Tag: Events

Survey: Undergraduates on Academic Quality
Eight in 10 students rate the quality of education they’re getting as good or excellent, according to the first round of results from Inside Higher Ed’s main annual Student Voice survey of more than 5,000 two- and four-year undergraduates with Generation Lab. That’s up from closer to seven in 10 students in last year’s main Student Voice survey, results that are affirming for higher education at a turbulent economic, technological and political moment.

Still, students point to room for improvement when it comes to their classroom experience—and flag outside issues that are impacting their academic success. Case in point: 42 percent of all students, and 50 percent of first-generation students, cite financial constraints as a top barrier to their success. This can include tuition but also living and other indirect expenses. Balancing outside work with coursework and mental health issues are other commonly cited challenges. Taken as a whole, the findings underscore the need for comprehensive wraparound supports and a focus on high-touch approaches in an ever more high-tech world.

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 Student cycle, Student Voice: Amplified. Future reports will cover cost of attendance, health and wellness, college involvement, career readiness, and the relationship of all those to students’ sense of success. And check out what students have already said about trust—including its relationship to affordability—and about how artificial intelligence is reshaping the college experience.

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 from the academic life portion of the survey, captured by our survey partner Generation Lab, here. The margin of error is plus or minus 1 percentage point.

Here’s more on what respondents to our main annual Student Voice survey had to say about academic success.
1. Students across institution types rate their educational experience highly.
Some 80 percent of students rate the quality of their college education thus far as good (50 percent) or excellent (30 percent), compared to last year’s 73 percent of students who rated it good (46 percent) or excellent (27 percent). This is relatively consistent across student characteristics and institution types—though, like last year, private nonprofit institutions have a slight edge over public ones, especially in terms of perceived excellence: In 2025, 47 percent of private nonprofit students rate their education excellent versus 27 percent of public institution students. This can’t be explained by two-year institutions being included in the public category, as community college students are slightly more likely than four-year students to describe their education as excellent (32 percent versus 29 percent, respectively). On community college excellence, one recent analysis by the Burning Glass Institute found that two-year institutions have dramatically improved their completion rates in recent years due in part to a concerted student success effort.

What about four-year college excellence? The Student Voice survey didn’t define quality specifically, but existing data (including prior Student Voice data) shows that students value connections with faculty. And with private nonprofit institutions having lower average faculty-to-student ratios than publics, one possible explanation is that students at private nonprofits may have extra opportunities to connect with their professors. But as other recent analyses demonstrate, private nonprofit institutions, even highly selective ones, do not have a monopoly on delivering life-changing educational experiences for students. Nearly 500 institutions—including community colleges, public universities, religious colleges and specialized colleges—this year achieved a new “opportunity” designation from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, for example, signifying both high levels of access and strong economic outcomes for students.

2. Students want fewer high-stakes exams and more relevant course content, indicating this would boost their academic success.

Like last year’s survey, the top classroom-based action that students say would boost their academic success is faculty members limiting high-stakes exams, such as those counting for 40 percent or more of a course grade: 45 percent of students say this would help. Also like last year, the No. 2 action from a longer list of options is professors better connecting what they teach in class to issues outside of class and/or students’ career interests (40 percent). In Inside Higher Ed’s 2025 Survey of College and University Chief Academic Officers, just 20 percent of provosts said their institution has encouraged faulty members to limit high-stakes exams. But artificial intelligence is forcing a broader campus-assessment reckoning—and how to engage students and authentically assess their learning are questions central to those ongoing conversations. Relatedly, 10 percent of Student Voice respondents say promoting AI literacy would most boost their academic success.

3. Most students know how and when to use AI for coursework, but there are knowledge gaps between groups.

Upward of eight in 10 students indicate they know how, when and whether to use generative AI for help with coursework. In 2024’s survey, the plurality of students said this was because their professors had addressed the issue in class. This year, the plurality (41 percent) attributes this knowledge to professors including policies in their syllabi (up from 29 percent last year).

Like last year, relatively few students credit a college- or universitywide policy or other information or training from the broader institution. Across higher education, many institutions have held off on adopting broad AI use policies, instead deferring to faculty autonomy and expertise: Just 14 percent of provosts in Inside Higher Ed’s survey said their institution has adopted comprehensive AI governance policies and/or an AI strategy—though more said it has adopted specific policies for academic integrity, teaching and/or research (45 percent).

While classroom-based approaches are clearly evolving, two-year Student Voice respondents report being unclear on how, when and whether to use AI for coursework at double the rate of four-year peers (20 percent versus 10 percent). Perhaps relatedly, community college provosts were most likely to report significant faculty resistance to AI on their campuses, by institution type, at 49 percent versus 38 percent over all. Another difference: 23 percent of adult learners (25 and older) report being unclear, compared to just 10 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds. Both of these gaps merit further research.

4. Students say their institution’s course delivery methods and scheduling fit their needs—with some caveats.

Asked to what extent their institution offers course delivery methods/modalities that meet their learning needs and schedules, about four in 10 students each say very well or somewhat well. Adult learners (50 percent), community college students (49 percent) and students working 30 or more hours per week (45 percent) are especially likely to say their college is meeting their needs here very well—evidence that many nontraditional learners are finding the flexibility they need to balance college with busy lives.

However, students who say they’ve seriously considered stopping out of college at some point are especially unlikely to say their college is serving them very well here (33 percent). Risk factors for stopping out are varied and complex. But this may be one more reason for institutions to prioritize flexible course options. On the other hand, 48 percent of students who have stopped out for a semester or more but then re-enrolled say they’re being very well served by their current institution in this way.

5. Students’ biggest reported barriers to academic success aren’t academic.

From a long list of possible challenges, students are most likely to say that financial constraints (such as tuition and living expenses), needing to work while attending college, and mental health issues are impeding their academic success. None of these is explicitly academic, underscoring the need for holistic supports in student success efforts. Adult learners (51 percent), students working 30 hours or more per week (52 percent), first-generation students (50 percent) and students who have previously stopped out of college (55 percent) all report financial constraints at elevated rates. Racial differences emerge, as well: Black (46 percent) and Hispanic (49 percent) students are more likely to flag financial constraints as a barrier to academic success than their white (38 percent) and Asian American and Pacific Islander (37 percent) peers.

On mental health, women (37 percent) and nonbinary students (64 percent, n=209) flag this as a barrier at higher rates than men (26 percent). Same for students who have seriously considered stopping out of college relative to those who have not: 41 percent versus 30 percent, respectively.

Some of these issues are interconnected, as well: Other research has found a relationship between basic needs insecurity and mental health challenges that is pronounced among specific student populations, including first-generation and LGBTQIA+ students. Another recent study by the National College Attainment Network found that a majority of two- and four-year colleges cost more than the average student can pay, sometimes by as much as $8,000 a year. And prior Student Voice surveys have found that students link affordability to both their academic performance and to trust in higher education.

6. Colleges are meeting students’ expectations for responding to changing needs and circumstances—with some exceptions.

With so many different factors influencing students’ academic success, how are colleges doing when it comes to responding to students’ needs and changing circumstances, such as with deadline extensions, crisis support and work or family accommodations? Seven in 10 students say their college or university is meeting (57 percent) or exceeding (12 percent) their expectations. Most of the remainder say their institution is falling slightly short of expectations. This is relatively consistent across student groups and institution types—though students who have seriously considered stopping out of college are more likely than those who haven’t to say their institution is falling at least slightly short of their expectations (33 percent versus 19 percent, respectively). This again underscores the importance of comprehensive student support systems.

The Connection Factor

While it’s clear that AI and other outside variables are reshaping the academic experience, one mitigating influence may be human connection.

Jack Baretz, a senior studying math and data science at the University of North Dakota, is currently working with peers to develop an AI-powered tool called Kned that can answer students’ and advisers’ basic academic advising questions (think course sequencing, availability and prerequisites). The idea isn’t to replace advisers but rather counteract high adviser caseloads and turnover and—most importantly—maximize students’ time with their adviser so it’s a meaningful interaction.

“There’s a lot of anxiety kids have at this point in their life, where it’s like, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do next. What would be a good major to make sure I get a job? I don’t want to be jobless.’ Just those conversations—I think that’s where advisers are most effective and probably most content, helping people,” Baretz said.

From left: University of North Dakota students and advising chatbot collaborators Michael Gross, Owen Reilly and Jack Baretz.

Zoom

A prior Student Voice survey found that nearly half of students lack key academic guidance. In this year’s survey, 19 percent of students say channeling more resources to academic advising so they can get more help from their adviser would most boost their academic success. Some 28 percent say the same of new and/or clearer program maps and pathways.

This ethos extends to what Kned collaborator Michael Gross, a junior majoring in finance, said keeps him academically engaged: connection. His most motivating online classes, for example, have had breakout rooms for peer-to-peer discussions. Why? “When you have more than one person working on something, you’re way more likely to contribute and do your best work on it, because there’s other people’s grades at stake, too,” he said. “It’s not just yours.”

Gross added, “One thing I would say is for institutions to encourage discussion on college campuses. The main thing that we’re kind of losing, especially with all this technology, is people are becoming so separated from each other. College is meant to be a place where you can engage your social skills and just learn about other people—because this is one of the last times you can be surrounded by so many people your age, and so many people from different walks of life with so many different ideas, too.”

To this point, 19 percent of Student Voice respondents cite social isolation or lack of belonging as a top barrier to their academic success. Tyton Partners’ 2025 “Time for Class” report also found a jump in both instructor and student preference for face-to-classes, “showing renewed demand for classroom connection.” In the same report, nearly half of instructors cited academic anxiety as a top concern among students, and students themselves reported low motivation and weak study habits as persistent barriers to learning.

Terry McGlynn, professor of biology at California State University, Dominguez Hills, and author The Chicago Guide to College Science Teaching, agreed that “learning is inherently a social endeavor.” And educators have for the past five years noticed “it’s a lot harder to get students to interact with one another and to show some vulnerability when experiencing intellectual growth.”

Many have attributed this to the effects of the pandemic, McGlynn said. But if higher education is now “heading into this era of AI in the classroom without reintegrating quality social interactions, I’m worried for us.”

He added, “I hope we develop approaches that bring people together rather than providing expectations that we work in isolation from one another.”

This independent editorial project is produced with the Generation Lab and supported by the Gates Foundation.
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September 26, 2025
New Report Finds Low Share of R&D Funds Goes to HBCUs

A new report from the Center for American Progress and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund shows that historically Black colleges and universities receive a disproportionately low percentage of federal research and development funding.

While HBCUs make up roughly 3 percent of all four-year higher ed institutions, they’ve received less than 3 percent of R&D funding since at least 2010, according to the report. In recent years, between 2018 and 2023, they were awarded less than 1 percent of R&D expenditures.

Some agencies have given HBCUs a relatively high proportion of R&D funding, including the Department of Education, the Small Business Administration and the Department of Agriculture, which has required allotments for land-grant HBCUs. But the two federal agencies that award the most R&D funding annually, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense, have doled out especially low shares of those funds to HBCUs; in 2023, they awarded 0.54 percent and 0.40 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, 17 of the 43 federal agencies that supply research funding didn’t give HBCUs any R&D funds at all that year.

Sara Partridge, associate director of higher education policy at CAP and co-author of the report, said both Republicans and Democrats have sought to address inequities in R&D funding, but their efforts have been insufficient.

“In order to support these key drivers of scientific achievement and upward mobility, we need federal policymakers to commit to measurable benchmarks for the share of funds awarded to these institutions,” she said in a press release.

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September 26, 2025
Court Order Reinstates S.D. Prof Fired for Kirk Comments

Hook is one of dozens of faculty members who have been punished for their comments about Kirk’s death.

Photo illustration by Inside Higher Ed | LeoPatrizi/E+/Getty Images

A South Dakota district court judge ordered the University of South Dakota on Wednesday to reinstate Michael Hook, a tenured professor of art who was put on leave with an “intent to terminate” after he posted comments on his personal Facebook page about Charlie Kirk.

“The court concludes that Hook spoke as a citizen and his speech was on a matter of public concern,” district court judge Karen Schreier wrote. “Defendants note that Hook’s Facebook page identified himself as a professor at the University of South Dakota … but this alone does not show that a post made on his personal Facebook account is speech that arises from Hook’s duties as a professor.”

Hook is one of dozens of faculty and staff members who have been punished for their comments about Kirk’s death. He was put on leave two days after posting, “Okay. I don’t give a flying fuck about this Kirk person,” on his Facebook page on Sept. 10, the day Kirk was shot and killed in Utah.

“Apparently he was a hate spreading Nazi. I wasn’t paying close enough attention to the idiotic right fringe to even know who he was,” Hook continued. “I’m sorry for his family that he was a hate spreading Nazi and got killed. I’m sure they deserved better. Maybe good people could now enter their lives. But geez, where was all this concern when the politicians in Minnesota were shot? And the school shootings? And Capitol Police? I have no thoughts or prayers for this hate spreading Nazi. A shrug, maybe.”

Hook later deleted the post and posted an apology.

Hook was informed in a letter from Bruce Kelley, dean of the University of South Dakota College of Fine Arts, that in posting the comment on Facebook he’d violated two university policies. The first dealt with “neglect of duty, misconduct, incompetence and abuse of power,” and the second detailed that when employees speak publicly “they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence, they should at all times be accurate, show respect for the opinions of others and make every effort to indicate when they are not speaking for the institution.”

As part of the temporary restraining order, Schreier ordered that the university may not proceed with a disciplinary meeting between Hook and university officials scheduled for Sept. 29. The temporary restraining order will remain in effect until a preliminary injunction hearing on Oct. 8.

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September 26, 2025
Public Confidence in Higher Ed Growing

Forty-seven percent of Americans have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education, according to a new poll.

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Despite the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on colleges and universities, American confidence in higher education is growing.

According to a poll the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy published Thursday, 47 percent of 1,030 Americans surveyed said they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education institutions, with a net positive rating of 33—up 13 percentage points since 2023. Survey respondents reported more confidence in higher education than in the police (44 percent), the medical system (38 percent) and large tech companies (25 percent).

Those findings echo the results of two recent polls—one by New America and another by Gallup and the Lumina Foundation. The latter showed that 42 percent of Americans said they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education, compared to a low of 36 percent in 2024 and 2023.

But like those polls, Vanderbilt’s showed partisan divides.

While 69 percent of Democrats said they were confident in higher education, only 35 percent of Republicans said the same; just 24 percent of respondents who identify with Trump’s Make America Great Again movement expressed confidence. However, the vast majority (78 percent) of people surveyed said a college education is “very” or “somewhat” important for a young person to succeed, including 87 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of Republicans.

“While the conventional wisdom may suggest that support for colleges and universities is low, it’s important to highlight that most Americans view higher education as a net positive for society, and its support has actually increased from the low levels we saw in 2023 and 2024,” Josh Clinton, co-director of the Vanderbilt poll, said in a news release. “Yes, there are real concerns—most people think affordability is a major problem, and many perceive colleges and universities as having a partisan slant—but that’s very different from widespread opposition to the idea of higher education itself.”

Fifty-six percent of people surveyed believe that colleges and universities conduct scientific and medical research that saves lives, but only 14 percent said they remain as affordable as possible. The majority (67 percent) also cited political bias on campuses as a serious problem, though Democrats (54 percent) were less likely to agree than Republicans (79 percent), especially those who identified with the MAGA movement (91 percent).

Nearly three-quarters (71 percent) of respondents said universities should refrain from taking official stances on political issues, including 83 percent of Republicans and 59 percent of Democrats.

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September 26, 2025
Colleges Teach Students Healthy Eating, Cooking Habits
A 2025 survey of 5,000 undergraduates by Inside Higher Ed, supported by Generation Lab, found that the greatest share of students rated their nutrition at college as average (44 percent), with an additional 30 percent describing their nutrition as below average or poor.

A number of colleges and universities are working to teach students proper nutrition habits and equip them to lead healthy lives in and beyond college.

The research: A 2023 literature review found that college students experience a variety of risk factors that make them uniquely positioned to experience food insecurity, including busy schedules and a lack of access to nutritious food.

Several studies found that students who had cooking experience were less likely to face food insecurity, implying that those without cooking or food-preparation skills may be at higher risk for food insecurity, according to the report.

The report suggests colleges can provide cooking and meal-preparation demonstrations to help students gain skills, as well as learn how to prepare low-budget, nutritious meals. One study cited in the literature review suggested adding nutrition education—including food budgeting and recipes—as a feature of first-year seminars.

Inside Higher Ed compiled five examples of nutrition education designed to address student health, food insecurity and malnutrition.
1. University of Memphis: Grilling Classes
To help teach students how to cook using relevant tools and resources, the University of Memphis staff hosts a lunchtime nutrition class, teaching students how to prepare and grill a personal pizza.

The university charges students $15 to participate in the class, which covers ingredients and lunch foods, providing a low-cost and casual introduction to basic cooking principles.
1. University of North Dakota: Culinary Corner
At UND, students get the chance to lead their peers in cooking classes. Events are open to all campus members, including faculty and staff, and the hourlong sessions in the wellness center teach students how to prepare simple meals.

In addition, UND has a virtual demonstration library so students can teach themselves how to cook a range of healthful recipes from wherever they are, including honey-glazed salmon, chana masala or acai bowls. Each demonstration video features a student instructor and a recipe card for viewers to follow along.
1. Lewis College, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension: Fulton Fresh University
This fall Georgia State University students benefited from a free cooking demonstration and nutrition course pilot hosted by two local institutions.

Fulton Fresh University, a partnership between Lewis College and the University of Georgia Cooperative Extension, typically educates seniors or those in low-income communities. But in 2024, the partners tested a new offering for college students who don’t necessarily know how to cook and are more inclined to eat quick meals or takeout, according to a university press release.

The four-week, no-cost course provided students with 10 pounds of produce at each session, in addition to spices and a variety of kitchen tools to keep.
1. Iowa State University: Culinary Boot Camp
Iowa State University students can participate in a two-credit course, Culinary Boot Camp, which provides nutrition education and culinary skills to promote healthy living.

The course, which has been offered since 2016, covers topics including storing food safely, reducing food waste, converting recipes and shopping efficiently for groceries, among others.
1. Cornell University: Get Cooking With Cornell Dining
Cornell offers students a chance to learn from the professionals: the campus dining team. Members host events in the Discovery Kitchen in a residence hall on campus, where students can practice preparing plant-based dishes, which they then enjoy.

The goal is to help students learn to make healthy dishes that are both tasty and environmentally friendly.

Do you have a wellness intervention that might help others promote student success? Tell us about it.
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September 25, 2025
Angelo State Allows Pride Flags, Keeps Anti-Trans Policies

Angelo State walked back some provisions of its new anti-LGBTQ+ policies.

Michael Barera/Wikimedia Commons

Directives related to a slate of convoluted and sometimes contradictory new policies prohibiting discussion of transgender topics and identity have left employees at Angelo State University frightened and confused.

As of Monday, conversations and content about transgender identities are still prohibited, but employees are allowed to use students’ preferred names, display rainbow flags in their offices and on their cars, and talk about lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer identities, according to emails from department heads to faculty obtained by Inside Higher Ed.

The changes were clarified to employees after a meeting between the deans, provost and ASU legal counsel. Employees are still seeking other clarifications. For example, students who are already working on papers related to transgender identity are allowed to continue doing so, but it’s unclear whether they could give a final class presentation on the topic.

Only some faculty members at some the university’s colleges have been told about these changes. Others are still responding to the initial policies handed down to employees Friday following a meeting with Angelo State leadership. The policies are stringent and exhaustive: no pride flags, no calling students by the singular “they” or using their preferred names (unless it aligns with their sex assigned at birth), no pronouns in email signatures and no mention of the fact that there are more genders than the two assigned at birth.

None of the policies are formalized in writing, and that is purposeful, said Brian Evans, president of the Texas Conference of the American Association of University Professors. The guidance only changed after faculty brought up questions about the policies, which deans took back to the provost and university counsel. Final details about what is and is not allowed and how the rules will be enforced are still under discussion.

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September 25, 2025
States Need to Pass Budgets

This isn’t unique to my state, but it’s my first time encountering it.

Pennsylvania’s state government runs on a July-to-June fiscal year, which means that it was supposed to have passed a budget for this fiscal year by July 1.

It hasn’t passed one yet, and passage doesn’t look imminent.

This is becoming a problem.

It’s already a problem for our county, which has announced cuts. And it’s increasingly a problem for the college.

Based on previous years, we’ve expected the state allocation to cover a little over 40 percent of the operating budget. (The county’s figure is much lower.) So far this year, it has covered zero percent, for a difference of—let’s see, carry the three—millions.

We have reserves, and they’ve come in handy. But they’re meant to even out cash flow over the course of a year, to cover emergencies and to help with large expenses. They were never intended to supplant the state’s role in the budget. Our CFO recently had to calculate the number of months we could go without the state allocation, which is a number you never want to matter.

For those keeping score at home, reserves at a community college are very different from endowments at universities. Endowments are generated mostly from a combination of donations and investment returns, and they’re meant to “throw off” a certain amount per year to pay for other things. Those other things can be the operating budget, or scholarships, or facilities, as specified. (Endowment funds are a mix of restricted and unrestricted. Restricted funds can only be used for designated purposes; unrestricted funds are more flexible.)

Reserves, by contrast, are generated from operational savings and are meant to provide a bit of buffer. They’re almost always invested very conservatively because they’re meant to be liquid. Endowments can take greater risks because they’re intended to have much longer time horizons. If endowments are like retirement accounts, reserves are closer to savings accounts.

They’re crucial for cash flow because peak revenue times and peak spending times don’t always align. For a college on a traditional calendar, August shows high revenues and low spending, and October shows high spending and low revenues. That’s because students pay tuition in August to take classes in October.

Reserves can create perverse incentives for legislators. A legislator looking to pay for some other line item closer to his heart may see a public college with relatively healthy reserves as a painless target for cutting. But once reserves are spent, they’re spent, and one of the dangers of public-sector math is that even a single year’s cut can become a new baseline. At that point, climbing out of the hole can become a Sisyphean nightmare.

In practice, that means that public colleges have to perform a delicate balance with reserves. Save too much, and you become a tempting target. Save too little, and you may find yourself in a tight spot if something happens.

Right now, something is happening—or not happening, to be exact—with a major impact. The frustrating part is that the something in question is unnecessary. This isn’t the aftermath of a natural disaster; it’s collateral damage from a political standoff. The fact that it leaves us much more vulnerable to, say, a natural disaster doesn’t seem to bother legislators.

So, my request to the elected leaders of Pennsylvania, and to other states in similar spots: Pass a budget! Reserves weren’t meant for this.

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September 25, 2025
2026–27 FAFSA Launched Ahead of Schedule

The final version of this year’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid was made available to all students Wednesday—eight days ahead of schedule. This marks the application’s earliest launch date since it first transitioned to an online platform nearly two decades ago, according to the Department of Education.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon used the announcement as an opportunity to criticize the Biden administration for its “infamously botched” rollout of an extensive FAFSA overhaul two years prior.

“I am extremely proud to announce the earliest launch of the FAFSA form in history, which ensures American students and families have access to critical resources as they begin or continue their postsecondary education journey,” she said in a news release. “Under President Trump’s leadership, our talented team has redesigned and streamlined the process so all American students can now successfully complete the form in minutes.”

There were limited changes to this year’s form, but to test the changes that were made, a beta version was first made available to a select number of students and families in early August. Then, last week, all students could access the test form. Over the course of those two months, more than 40,000 applications have been started, about 27,000 have been submitted and roughly 24,000 have been processed without rejection.

Updates to this year’s form include a redesigned process for inviting parents to contribute to the form and a faster verification process for new accounts. And over all, the students who have tested the form so far have had a good experience, with 97 percent of respondents reporting satisfaction and 90 percent saying it took a reasonable amount of time to complete.

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September 25, 2025
Kentucky to End In-State Tuition for Undocumented Students

Kentucky became the third state to end its in-state tuition policy for undocumented students when a settlement was announced Monday.

Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | amriphoto/E+/Getty Images | klyaksun and SAHACHAT/iStock/Getty Images

The Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education agreed to terminate its offering of in-state tuition to undocumented students, according to a settlement filed in court Monday, WKU Public Radio reported.

The termination of reduced tuition remains tentative, as the settlement has yet to be signed by a district court judge, but if it does come to fruition, Kentucky would be the third state to capitulate to demands of the Trump administration on the issue.

President Trump’s Department of Justice has sued multiple states over their policies that provide in-state tuition to undocumented students, arguing that doing so discriminates against out-of-state Americans. Republican-led states that were sued quickly agreed to scrap the policies. But Kentucky, governed by a Democrat, took longer. (Similar lawsuits against Minnesota and Illinois are still pending.)

The state attorney general, a Republican, told the council that the lawsuit would be a “losing fight,” WKU reported.

The Trump administration and state Republicans leaders have used these lawsuits to go around state legislatures and Congress to change policies and programs.

Some higher education and legal experts have called the practice unlawful collusion and tried to intercede on behalf of the immigrant students in court, but they’ve had little luck so far.

MALDEF, the same Latino civil rights group that tried and failed to intervene in the Texas lawsuit, has filed a motion to intervene in Kentucky, but the court has yet to rule on that request.

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September 25, 2025
New Promise Programs Launch for Families Making Under $100K

When Jake Winston began looking at colleges in fall 2019, he was primarily looking at public colleges in his home state of North Carolina, as he felt those would be the only institutions he could afford. He was interested in Washington & Lee University, in Virginia, due to its location—far enough for a change of scenery, but not so far he couldn’t visit home—and its rich and complex history. But he didn’t think he could afford the high price tag.

At a presentation by admissions officials, though, he learned about the W&L Promise, which covers the full cost of tuition for all students whose families fall into a specific income bracket. Once he got his aid offers back from colleges, WLU was the obvious choice, costing him just $5,000 annually, a sum that he paid out of pocket using money he made from summer research jobs.

“Being able to know I was going to graduate debt-free from the start allowed me to pick what I was passionate in, and that’s teaching, which is not the highest-paying role in the country,” said Winston, who now teaches seventh-grade history in Northern Virginia. “But it is what I wanted to do with my life.”

WLU has one of the oldest tuition-guarantee programs in the country. It launched in 2014, offering free tuition to students whose families make less than $75,000 each year; now, that number has surged up to $150,000, and students whose family income is less than $75,000 also get free room and board.

Since then, more and more colleges—especially, but not only, selective private institutions—are offering completely free tuition to students whose families fall under a certain income threshold. Nowadays, that maximum is typically $100,000 annually, an income bracket that includes about 57 percent of U.S. families as of 2024, according to an analysis by the Motley Fool. But some have expanded the offer of free tuition to those whose families make as much as $200,000, encompassing all but 16 percent of American households. (Most programs also require the families to have typical assets, and some are only open to in-state students.)

In the past year alone, a slew of universities has announced new free tuition programs or expanded their existing programs, including Wake Forest University, Reed College, Emory University, Macalester College, Tufts University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and Lasell University.

Administrators at more than half a dozen institutions with promise programs told Inside Higher Ed that they hope that the move will attract low-income students who didn’t realize how financially accessible higher education, even at expensive institutions, can be. It’s also an effort to improve cost transparency—an area that has frequently come under scrutiny as the actual cost of college has become increasingly obscured by scholarships, aid, fees and books and other indirect costs.

Breaking the Cost Barrier

For many institutions offering tuition guarantees—also called promise programs—it’s more of a change in rhetoric than in actual financial aid policy.

Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, for example, announced a program last November guaranteeing free tuition for students with family incomes under $75,000 and promising those with incomes under $100,000 wouldn’t have to take out any student loans to access a CMU education, beginning with the incoming class in fall 2025. But according to Brian Hill, the university’s associate vice provost for student financials and enrollment systems, that’s how the university had already been quietly operating since 2016.

“In truth, it was to make sure that prospective students knew that CMU was an affordable option for them. That was the primary reason,” he said. “We’ve been saying that we met full demonstrated financial need for our students … [but] a barrier we don’t know if we’d gotten through or not is students that would look at the sticker price [of $67,020 per year] and just completely write CMU off before they even explored it.”

The surge of these programs comes amid concerns about the growing cost of higher education and that the return on investment of a bachelor’s degree doesn’t warrant the seemingly exorbitant cost; a few institutions in the U.S. now have a sticker price upward of $100,000 a year.

At the same time, experts argue that the price of higher education has actually gone down when accounting for inflation and the high rate of aid students generally receive. For several decades, higher education has followed a model in which institutions advertise a high cost of attendance but a significant number of students receive large scholarships. This approach helps to make higher education look like a luxury product while students and families feel like they’re getting a good deal. But that strategy has come to bite institutions in the butt, according to W. Joseph King, former president of Lyon College and a higher education consultant, as many low- and middle-income students now feel the high cost of college makes an education unattainable.

“What this led to was almost like an arms race of rising stated tuition numbers and a fall in net tuition numbers. All sorts of groups, including the federal government, have been trying to get to numbers that are more reflective of the actual cost,” he said.

Promise programs aim to change that narrative by showing low- and middle-income families that getting an education even at a seemingly pricey school can be achievable.

Colleges have made other attempts to communicate that message to students and parents. That includes developing net price calculators, which often show that low-income students would be paying just a fraction of the sticker price, or announcing that their institution is able to meet all of a student’s demonstrated financial need—a number based on a federal student aid formula that determines how much a family is able to pay.

But many families have no idea what demonstrated financial need means or are unaware of net price calculators, enrollment professionals say. Simply saying that an institution offers free tuition can be the ultimate tool for price transparency, according to Milyon Trulove, vice president and dean of admission and financial aid at Reed College, which announced plans to expand its regional promise program—currently available only to students in Oregon and Washington—to all students with family incomes under $100,000 in 2026.

The institution also has a net price calculator, he said. But if presented with both that calculator and the promise of free tuition, the latter will immediately be meaningful to students, whereas the former won’t.

“[Students] say, ‘This makes sense to me, today, right now … and now I can listen to all the other stuff about fit and anxiety about money is no longer in the way of me fully participating in the college admission process,’” he said.

Along with institutions offering free tuition to any student who fits within a certain income bracket, even more institutions offer tuition guarantees to students based on grade point average or for transferring from a local community college system.

‘Rigorous Financial Planning’

Most of the university officials who spoke with Inside Higher Ed said that their institution was in a very strong financial position and able to afford to support so many students because of large endowments and generous donations, including fundraising specifically aimed at increasing student aid.

From 2016 to 2024, Carnegie Mellon, for example, increased its undergraduate financial aid budget 86 percent.

“We truly made a massive commitment to making affordability a real thing at CMU,” said Hill. “I think we’re in a very positive position in terms of finances, but it took a lot of commitment from … executive leadership to make this a priority.”

Wake Forest, which announced last week that it will offer free tuition to all North Carolina students with family incomes below $200,000, is one of the few schools that said that its promise program, called the North Carolina Gateway, would substantially increase the total amount of aid it gives out. President Susan Wente said that, similarly to CMU, the funds for the initiative come in large part from a massive fundraising effort that has raised over $150 million for financial aid since 2022.

“This involved rigorous financial planning and analysis and knowing we could meet the commitment, should we announce it,” she said.

But not every university with a promise program is leaning on massive donation campaigns. Radford University, a public institution in Virginia, was able to begin offering free tuition to all students from Virginia with incomes below $100,000 simply because of the ample amount of funding it gets from the state, according to Dannette Gomez Beane, vice president for enrollment management and strategic communication.

Virginia tends to be generous toward higher education, Beane said, but the two regional public universities in southwest Virginia, which has the lowest college-going rate of higher education of any area in the state, receive the most funding. That’s what allowed Radford to begin its promise program, which the institution promoted heavily in the 60-mile radius around its campus, in 2024.

“With all things higher ed and higher ed financial aid, not everything is sure, and we’re learning that this year more than ever,” she said. “I think that state funding, federal funding—if you have models that are dependent on those, you have to constantly be adjusting your models … there is that vulnerability, but we’re just gracious that we’ve had favor with the state.”

Boosting Low-Income Enrollment

Although many of these programs are new, those that have been around for multiple years have seen positive results. At Washington & Lee, Sally Richmond, vice president for admissions and financial aid, said that there have been massive jumps in enrollment of rural students, first-generation students and Pell-eligible students since she joined the university in 2016.

It’s impossible to say whether those changes can be attributed specifically to the university’s promise program, she noted. But, she said, “our financial aid office, who is certainly on the front line of having these conversations along with our admissions team, speaks to the fact that this concept of the promise is the one that resonates most with our prospective students and families.”

Reed College, similarly, saw a 25 percent increase in middle-income students in its program’s first year, during which it was only available to students from Oregon and Washington.

Wente, Wake Forest’s president, said she is eager to see how the university’s newly announced tuition guarantee program will impact low- and middle-income enrollment.

“As a scientist myself, we’re going to pilot this, look at its impact, look at how we can ensure that it’s really achieving what we hope in terms of offering students greater access,” she said. “In terms of the middle and lower income bands, those are the students who often don’t have as many options. So, how do we give them as many options as possible?”

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September 25, 2025