their in-house application systems.

    A Decade-Long Effort

    Jenny Rickard, president and CEO of the Common App, said that the organization has been working toward representing a broader swath of higher ed institutions for a decade.

    In 2014, the organization stopped requiring member colleges to use a “holistic admissions” process—assessing students beyond test scores—in order to open up the platform to more institutions. The Common App also got rid of its requirement that applications include essays and recommendations. Then, in 2018, the organization launched a new application for transfer students applying to four-year universities.

    All those moves “opened the door for us to be able to welcome two-year and four-year public institutions into the membership,” Rickard said. She noted that, as of the 2022–23 application cycle, 77 percent of current Common App members admitted over 50 percent of their fall first-year applicants, a sign that the organization has moved away from serving only more selective institutions.

    The Common App also set a “moonshot” goal in 2023 to substantially increase its applicants from low- and middle-income communities, Rickard said. The organization aims to bring in 650,000 additional applicants from those backgrounds by 2030.

    Rickard said teaming up with community colleges is the organization’s most recent step toward diversifying both its member institutions and its applicant pool.

    “Bringing a greater diversity of college and university members into the Common App helps us pursue that mission, and it also helps students from all different backgrounds be able to see the great diversity of institutions in the United States and the world,” she said. “Most students go to more open-access and less selective institutions,” yet too often “we focus on the places that nobody can get into.”

    Durham agreed that the move could expand the Common App’s “footprint,” given applicants to community colleges are disproportionately low-income and first-generation students.

    “More underserved students are naturally going to go to community college for all the reasons we know: affordability, location,” he said. So, working with community colleges offers the Common App a new “opportunity to reach those students.”

    Steps for the Future

    As much as Durham would like to see more community colleges join the Common App’s ranks, he believes the platform will need to change to serve community colleges at a larger scale.

    Currently the platform is designed for high school students, he said, but many community college applicants are adult learners or attend college part-time. Those types of students are more likely to enroll directly at a college rather than find themselves on the Common App platform like high school seniors applying to multiple institutions with guidance from college counselors.

    “How do you get a 34-year-old guy who wants to go into welding to go through that application?” Durham said. For now, he expects participating Illinois community colleges will maintain their own “parallel” application systems “until we can work that out down the road.”

    Rickard acknowledged the organization has work to do to optimize its platform for a more diverse set of institutions. She hopes that onboarding this initial cohort of community colleges will help the Common App figure out its blind spots.

    “We know that we need to learn more about how our platform can continue to evolve to meet their needs more effectively,” she said.

    Source link

  • Trump appoints Biden critic Nicholas Kent as undersecretary

    Trump appoints Biden critic Nicholas Kent as undersecretary

    The announcement was leaked Tuesday evening.

    J. David Ake/Getty Images

    A vocal critic of the Biden administration will oversee the nation’s colleges and universities, according to a document obtained by Inside Higher Ed. 

    The president appears set to pick Nicholas Kent, Virginia’s former deputy secretary of education, to be under secretary at the federal education department—one of several appointees included on the document. Also on the list is Kimberly Richey, senior chancellor of the Florida Department of Education, who will be appointed assistant secretary for civil rights. (The White House has yet to make an official announcement, but sources say the list of appointees should be transmitted to the Senate soon.)

    Kent, who previously worked for a trade association representing for-profit colleges, will have to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Currently, James Bergeron is serving as acting under secretary. During his first term, Trump didn’t appoint an under secretary, so the pick is the latest signal that his team is more prepared and more focused on higher education this time around. 

    “Nicholas Kent is one of the most knowledgeable higher education experts, possessing extensive technical expertise and a profound understanding of the complexities of education policy,” Jason Altmire, president of Career Education Colleges and Universities, said in a statement Tuesday night. “He is eminently qualified for the role of Under Secretary and will work on behalf of schools and students across all sectors of higher education.”

    The batch of appointees comes a day before Trump’s pick to lead the Education Department, Linda McMahon, will appear before a senate committee for her confirmation hearing.

    Kent has worked in Virginia since August 2023, overseeing the state’s postsecondary strategy. Before that, he was the chief policy officer at CECU, which represents for-profit colleges. In his role at CECU, Kent pushed back against several of the Biden administration’s policies. Now, he’ll likely be an influential voice on higher education in the Trump administration. 

    Trump’s first three weeks in office have rocked higher education as he’s moved quickly to target diversity, equity and inclusion programs at colleges and elsewhere in the private sector and the promotion of “gender ideology.” His administration temporarily paused grant reviews at the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation. That pause and other moves in the last three weeks have created much uncertainty for colleges. 

    Kent will be a key figure in carrying out Trump’s orders and translating the president’s vision into policy. He’ll also bring more policy experience to the leadership team at the Education Department. Trumps’ president-elect’s nominee for education secretary, Linda McMahon has limited experience in the world of education policy, but is seen as a loyal Trump lieutenant and business mogul.

    In Virginia, Kent has worked under Gov. Glenn Youngkin, whom some have described as a Trump surrogate. Younkgin has made it a clear priority to increase the government’s influence and oversight of higher education institutions, disallow diversity, equity and inclusion programs and combat antisemitism and “anti-religious bigotry.” 

    Before that, Kent worked for for-profit colleges, advocating for cutting the red tape found in several key policies of the Biden administration.

    “The Higher Education Act specifically limits the authority of the department to pierce the corporate veil and hold individuals financially responsible,” Kent told Inside Higher Ed in April 2023. “[The Biden] administration proposes to exceed this authority through new regulations and subjective guidance.” 

    The deputy also holds a master’s degree in higher ed administration from George Washington University and has worked as both director of policy at the D.C. state superintendent of education’s office and a staff member at Accrediting Bureau of Health Education Schools. He is quite familiar with the Education Department’s complex rulemaking process and policy issues that frequently cross the desks of department officials, including Title IX, student loan repayment, accreditation and online education.

    Kent has also indirectly voiced support for Trump’s idea of abolishing the education department, or at least significantly whittling down the scope of its influence.

    “Congress established @usedgov 43 years ago today,” he wrote in a post on X. “I can’t help but wonder if lawmakers who voted for the Department of Education Organization Act envisioned a massive Federal takeover of K-12 and postsecondary education.”

    Richey, the appointee set to lead the Office for Civil Rights, also spent time in Virginia, serving as deputy superintendent overseeing the division of School Quality, Instruction and Performance at the Virginia Department of Education before she left for Florida. Prior to that, she worked in the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights during Trump’s first term. 

    Richey has spoken out against critical race theory, the Tallahassee Democrat reported. 

    “The teaching of CRT’s core tenets can be destructive and have a deep impact on students,” she wrote in 2021. “No child is defined by the color of their skin. Moreover, the teaching of these devastating principles violates the basic religious tenets many of these schools claim to uphold.”

    If confirmed by the Senate, Richey will play a key role in the Trump administration’s crackdown on transgender athletes. In the last few weeks, Trump has banned transgender athletes from women’s sports, and the Office for Civil Rights has opened up several investigations related to that policy change. 

    Richey supported the administration’s position during the first term, arguing in September 2020 that transgender girls who play on the sports team that corresponds with their gender identity discriminated against female-student athletes.

    Source link

  • Three questions for Cornell’s Paul Krause

    Three questions for Cornell’s Paul Krause

    Whenever I have a question about building a new online program, the first person I go to is almost always Paul Krause. At Cornell University, Paul serves as the vice provost of external education and executive director of eCornell. I asked Paul if he’d be willing to answer my questions for this community, and he graciously agreed.

    Q: Help us understand your role at Cornell. What is eCornell, and what role does a vice provost of external education play at the university? Can you share some key metrics?

    A: I lead the universitywide effort to extend Cornell’s reach to nontraditional students—those not in a residential degree program. My role includes leading eCornell, a centralized organization within the provost’s office that collaborates with each of our academic units to develop programs. Our portfolio includes online professional certificates, executive education, online degree program support and various social impact initiatives. The eCornell team is also responsible for outreach to organizations and individuals who can benefit from our programs.

    Due to an early start—eCornell has been operational for over 24 years—and with the backing of academic leadership, such as the president, provost and deans, eCornell has expanded to encompass all 13 of Cornell’s colleges and schools. Last year, we offered more than 200 noncredit online certificate programs, created with over 250 faculty members. We engaged over 160,000 funded students, including individuals, enterprises supporting employee development or philanthropic partners aiming for social impact.

    Q: When you think about the next three to five years in online learning and higher education, what are you most excited about and what keeps you up at night?

    A: I’m excited by AI’s potential to revolutionize online courses through personalization and new ways to engage students. We can already incorporate remarkable new ways to engage with students with interactives, simulations and coaching support.

    However, I also worry that AI could exacerbate the trend toward online learning becoming a “lone wolf” experience devoid of human interaction—a trend driven by good intentions to lower costs and expand access. Not every individual thrives in a 100 percent self-directed learning setting, and in many cases, something is lost without authentic instructor feedback and structured dialogue with peers. At eCornell, we are seeking to find a balance between integrating AI innovations and real human engagement with instructors and among peers.

    Moving forward, I hope that online programs embrace AI to enhance efficiency and engagement while preserving the valuable social aspects of collaborative learning that drive deeper understanding and support student success. Otherwise, online learning will be a very lonely experience and never achieve its full potential.

    In line with this theme, especially concerning noncredit professional certificates, colleges and universities should clearly define the educational experiences that merit a certificate from their institution. Currently, professional certificates lack industry standards for regular and substantial student engagement. The rise of prominent marketplaces and aggregators providing certificate programs through affordable subscription models has led to many certificate programs approaching the lowest common denominator of self-paced click-through experiences.

    While this instruction might be effective for certain students in certain programs—and AI will certainly enhance those experiences—it fundamentally differs from a program that involves instructors and peer discussions. For certificate programs to signal significance in the long run, institutions must evaluate if the educational experience and outcomes justify awarding a credential linked to their brand.

    Q: Your path to a university leadership role in digital and online education did not follow a traditional academic career. For early and midcareer professionals currently working outside a university, and who may be interested in a university leadership role, what career advice would you give?

    A: My transition from ed-tech leadership to Cornell University a decade ago offered an extraordinary opportunity to drive meaningful change in higher education. Based on my experience, here is my advice for professionals considering a similar path:

    • Advance the mission. In my experience, educational institutions must balance social impact with financial sustainability, particularly in nondegree programs. I’ve found the key is demonstrating how serving external learners advances the institution’s fundamental goals while generating the resources needed to sustain that impact. Success lies in helping stakeholders understand how financial sustainability enables and amplifies our mission-driven outcomes.
    • Seek mentors. Throughout my journey, I’ve been fortunate to receive mentorship from experienced academic leaders who have helped me navigate the distinct institutional culture, competing priorities and decision-making processes that characterize higher education.
    • Lead through collaboration. I’ve learned that institutional change in academia requires an especially deep level of collaboration and strategic patience. Success comes from building strong partnerships across units and helping stakeholders see shared benefits. In my experience, the key is creating frameworks where stakeholders can advance their priorities together.

    For professionals considering this path, I encourage you to embrace your unique perspective while maintaining a learning mindset. Success comes from exercising patience as you adapt to the academic environment and focusing on advancing shared goals through collaborative partnerships.

    Source link

  • More college students report history of suicidal behaviors

    More college students report history of suicidal behaviors

    Colleges and universities can support students with previous history of suicidal ideation or self-harm with long-term counseling or mental health support.

    PeopleImages/iStock/Getty Images Plus

    Over the past two decades, suicide rates in the U.S. have increased 37 percent, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control. Fifteen percent of all deaths by suicide are among individuals ages 10 to 24 years old, making it the second leading cause of death for this age group.

    This heightened risk has pushed colleges and universities to invest in preventative measures to address the complex issues that impact student well-being.

    A January report from Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH) finds that students with a history of suicidal or self-injurious behaviors report lower levels of distress after engaging with counseling center services, but they remain at higher levels of distress over all compared to their peers.

    Methodology

    The report includes data from the 2023–24 academic year, beginning July 2023 and closing June 2024. Data was collected from 213 college and university counseling centers, including 173,536 unique students seeking care, 4,954 clinicians and over 1.2 million appointments. The data is not representative of the general student population, only those accessing mental health services.

    By the numbers: The number of students reporting previous suicidal or self-injurious behavior (S/SIB) histories jumped four percentage points from 2010–11 to 2023–24, according to CCMH data.

    “While counseling centers have historically treated a considerable segment of students with heightened suicide risk, ongoing questions remain about the complexity of co-occurring problems experienced, the scope of services they utilize, and whether gaps in care exist,” according to the report.

    Compared to their peers without a history of S/SIB, these learners had higher levels of self-reported distress, particularly in symptoms of generalized anxiety, general distress and depression. They were also more likely to report a history of trauma or past hospitalization.

    Students had a higher likelihood of continuing to demonstrate self-injurious thoughts or behaviors, compared to other students, but the overall rates remained low, with only 3.3 percent of students with past S/SIB reporting it during college counseling.

    They were 14.3 times more likely to engage in self-injury and 11.6 times more likely to attempt suicide during treatment, and more than five times more likely to be admitted or referred to a hospital for a mental health concern. This, again, constituted a small number of students (around one in 180) but researchers noted the disproportionate likelihood of these critical case events.

    Ultimately, students with suicidal or self-injurious behavior history saw similar benefits from accessing services compared to their peers, with data showing less generalized distress or suicidal ideation among all learners between their first and final assessments. However, they still had greater levels of distress, even if slightly lower than initial intake, showing a need for additional resources, according to researchers.

    “The data show that students with a history of suicidal or self-injurious behaviors could benefit from access to longer-term and comprehensive care, including psychological treatment, psychiatric services and case management at counseling centers, as well as adjunctive support that contributes to an overall sense of well-being, such as access to disability services and financial aid programs,” said Brett Scofield, executive director for the CCMH, in a Jan. 28 press release.

    Future considerations: Researchers made note that while prior history of suicidal behaviors or self-harm are some of the risk factors for suicide, they are not the only ones, and counseling centers should note other behaviors that could point to suicidal ideation, such as substance use or social isolation.

    Additionally, some centers had higher rates of students at risk for suicide, ranging from 20 to 50 percent of clients, so examining local data to understand the need and application of data is critical, researchers wrote.

    The data also showed a gap in capacity to facilitate longer-term care, such as case management or psychiatric services available, which can place an additional burden on clinicians or require outsourcing for support, diluting overall quality of care at the center. “Therefore, it is imperative that colleges and universities invest in under-resourced counseling centers to ease the burden on counseling center staff and optimize treatment for students with heightened suicide risk,” according to the report.

    Investing in on-site psychological treatment or psychiatric care and finding creative solutions to work alongside outside partners can help deliver more holistic care.

    Other trends: In addition to exploring how college counseling centers can address suicidality in young people, CCMH researchers built on past data to illustrate some of the growing concerns for on-campus mental health service providers.

    • Rates of prior counseling and psychotropic medication usage grew year over year and are at the highest level since data was first collected in 2012. A 2023 TimelyCare survey found six in 10 college students had accessed mental health services prior to entering college, and CCMH data echoed this trend, with 63 percent of students entering with prior counseling history.
    • The number of clients reporting a history of trauma remains elevated, up eight percentage points compared to 2012, though down slightly year over year, at 45.5 percent, compared to last year’s 46.8 percent.
    • Anxiety is the most common presenting concern, with 64.4 percent of clients having anxiety, as assessed by clinicians.
    • In-person counseling services have rebounded since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, with 63.7 percent of clients receiving exclusively in-person counseling and 13.5 percent receiving only video care.

    We bet your colleague would like this article, too. Send them this link to subscribe to our weekday newsletter on Student Success.

    If you or someone you know are in crisis or considering suicide and need help, call the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing 9-8-8, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.

    Source link

  • Three things to know about AI and the future of work (opinion)

    Three things to know about AI and the future of work (opinion)

    Since the public release of ChatGPT in late 2022, artificial intelligence has rocketed from relative obscurity to near ubiquity. The rate of adoption for generative AI tools has outpaced that of personal computers and the internet. There is widespread optimism that, on one hand, AI will generate economic growth, spur innovation and elevate the role of quintessential “human work.” On the other hand, there’s palpable anxiety that AI will disrupt the economy through workforce automation and exacerbate pre-existing inequities.

    History shows that education and training are key factors for weathering economic volatility. Yet, it is not entirely clear how postsecondary education providers can equip learners with the resources they need to thrive in an increasingly AI-driven workforce.

    Here at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Education Research and Opportunity Center, we are leading a three-year study in partnership with the Tennessee Board of Regents, Advance CTE and the Association for Career and Technical Education to explore this very subject. So far, we have interviewed more than 20 experts in AI, labor economics, career and technical education (CTE), and workforce development. Here are three things you should know.

    1. Generative AI is the present, not the future.

    First, AI is not new. ChatGPT continues to captivate attention because of its striking ability to reason, write and speak like a human. Yet, the science of developing machines and systems to mimic human functions has existed for decades. Many people are hearing about machine learning for the first time, but it has powered their Netflix recommendations for years. That said, generative AI does represent a leap forward—a big one. Simple machine learning cannot compose a concerto, write and debug computer code, or generate a grocery list for your family. Generative AI can do all of these things and infinitely more. It certainly feels futuristic, but it is not; AI is the present. And the generative AI of the present is not the AI of tomorrow.

    Our interviews with experts have made clear that no one knows where AI will be in 15, 10 or even five years, but the consensus predicts the pace of change will be dramatic. How can students, education providers and employers keep up?

    First, we cannot get hung up on specific tools, applications or use cases. The solution is not simply to incorporate ChatGPT in the classroom, though this is a fine starting point. We are in a speeding vehicle; our focus out the window needs to be on the surrounding landscape, not the passing objects. We need education policies that promote organizational efficiency, incentivize innovation and strengthen public-private partnerships. We need educational leadership focused on the processes, infrastructure and resources required to rapidly deploy technologies, break down disciplinary silos and guarantee learner safeguards. We need systemic and sustained professional development and training for incumbent faculty, and we need to reimagine how we prepare and hire new faculty. In short, we need to focus on building more agile, more adaptable, less siloed and less reactive institutions and classrooms because generative AI as we know it is not the future; AI is a harbinger of what is to come.

    1. Focus on skills, not jobs.

    It is exceedingly difficult to predict which individual occupations will be impacted—positively or negatively—by AI. We simply cannot know for certain whether surgeons or meat slaughterers are at greatest risk of AI-driven automation. Not only is it guesswork, but it is also flawed thinking, rooted in a misunderstanding of how technology impacts work. Tasks constitute jobs, jobs constitute occupations and occupations constitute industries. Lessons from prior technological innovations tell us that technologies act on tasks directly, and occupations only indirectly. If, for example, the human skill required to complete a number of job-related tasks can be substituted by smart machines, the skill composition of the occupation will change. An entire occupation can be eliminated if a sufficiently high share of the skills can be automated by machines. That said, it is equally true (and likely) that new technologies can shift the skill composition of an occupation in a way that actually enhances the demand for human workers. Shifts in demands for skills within the labor market can even generate entirely new jobs. The point is that the traditional approach to thinking of education in terms of majors, courses and degrees does learners a disservice.

    By contrast, our focus needs to be on the skills learners acquire, regardless of discipline or degree pathway. A predictable response to the rise of AI is to funnel more learners into STEM and other supposed AI-ready majors. But our conversations, along with existing research, suggest learners can benefit equally from majoring in liberal studies or art history so long as they are equipped with in-demand skills that cannot (yet) be substituted by smart machines.

    We can no longer allow disciplines to “own” certain skills. Every student, across every area of study, must be equipped with both technical and transferable skills. Technical skills allow learners to perform occupation-specific tasks. Transferable skills—such as critical thinking, adaptability and creativity—transcend occupations and technologies and position learners for the “work of the future.” To nurture this transition, we need innovative approaches to packaging and delivering education and training. Institutional leaders can help by equipping faculty with professional development resources and incentives to break out of disciplinary silos. We also need to reconsider current approaches to institutional- and course-level assessment. Accreditors can help by pushing institutions to think beyond traditional metrics of institutional effectiveness.

    1. AI itself is a skill, and one you need to have.

    From our conversations with experts, one realization is apparent: There are few corners of the workforce that will be left untouched by AI. Sure, AI is not (yet) able to unclog a drain, take wedding photos, install or repair jet engines, trim trees, or create a nurturing kindergarten classroom environment. But AI will, if it has not already, change the ways in which these jobs are performed. For example, AI-powered software can analyze plumbing system data to predict problems, such as water leaks, before they happen. AI tools can similarly analyze aircraft systems, sensors and maintenance records to predict aircraft maintenance needs before they become hazardous, minimizing aircraft downtime. There is a viable AI use case for every industry now. The key factor for thriving in the AI economy is, therefore, the ability to use AI effectively and critically regardless of one’s occupation or industry.

    AI is good, but it is not yet perfect. Jobs still require human oversight. Discerning the quality of sources or synthesizing contradictory viewpoints to make meaningful judgments remain uniquely human skills that cut across all occupations and industries. To thrive in the present and future of work, we must embrace and nurture this skill set while effectively collaborating with AI technology. This effective collaboration itself is a skill.

    To usher in this paradigm shift, we need federal- and state-level policymakers to prioritize AI user privacy and safety so tools can be trusted and deployed rapidly to classrooms across the country. It is also imperative that we make a generational investment in applied research in human-AI interaction so we can identify and scale best practices. In the classroom, students need comprehensive exposure to and experience with AI at the beginnings and ends of their programs. It is a valuable skill to work well with others, and in a modern era, it is equally necessary to work well with machines. Paraphrasing Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia: Students are not going to lose their jobs to AI; they will lose their jobs to someone who uses AI.

    Cameron Sublett is associate professor and director of the Education Research and Opportunity Center at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Lauren Mason is a senior research associate within the Education Research and Opportunity Center.

    Source link

  • A call for more transparent college pricing (opinion)

    A call for more transparent college pricing (opinion)

    Despite frequent media reports about the high cost of college, many students pay much less than the eye-catching sticker price. Students enrolled at four-year institutions living away from their parents face the highest sticker prices. But only around a quarter or fewer of those enrolled at public institutions (for state residents) or private nonprofit four-year institutions pay that sticker price. The remainder receive financial aid. Even most high-income students receive merit-based aid. How are they supposed to know how much they will have to pay?

    Here is how colleges and universities could help. They can provide students with tools that lead them through a financial aid “information funnel.” Provide limited financial details (just family income?) and get an instant ballpark estimate at the top of the funnel. Provide a few more details, get a better, but still ballpark estimate. Keep going until you get an actual price. Extreme simplicity at the beginning of the process facilitates entry; the funnel should have a wide mouth. If the result is below sticker price, it can promote further investigation. Along the way, positive reinforcement through favorable results (if they occur) supports students continuing through the funnel.

    Courtesy of Phillip Levine

    This approach represents a significant advance over past practices, as I detail in a report newly released by the Aspen Economic Strategy Group (AESG). Historically, colleges provided no preliminary estimates. Students filed their financial aid forms (FAFSA and perhaps CSS Profile), applied to a college, and received their admissions decision and financial aid offer (if admitted) at the same time. Who knows how many students didn’t bother to apply because they believed they couldn’t afford it?

    This began to change in 2008. The Higher Education Act was amended at that time to require institutions to provide “net price calculators” by 2011 that were intended to provide early cost estimates. Unfortunately, the well-intended policy hasn’t been very effective because these tools often are not user-friendly. They may represent a useful step higher up the funnel relative to the ultimate financial aid offer, but they remain toward its bottom.

    Other steps have been taken along the way attempting to provide greater pricing information to prospective students. The government launched new webpages (the College Navigator and the College Scorecard), which provide college-specific details regarding the average “net price” (the amount students pay after factoring in financial aid). But the average net price mainly helps students with average finances determine their net price. Besides, using the median rather than the average would lessen the impact of outliers. It’s a much better statistic to capture the amount a typical student would pay in this context. Additional data on net prices within certain income bands are also available, but they still suffer from the biases introduced by using the average net price as well. What students really want and need is an accurate estimate of what college will cost them.

    The most recent advance in college price transparency is the creation of the College Cost Transparency Initiative. This effort represents the response of hundreds of participating institutions to a Government Accountability Office report detailing the inconsistency and lack of clarity in financial aid offer letters. To participate, institutions agreed to certain principles and standards in the offer letters they transmit. It is an improvement relative to past practice, but it also is a bottom-of-the-funnel improvement. It does not provide greater price transparency to prospective students prior to submitting an application.

    Institutions have also engaged in other marketing activities designed to facilitate communication of affordability messaging. Some institutions have begun to provide offers of free tuition to students with incomes below some threshold. The success of the Hail Scholarship (now repackaged as the Go Blue Guarantee) at the University of Michigan supports such an approach. Many of these offers, though, do not cover living expenses, which is a particular problem for students living away from their parents. In those instances, such offers may be more misleading than illuminating.

    In 2017, I founded MyinTuition Corp. as a nonprofit entity designed to provide pricing information higher up in the financial aid information funnel. Its original tool, now used by dozens of mainly highly endowed private institutions, requires users to provide basic financial inputs and receive a ballpark price estimate. More recently, MyinTuition introduced an instant net price estimator, which is currently operational at Washington University in St. Louis, based solely on family income. Given the limited financial details provided, those estimates include some imprecision; the tool also provides a range of estimates within which the actual price is likely to fall. These tools are an easy entry point into the process, which is what the top of the funnel is designed to accomplish. More such efforts are necessary.

    If we could do a better job communicating the availability of financial aid, it would also contribute to better-informed public discussions about college pricing and access. One recent survey found that only 19 percent of adults correctly recognized that lower-income students pay less to attend college than higher-income students. It is a legitimate question to ask whether the price those students pay is low enough. But we cannot even start the discussion with such limited public understanding of how much students across the income distribution pay now. Any step that colleges and universities can take to facilitate that understanding would be helpful. Improving the transparency in their own pricing certainly would be an important step they can take.

    Phillip Levine is the Katharine Coman and A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Economics at Wellesley College and the founder and CEO of MyinTuition Corp.

    Source link

  • Higher ed leaders warn of dire consequences after NIH cut

    Higher ed leaders warn of dire consequences after NIH cut

    In a move that sparked swift outrage from the higher education sector, the National Institutes of Health announced late Friday that it is dramatically cutting funding for grant recipients’ “indirect costs” of conducting medical research at universities, including hazardous waste disposal, utilities and patient safety. 

    “It is difficult to overstate what a catastrophe this will be for the US research and education systems, (particularly) in biomedical fields,” Carl Bergstrom, a biology professor at the University of Washington, posted on Bluesky. “It is deliberate and wanton devastation entirely out of scale with any concern about DEI activities on campuses. The goal is destroy US universities.”

    Effective Monday, the NIH is planning to cap funding of indirect costs at 15 percent of all grants, down from the average of 27 to 28 percent. The change means that colleges and universities are on the hook for millions of dollars. They’ll likely have to cut their budgets or reduce research activities to make up the difference.

    Republicans and President Trump have long sought to limit funding for indirect costs. The latest proposal is similar to a recommendation included in Project 2025, a conservative playbook for the second Trump administration that the president has disavowed. Project 2025 authors said the cap would “reduce federal taxpayer subsidization of leftist agendas.”

    Historically, universities have been able to negotiate reimbursement rates for those indirect costs, with institutional reimbursements averaging nearly 28 percent. Some of the nation’s leading research institutions, including Harvard, Yale and Johns Hopkins Universities, receive reimbursements of more than 60 percent. NIH said in a social media post that it expects to save $4 billion from the change; an Inside Higher Ed analysis of fiscal year 2024 grant data shows that colleges would lose about $4.3 billion in NIH reimbursements if indirect costs were capped at 15 percent.

    Previously, if a college or university received a $5 million grant, they could also be reimbursed up to $1.4 million to pay for related costs, such as renting space for a lab. Under this new policy, that will be capped at $750,000.

    “The United States should have the best medical research in the world,” the NIH said in its announcement. “It is accordingly vital to ensure that as many funds as possible go towards direct scientific research costs rather than administrative overhead.”

    While the NIH said it has the authority to cap indirect costs, Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington, said on social media Friday that the proposal is illegal.

    “It will mean shuttering labs across the country, layoffs in red & blue states, & derailing lifesaving research on everything from cancer to opioid addiction,” Murray wrote.

    Cuts to ‘Life-Saving’ Research

    While the NIH is casting indirect costs as a burden, Association of American Universities President Barbara R. Snyder said in a statement that they are “real and necessary costs of conducting the groundbreaking research that has led to countless breakthroughs in the past decades.”

    A $4 billion cut to reimbursements for NIH grants, she added, “is quite simply a cut to the life-saving medical research that helps countless American families.”

    NIH has worked feverishly in recent weeks to comply with President Trump’s executive orders to eliminate all support for diversity, equity and inclusion and “gender ideology.” Grant reviews stopped for two weeks, alarming researchers who rely on federal funding, and some scientists worried about the future of their funding under the agency.

    But researchers and their advocates say an abrupt $4 billion cut to NIH funding—which has not been approved by Congress—has dire implications for the future of the United State’s scientific research enterprise and will undermine the NIH’s stated goal of producing superior medical research.  

    “Cuts to reimbursement of these costs are cuts to medical research and represent the federal government stepping back from commitments it has made to world-leading researchers,” Mark Becker, president of the Association of Public Land Grant Universities, said in a statement. “This action will slow advances for millions of patients who desperately need critical breakthroughs and imperil the U.S.’s position as the world leader in biomedical innovation.”

    The NIH is the largest federal funding source for research universities, and has supported breakthroughs in medical technology and treatments for diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s. 

    Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, said the decision was “short-sighted, naive, and dangerous.”

    “It will be celebrated wildly by our competitors, who will see this for what it is—a surrender of U.S. supremacy in medical research,” Mitchell said. “It is a self-inflicted wound that, if not reversed, will have dire consequences on U.S. jobs, global competitiveness, and the future growth of a skilled workforce.”



    Source link

  • DOGE’s access to Education Department data raises concerns

    DOGE’s access to Education Department data raises concerns

    Just last month, Lorena Tule-Romain was encouraging families with mixed citizenship to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. She and her staff at ImmSchools, a nonprofit dedicated to improving educational access for immigrants in Dallas, walked students and parents through the complicated federal aid process. Along the way, they offered reassurance that information revealing their undocumented status would be securely held by the Department of Education alone.

    Two weeks ago, ImmSchools stopped offering those services. And Tule-Romain said they’re no longer recommending families fill out the FAFSA. 

    That’s because the Department of Government Efficiency, a White House office run by Elon Musk, now has access to Education Department data systems, potentially including sensitive student loan and financial aid information for millions of students, according to sources both outside and within the department who spoke with Inside Higher Ed. 

    With immigration officers conducting a blitz of deportations over the past few weeks—and the new possibility of ICE raids at public schools and college campuses—Tule-Romain is worried that applying for federal aid could put undocumented families in jeopardy. Instead of answering parents’ questions about the FAFSA contributor form, she’s hosting Know Your Rights workshops to prepare them for ICE raids.

    “Before, we were doing all we could to encourage families to apply for federal aid, to empower students to break cycles and go to college,” she said. “Now we are not in a position to give that advice. It’s heartbreaking.”

    Student data is technically protected by the Privacy Act of 1974, which prevents departments from sharing personally identifying information unless strict exceptions are met or a law is passed to allow it. The FUTURE Act, for example, gave the IRS access to financial aid data to simplify the FAFSA process. 

    Karen McCarthy, vice president of public policy and federal relations at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, told Inside Higher Ed that because DOGE has not said why they might be interested in department data or what data they have access to, it’s unclear if they’re acting in accordance with the law.

    In the past, that law has been strictly enforced for federal employees. In 2010, nine people were accused of accessing President Barack Obama’s student loan records while employed for an Education Department contractor in Iowa. The charges levied against them in federal court were punishable by up to one year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000, according to the Associated Press.   

    On Thursday, Democratic Representative Bobby Scott of Virginia wrote to the Government Accountability Office requesting a review of the Education Department’s information technology security and DOGE’s interventions in the department in order to determine their legality and the “potential impact on children.” On Friday, a group of students at the University of California sued department officials for allowing potential privacy act violations. 

    “The scale of the intrusion into individuals’ privacy is massive, unprecedented, and dangerous,” the plaintiffs wrote. 

    In recent days, labor unions and other groups have sued to block DOGE”s access to databases at several federal agencies and have secured some wins. Early Saturday morning, a federal judge prohibited DOGE from accessing Treasury Department data, ordering Musk’s team to “immediately destroy any and all copies of material” from the department’s systems.

    Concerns about DOGE’s use of private student data come as Musk and his staff take a hacksaw to agencies and departments across the federal government, seeking to cut spending and eliminate large portions of the federal workforce. The Trump administration has singled out the Education Department in particular, threatening to gut its administrative capacity or eliminate the department all together. 

    Spokespeople for DOGE did not respond to a list of questions from Inside Higher Ed. Madi Biederman, the Education Department’s deputy assistant secretary for communications, wrote in an email that DOGE staff “have the necessary background checks and clearances” to view department data and are “focused on making the department more cost-efficient, effective and accountable to the taxpayers.”

    “There is nothing inappropriate or nefarious going on,” she added. She did not respond to questions about what data DOGE has access to or how they plan to use it.

    A ‘Gaping Hole’ in Data Security 

    The Education Department’s student financial aid systems contain unique private information that families submit through FAFSA: not only social security numbers but also addresses of relatives, property taxes, sources of income and more. The National Student Loan Database, which tracks loan borrowers’ repayment history and which DOGE may also have access to, includes a wealth of personally identifying information for many more millions of current and former students. 

    A current department staffer provided Inside Higher Ed with a screenshot from the department’s email address catalog containing the names of 25 DOGE employees who may have access to student data—including a 19-year-old who, according to a Bloomberg report, was once fired by a cybersecurity firm for allegedly leaking internal data. And the Washington Post reported that DOGE employees fed sensitive education department data through artificial intelligence software.

    “It could become a gaping hole in our cybersecurity infrastructure,” a former department official said. “I cannot stress enough how unusual it is to just give people access willy-nilly.”

    Two former department officials told Inside Higher Ed it is unclear how the DOGE officials could have legally gained access to department data. McCarthy compared DOGE’s murky activity in the department to a “massive data breach within the federal government.”

    “Normally, there’d be a paper trail telling us what they’ve requested access to and why,” she said. “We don’t have that, so there’s a lot of uncertainty and fear.”

    A current department official told Inside Higher Ed that DOGE staff have been given access to PartnerConnect, which includes information about college programs that receive federal financial aid funding; and that they have read-only access to a financial system. Neither of those databases contain personally identifying information, but the official wasn’t sure DOGE’s access was limited to those sources—and said department staff are worried sensitive student information could be illegally accessed and disbursed. 

    “It just creates a kind of shadow over the work that everyone’s doing,” a prior department official said. 

    Fears of a FAFSA ‘Chilling Effect’

    Families with mixed citizenship status were some of the hardest hit by the error-riddled FAFSA rollout last year, with many reporting glitches that prevented them from applying for aid until late last summer. 

    Tule-Romain said mixed-status families in her community had only just begun to feel comfortable with the federal aid form. In the past few weeks that progress has evaporated, she said, and high school counselors working with ImmSchools report a concerning decline in requests for FAFSA consultations from mixed-status students. 

    “If they weren’t already hesitant, they are extremely hesitant now,” Tule-Romain said. 

    It’s not just mixed-status families who could be affected if data is shared or leaked. McCarthy said that concerns about privacy could have a wide-spread “chilling effect” on federal aid applications.

    “There have always been parents who are reluctant to share their information and the counterargument we always fall back on are the privacy laws,” she said. “A lot of Pell money could get left on the table, or students could be discouraged from going to college altogether.”

    Kim Cook, CEO of the National College Attainment Network, said that after last year’s bungled FAFSA rollout, community organizations and government officials had worked hard to rebuild trust in the system and get completion rates back to normal. She worries that fears about privacy could set back those efforts significantly. 

    “Chaos and uncertainty won’t give us the FAFSA rebound we need,” she said. 

    The confusion could also affect current college students who need to renew their FAFSA soon. Tule-Romain said one undocumented parent who filled out her first form with ImmSchools last year came back a few weeks ago asking for advice. 

    She was torn: on the one hand, she didn’t trust Musk and Trump’s White House not to use the information on the form to deport her. On the other, if her son didn’t receive federal aid, he’d have to drop out of college. Ultimately, she chose to renew the application.

    “If you came [to America] for a better life, you cannot let fear stop you from pursuing that,” Tule-Romain said. “Instead, you arm yourself with knowledge and you move forward—maybe with fear, but you move forward anyway.”

    Source link