A historically Black university in Maryland says efforts to boost enrollment and up its name recognition are paying dividends, allowing it to more than quadruple out-of-state student enrollment over the past two years.
Coppin State University in Baltimore announced in 2023 that it would begin offering in-state tuition to any student who lived in one of the 41 U.S. states and territories without an HBCU—as well as the District of Columbia, which has two HBCUs—through a program called Expand Eagle Nation. In 2024, the first year of the program, the institution more than doubled the number of students from qualifying states to 195—up from 81 the previous fall. (Coppin’s in-state annual cost of attendance is $27,410, versus $34,474 for out-of-state students.)
This fall, the numbers increased even more dramatically: 416 of Coppin’s incoming class of 1,000—its largest freshman class in 25 years—come from the qualifying states. Overall, Coppin’s enrollment is up 26 percent this year, including growth on the in-state side, as well. In fact, James Stewart, associate vice president for student development and achievement, said the attention Coppin has received for its Expand Eagle Nation program has raised the university’s profile among local students.
Still, it’s been a major shift for the institution, which used to attract students primarily from within a 50-mile radius.
“I think our students enjoy the diversity of thought from so many different regions,” said Jinawa McNeil, the university’s director of admissions. “This is really giving opportunity to students, but it’s [also] making Coppin a different environment, where you traditionally were with students that you might have went to high school with, or maybe a high school not far from you, but now you’re talking to students who are literally from states that you’ve never been to.”
Coppin’s growth comes at a time when many institutions across the country are working to attract new populations of students ahead of the impending demographic cliff—the decline in high school graduates that is expected to begin next year. (The Maryland Higher Education Commission projected earlier this year, however, that Maryland will be one of the few states to buck the trend, projecting an 11 percent increase in high school graduates from 2024 to 2031.)
Coppin isn’t the only institution looking to out-of-state students to boost enrollment; in an interview earlier this fall, University of Connecticut officials attributed their growth in head count to more out-of-state name recognition due to the institution’s academic programs and popular sports teams, for example.
“Given the declining number of students in their own state, [colleges] have to chase them elsewhere,” said Gregory Price, a professor of economics at the University of New Orleans who studies the economics of HBCUs. “It’s sort of like an arms race.”
Coppin is also capitalizing on the current popularity of HBCUs, which saw significant increases in applications and enrollments following the Supreme Court’s 2023 ban on affirmative action in admissions.
“Everything that’s been going on politically, from affirmative action to DEI, sends a message to Black students that they don’t belong,” Henry Williams, president of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, a nonprofit that advocates for public HBCUs, told Inside Higher Edregarding the trend last year. “At an HBCU, you’re never going to have that question, and all of the support, resources and scholarship money being taken away elsewhere are already built into the structure [at HBCUs] … there’s value in a sense of belonging.”
Price noted that HBCUs are also often cheaper than other institutions—as is the case at Coppin, which says it’s the least expensive institution in Maryland. That’s because historically, HBCUs haven’t had large research enterprises, which saves the institutions many costs, he said; they can also attract faculty without paying salaries above market rate.
“To the extent HBCUs have a distinct value proposition for Black students, that could be good because there aren’t many HBCUs … and that value proposition is high returns in the labor market relative to the cost of attendance,” he said. “If you can reduce the costs, you could probably stay ahead of that demographic cliff longer than other colleges can.”
Bolstering Recruitment
Along with offering in-state tuition to out-of-state students, Coppin officials took a slew of steps to increase their presence in the states from which they hoped to attract students. That included visiting high schools—and plastering advertisements on buses and billboards in those cities ahead of their visits, so students would hopefully already recognize the Coppin brand by the time they met an admissions official.
The university formed transfer partnerships with community college systems in Colorado and California, and the admissions team reached out to regional organizations that help students in the college search process to ensure their staffs were aware of Coppin.
Increasing the university’s name recognition was an important goal of the Expand Eagle Nation program, McNeil said.
“It [used to be] a much harder recruitment sale, for lack of a better term,” she said. “We were beginning with who were as an institution, rather than saying, ‘Oh, you’ve heard about us, so let’s help you learn more.’”
Stewart also noted that the university was prepared for the enrollment boost, having met with academic affairs staff over the past year to ensure there would be enough courses and faculty to meet the needs of all students. To house the influx, Coppin is currently constructing a new dorm, slated to open next fall; it also has six off-campus apartment facilities that Stewart said include resident assistants, just like on-campus housing, and regular shuttle access to campus.
“We’re going to end up with a good mix where we increase our housing on campus, especially, to meet our new students, but we have options for our [upperclassmen] off campus that give them this blending of what real-life living in an urban environment is,” he said.
One unexpected challenge that has come with implementing Expand Eagle Nation? Convincing prospective students that the offer is real.
“They [don’t] believe it,” McNeil said. “Like, ‘What’s the trick, what’s the catch?’ They just don’t believe an institution was willing to invest that deeply, because students understand, and definitely parents of students, specifically parents that have been to college and might have some college debt. They just did not believe that this was an opportunity, because they don’t see too many opportunities like this.”
A chemist from the University of California, Berkeley, was among the trio of scientists awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry on Wednesday.
Omar Yaghi, the Berkeley professor; Susumu Kitagawa from Kyoto University in Japan; and Richard Robson from the University of Melbourne in Australia were recognized for their work since the 1990s to develop a new form of molecular architecture that combines metal ions and carbon-based molecules, according to a release from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which administers the Nobel Prize.
The metal-organic frameworks can harvest water or store toxic gases. The release noted that the frameworks “may contribute to solving some of humankind’s greatest challenges.”
The release says the frameworks are essentially “rooms” because of the large spaces that form in the structure. A Nobel committee member compared it to Hermione Granger’s magical bag in the seventh Harry Potter book, the Associated Press reported. Her small bag eventually contained a tent, books and other provisions. Likewise, the frameworks look small but can hold a lot.
Since the trio’s discoveries, more than 100,000 metal-organic frameworks have been created, according to a news release from Berkeley.
Few have mastered the art of anticipation like Taylor Swift. Even before her album The Life of a Showgirl hit the shelves, she had captivated audiences and dominated the conversation. What’s remarkable isn’t just her star power; it’s the deliberate marketing strategies that blend spectacle, authenticity and fan participation. For leaders, marketers and brand builders in any industry, her approach offers a master class in how to create momentum before a product is even released.
Here are three standout observations from Swift’s launch strategy, along with actionable marketing tips you can put into practice.
Blending High Production With Authentic Self
Swift’s promotional rollout strikes a delicate balance between dazzling spectacle and grounded vulnerability. She teased the album with cinematic visuals—glittering production sets, stylized promo videos and bold aesthetics—while also poking fun at herself in playful, self-aware moments. She’ll show the sparkle, but also the cat hair on her dress.
Marketing Tip: Pair your most polished campaigns with candid behind-the-scenes content. Letting your audience see the human side of your work builds trust and relatability, while the high production values set the tone of aspiration. The contrast makes each side stronger.
Enrollment Marketing Tip: Mix in both staged and spontaneous content. Let your student ambassadors be themselves online and on tours. In your photos and social posts, let your content show some of the laughs, awkward moments and behind-the-scenes interactions.
Using Cryptic Drip Campaigns and Symbolism
From shifting color palettes to symbolic imagery and cryptic hints, Swift feeds her audience just enough to keep them speculating. Fans become detectives, dissecting every clue and turning the rollout itself into a participatory event. Bringing fans into her music in an intentional way is one of Taylor’s superpowers. Brands and even other industries adopt her motifs (orange, sparkles), amplifying her reach and making the symbols part of the cultural conversation.
Marketing Tip: Don’t reveal everything at once. Use teaser elements such as colors, tag lines or subtle product hints to spark curiosity and invite your audience to co-create the narrative. Anticipation builds energy and energy drives engagement.
Enrollment Market Tip: Add interactive content to everything you do, including countdown timers, digital scratch-offs and interactive maps to highlight your campus. Engage your prospective students as participants in the recruitment process.
Extending the Album Into Experiences
This launch was about more than just music. Swift staged limited theatrical events that mixed performance with commentary, offered exclusive vinyl editions with collectible packaging and framed her announcements as headline-worthy moments (like unveiling details on a podcast). The album is no longer just an album; it’s a multiplatform experience that fans feel they need to participate in.
Marketing Tip: Think beyond the product itself. Create extensions—events, companion content or limited-edition releases—that transform your core offering into a cultural experience. Scarcity, exclusivity and immersion turn products into movements.
Enrollment Marketing Tip: For every standard event you hold, there is an opportunity to create a special edition right alongside it. For example, before or after your normal local event or campus tour, hold an “exclusive session” for a certain group. Use your campus events, athletics, engineering or academic competitions to extend for a sneak peek or behind-the-scenes access for prospective students. Additionally, use events in your community, such as performing arts, minor league baseball, or an NFL game outing, to provide a special prospective student event. It does not need to cost much; be creative, test and adjust as you go.
Taylor Swift’s approach to The Life of a Showgirl is more than entertainment marketing—it’s a blueprint for building anticipation, deepening connection and extending brand impact. By blending high production with authenticity, leveraging symbolism and drip campaigns, and turning her release into an immersive experience, she ensures that the conversation begins long before release day.
For marketers in any industry, especially higher education, the takeaway is important: Key moments are no longer about flipping a switch on release day. They are about crafting an unfolding story, one that your audience wants to decode, share and experience with you.
James Rogers is chief executive officer for 3 Enrollment Marketing.
The plaintiffs, which include the American Association of University Professors, UAW International and UAW Local 481, allege in the lawsuit that numerous researchers and academics will lose their jobs as a result of their institutions not being able to afford the new fee. (An H-1B visa previously cost $2,000 to $5,000.) Universities, along with national labs and nonprofit research institutions, were also exempt from the annual cap on the number of new visas, and it’s unclear whether the new fee will apply to higher ed.
The New York Times reported that this lawsuit “appears to be the first major challenge to the new fee.”
The fee, the complaint states, “will result in significant and potentially catastrophic setbacks to research that benefits the American public and ensures the United States remains a leading source of innovation and expertise. For example, the fee will likely result in sharp cutbacks in the employment of highly talented foreign workers and severe setbacks for university research, graduate programs, and clinical care, compounding an anticipated shortfall of 5.3 million skilled workers over the next decade.”
The lawsuit highlights several specific examples of researchers whose work would be interrupted by this change, including an unnamed plaintiff who studies conditions and diseases that cause blindness.
“Her departure will set back the crucial research she is conducting, disrupting the lab’s ongoing work and ability to secure future research funding, preventing her department from getting any future funding through her, and potentially delaying the availability of treatment for the conditions that are the focus of her research,” it states.
The plaintiffs note in the lawsuit that the $100,000 fee “applies even where workers are already lawfully present in the United States under, for example, a student visa or another immigration status, and are seeking to change to H-1B status.”
They argue in part that the president does not have the statutory authority to increase the fee for H-1B visas. They are asking the judge to nullify the $100,000 fee and allow H-1B visas to be processed as they were previously.
The nine universities that were sent the Trump administration’s new deal for higher ed are under increasing pressure to reject the compact.
Multiple major associations representing institutions and faculty have urged them not to sign it. California governor Gavin Newsom has said the University of Southern California and any other university in his state that signs will “instantly” lose billions of state dollars. Faculty groups at the University of Virginia, another institution presented with the compact, overwhelmingly urged university leaders to reject it. A group of progressive student and higher ed worker organizations is circulating a petition that calls on university presidents and boards to “reject the Trump administration’s attempt to cajole universities into compliance through explicit bribery.”
So far, the universities at the center of the fight are remaining mostly mum, saying they’ll review the proposal. Some leaders are hinting they have reservations about signing. But other higher ed leaders and observers say that beyond what those institutions do, the nine-page document represents another escalation in the White House’s precedent-shattering crusade to overhaul postsecondary ed—one that could restrict freedoms at colleges across the nation. They expect the compact will likely serve as a blueprint for the administration’s dealings with other colleges.
“It’s making it really clear that the dominoes are being set up … they’re going to expand this to the rest of higher ed,” said Amy Reid, interim director of PEN America’s Freedom to Learn program.
A White House official told Inside Higher Ed in an email that “other schools have affirmatively reached out and may be given the opportunity to be part of the initial tranche.” The New York Times cited May Mailman, a White House adviser, as saying the compact could be extended to all institutions.
The administration has dangled the compact before universities with promises of extra benefits it hasn’t revealed. It’s an evolution in the White House’s quest to upend higher ed using the blunt instrument of federal funding access. The federal government earlier slashed billions of dollars from Harvard and Columbia Universities and other selective institutions to pressure them to change their internal policies and practices.
But now, the administration has written a boilerplate contract asking colleges to voluntarily agree to overhaul or abolish departments “that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas,” without further defining what those terms mean. It also asks universities to, among other things, commit to not considering transgender women to be women and to reject foreign applicants “who demonstrate hostility to the United States, its allies, or its values.”
In addition to a murky promise of additional money, the compact can be read as threatening colleges’ current federal funding. Higher ed groups say those that sign are taking a big gamble. The compact says failure to adhere to the terms of the agreement, which are vague, can lead to a loss of all federal funding. But it’s also unclear whether the universities have the freedom to refuse. A line at the end of the compact’s introduction says, “Institutions of higher education are free to develop models and values other than those below, if the institution elects to forego [sic] federal benefits.”
The nine institutions sent the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education aren’t necessarily being asked to sign it. The letter sent to the University of Virginia requested “limited, targeted feedback” on the compact by Oct. 20—before the White House sends invitations to finalize language and sign to universities showing “a strong readiness to champion this effort.”
Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, said many campus leaders worry that, if any institutions do sign the compact, it will start a ripple effect in which other university leaders feel pressured to sign so they don’t lose out on funding.
Joy Connolly—president of the American Council of Learned Societies, a federation of 81 groups including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Historical Association—added that with this compact, the White House “is using nine months of intimidation tests to take its divide-and-conquer strategy to the next level.”
“If one by one institutions give in and sign, hoping to mitigate the damage later, it will set a truly problematic precedent,” Connolly said. “Some of the most powerful and wealthy institutions on the planet will have agreed to subject their faculty and research and teaching to state approval, and academia will be visibly divided into an insider group and an outsider group.”
Unclear Carrots, Clearer Sticks
According to the letter to UVA—signed by Mailman, Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Vincent Haley, director of the White House’s Domestic Policy Council—universities that sign will reap “multiple positive benefits … including allowance for increased overhead payments where feasible, substantial and meaningful federal grants, and other federal partnerships.” The White House didn’t provide Inside Higher Ed further information on how much extra money signatories would be able to receive.
The compact itself makes no mention about the potential financial benefits of signing.
For this unclear gain, a signatory university would risk all of their federal funding: The compact says “all monies advanced by the U.S. government during the year of any violation shall be returned to the U.S. government.”
Asked to clarify whether a university that refuses to sign could lose all federal funding, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson replied in an email simply that “the Administration does not plan to limit federal funding to schools that sign the compact.”
Jackson said universities that do sign “would be given [funding] priority when possible as well as invitations to collaborate with the White House. This is an opportunity for collaboration that all institutions of learning should be excited about.” The White House didn’t grant Inside Higher Ed an interview or answer written requests for more information about the compact’s benefits and how some of its requirements should be interpreted.
Pasquerella, of AAC&U, said the compact is “meant to be vague as a way of fomenting confusion.”
“Part of the strategy, I believe, of this administration is to engage in overly broad, overly vague language that is confusing so it’s not clear when institutions are complying,” Pasquerella said—a form of jawboning that pressures universities to overcomply. She said the compact’s promise of federal funds for signatories and apparent threat of cuts for those who refuse is “not a real choice.”
“It is the continued weaponization of federal funding,” she said. The compact isn’t “reforming higher education but dismantling it and replacing it with institutions that have a conservative ideology.” It disadvantages those institutions that are unwilling to relinquish their academic freedom and other freedoms, such as transgender people’s rights, she said.
Jon Fansmith, senior vice president for government relations at the American Council on Education, expressed concern that institutions that don’t sign could face the same “harassment” Harvard has suffered for refusing the administration’s earlier demands on that university. The administration cut off Harvard’s access to billions of dollars in research funding, placed it on heightened cash monitoring and tried to prevent it from enrolling international students, among other efforts in a growing pressure campaign against the institution.
“Now they’re essentially saying we’re going to create two classes of institutions,” Fansmith said: those “swearing fealty to the administration” and getting extra benefits, and those that are punished.
“That’s a massive step in the wrong direction in the history of American higher education,” he said. He said prioritizing less merit-worthy candidates for federal funding just because they signed the compact is “harmful to the goal of getting the best science performed on behalf of the American people.”
Standing Up
Fansmith noted the compact’s ideas aren’t necessarily new for the administration, but they would add up to “very specific intrusions into institutional policies.” For instance, the compact would mandate that all “undergraduate applicants take a widely-used standardized test … or program-specific measures of accomplishment.” Signatories must also agree that no more than 15 percent of their undergraduates be in the “Student Visa Exchange Program [sic], and no more than 5 percent shall be from any one country.” (The Student and Exchange Visitor Program, not the Student Visa Exchange Program, collects information on international students.)
Reid, of PEN America, said, “The administration has gone from picking off individual schools to selecting a group—a group of well-respected universities, but that for different reasons are seen as perhaps likely to comply—and putting everyone on notice that this is coming for everyone.”
Some of the nine institutions, however, have hinted at reservations about signing. On Friday, Dartmouth College president Sian Leah Beilock noted in a statement that “you have often heard me say that higher education is not perfect and that we can do better. At the same time, we will never compromise our academic freedom and our ability to govern ourselves.”
On Sunday, University of Pennsylvania president J. Larry Jameson said Penn’s “long-standing partnership with the federal government in both education and research has yielded tremendous benefits for our nation,” but also that “Penn seeks no special consideration.” On Monday evening, University of Virginia Board of Visitors chair Rachel Sheridan and interim president Paul Mahoney wrote in a message to the campus community that “it would be difficult for the University to agree to certain provisions in the Compact.”
Reid told Inside Higher Ed that “for those of us who are not at those nine targeted institutions, the question is how do we all respond in a way that bolsters the resolve of any institution to stand up.”
“It is wrong to call this a compact, because there’s nothing mutual about it,” Reid said. “It is a one-sided coercive proposition that has a bow of commonality stuck onto it that it doesn’t deserve. We need to call this what it is, which is an attempt to extort universities, to shut down free expression on campuses, to impose ideological restrictions under another name.”
New policy mandates force us to rethink how best to meet what the Boyer 2030 Commission termed “the equity-excellence imperative.” One way to pursue this goal is to consider the role played by first-generation student success initiatives, which continue to enjoy broad public support. In the current climate, higher ed may be forgiven a rush to establish centers or initiatives for first-generation student success, as many colleges and universities already have. But before we get to raising funds and creating logos, let’s pause and consider new ways to think about and organize such efforts to best meet the moment.
To put it bluntly, what business is it of ours, or anyone’s, what a student’s parents’ educational attainment happens to be? The usual answer is that we inquire because we aim to foster upward social mobility, and because we know from research that students who are the first in their families to attend college do not succeed at the same cohort rates as so-called continuing-generation students. But I emphasize cohort rates because we are not talking about a group, defined by self-awareness and interaction, but indeed a cohort, defined by impersonal and ill-defined criteria. At the level of individuals and families, first-gen discourse presumes deficits, is intrusive and can be off-putting and condescending.
Neither of your parents (you have two, right?) earned a bachelor’s degree?
I’d venture that most who work with first-gen students would agree that there are enduring questions about how best to define who is and is not first-generation using one of several plausible definitions. And even after four decades of promotion, I think it’s fair to say that few students arrive on campus as self-conscious “first-gens,” however defined.
Some imagine that they qualify if they are the first of their siblings to attend college. Others wonder, understandably, if a parent’s associate degree or years of college attendance not resulting in degree attainment substitutes for an earned bachelor’s degree. A few may even think, erroneously, that they qualify if they are the first in their family to attend a particular institution.
And then there are the overriding problems of stigma and stereotype threat. Efforts to dispel negative connotations and instill pride notwithstanding—First!—most people can smell a rat when in the presence of Rodentia. While some minoritized students may find it a useful alternative to other, more vexing labels, many students wrestle with it, as they might with any label, especially in the absence of a related scholarship or other inducement. I used to regularly tell first-gens that the land-grant university to which they had matriculated was theirs, that it was made for them and that it was nice of them to let others use it, too. But such tricks of the trade are needed only because the reality, often stark, is so contrary.
Instead of fighting a Sisyphean battle tainted by class bias, I suggest that we acknowledge that first-gen discourse defines students by a characteristic that is out of their control and that the label is troubling when applied to individual students. Consider that we have more control over almost every other way of identifying ourselves, including our gender and sexuality! Parents, guardians and other parental authorities are as close to a given as it gets, and to define one by a given is reductionist and objectifying.
To help underscore the stakes involved, consider this thought experiment. What if we labeled students whose parents possess earned doctorates as “dockies” and awarded them membership in the honors program? Most would recoil at even the thought of it. We assume that dockies are privileged or at least not in need of privileged access to scarce resources. We imagine them as possessed of abundant social and cultural capital and a healthy amount of regular old capital, too. Why actively reproduce privilege?
But let us immediately observe that such assumptions are just as potentially ill-founded for individual dockies as they are for individual first-gens. Ask a Ph.D.-holding parent of a neurodiverse child, of a drug-addicted child, a child with disabilities, a child prone to perfectionism, a child of mild ambition and so forth, and they are apt to share an earful. And let us acknowledge that dockies are often given access to scarce resources such as merit-based scholarships and extra help via supportive honors programs, and for legitimate reasons. For one, these students earn such considerations by virtue of their academic achievement. They also may need them to fulfill their considerable potential.
The key distinction, then, is between how we relate to students as individuals and what we do to make our institutional practices and campus cultures accessible and just. But before saying more about that, I acknowledge that there is an entrenched cultural assumption in play. We hold that individuals are infinitely complex and of universal value, each unique and sacred. (I mean this exactly and empirically; no rhetorical flourish or exaggeration is involved.) Individual students are not, in this view, bearers of three or four defining categories, nor should we treat them as representatives of groups. That is called stereotypical thinking, and it leads to tokenism, and neither stereotypical thinking nor tokenism have ever been good things. Students have multiple identities, as we all do, and we should not presume which of them are most salient or assume that they are immutable or invariant.
When, however, we turn attention to institutional and cultural realities—particularly to our college and university’s policies and practices, to campus values, norms and built environment and so forth—then, yes, by all means, dust off social science and humanities textbooks and deploy concepts, data and pertinent humanistic discourses that are needed to make sense of systems, contested histories, shared meanings and the like. Here is where centers for first-generation student success have their rightful place, as hubs for institutional reform, designed to bring into existence a higher education that meets students where they are, as we say.
First-gen centers might support research into how students experience college life and in other ways help faculty, staff, administrators and graduate students working with undergraduate students to better understand and interact with them. (Three cheers for faculty meals in residence halls!) First-gen centers might facilitate integration of high-impact practices into curricula, rendering these no-longer-nice-to-haves affordable and accessible, and help banish class biases as revealed in diffuse condescension by the college-educated and well-heeled with respect to those thus othered and belittled. Let us put an end to arcane language used for the latent purpose of policing class distinctions and eliminate barriers of entry to STEM majors, which track already underresourced students into lower-paying professions, however otherwise socially vital and personally fulfilling.
Colleges and universities cannot meet their missions in a democratic society unless they are shorn of institutionalized discrimination rooted in white supremacy, patriarchy, what the poet Adrienne Rich called “compulsory heterosexuality,” ableism, ageism, as well as discrimination against veterans and active-duty armed service members, students whose home countries are not the United States or for whom English is not their first language, students from rural communities, students from urban communities, students from tribal communities, students from foster homes, students who are first-gen as well as students who identify with one or more of the above and then some. Our to-do list is long and varied.
First-gen discourse is, like most student success discourse, best suited for use by administrators. It is not usually the language of educators, nor should we foist it upon students themselves. To best aid students who are the first in their families to attend college, make higher education affordable, campuses welcoming, curricula efficient and effective. Facilitate transfer student success via inter-institutional peer tutoring, and in myriad similar ways remove the fences surrounding the ol’ ball field in the DEI social imaginary. Higher education may then serve the people, one individual at a time.
Steven P. Dandaneau is an associate professor of sociology at Colorado State University. He is a former advisory board member for the Center for First-Generation Student Success, an initiative of NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education and the Suder Foundation, and was recognized as a First Scholars First Generation Champion in 2018.
Judging from the widespread job and program cuts announced last month, higher education continues to face economic uncertainty on multiple fronts, from declining enrollment to federal funding issues.
September saw layoffs, program cuts and other budget moves at a mix of institutions. While some of the institutions listed below are regional universities battered by declining enrollment, others are among the nation’s wealthiest; they pointed to federal research funding cuts, soaring endowment taxes and other factors as the impetus for recent cutbacks.
Here’s a look at cost-cutting measures announced across the higher ed sector last month.
Washington University in St. Louis
One of the nation’s wealthiest universities is laying off hundreds of employees.
WashU chancellor Andrew Martin announced last month that the private university had cut 316 staff positions and closed another 198 vacant roles as part of an effort to restructure or reduce budgets. He wrote that the cuts, which extend to WashU’s Medical Campus, total “more than $52 million in annual savings.”
The chancellor cited both external and internal pressures.
“These include the changing needs of our students, emerging technologies, and innovations in teaching and learning,” Martin wrote. “Others come from internal decisions and structures that have, over time, created ineffective processes and redundancies in the way we operate. In addition, we’re still facing significant uncertainty about potentially drastic reductions in federal research funding.”
Uncertainty over federal research funding looms even as the university has lobbied heavily on Capitol Hill. Among individual institutions, WashU has been one of the top spenders on higher education lobbying this year, pumping $540,000 into those efforts across the first two quarters. (Third-quarter lobbying numbers are not yet available.)
Despite a $12 billion endowment, WashU follows well-resourced peers, including Johns Hopkins, Northwestern and Stanford Universities, in enacting steep layoffs.
Brown University
Squeezed by a budget deficit and reeling from a battle with the Trump administration over allegations of antisemitism that included a temporary federal research funding freeze and ended with the university making concessions, Brown is laying off 48 employees and axing 55 vacant jobs.
The cost-cutting measure comes after the Ivy League institution in Rhode Island already eliminated “approximately 90 mostly vacant positions” earlier this year, according to an announcement from senior administrators. Following the cuts, Brown is walking back freezes on hiring, travel and discretionary spending.
Officials announced they plan to monetize “non-strategic real estate holdings” and pause “spending on plans to move the University to net-zero emissions,” among other efforts, including “prioritizing fundraising for current-use gifts that have an immediate positive budgetary impact.”
Brown is among the nation’s wealthiest universities, with an endowment valued at $7.2 billion.
University of Oregon
Grappling with a budget deficit of more than $25 million, the public flagship announced plans to lay off 60 employees and close another 59 vacant positions, The Oregonian reported.
The move comes after the university cut dozens of jobs earlier this year.
“Through careful consultation with deans, department heads and the University Senate, we were able to substantially close our budget deficit without eliminating any degree programs,” UO senior officials wrote last month. “And while we are cutting 20 filled career faculty positions and 14 unfilled tenure track faculty positions, we are not eliminating any filled tenure track faculty positions.”
Berklee College of Music
College leaders cited “rising costs, a dynamic enrollment environment, and shifting national policies” in announcing the layoffs of 70 employees at the storied music school last month.
The layoffs reportedly amount to 3 percent of the Berklee College of Music workforce and include employees on campuses in Massachusetts, New York and Spain, according to Boston.com. Of the 70 employees laid off, all were staff members and no faculty jobs were cut.
The cuts will reportedly affect 70 faculty and staff jobs, though not all are currently filled. In addition to layoffs and the elimination of vacant jobs, the university also plans to scale back programs by cutting 10 majors—including chemistry and mathematics—and dropping a dozen minors.
University of Arizona
The public university in Tucson is cutting 43 jobs after Congress eliminated funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, The Arizona Daily Star reported.
The program, known as SNAP-Ed for short, was removed from the federal budget earlier this year. Termination of the program cut off about $6 million in annual funds to the university to provide education-related services, faculty members told the newspaper.
The public university eliminated six jobs and closed the Office of Sustainability and Community Engagement last month as it navigates a $25 million deficit, The Acadiana Advocate reported.
Other offices were restructured.
The newspaper reported that officials have already identified $15 million in cuts to help close the deficit. Most divisions across the university will be required to reduce operational expenses by 10 percent.
Cuyahoga Community College
Following other public institutions in Ohio, CCC is axing 30 associate degree programs in low-enrollment areas, as mandated by Senate Bill 1, which the State Legislature passed earlier this year, Signal Cleveland reported.
The cuts, announced last month, include a mix of programs ranging from advanced manufacturing to creative arts. Multiple apprenticeship programs are also being shut down.
East Carolina University
Officials at the public university in Greenville announced plans last month to cut $25 million from the budget amid declining enrollment and other factors, The Triangle Business Journal reported.
Belt-tightening measures will be implemented over three years and will include “permanent reductions, academic program optimization, and organizational adjustments,” ECU officials announced last month. Administrators did not specify the number of potential layoffs ahead.
Yale University
Increased taxes and federal funding uncertainty are driving cost-cutting measures at the Ivy League university in Connecticut, where officials last month announced retirement incentives to eligible faculty as the university braces for an 8 percent tax on endowment income.
Yale is one of the few universities with a multibillion-dollar endowment that will feel the tax at its highest level. The increase is a significant jump from the prior endowment tax of 1.4 percent.
The university is also delaying major construction projects, among other money-saving moves.
Recently published data from the educational consulting group EAB shows that first-year students at two-year colleges want help connecting with peers on campus; nearly half reported dissatisfaction with their social lives since starting college. The report outlines ways to create engagement and other priorities for community college students.
Community college in context: First- to second-year retention is the greatest predictor of completion for students enrolled in a two-year degree program, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
Community colleges are among the most diverse higher ed institutions, with students more likely to be working adults, parents and first-generation learners compared to their four-year peers.
The EAB data identifies key trends in first-year community college students’ experiences and how institutions can improve their retention.
Methodology
EAB’s survey included responses from over 12,600 first-year college students, including 1,531 enrolled in community colleges. The survey was fielded in February and March 2024.
The data: When asked to name the most disappointing elements of their college experience so far, students indicated they felt disconnected from the campus community. Forty-two percent of respondents said their social life was a top disappointment, followed by not making friends or meeting new people. An additional 35 percent of students said they felt as though they didn’t belong.
This mirrors results from a 2025 survey conducted by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab, which found that only 20 percent of two-year students rated their sense of social belonging at college as above average or excellent, with the greatest share of respondents indicating they have an average sense of belonging (49 percent). By comparison, 29 percent of four-year students said they had an above average or excellent sense of belonging.
EAB’s report recommends that two-year colleges create small interventions to support students’ desire for community, including arranging drop-in events, hobby groups or peer mentorship programs. Making clubs easier to join through flexible meeting times or virtual meetings can also accommodate learners’ busy schedules, according to the report.
One-third of respondents to EAB’s survey said they were disappointed by classes and academics, and one in five students said faculty had disappointed them.
EAB’s community college survey also found that 32 percent of respondents had experienced bias or exclusion in some capacity since starting college, with the greatest share of respondents saying they faced criticism for their physical appearance or for the high school they attended. The results indicate a need for mechanisms for students to report harassment and connect with mental health supports, according to EAB’s report.
When asked what a “safe campus” means to them, the greatest share of community college respondents selected sufficient support for mental health and wellness (67 percent) and low or no property crime (67 percent). A similar number indicated that low incidence of sexual assault was key to creating a safe campus environment (66 percent).
Mental health concerns are one of the top reasons students of all backgrounds leave higher education, but community college students are even more vulnerable because they can be less financially secure or have fewer resources to address poor mental health.
However, community college counseling centers often have smaller staffs and serve only a fraction of their enrolled students; 2025 data from the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors found that only 5 percent of all community college students receive support from their counseling center.
When asked what best represents the value of higher education, successful job placement after graduation was the top choice among community college students (44 percent), followed by availability of scholarships (42 percent). Internships, co-ops and active learning experiences (33 percent) were less important than generous financial aid awards (38 percent) and moderate tuition prices.
Three academics affiliated with U.S. universities have been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Tuesday morning.
British physicist John Clarke, a professor of experimental physics at the University of California, Berkeley; French physicist Michel Devoret, professor emeritus of applied physics at Yale and a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara; and John Martinis, also a physics professor at UCSB, will share the nearly $1.2 million prize.
They won for performing a series of experiments using an electronic circuit made of superconductors, which can conduct a current with no electrical resistance, demonstrating “that quantum mechanical properties can be made concrete on a macroscopic scale,” according to the announcement.
“It is wonderful to be able to celebrate the way that century-old quantum mechanics continually offers new surprises. It is also enormously useful, as quantum mechanics is the foundation of all digital technology,” said Olle Eriksson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics.
Students link trust in higher education to affordability and financial stress to their academic performance. A new round of results from Inside Higher Ed’s Student Voice survey series, out today, delves deeper into the connection between students’ finances and their success. One key finding: Most students report some level of surprise with the full cost of attending college, including but not limited to tuition and other directly billable expenses. At least a quarter of students have trouble budgeting as a result.
In another set of findings, 36 percent of students say that an unexpected expense of $1,000, or even less (see breakdown below), could threaten their ability to stay enrolled. Another 22 percent say the same of an expense between $1,001 and $2,500. This is the kind of need that many emergency aid programs are designed for, but 64 percent of respondents don’t even know if their institution offers such assistance.
About the Survey
Student Voice is an ongoing survey and reporting series that seeks to elevate the student perspective in institutional student success efforts and in broader conversations about college.
Look out for future reporting on the main annual survey of our 2025–26 cycle, Student Voice: Amplified. Future reports will cover health and wellness, college involvement, career readiness, and more. Check out what students have already said about trust, artificial intelligence and academics.
Some 5,065 students from 260 two- and four-year institutions, public and private nonprofit, responded to this main annual survey about student success, conducted in August. Explore the data captured by our survey partner Generation Lab here and here. The margin of error is plus or minus one percentage point.
Mordecai Ian Brownlee, president of Community College of Aurora in Colorado, is walking 71 miles over three days next month to raise awareness of his own college’s emergency fund—specifically, to get community members to match a $71,000 donation. The fund started at just $8,000 during the pandemic, Brownlee said, but the college’s students frequently face unanticipated medical, utility, transportation and other costs. Without a way to bridge those gaps, their persistence is at risk. Even the standard grant of $250 can make a big difference, he said, though many of the college’s students are more chronically food- and housing-insecure.
Because need is a spectrum and many needs overlap, the college offers multiple forms of assistance and tries to build awareness of each where possible: Staff at the college food bank advertise the emergency grant fund, academic advisers act as case managers and so on. There’s also a community component: The college partners with a local nonprofit to offer students in need free groceries, and it recently got a city bus stop reinstated outside its primary campus so students wouldn’t have to spend money on rideshares, especially in the winter months.
“Previously, higher education was really seen as this transactional interaction of sorts, where you’re just focusing on delivering the learning outcomes—the wholeness and care of a person wasn’t necessarily a part of these institutional issues,” Brownlee said. “Yet if that person is in that classroom and hungry, there will be no retention, there will be no persistence, there will be no completion.”
Helping students realize social and economic mobility means addressing financial crises, food and housing insecurity, mental health and mentorship needs, and more, he added: “These are people who have a dream but may not have a network.”
Bahar Akman Imboden, managing director of the Hildreth Institute, which is focused on state-level practices and policies that enhance affordability, access and student success, said the new Student Voice findings reinforce how “lack of clarity around the true cost of attendance can derail students.” They also resonate with policy discussions in Massachusetts, where Hildreth is based, she said, as the state recently cut stipends for low-income students after the semester had started, reducing eligibility by up to $400 in some cases.
“We’ve struggled to communicate that even what may seem like a small amount can completely upend a student’s education,” Imboden said, and the new data “will be incredibly helpful in making that case to decision-makers.”
Students on Cost of Attendance, Emergency Aid and More
Here are more details about this newest round of survey results from our main annual Student Voice survey of more than 5,000 two- and four-year students.
1. Just 27 percent of students have a clear understanding of the full cost of attendance.
Asked about their grasp of the full cost of attending college, including tuition and fees but also housing, course materials, transportation, food and more, just over a quarter of students say they have a solid understanding that allows them to budget appropriately. This increases to 29 percent among students who have never seriously considered stopping out of college and decreases to 21 percent among students who have seriously considered stopping out—aligning with prior research identifying college costs as a top reason students do not persist.
The plurality of all Student Voice respondents, 47 percent, understand most costs, but not all. The remainder have less to no understanding and face various degrees of surprise about associated costs, challenging their ability to budget or pay for things they need.
2. A majority of students report that surprise costs, in some cases as little as $100, could put their enrollment at risk.
A slight plurality of students, 24 percent, say that an unforeseen cost exceeding $2,500 would challenge their ability to stay enrolled, while 19 percent say no surprise cost could threaten their persistence. But the remainder indicate that various expenses below $2,500 could push them out of college: Roughly one in five each say this of a $500 to $1,000 expense and of a $1,001 to $2,500 one. Particular differences emerge between continuing- and first-generation students, with 29 percent of the former and 46 percent of the latter indicating that amounts of $1,000 or less could challenge their ability to stay enrolled. The pattern is similar for four-year versus two-year students and for private nonprofit versus public institution students, with community college and public institution students significantly more likely than their respective counterparts to report that an unforeseen expense of $1,000 or less could threaten their persistence.
According to Trellis Strategies’ most recent Student Financial Wellness Survey, 56 percent of students would have trouble obtaining even $500 in cash or credit to meet an unexpected expense, and 68 percent have run out of money at least once since the beginning of the year. Many emergency grant programs are capped at $500 or less, but all these numbers can help local aid efforts.
3. Awareness of available aid is lacking.
Nearly two in three Student Voice respondents don’t know if their institution offers emergency aid, and just 5 percent have accessed emergency aid at their college. Just about one in 10 students each say that they know the criteria for eligibility for such aid, or that they know how to apply for it. Black (9 percent) and Hispanic students (7 percent) are somewhat more likely to have accessed such aid than white (4 percent) and Asian American and Pacific Islander students (3 percent).
A 2016 survey by NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education found that three in four institutions offered emergency aid of some kind, including one-time grants, loans and completion scholarships of less than $1,500 for students facing unexpected financial crises, as well as food pantries and housing and transportation assistance. The pandemic put a spotlight on student financial insecurity and brought new, if temporary, funding opportunities. Taken together, these data points suggest a large gap between available assistance and students’ awareness of it.
4. Some students are more stressed about finances than they are about academics.
Balancing academics with personal, family or financial responsibilities, including work, remains a top source of stress for students, at 50 percent, compared to 48 percent in last year’s main Student Voice survey. Some 38 percent of students also cite paying for college as a top stressor in 2025, up from last year’s 34 percent. Fewer, but still a significant share—22 percent—flag paying for personal expenses. Private nonprofit students are actually less likely than their public institution peers to say paying for college is a top stressor, at 22 percent versus 42 percent, respectively. The four-year–versus–two-year split here is narrower, at 37 percent versus 43 percent.
Some 37 percent of all students say short-term academic pressure is a top issue, while 38 percent cite job and internship searches. These are both more traditional stressors associated with college, but the latter has a clear financial dimension.
Addressing Higher Ed’s Cost Transparency Problem
Anika Van Eaton, vice president of policy at uAspire, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing economic mobility for underrepresented students, said that even financial aid offers don’t always include the full cost of attendance, citing a 2022 federal Government Accountability Office report finding that 91 percent of colleges do not provide accurate information in these letters. According to the report, colleges should include a net price that includes all key costs, subtracting only grants and scholarships—though many don’t include information on books, off-campus housing and meals, and other living expenses. Some colleges also “make their net price seem cheaper by factoring in loans that students will eventually have to repay,” the office found, while about a quarter don’t even include information on tuition and fees. Forthcoming research from uAspire suggests that colleges are improving in this area, Van Eaton said, but, ultimately, “we need standardized financial aid offers using the same terminology that show a complete cost picture so students are guaranteed to receive this crucial information up front.”
Students also need to understand college costs “beyond just seeing the numbers,” she added. One implication: High schools have an important role to play in educating and supporting soon-to-be graduates as they “navigate deciding their postsecondary plans and making what is likely one of the largest financial decisions of their lives.”
Sarah Austin, a policy analyst at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, said students tend to focus more on direct costs, or what “they actually see on their bill,” versus all the indirect costs that go along with attending college. NASFAA, which has a voluntary College Cost Transparency Initiative, seeks to promote accuracy and clarity in financial aid offers by encouraging even small shifts, such as colleges using standard terminology, “or making it clear what is loan aid versus gift aid—things like that. Because students are, in fact, not clear on what their total cost is in many situations,” Austin added.
Realistic indirect costs estimates are also crucial—and these are “are tricky for many schools to construct,” she said. Forthcoming research from NASFAA examines how institutions are calculating indirect costs and cost of attendance in general, in part to identity best practices. “Some schools have super robust cost of attendance construction processes where they’re surveying students, looking at, maybe, local data that they have access to, and putting that together every year,” Austin said. “Other schools maybe just have a set amount—they don’t review it annually, or they just blanket increase it because they know costs are going up.”
A provision in the FAFSA Simplification Act passed in 2020 allowed the Education Department to begin regulating cost of attendance, but it hasn’t exercised that power, and experts are divided on whether that is the best approach.
Congress continues to take interest in cost transparency. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee last month published a request for information on ways to improve transparency to lower costs. “Americans want the most value for their hard-earned money,” wrote Senator Bill Cassidy, the committee’s Republican chair. “They are used to shopping for products where prices are clearly labeled and information on quality is readily available. But when they shop for a college—one of the biggest financial decisions of their lives—it’s much harder to compare price and value across the available options.”
Alyssa Manthi
Student Voice respondent Alyssa Manthi, a first-generation, fourth-year undergraduate studying history and religious studies at the University of Chicago, said she used to think attending a private nonprofit institution like hers was financially out of reach. That’s until a high school counselor—and her mother—pushed her to apply to a scholarship program through which she received a full ride to Chicago, including a cost-of-living stipend that Manthi said generally reflects the indirect costs of attendance.
Finances did become less predictable when Manthi was studying in Paris during her sophomore year, however. She’d had to front the payment for her plane ticket and spent much of her savings to replace a damaged computer during finals week before she left. Once abroad without a meal plan for the first time, and without a campus job, she ran out of cash with a few weeks left in the term.
Luckily, she was able to access emergency aid through the university, she recalled.
“They have it through the bursar’s office, where you can fill out an emergency aid application,” she said. “I was like, ‘Hey, I just need to be able to get food for the next two weeks before I go home,’ and I provided the proof that my laptop broke, since a lot of that was the money I was going to spend.”
Manthi said she does sometimes worry about what might happen if she needs significant additional emergency aid before she graduates, since it’s such a limited resource. Complications around costs and housing also effectively stymied her tentative plan to study abroad for another term. Still, she said she credits the university’s Odyssey Scholars cohort model and Center for College Student Success with connecting her to resources and peers who have made navigating college’s hidden financial curriculum easier. This includes information about various emergency aid resources and job listings.
“Just making sure that students have access to that information from the get-go was very helpful to me,” she said. Of her funding package generally, which includes a federal Pell Grant dollars and other institutional aid, Manthi added, “Knowing that I have that backing has relieved a lot of stress that I think I would have felt the past three years.”
Knowing that I have that backing has relieved a lot of stress that I think I would have felt the past three years.”
—Student Voice respondent Alyssa Manthi
In terms of college cost transparency, Manthi said her biggest outstanding concern is that many prospective students may not understand that private nonprofit institutions, even highly selective ones, could be financially within reach. She said she’d be paying significantly more to attend the Illinois public institution to which she was also accepted, for example.
High sticker prices that are often deeply discounted are another part of the cost transparency conversation, with some experts warning that this practice is sowing further distrust in higher education. Institutions are expensive to run, and college pricing is complex, but leaders may not recognize the extent of the public dissatisfaction of this practice, at least concerning their campus: According to Inside Higher Ed’s 2025 Survey of College and University Chief Business Officers with Hanover Research, 88 percent agreed that their own institution is transparent about the full, net cost of attendance, but just 42 percent said the same of colleges and universities as a whole.
Most CBOs also agreed their institution is sufficiently affordable. Yet more than half were at least moderately concerned about the sustainability of their institution’s tuition discount rate, with private nonprofit college and university CBOs especially concerned. About the same share were concerned about sticker price increases. And some 65 percent of all CBOs said their institution had increased institutional financial aid/grants in the last year to address affordability concerns.
One notable exception to the high-price, high-discount trend is Whitworth College, which is in the middle of a tuition reset.
“What I do wish students knew is, don’t write off the private institutions just because of the high sticker cost, because that’s what I did to start,” Manthi said. “It was just so ingrained that those places weren’t for us, or it didn’t feel like it was accessible.”
This independent editorial project is produced with the Generation Lab and supported by the Gates Foundation.
