Tag: Events

4 Initiatives for Graduate Student Success
Colleges and universities are increasingly devoting resources to improving graduate student well-being.

Ivant Weng Wai/E+/Getty Images
Graduate student success has been a growing priority for institutions of higher education; national data points to a lower return on investment for some programs, leaving students saddled with debt. Nationally, only 58 percent of students who enter graduate programs complete their degree within six years.

The elimination of Grad PLUS loans, included in the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act, may further impede students’ ability to pay for graduate degrees, threatening enrollment and persistence in some programs.

Graduate students can also struggle with basic needs insecurity; 12.2 percent of students pursuing a graduate degree experience food insecurity and 4.6 experience homelessness, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics.

Inside Higher Ed compiled four examples of institutions that are devoting resources toward boosting graduate students’ financial and personal well-being.
1. Texas Christian University: Suits for M.B.A. Students
Campus leaders at Texas Christian University’s Neeley School of Business created a program to provide M.B.A. students with free professional clothes, helping low-income enrollees dress for success.

Through a partnership with suit maker Reveal Suits, eligible students receive a custom suit with a TCU-branded lining that includes their name. Thanks to donations, they can also receive shoes and a shirt and tie if needed.

To receive a suit, students submit an application detailing their career goals and a brief statement of financial need, which university leaders use to select recipients.

By the Numbers

Master’s of business administration degrees are among the most popular graduate programs in the U.S.; over 205,000 students earned an M.B.A. in 2021–22, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics. However, affordability remains a top barrier to students looking to advance their careers.

Nearly half of students say the cost of an M.B.A. program is one of the top barriers to their pursuit of additional education, according to the 2025 GMAC Prospective Students survey.

The survey also found that the average candidate plans to fund their degree using more financial aid and less support from their parents, compared to pre-pandemic.
1. Wichita State University: Mental Health Course
To emphasize the importance of well-being to executive M.B.A. students, Wichita State University faculty designed a mandatory course that teaches wellness as a leadership skill.

The course, Mental Wellness as a Business Strategy, launched in fall 2024 and focuses on integrating mental health initiatives into company culture as a way to gain a competitive advantage. Students learn to build psychologically safe teams, incorporate mental health policies into leadership practices and drive business success using well-being.
1. California State University, Fullerton: Mentorship and Education
Project upGRADS, short for Utilizing and Promoting Graduate Resources and Access for Disadvantaged Students, provides advising, mentorship and scholarships to students enrolled at CSUF. The program has supported nearly 7,000 students from all levels of higher education since 2019; Excelencia in Education recently recognized it as a model of innovative support for Latino students, according to a university press release.

The program provides information about the benefits of graduate school, how to navigate the admissions and financial aid processes, and the advantages of participating in faculty mentorship and professional networking.

Through Project upGRADS, graduate students can ask to be matched with a faculty member who provides support for research, career development and overcoming impostor syndrome. Students can also opt into GRAD 700, a Canvas community that offers deadlines and guidelines for thesis writing in addition to a workshop calendar and upcoming events database.
1. Ohio State University: Mental Health Resources
In 2024, Ohio State University bolstered on-campus and online mental health resources for graduate students.

The university invested in training peer mental health ambassadors, providing teletherapy services and developing online mental health modules for self-paced learning and preventative care.

Ohio State also extended on-campus services to ensure students who need after-hours care on the weekends or evenings can continue to receive support.

If your student success program has a unique feature or twist, we’d like to know about it. Click here to submit.
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August 4, 2025
In Columbia’s Deal, More Gaslighting (opinion)

Columbia University president Claire Shipman would have us believe she snatched academic freedom from the flames of Trump’s higher education dumpster fire, but this is more of the same gaslighting we’ve endured for almost two years. Beginning with the first university administrator’s response to the first campus protest against the war in Gaza, university administrations everywhere repeatedly decried antisemitism while rarely naming what the students were actually calling for—namely, for the harm to the Palestinian people to stop, not for harm to come to the Jewish people.

The words “Palestine” and “Gaza” almost never appeared in university administrators’ statements. That they also don’t appear in Shipman’s announcement of the agreement Columbia reached with the federal government to settle allegations of antisemitism is one tell that protections for academic freedom were not “carefully crafted” over the course of the negotiations but that they were abandoned instead. (For a thorough analysis of the settlement’s many failures that goes beyond the focus of this article, see “An Agreement That Settles Nothing,” by the Columbia chapter of the American Association of University Professors.)

On CNN, Shipman claimed that the resolution “protects our academic integrity,” calling that a “red line” for Columbia. In her announcement, Shipman offers as evidence of this integrity a sentence in the settlement that reads, “No provision of this agreement, individually or taken together, shall be construed as giving the United States authority to dictate faculty hiring.” She glosses this by adding, “The federal government will not dictate … who teaches.”

When reading the official document, one is startled, then, to find that faculty hiring is dictated by its terms:

“13. Columbia shall, consistent with its announcement on March 21, 2025, appoint new faculty members with joint positions in both the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and the departments or fields of economics, political science, or SIPA [the School of International and Public Affairs].”

The government should not be determining which programs Columbia chooses to invest in. I suspect that the slippage in Shipman’s statement from “faculty hiring” (the government cannot dictate faculty hiring) to “who teaches” (the government cannot dictate who teaches) is purposeful. She can always say that no member of the multiagency Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism that had her by the throat will be personally reviewing candidate files, so Columbia retains control over the who of who teaches. But this is a distinction without substance when the ideological viewpoint of candidates is guaranteed in advance.

The Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies “is dedicated to the academic study and discussion of Israel and Jewish Studies,” we learn from its webpage. “The Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies supports the State of Israel’s right to exist and to flourish,” its webpage also tells us. Can an academic department be a kind of lobbying organization at the same time? And can an academic department on Israel exclude some of the best thinking on its formation, that of anti-Zionist Jewish scholars? Isn’t this combination of the academic and the ideological a bit like the nonsensical liberal platitude calling Israel a Jewish and democratic state? The conjunction “and” does a heck of a lot of spackling work.

By sharing the hires in the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies as joint appointments with other departments, the work performed by phrases like “Israel’s right to exist” is amplified. In this way, the settlement seeks to multiply a particular, pro-Israel point of view in the university, potentially helping to shield Israel from criticism at the very moment it most needs to be criticized. This is not institutional neutrality. This is an intentional tilting of an already painfully tilted playing field.

If anyone doubts that this tilt is precisely what the settlement seeks to secure, they need only consult No. 12 in the agreement, which stipulates that “the Senior Vice Provost, acting with the authority of the Office of the Provost, will conduct a thorough review of … the Center for Palestine Studies; the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies; Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies; the Middle East Institute; the Tel Aviv and Amman global hubs; the School of International and Public Affairs Middle East Policy major; and other University programs focused on the Middle East.”

This person will “make recommendations to the President and Provost, in accordance with academic procedures, about any necessary changes, academic restructuring, or investments.” We already know which program on this list will find its fortunes soon improved. It’s not hard to imagine which ones might find themselves impoverished under the heading “necessary changes” or “academic restructuring.”

Columbia did negotiate something wise. As Shipman wrote, “We have agreed on a robust dispute resolution process that includes a mutually agreed upon independent monitor and arbitrator as neutral third parties, rather than ceding authority to the government or a court.” Without this provision, Columbia would face a future of potentially endless arbitrary civil rights investigations.

As more journalists report on the transformation of the federal civil service from a body of mostly nonpartisan experts into one evaluated on loyalty to the president, and as more stories expose the illegitimate tactics and methodologies used to levy accusations of antisemitism, this caveat providing for a third-party arbiter will be one that every institution will want to negotiate before discussing anything else. Columbia’s saga is, after all, only one of the first of many likely to come—last week, Brown University became the second institution to strike a deal with the Trump administration, and Harvard University is reportedly making progress toward one). After the Columbia settlement was announced, Trump posted on Truth Social, “Numerous other Higher Education Institutions that have hurt so many, and been so unfair and unjust, and have wrongly spent federal money, much of it from our government, are upcoming.”

But this third-party provision holding out the hope that saner heads than those in the federal government will adjudicate going forward—a provision that will have to be negotiated individually by each institution—isn’t good enough, is it? Each institution, in this scenario, stanches its own bleeding, but not one of them directly challenges the federal administration’s use of antisemitism as a weapon of intimidation. It’s a rational calculation for each institution, I suppose, but a disastrous one taken as a whole.

“For months,” Shipman says, “Columbia’s discussions with the federal government have been set up as a test of principle—a binary fight between courage and capitulation. But like most things in life, the reality is far more complex.” No doubt Shipman has in mind the real tragedies that would have resulted from a show of courage that might have cost Columbia its federal funding—critical research halted, jobs lost, students’ lives derailed, perhaps even the end of Columbia’s continued existence. The stakes were very high for Columbia, as they remain very high for all but the most financially insulated universities and colleges.

And I suppose the compromises to academic freedom our institutions make, with no end in sight, in order to keep doors open and funds flowing might be forgivable, were it not for the 60,000 people and counting who are now dead—18,500 of them children. Were it not for the “worst-case scenario of famine” now unfolding. Were it not for the “war crimes in plain sight.”

When the presidents of our universities and colleges compromise our academic freedom, they are doing so by playing along with a narrative of widespread antisemitism that they know is a pretext and a deflection. By going along with this narrative rather than challenging it, they co-create with the federal government a culture of fear that makes us scared to use our voices as professors to name and discuss a genocide. When we hesitate to openly address what is morally undeniable, the world begins to wobble. Yes, the reality is more complex than “a test of principle,” because we do not lose an abstract principle when we lose academic freedom; we slowly but surely lose our ability to tell right from wrong.

Jennifer Ruth is a professor in the School of Film at Portland State University. She is co-author, with Michael Bérubé, of It’s Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom (Johns Hopkins Press, 2022); coeditor, with Ellen Schrecker and Valerie Johnson, of The Right to Learn: Resisting the Right-Wing Attack on Academic Freedom (Beacon, 2024); and co-director, with Jan Haaken, of the film The Palestine Exception: What’s at Stake in the Campus Protests?

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August 4, 2025
What to Do When Your Job Search Stalls (opinion)

Graduating into a tight job market can feel very daunting. You’ve invested years into your education and training, built strong skill sets, and followed the advice given by mentors and peers to make yourself competitive. So why aren’t the offers coming?

If you find yourself in this situation, it’s normal to feel discouraged, demoralized or unsure of what to do next. Below are some steps you can take to help jump-start your job hunt by evaluating what’s working and identifying what might need adjusting so you can move forward and maintain momentum.

Step 1: Evaluate Your Job Search Strategy

Before making any major changes, start by examining your current approach.

Are you submitting lots of job applications but not hearing back? This could be a sign that your application materials need refinement. Ask yourself: Are my CV or résumé and cover letter polished and tailored to each role? Am I clearly highlighting how my skills align with the job description? If you’re unsure, reach out to a professional in your field, mentor or career coach to review these materials and provide feedback.

Are you getting interviews but not progressing to the next round or receiving final offers? This may signal that your interview approach needs improvement. Using structured interview methods, such as the STAR method (situation, task, action, result), can help you learn how to better organize your responses to highlight your experiences in a more focused manner. Practicing with a mentor or even a peer can help you identify gaps in preparation or missteps in how you present yourself. Many universities offer free career services, including mock interviews, to their students and alumni.

In a competitive market, job searching also requires proactive strategies beyond submitting applications. I often see job seekers hyperfixate on tweaking applications that are already strong when their time would be better spent networking. Reach out to professionals, schedule informational interviews and make connections that help you uncover hidden opportunities and potentially receive internal referrals. These conversations can also help you better understand your target roles and the broader job landscape.

Step 2: Broaden Your Search Strategically

If networking and refining your materials isn’t enough, it may be time to broaden the types of jobs you’re considering. This doesn’t mean giving up on your long-term career aspirations; instead it means exploring bridge or adjacent roles that can help you stay on track while you continue to grow professionally. While bridge roles may not be your first choice, they can support future career moves by helping you gain relevant work experience, build new skills and expand your professional network.

One way to identify bridge roles is to explore LinkedIn profiles of alumni and professionals in your field. Examining the positions they held after graduating and where they are now can help expand your list of possible bridge roles. Take this a step further during informational interviews by asking professionals about their knowledge of bridge roles. For example, a person targeting a medical science liaison role might ask an MSL in an informational interview, “I have been applying to MSL roles without any success; what other roles could help me work toward this path?” They might learn of opportunities in medical communications, clinical research or technical sales, positions that develop many of the same skills valued in MSL roles and often done by professionals before landing an MSL position.

Bridge jobs can also provide financial stability while allowing you to build your skills. For example, I work with many students who aim to move directly into industry as scientists. However, if the job search stalls, an academic postdoc can be a strategic choice, especially when it aligns with building specific skills and provides much-needed income. One graduate I advised discovered through informational interviews that he would need additional expertise in advanced sequencing techniques to be competitive for the R&D roles he was targeting. He chose to take a two-year academic postdoc with a clear plan to build those exact skills, positioning himself for a stronger transition into industry while providing financial stability for his family. A postdoc can offer time to deepen your technical expertise, build a more competitive research portfolio and prepare for roles in biotech, R&D or other sectors.

If you pursue a postdoc as a bridge role, be transparent with the postdoc mentor about your intentions. Take the earlier example of the graduate pursuing industry R&D roles. He was clear in communicating both the specific skills he needed to gain (RNA sequencing) and the time frame he would commit (two years). That kind of clarity helps establish shared expectations and ensures the postdoc experience is mutually beneficial for both you and the lab.

Another important strategy for broadening your job search is to reflect carefully on your needs versus preferences. Needs are the nonnegotiables, such as visa requirements, caregiving responsibilities or a two-income household situation. A person’s preferences might include living in a specific city, having a certain job title or starting at a particular salary. While all of these are important to consider, being flexible on preferences can help you uncover new possibilities. Ask yourself: Are there geographic areas I’ve ruled out that might be worth reconsidering? Could I shift my salary expectations temporarily to get a foot in the door? Widening your criteria doesn’t mean compromising your goals; it’s a strategic step in reaching them.

Step 3: Know When to Pivot

If you’ve been searching consistently and not gaining traction, it may be time for a bigger strategic shift. Sometimes we become so focused on our initial ideas about our career that we overlook other options that could be equally or more fulfilling. Ask yourself: Could there be paths that better match my strengths or allow me to grow in ways my original plan didn’t? Have I overlooked opportunities that may better align with my values, interests or lifestyle goals as they are now?

In the book Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life (Knopf, 2016), authors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans suggest that being stuck can be a powerful launchpad for creativity and personal growth. They encourage readers to approach career planning as a design problem that benefits from curiosity, experimentation and iteration. One recommended exercise to stimulate curiosity is to brainstorm multiple career paths for yourself. Once you have your list of possible futures, you can then explore the most promising options through research and conversations with professionals in those roles.

If you need help identifying new directions, the individual development plan can be a useful tool. Platforms such as myIDP or ImaginePhD offer exercises and assessments to help you identify your skills, interests and values and pinpoint career paths aligned with your results. These platforms also include resources to guide you toward researching and setting goals to reach a new path.

Importantly, pivoting doesn’t mean giving up. It means recognizing that there are many viable paths available and you may end up at a better destination than originally planned.

Managing the Emotions of Job Searching

Job searching can take a real emotional toll, especially when it feels like you’re doing everything right and not seeing results. Many students feel intense pressure to secure a job after graduation, and when that doesn’t happen quickly, feelings of inadequacy can creep in. These feelings can make it harder to ask for help, reach out for support or even acknowledge how difficult the process has been. When the process feels overwhelming, shift your focus to what you can control. Set small, achievable goals each week to keep your momentum going during a slow-moving search. For example, set a goal of applying to a defined number of jobs, completing a short online course to build a new skill or attending a virtual or local networking event in your field.

One trend I’ve noticed is that some students reach a point in which they are tempted to pay someone to “fix” the problem. If you are considering investing in paid career coaching, do your homework first. This should be a thoughtful decision, not an emotional reaction driven by frustration. Some paid coaches and services are legitimately helpful, but others overpromise results and prey on frustrated job seekers. Ask about outcomes, get referrals and make sure that their services align with your goals.

Take Your Next Steps

After reading this, you may have several new ideas or directions you are considering. To avoid feeling overwhelmed, start by writing down one microgoal you can complete in the next few days that is simple but still meaningful. For example, you might set up a meeting with a mentor, revise a section of your résumé or research a new role. Choose something that is doable and aligned with where you want to go. Small steps like these can really jump-start your progress.

Even if it’s not going according to your original timeline, remember that the job search is a dynamic process. By keeping an eye on your long-term goals but remaining flexible, you’ll be open to the roles and experiences that can help you get there. Most importantly, give yourself credit for working the problem, pushing forward and continuing to put yourself out there.

Raquel Y. Salinas is the assistant dean of career and alumni engagement at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. She is a member of the Graduate Career Consortium, an organization providing an international voice for graduate-level career and professional development leaders.

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August 4, 2025
Don’t Wait for Permission to Write for the Public
Welcome to the first installment of my monthly column, “The Public Scholar,” in which I invite academics and other experts to step forward—thoughtfully, clearly and with purpose—to help shape public conversations that matter. In this space, I’ll offer practical, field-tested strategies for turning academic expertise into public impact, including how to know if an idea is op-ed–worthy, how to turn a classroom anecdote into publishable prose, how to know when it’s time to query a literary agent about your book idea and more.

I’m Susan D’Agostino, a mathematician whose stories have been published in The Atlantic, the BBC, Scientific American, The Washington Post, The Financial Times, Wired, Quanta and other leading publications. (You may recall that I wrote with some frequency about math and technology for Inside Higher Ed a couple of years ago.) My last book, How to Free Your Inner Mathematician (Oxford University Press, 2020), won the Mathematical Association of America’s Euler Book Prize for an exceptionally well-written book with a positive impact on the public’s view of math. My next book, How Math Will Save Your Life, to be published by W. W. Norton, makes the case for harnessing mathematical thinking in the face of personal and global crises.

But none of that came easily or automatically. A decade ago, I was a tenured mathematics professor who had spent years honing proofs and lectures. Yet amid lagging public math literacy, I felt an unshakable urge to reach beyond the walls of academia and write for the public. Still, I hesitated. Was my voice or expertise welcome outside of peer-reviewed journals? Did I have the authority to write for readers I could not picture in a seminar room? Did I even know how?

That transition—from academic to public scholar—was bumpy. I made mistakes. I received more rejections than I care to count. (Stay tuned for a future column about all those rejections!) I had to unlearn some academic habits and relearn how to communicate with clarity for broad audiences. But step by step, I found my way.

You don’t need to leave higher ed to write for the public. And you certainly don’t need permission. Academia often trains scholars to seek approval—through grants, press offices and peer-reviewed publications. But the reality is that institutional support often follows after a scholar gains visibility. You already have the credentials to write for the public in your area of expertise. Now you need the courage and practical tips for doing so.

Maybe you’re a historian who sees how your field illuminates today’s political divides. Or a scientist concerned about climate change, misinformation or public health. Or an artist reflecting on what the arts can—and do—offer society. Or a literary scholar exploring how stories shape our moral imaginations. Or an educator with hard-won insights into what learning looks like in today’s classrooms. If you feel the tug to engage beyond campus gates, this column is for you.

Many academics assume that public writing takes time away from scholarship. But making your work accessible to a wide audience forces you to think harder, not less. How can you distill the central argument of your research so that an intelligent friend with no training in your field can understand? Why should they care? Honing translation skills is an art. Your goal is to show up with clarity and generosity.

As a bonus, crafting the occasional op-ed can energize your research and teaching—not distract from it. You can clarify your ideas and receive real-time feedback on your argument and may even attract collaborators. Public writing can also be personally restorative. It reconnects you with the real-world questions that made you fall for your field. Your op-ed may even catch the eye of a literary agent or editor who’s interested in discussing book ideas. Also, your willingness to be a novice again may offer credibility among students, as that’s what many are wrestling with in your classroom.

When I began writing in public-facing newspapers and magazines, I felt newly connected to issues that mattered beyond academia. While campus conversations are vital and intellectually rich, I found that engaging the broader public offered a different kind of clarity and urgency—to respond to a moment unfolding in real time and to make research relevant to people’s lives.

Scholars across disciplines have watched with rising unease as the Trump administration has terminated research grants, dismissed government scientists without cause and wielded funding as a cudgel against universities. In this atmosphere, it can be tempting to self-censor or to wait for more hospitable times.

But the cost of silence must be weighed against the consequences of inaction. Public conversations—about health care, history, science, democracy, libraries, public art and education—unfold every day, with or without scholars who can offer nuance, evidence and context.

“Opinions are most malleable before they are fully formed,” wrote Lisa Fazio, a psychology professor at Vanderbilt whose federal grant for misinformation research was terminated. “We must not shy away from the spotlight.”

Fazio’s warning is especially resonant now, as academics face mounting pressure from funding threats to political scrutiny. These pressures are real, and they are unevenly distributed. As University of Washington computer scientist Kate Starbird, also a target for her work on misinformation, told Science magazine, “I never had the option of keeping my head down.”

And yet: Sharing knowledge, humanizing data and contextualizing history are profound acts of public service in consequential times. The OpEd Project puts it plainly: “If you say things of consequence, there may be consequences. The alternative is to be inconsequential.”

Here’s some good news: Editors at newspapers and magazines want academic voices in the mix, and they’re often willing collaborators in helping your ideas rise above the noise. Editors want assurance that you are trained in your area of expertise, but they are less concerned with titles or tenure than your academic colleagues. Whether you’re a graduate student, an adjunct, new on the tenure track or a full professor, what matters is your voice, your argument and your ability to meet the moment.

Ready to begin? Here are a few prompts to spark your first (or next) op-ed:
- What’s one thing people misunderstand about your field, and why does it matter?
- What recent news headline made you think, “If only they understood this about my field …?”
- What conversation is already happening in the news, online or in your community that your research can help reframe, complicate or clarify?
- What’s one counterintuitive idea from your work that could shift how people think?
- Has your research or teaching ever changed how you see the world, and could it do the same for others?
- Where is your field falling short in meeting a public need, and what would it take to change that?
You don’t need to have all the answers. Often, a strong op-ed starts with one sharp insight, thoughtfully delivered and timed to the news cycle.

Try drafting a few notes in your phone during your commute, between classes or even while multitasking in that faculty meeting (I won’t tell). Write as if you’re talking to a smart, curious friend. Make it clear, specific and real. Proofread like your reputation depends on it, because for the editor you’re pitching, it does. Make it short, too! Aim for 800 words max.

And if you’d like more help along the way, sign up for my monthly newsletter. You’ll get notice of each new article in “The Public Scholar,” practical writing tips, behind-the-scenes insights from my work and inspiration from other academics finding their voice in public spaces. Your expertise is hard-won. What might happen if you shared what you know more broadly?

Susan D’Agostino is a mathematician whose stories have been published in The Atlantic, the BBC, Scientific American, The Washington Post, Wired, The Financial Times, Quanta and other leading publications. Her last book, How to Free Your Inner Mathematician (Oxford University Press, 2020) won the Mathematical Association of America’s Euler Book Prize for an exceptionally well-written book with a positive impact on the public’s view of math. Her next book, How Math Will Save Your Life, will be published by W. W. Norton. She has been a journalism fellow at Oxford University’s Reuters Institute, Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and the Mila-Quebec AI Institute. For notice of each new article in Susan’s Inside Higher Ed column, “The Public Scholar,” practical writing tips, behind-the-scenes insights from her work and inspiration from other academics finding their voice in public spaces, sign up for her free, monthly newsletter here.
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August 4, 2025
Research Funding Starts to Flow Back to Columbia, Brown

Much of the money funds medical research, including time-sensitive clinical trials.

Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Wolterk/iStock/Getty Images | Alex Kent/Getty Images

Days after reaching deals with the Trump administration, Columbia and Brown Universities say the government has already initiated the process of restoring hundreds of millions in federal research dollars it terminated earlier this year in retaliation for their alleged failures to address antisemitism on campus.

Many of those grants came from the National Institutes of Health, which is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, and funded medical research, including time-sensitive clinical trials.

“The agreement finalized this week restored all National Institutes of Health grants to Brown researchers that had been terminated,” Brian Clark, a Brown spokesperson, wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed Thursday evening. “We started to see that formalized in award letters today and expect in the coming days and weeks to see this across all of these grants.”

In April, the administration blocked $510 million in federal grants and contracts for Brown. But under the terms of the agreement the government and university finalized Wednesday, Clark said, “Any payments should resume within 30 days,” which applies to both “the restoration of specific grants that had been terminated, and also to active (non-terminated) grants for which Brown had not been reimbursed.”

If you had a grant frozen because of the Trump administration’s investigations, we want to hear about your experience and whether you’ve received your funding. Email [email protected] to share more.

The Brown deal came about a week after Columbia agreed to pay the government $221 million in addition to changing its admissions policies, disciplinary processes and academic programs in order to restore about $400 million in federal funding the administration canceled in March.

According to Columbia’s website, “Funding and reimbursement payments have already begun to flow.”

“One week later, more than half of the terminated grants have been restored, and we expect the others to be reinstated promptly,” the website says. “Renewals and continuations that were frozen are also coming in on non-terminated grants.”

The university wrote that it’s “reviewing all grants that were terminated or suspended over the last months to identify those that were specifically directed at Columbia” and expects “the fair treatment of Columbia grants and ability to compete to be honored by all federal agencies.”

The university noted that the agreement only applies to HHS and NIH grants that the administration canceled as part of its targeted pressure campaign on Columbia.

Faculty who asked to remain anonymous told Inside Higher Ed that either the university or NIH has told them that some grants are being reinstated or renewed. But it was unclear to them whether actual dollars have resumed flowing, and how many.

Since Trump took office in January, numerous federal agencies, including the NIH, the National Science Foundation and Education Department, have terminated thousands of other research grants at institutions across the country that don’t align with their ideological priorities. In particular, many grants that focused on transgender health, vaccine hesitancy, climate change and racial disparities have been canceled.

Columbia researchers whose grants were terminated as part of that sweep should not expect to see their funding restored as part of this deal, the university wrote on its website.

“Some of these grants were terminated or suspended across the board for all institutions, and have nothing specific to do with Columbia,” the webpage said. “To the extent that the federal government has made the decision not to fund certain types of projects at any institution, those grants will not be coming back to Columbia.”

Columbia and Brown are just two of numerous Ivy League Institutions that the Trump administration has targeted by threatening federal funding.

The administration was also holding up $175 million at the University of Pennsylvania in retaliation for the university allowing a transgender athlete to compete on its swim team. Last month, the university reached a deal with the government, which has said it will restore the funding.

The administration is also blocking $2.2 billion at Harvard University, $202 million at Princeton University and $1 billion at Cornell University. However, those institutions have yet to reach agreements with the government that could result in restoration of their federal funding.

So far, the administration has frozen nearly $5.9 billion across eight universities, including Brown, Columbia and Penn. Most of the funding freezes started in March, but in the last week, the administration resumed blocking funds at institutions under investigation. First, it put about $108 million on hold at Duke University, and then officials suspended an unspecified number of grants at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Ryan Quinn contributed to this report.

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August 1, 2025
GMU President Keeps Job Amid Tensions

Embattled George Mason University president Gregory Washington remains on the job despite concerns that GMU’s Board of Visitors would fire him amid multiple federal investigations into alleged racial discrimination, antisemitism and other matters, which he has publicly pushed back on.

GMU’s Board of Visitors met Friday to review Washington’s performance and to consult with legal counsel on “actual or probable litigation,” according to the board agenda. While specific legal matters were not detailed in the agenda, GMU is facing investigations from both the U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Justice over alleged discrimination in hiring practices and antisemitism. The DOJ also launched a highly unusual investigation into GMU’s Faculty Senate after it approved a resolution in support of Washington’s leadership.

The Trump administration seized on remarks made by Washington following the 2020 murder of George Floyd. Washington, as noted in a letter from the DOJ to the university, expressed the need to hire diverse faculty members, promised to advance an antiracist agenda and threw his support behind GMU’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Washington denied engaging in what the Trump administration labeled “illegal DEI” efforts.

On Friday, he defended both GMU and his own performance, noting he arrived on campus in 2020 when tensions were high and racial strife was still simmering over Floyd’s murder. Adding to the pressure, students, faculty members and others demanded he tear down a statue of university founder George Mason, who was a slave owner.

“Despite the commentary that you might hear, this institution is doing extraordinarily well,” Washington told board members on Friday in the open session portion of the meeting, during which he touted GMU’s rise in various university rankings as well as an increase in state funding.

But many community members feared that Washington, GMU’s first Black president, would lose this job as a result of the investigations. They worried that the inquiries give the Board of Visitors—which is stocked with conservative political activists and former GOP officials—the pretext to remove him. Multiple speakers and attendees at a Friday rally held in support of Washington pointed to other campus leaders recently pushed out. That includes Jim Ryan at the University of Virginia, who resigned under pressure from the DOJ over DEI programs, and Cedric Wins, superintendent of Virginia Military Institute, whose contract was not renewed this spring amid alumni complaints about DEI. One rally organizer had referred to the Friday meeting as “high noon at the OK Corral.”

Instead, after roughly three hours in closed session, the board emerged with one action item: approval of a 1.5 percent raise for Washington, which members unanimously signed off on. Board members did not discuss their review of his performance conducted behind closed doors.

That means despite faculty concerns Washington will keep his job—at least for now.

Support for Washington

As faculty, students and local lawmakers gathered Friday, they had a clear message for the Board of Visitors: Support Washington and push back on federal investigations they deemed both illegitimate and a broadside against academic freedom at GMU. They also called on the board to protect DEI at GMU, which is Virginia’s most diverse university. However, the board defied that demand by passing a resolution Friday to end race-conscious hiring, scholarships, graduation ceremonies and other initiatives.

While Washington’s fate was unknown during the rally, speakers urged attendees to push on.

“We’ve got to keep fighting. No matter what happens today, this is still our university,” said Bethany Letiecq, chair of GMU’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors. Letiecq also referenced personal safety concerns, arguing, “Faculty are being harassed and threatened.” (She previously told Inside Higher Ed she has been subject to two death threats.)

Bethany Letiecq was one of several speakers to voice support for GMU president Gregory Washington at a Friday rally.

Former Board of Visitors member Bob Witeck, who served on the search committee that hired Washington in 2020, said he “could not believe our luck” in selecting the president from a pool of nearly 200 candidates and praised his “character, intellect and honesty.” Witeck also warned about threats to both academic freedom and the inclusive nature of GMU, stating, “Discrimination cannot find a home here, nor should political interference or baseless investigations.”

Another speaker was supportive of Washington while also critical.

Ellie Fox, a GMU student and president of its Jewish Voices for Peace chapter, was critical of Washington for allegedly repressing “pro-Palestinian speech in the name of Jewish safety.” Fox added that he was “reluctant to resist Trump and conservatives and their attack” on GMU but urged Washington to defy calls to resign from his position and work “toward a better future.”

Other rally speakers included Fairfax mayor Catherine Read and State Senator Saddam Salim, both GMU graduates and Democrats, who threw their support behind the university and Washington and expressed concerns about the investigations and other attacks on higher education.

Board-Faculty Tensions

Although the board did not make any public announcement about the items they discussed in closed session, beyond approving a raise for Washington, an exchange between one member and a GMU professor highlighted the tensions at play.

Robert Pence, a former ambassador to Finland appointed during President Donald Trump’s first term, took issue with a faculty member’s protest sign when he encountered her in a hallway outside the board’s meeting room during a break. Tehama Lopez, a professor in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, held a sign calling on the board to support Washington and uphold the First Amendment, academic freedom and due process.

“You’re suggesting that Bob Pence—Robert Pence—does not support the First Amendment,” he told Lopez before shifting his attention to her call for board members to support Washington.

Pence then asked Lopez, “If you got a lot of facts and you became convinced that he was engaged in conduct that is deleterious to the university, would you then fire [Washington]? If he meets the standard—whatever the standard is for discharge—would you be willing to fire him?”

Lopez responded, “Who is being deleterious to the university?” Pence fired back, “You won’t answer the question” and “I’m not playing that game” before walking away from the exchange to return to the meeting.

Board member Robert Pence clashed with a faculty member outside of Friday’s meeting.

In a brief interview following that conversation, Lopez said that she wanted to see the board uphold its fiduciary duties as GMU faces multiple investigations, which she called “politically motivated.” Given the stakes, she wants to make sure the Board of Visitors protects the university rather than enacting a political agenda pushed by the Trump administration.

But Lopez appeared uncertain of which path the board will take.

“Their job on the Board of Visitors is to do the work of protecting the school and the school’s interest, and it’s very unclear whose bidding they’re doing,” Lopez said.

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August 1, 2025
Higher Ed Lobbying Spending Rises

Facing a proposal by congressional Republicans to significantly raise the endowment tax and other major changes for the sector, colleges spent millions of dollars on lobbying efforts in the second quarter of 2025.

An Inside Higher Ed analysis of federal lobbying spending by members of the Association of American Universities and other select institutions showed a slight uptick in spending over the first quarter of 2025. AAU members alone spent about $9 million in the first quarter of 2025, which dramatically outpaced the same time frame in 2024.

That number rose even more in the second quarter: Federal data shows AAU members spent more than $9.7 million on lobbying—and that’s without the multiple institutions that failed to report their numbers by a July 21 deadline, making the total likely higher. Emory University spent the most among AAU members, totaling $500,000. Among non-AAU members, the University of Phoenix spent the most, at $480,000.

Here’s a look at how much universities spent on federal lobbying in the second quarter of 2025, and what issues they focused on between April 1 and June 30, as reported in required disclosures.

Lobbying Expenditures

Some institutions maintained spending levels similar to the first quarter, while others significantly increased lobbying expenditures. Emory, for example, spent $170,000 in the first quarter of 2025. But in the second quarter it increased that spending by $330,000 as lobbyists pressed Congress on cuts to federal research and public health funding, Senate disclosure reports show. Compared to data from prior years, this is the most Emory has spent on lobbying in one quarter.

(Emory did not respond to a request for comment.)

Emory was one of a few institutions that cracked the top 10 in terms of spending while also having the highest percentage increase in lobbying expenditures, at nearly 200 percent. Others that heavily ratcheted up lobbying efforts include Cornell University, which went from $230,000 to $444,000 over one quarter; the University of Washington, which jumped from $250,000 to $440,000; and Johns Hopkins University, which boosted lobbying from $170,00 to $380,000 between quarters.

Only the University of Washington provided a statement to Inside Higher Ed on lobbying expenses, with spokesperson Victor Balta writing, “In light of a changing federal policy environment, we want to make sure that we are well represented so that we can continue to serve the American people through our teaching and research. Additionally, some expenses from our associations in these areas have gone up or are charged in Q2 for the full year.”

All four institutions—along with many others—brought concerns about federal research funding to Congress, according to lobbying disclosure forms. Other key concerns for the sector included legislation that would likely limit international student enrollment and federal student aid.

Some institutions dialed back their lobbying expenditures in the second quarter.

Northwestern University spent the most on lobbying among single-institution AAU members in the first quarter of 2025 (excluding the University of California, which lobbies as a system)—$607,000. That declined to $306,000 for the second quarter, a figure that remains in the top 10 among AAU member institutions despite falling by nearly half.

Lobbying Wins and Losses

Higher education lobbyists seemed to score at least a few wins with their congressional efforts.

Liz Clark, vice president for policy and research at the National Association of College and University Business Officers, noted at NACUBO’s annual conference this week that recent federal legislation could have imposed far-reaching and costly changes for higher education.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as President Donald Trump deemed it, capped some student loan programs and eliminated the Grad PLUS program, limited repayment options, and mandated that programs pass an earnings test for attendees to be able to access federal student loans. The federal legislation also tweaked the endowment excise tax, among other changes for the sector.

But Clark noted that a leaked memo from January, well before the bill was passed in July, showed congressional Republicans considered changes that would have gone further, including imposing taxes on scholarships, dramatically increasing the endowment tax and cutting certain tax credits.

“In that memo, it was very clear that higher education was on the menu,” Clark said.

However, those changes never materialized as proposed. The Senate walked back House plans to significantly raise the endowment tax and extend it to far more institutions, opting for a softer blow, capping it at a maximum of 8 percent instead of the proposed 21 percent. Clark told NACUBO attendees that “what was not in the bill” was a win for the sector.

Thad Inge, vice president at the lobbying firm Van Scoyoc Associates, told NACUBO attendees Monday that the leaked memo was “a real wake-up call” that “activated a lot of advocacy.”

Inge argued that many of the proposals in the memo would have been harmful for the sector and that while higher education can absorb some hits, altogether it presented “an existential threat.” He credited individual institutions with making a personalized push to get through to Congress.

“It’s easy to demonize Harvard and Yale and Columbia and say higher education is woke,” Inge said. “But when folks hear from schools in their state, schools in their district, they don’t paint with such a broad brush. I think those cultural battles will continue, but the more we as advocates bring it back home—not that we’re not fighting on behalf of all of higher education—but I think making it more personal to the state and the district makes it easier to win those battles.”

Sector lobbyists weren’t quite as successful in other areas.

Multiple universities have lobbied to maintain research funding as the Trump administration yanked federal grants and contracts, often with little to no warning or explanation. So far, the federal government has been impervious to their efforts. Similarly, many institutions advocated for the continuance of the Grad PLUS program, which was axed by Congress in July.

Some colleges also encouraged Congress to push back on policies that could harm international enrollment and cause visa processing delays or denials—such as vetting social media posts for criticism of the U.S. government and culture—which the State Department continues to do.

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August 1, 2025
UL Lafayette President Retires Suddenly

University of Louisiana at Lafayette president Joseph Savoie is retiring suddenly after 17 years in the top job at the public research institution, The Louisiana Illuminator reported.

His retirement, announced Wednesday, is effective today.

Savoie, who earned both undergraduate and graduate degrees from UL Lafayette, served in multiple administrative roles at the university from 1978 to 1996, when he stepped down to serve as Louisiana’s commissioner of higher education. Savoie returned as president in 2008.

Altogether, Savoie spent more than 35 years at UL Lafayette.

“I reached the decision to transition to this new position after months of careful consideration,” Savoie said in a university news release about his retirement. “Higher education has changed immensely in the past two decades. The expectations on colleges and universities are as great as they have ever been and meeting those responsibilities to our community today—and to generations that follow—requires new ideas and fresh approaches. I owe it to this institution that has given me so much, personally and professionally, to make way for the future.”

Savoie will become emeritus president and ULL provost Jaimie Hebert will serve as interim leader while the University of Louisiana system Board of Supervisors seeks a permanent hire.

While Savoie is credited with various accomplishments, including overseeing Lafayette’s rise to R-1 status in the Carnegie Classifications of Institutions, the university has also faced criticism from board members and state officials over inadequate financial controls in two consecutive audits.

Savoie is the second public university leader in Louisiana to step down abruptly in recent weeks. Southern University New Orleans chancellor James Ammons announced that he was departing last month and has already been replaced by Democratic lawmaker Joe Bouie, who held the job from 2000 to 2002 before he was fired over what he said was a political matter.

Elsewhere in the state, Louisiana State University president William F. Tate IV also stepped down in June after he was hired to lead Rutgers University.

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August 1, 2025
Universities Meet Just a Fraction of Demand for AI Training

Interest in artificial intelligence training is soaring, but only a fraction of the demand is being met by higher education, according to a new report.

Nearly 57 million people in the U.S. are interested in learning AI-based skills—with about 8.7 million currently learning, the higher education marketing and research firm Validated Insights estimates.

Two-thirds of them are doing so independently through videos, online reading and other learning resources, and a third are doing so via a structured and supervised learning program. However, just 7,000 (0.2 percent) are learning AI via a credit-bearing program from a higher education institution.

This is despite enrollment in AI courses growing quickly in recent years. According to the report, the first bachelor’s degree in the subject was launched by Carnegie Mellon University in 2018.

Over the next five years, enrollment in AI programs at colleges and universities grew 45 percent annually. The report found that approximately 1 percent of institutions now offer a master’s degree in AI, 2.5 percent a bachelor’s degree and 3 to 5 percent offer a nondegree program.

SUNY’s University at Buffalo saw enrollment in its master’s degree in AI grow over 20 times from 2020 to 2024, from five to 103 students.

“Based on the data, there was sizable existing interest and demand for professional and workplace education and training in AI and AI-related areas, but we probably haven’t seen anything yet,” said Brady Colby, head of market research at Validated Insights.

“According to survey data and hiring trends, this market, the AI education and training market, is positioned for incredible, maybe explosive, growth.”

Validated Insights said ed-tech companies have seized the opportunity and are serving more than 99 percent of those looking to upskill in AI. Just 14 months after the launch of ChatGPT, enrollment in generative AI courses on platforms like Coursera and Udemy had grown to 3.5 million.

“Given the expected very high demand for learning AI, that so few existing learners are in credit programs is an important thing to know,” said Colby.

“It’s not necessarily a warning for colleges and universities as it may be a blast of opportunity. If for-credit, degree-granting institutions can sync their programs and reach this massive pool of interested students, the rewards could be excessive—for the students and schools alike.”

Estimates published by Statista suggest that the aggregate market for AI in the U.S. in 2025 is worth $74 billion.

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August 1, 2025
Faculty Are Latest Targets of Higher Ed’s AI-ification

LLM-enabled assignments will allow faculty to evaluate student interactions with a custom chat bot, Instructure says.

Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Dougall_Photography and gazanfer/iStock/Getty Images

Last week, Instructure, which owns the widely used learning management system Canvas, announced a partnership with OpenAI to integrate into the platform native AI tools and agents, including those that help with grading, scheduling, generating rubrics and summarizing discussion posts.

The two companies, which have not disclosed the value of the deal, are also working together to embed large language models into Canvas through a feature called IgniteAI. It will work with an institution’s existing enterprise subscription to LLMs such as Anthropic’s Claude or OpenAI’s ChatGPT, allowing instructors to create custom LLM-enabled assignments. They’ll be able to tell the model how to interact with students—and even evaluate those interactions—and what it should look for to assess student learning. According to Instructure, any student information submitted through Canvas will remain private and won’t be shared with OpenAI.

Steve Daly, CEO of Instructure, touted Canvas’s AI push as “a significant step forward for the education community as we continuously amplify the learning experience and improve student outcomes.” But many faculty aren’t convinced that integrating AI into every facet of teaching and learning is the answer to improving the function and value of higher education.

“Our first job is to help faculty understand how students are using AI and how it’s changing the nature of thinking and work. The tools will be secondary,” said José Antonio Bowen, senior fellow at the American Association of Colleges and Universities and co-author of the book Teaching With AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning. “The LMS might make it easier, but giving people a couple of extra buttons isn’t going to substitute for training faculty to build AI into their assignments in the right way—where students use AI but are still learning.”

The AI-ification of Canvas is just one of the latest examples of the technology’s infiltration of higher education amid predictions that the technology will reshape and shrink the job market for new college graduates.

Earlier this year, the California State University system announced a partnership with a slate of tech companies—including Microsoft, OpenAI and Google—to give all students and faculty access to AI-powered tools, in part to equip students with the AI skills employers say they want. In April, Anthropic unveiled Claude for Education, which it designed specifically for college students. One day later, OpenAI gave college students free access to ChatGPT Plus through finals. Soon after, Ohio State University launched an initiative aimed at making every graduate AI “fluent” by 2029. And this week, OpenAI released Study Mode, a version of ChatGPT designed for college students that acts as a tutor rather than an answer generator.

Faculty Unsurprised, Skeptical

Few faculty were surprised by the Canvas-OpenAI partnership announcement, though many are reserving judgment until they see how the first year of using it works in practice.

“It was only a matter of time before something like this happened with one of the major learning management systems,” said Derek Bruff, associate director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Virginia. “Some of the use cases they’ve talked about make sense to me and others make less sense.”

Having Canvas provide a summary of students’ discussion posts could be a helpful time saver, especially for a larger class, though it doesn’t seem like “a game-changer,” he said. But he’s less sure that using the chat bot to evaluate student interactions, as Instructure suggests, could provide faculty with useful learning metrics.

“If students know that their interactions with the chat bot are going to be evaluated by the chat bot and then perhaps scored and graded by the instructor, now you’re in a testing environment and student behavior is going to change,” Bruff said. “You’re not going to get the same kind of insight into student questions or perspective, because they’re going to self-censor.”

Faculty, including the thousands who work for the more than 40 percent of higher ed institutions across North America that use Canvas, will have the option to use some or all of these new tools, which Instructure says it won’t charge extra for.

Those who choose to use it run the risk of “digital reification,” or “locking faculty and students into particular tools and systems that may not be the best fit for their educational goals,” Kathryn Conrad, an English professor at the University of Kansas who researches culture and technology, said in an email. “What works best for student learning is challenge, care and attention from human teachers. Drivers from outside of education are pushing yet another technological solution. We need investment in people.”

But as higher education budgets keep shrinking, faculty workloads are growing—and so is the temptation to use AI to help alleviate it.

“I worry about the people who are living out of their car, teaching at three institutions, trying to make ends meet. Why wouldn’t they take advantage of a system like Canvas to help with their grading?” said Lew Ludwig, a math professor and former director of the Center for Learning and Teaching at Denison University. “All of a sudden AI is going to be grading the work if we’re not careful.”

But that realization could push students to rely more and more on generative AI to complete their coursework without fully grasping the material—and give cash-strapped administrators another justification to increase faculty workloads. Such scenarios run the risk of further devaluing a higher education system that’s already facing scrutiny from lawmakers and consumers.

“Students are starting to graduate into a new economy, where just having a piece of paper hanging on their wall isn’t going to mean as much anymore, especially if they leaned heavily on AI to achieve that piece of paper,” Ludwig said. “We have to make sure our assignments are impactful and meaningful and that our students understand why in some instances we may not want them to use AI.”

Despite Instructure’s claims that this new version of Canvas will enhance the learning process in the age of AI, a recent survey by the American Association of University Professors shows that most faculty don’t believe AI tools are making their jobs easier; 69 percent said it hurts student success.

Britt Paris, co-author of the report and associate professor of library and information science at Rutgers University, said she doesn’t expect that to change with the introduction of an AI-powered LMS.

“In the history of educational technology there has never been an instance of large-scale … data-intensive corporate learning infrastructure that has met the needs of learners,” she said. “This is because people are nuanced in how they learn. The goal with these technologies is to make money, not [to] support people’s unique learning, teaching and working styles.”

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August 1, 2025