Tag: Funding

A virtual reality, AI-boosted system helps students with autism improve social skills

Key points:

This article and the accompanying image originally appeared on the KU News site and are reposted here with permission.

For more than a decade, University of Kansas researchers have been developing a virtual reality system to help students with disabilities, especially those with autism spectrum disorder, to learn, practice and improve social skills they need in a typical school day. Now, the KU research team has secured funding to add artificial intelligence components to the system to give those students an extended reality, or XR, experience to sharpen social interactions in a more natural setting.

The U.S. Office of Special Education Programs has awarded a five-year, $2.5 million grant to researchers within KU’s School of Education & Human Sciences to develop Increasing Knowledge and Natural Opportunities With Social Emotional Competence, or iKNOW. The system will build on previous work and provide students and teachers with an immersive, authentic experience blending extended reality and real-world elements of artificial intelligence.

iKNOW will expand the capabilities of VOISS, Virtual reality Opportunity to Integrate Social Skills, a KU-developed VR system that has proven successful and statistically valid in helping students with disabilities improve social skills. That system contains 140 unique learning scenarios meant to teach knowledge and understanding of 183 social skills in virtual school environments such as a classroom, hallway, cafeteria or bus that students and teachers can use via multiple platforms such as iPad, Chromebooks or Oculus VR headsets. The system also helps students use social skills such as receptive or expressive communication across multiple environments, not simply in the isolation of a classroom.

IKNOW will combine the VR aspects of VOISS with AI features such as large language models to enhance the systems’ capabilities and allow more natural interactions than listening to prerecorded narratives and responding by pushing buttons. The new system will allow user-initiated speaking responses that can accurately transcribe spoken language in real-time. AI technology of iKNOW will also be able to generate appropriate video responses to avatars students interact with, audio analysis of user responses, integration of in-time images and graphics with instruction to boost students’ contextual understanding.

“Avatars in iKNOW can have certain reactions and behaviors based on what we want them to do. They can model the practices we want students to see,” said Amber Rowland, assistant research professor in the Center for Research on Learning, part of KU’s Life Span Institute and one of the grant’s co principal investigators. “The system will harness AI to make sure students have more natural interactions and put them in the role of the ‘human in the loop’ by allowing them to speak, and it will respond like a normal conversation.”

The spoken responses will not only be more natural and relatable to everyday situations, but the contextual understanding cues will help students better know why a certain response is preferred. Rowland said when students were presented with multiple choices in previous versions, they often would know which answer was correct but indicated that’s not how they would have responded in real life.

IKNOW will also provide a real-time student progress monitoring system, telling them, educators and families how long students spoke, how frequently they spoke, number of keywords used, where students may have struggled in the system and other data to help enhance understanding.

All avatar voices that iKNOW users encounter are provided by real middle school students, educators and administrators. This helps enhance the natural environment of the system without the shortcomings of students practicing social skills with classmates in supervised sessions. For example, users do not have to worry what the people they are practicing with are thinking about them while they are learning. They can practice the social skills that they need until they are comfortable moving from the XR environment to real life.

“It will leverage our ability to take something off of teachers’ plates and provide tools for students to learn these skills in multiple environments. Right now, the closest we can come to that is training peers. But that puts students with disabilities in a different box by saying, ‘You don’t know how to do this,’” said Maggie Mosher, assistant research professor in KU’s Achievement & Assessment Institute, a co-principal investigator for the grant.

Mosher, a KU graduate who completed her doctoral dissertation comparing VOISS to other social skills interventions, found the system was statistically significant and valid in improving social skills and knowledge across multiple domains. Her study, which also found the system to be acceptable, appropriate and feasible, was published in high-impact journals Computers & Education and Issues and Trends in Learning Technologies.

The grant supporting iKNOW is one of four OSEP Innovation and Development grants intended to spur innovation in educational technology. The research team, including principal investigator Sean Smith, professor of special education; Amber Rowland, associate research professor in the Center for Research on Learning and the Achievement & Assessment Institute; Maggie Mosher, assistant research professor in AAI; and Bruce Frey, professor in educational psychology, will present their work on the project at the annual I/ITSEC conference, the world’s largest modeling, simulation and training event. It is sponsored by the National Training & Simulation Association, which promotes international and interdisciplinary cooperation within the fields of modeling and simulation, training, education and analysis and is affiliated with the National Defense Industrial Association.

The research team has implemented VOISS, available on the Apple Store and Google Play, at schools across the country. Anyone interested in learning more can find information, demonstrations and videos at the iKNOW site and can contact developers to use the system at the site’s “work with us” page.

IKNOW will add resources for teachers and families who want to implement the system at a website called iKNOW TOOLS (Teaching Occasions and Opportunities for Learning Supports) to support generalization of social skills across real-world settings.

“By combining our research-based social emotional virtual reality work (VOISS) with the increasing power and flexibility of AI, iKNOW will further personalize the learning experience for individuals with disabilities along with the struggling classmates,” Smith said. “Our hope and expectation is that iKNOW will further engage students to develop the essential social emotional skills to then apply in the real world to improve their overall learning outcomes.”

Mike Krings,KU News Service

Mike Krings is a Public Affairs Officer with the KU News Service at the University of Kansas.

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February 14, 2025
Education nominee McMahon says she supports calls to dismantle the agency but that funding wouldn’t be affected

Linda McMahon said she stands firmly behind President Donald Trump’s calls to gut the U.S. Department of Education at her confirmation hearing to lead the department.

But she promised to work with Congress to do so — acknowledging some limits on the president’s authority as Trump seeks to remake the government through executive orders. And she tried to reassure teachers and parents that any changes would not jeopardize billions in federal funding that flows to high-poverty schools, special education services, and low-income college students.

“We’d like to do this right,” McMahon said. “It is not the president’s goal to defund the programs, it is only to have it operate more efficiently.”

Trump has called the Education Department a “con job” and said that McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive and billionaire Republican donor, should work to put herself out of a job. McMahon called this rhetoric “fervor” for change.

The Trump administration’s chaotic approach to spending cuts so far raise questions about whether McMahon’s statements — an effort to neutralize the most significant criticism of plans to get rid of the Education Department — will prove true over time.

Thursday’s hearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, punctuated by occasional protests, served as a referendum of sorts on the value of the Education Department. Republicans said it had saddled schools with red tape without improving student outcomes. Democrats said the department protects students’ civil rights and funds essential services.

Democrats also pressed McMahon on Trump’s threats to withhold federal funding from schools that violate his executive orders and on the details of a potential reorganization — questions that McMahon largely deflected as ones she could better answer after she takes office.

“It’s almost like we’re being subjected to a very elegant gaslighting here,” said Sen. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat from New Hampshire.

Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.

Even as Trump has called for the Education Department to be eliminated and schooling to be “returned to the states,” he’s also sought to expand its mission with executive orders threatening the funding of schools that employ diversity, equity, and inclusion practices or teach that racism and discrimination were part of America’s founding. The federal government is barred by law from setting local curriculum, as Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska pointed out during the hearing.

In a tense exchange, Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut who’s championed school desegregation and diversity efforts in education, asked McMahon how schools would know if they were running a program that violates Trump’s executive order seeking to root out “radical indoctrination” in K-12 schools. Many schools have no idea what’s allowed, Murphy said, because the order doesn’t clearly define what’s prohibited.

McMahon said in her view, celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Black History Month should be permitted, after Murphy noted that U.S. Department of Defense schools would no longer celebrate Black History Month in response to Trump’s order.

But McMahon would not say that running affinity groups for students from certain racial or ethnic backgrounds, such as a Black engineers club or an after-school club for Vietnamese American students, was permitted. She also would not say whether schools might put their federal funding at risk by teaching an African American history class or other ethnic studies program.

“That’s pretty chilling,” Murphy said. “You’re going to have a lot of educators and a lot of principals and administrators scrambling right now.”

Later in the confirmation hearing, McMahon agreed schools should teach “the good, the bad, and the ugly” parts of U.S. history, and that it’s up to states, not the Department of Education, to establish curriculum.

McMahon’s record on DEI has sometimes been at odds with the Trump administration. She backed diversity issues when she served on the Connecticut State Board of Education, the Washington Post reported.

During her hearing, McMahon said DEI programs are “tough,” because while they’re put in place to promote diversity and inclusion, they can have the opposite effect. She pointed to examples of Black and Hispanic students attending separate graduation ceremonies — though those are typically held to celebrate the achievements of students of color, not to isolate them.

Related: What might happen if the Education Department were closed?

McMahon told the committee that many Americans are experiencing an educational system in decline — she pointed to sobering national test scores, crime on college campuses, and high youth suicide rates — and said it was time for a renewed focus on teaching reading, math, and “true history.”

“In many cases, our wounds are caused by the excessive consolidation of power in our federal education establishment,” she said. “So what’s the remedy? Fund education freedom, not government-run systems. Listen to parents, not politicians. Build up careers, not college debt. Empower states, not special interests. Invest in teachers, not Washington bureaucrats.”

Republican Senators reiterated these themes, arguing that bureaucrats in Washington had had their chance and that it was time for a new approach.

They asked McMahon about Trump administration priorities such as expanding school choice, including private school vouchers, and interpreting Title IX to bar transgender students from restrooms and sports teams aligned with their gender identities.

McMahon said she was “happy” to see the Biden administration’s rules on Title IX vacated, and she supported withholding federal funds from colleges that did not comply with the Trump administration’s interpretation of the law.

Related: Trump wants to shake up education. What that could mean for a charter school started by a GOP senator’s wife

Teachers unions and other critics of McMahon have said she lacks the proper experience to lead the Education Department, though McMahon and others have pointed to her time serving on the Connecticut State Board of Education, as a trustee of Sacred Heart University, and her role as chair of the America First Policy Institute, where she advocated for private school choice, apprenticeships, and career education.

McMahon also ran the Small Business Administration in Trump’s first administration. Her understanding of the federal bureaucracy is an asset, supporters say.

Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina, said McMahon’s background made her uniquely suited to tackle the pressing challenges facing the American education system today.

Related: What education could look like under Trump and Vance

McMahon said multiple times that parents of children with disabilities should not worry about federal funding being cut for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, though she said it was possible that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services would administer the money instead of the Education Department.

But it appeared that McMahon had limited knowledge of the rights outlined in IDEA, the landmark civil rights law that protects students with disabilities. And she said it was possible that civil rights enforcement — a large portion of which is related to complaints about children with disabilities not getting the services to which they’re entitled — would move to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Dismantling the education department by moving key functions to other departments is a tenet of Project 2025, the playbook the conservative Heritage Foundation developed for a second Trump administration. Most of these functions are mandated in federal law, and moving them would require congressional approval.

McMahon struggled to articulate the goals of IDEA beyond saying students would be taken care of and get the assistance and technology they need.

“There is a reason that the Department of Education and IDEA exist, and it is because educating kids with disabilities can be really hard and it takes the national commitment to get it done,” Hassan, the New Hampshire senator, said. “That’s why so many people are so concerned about this proposal to eliminate the department. Because they think kids will once again be shoved aside, and especially kids with disabilities.”

McMahon also could not name any requirements of the Every Student Succeeds Act, the federal law that replaced No Child Left Behind. ESSA requires states to identify low-performing schools and intervene to improve student learning, but it gives states more flexibility in how they do so than the previous law.

McMahon seemed open to reversing some of the cuts enacted by the U.S. DOGE Service, the cost-cutting initiative led by billionaire Elon Musk.

She said, if confirmed, she would look into whether staff who’d been placed on administrative leave — including some who investigate civil rights complaints — should return. She also said she’d assess the programs that were cut when DOGE terminated 89 contracts at the Institute of Education Sciences and 29 training grants.

Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, said her office had heard from a former teacher who developed an intensive tutoring strategy that was used in a dozen schools in the state. The teacher had a pending grant application to evaluate the program and its effect on student outcomes, and the teacher worried it would be in jeopardy. Collins asked if the department should keep collecting that kind of data so it could help states determine what’s working for kids.

“I’m not sure yet what the impact of all of those programs are,” McMahon said. “There are many worthwhile programs that we should keep, but I’m not yet apprised of them.”

The Senate education committee is scheduled to vote on McMahon’s confirmation on Feb. 20.

This story was produced by Chalkbeat and reprinted with permission.

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February 13, 2025
‘Self-inflicted wound’: Widespread alarm as Trump administration slashes NIH funding
UPDATE: Feb. 11, 2025: A federal judge late Monday barred the National Institutes of Health from enforcing massive cuts to grant funding for researchers’ indirect costs, a move widely decried by universities and other research institutions.

U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley issued restraining orders in two separate cases filed earlier Monday against NIH, including one by 22 state attorneys general and another by the Association of American Medical Colleges and other groups. A third lawsuit — brought by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, the American Council on Education and the Association of American Universities — was also filed late Monday.

Regarding the AAMC case, Kelley wrote that plaintiffs would “sustain immediate and irreparable injury” without a restraining order against the NIH funding cap. Along with restraining orders, Kelley required NIH to provide biweekly status reports confirming regular disbursements.

Dive Brief:
- A coalition of 22 attorneys general filed a lawsuit in federal court on Monday seeking to block the National Institutes of Health’s newly announced research funding cuts.
- NIH announced Friday it would cut roughly $4 billion a year worth of funding for indirect research costs such as administration and facilities — by capping reimbursement for these expenses at 15% for current and new grants.
- Research institutions have previously negotiated individual indirect cost rates, with an average of 27% to 28%, NIH said. Organizations, universities and researchers quickly raised alarms about the cuts, warning they could hurt important medical research and the economy.
Dive Insight:

NIH framed its unilateral decision to cut indirect costs as bringing them in line with practices at nonprofits such as the Gates Foundation, which caps indirect costs at 10% for higher education institutions, and the Rockefeller Foundation, which sets a 15% ceiling for colleges and universities.

In a Friday memo outlining the new policy, the agency said the new cap would “allow grant recipients a reasonable and realistic recovery of indirect costs while helping NIH ensure that grant funds are, to the maximum extent possible, spent on furthering its mission.”

The same day, the agency flagged on the social media platform X the “old” indirect cost rates negotiated by Harvard University, Yale University and Johns Hopkins University — which are all between 63.7% and 69% — as well as those institutions’ endowments ranging from $13 billion to $53 billion.

NIH noted that of the $35 billion it spent on grants in fiscal 2023 to universities, medical schools and other research institutions, about $26 billion went to direct research and $9 billion went to overhead in the form of indirect costs.

Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, described NIH’s move as an illegal violation of an appropriations bill that prohibits modifications to NIH’s indirect cost funding. Murray also said that the move will shift costs onto states rather than reducing them.

In their lawsuit, the attorneys general argued, “Without relief from NIH’s action, these institutions’ cutting-edge work to cure and treat human disease will grind to a halt.”

They pointed to the legislation flagged by Murray that protected indirect reimbursements: During President Donald Trump’s first term, his administration in 2017 included a 10% cap in its budget proposal, but Congress responded the next year with an appropriations provision prohibiting NIH from modifying reimbursement rates, the lawsuit said.

Filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, the 59-page lawsuit — brought overwhelmingly by Democrat-led states — seeks both preliminary and permanent injunctions blocking NIH from enforcing the rate cap.

Many in the higher education sector reacted with dismay over NIH’s move.

The decision “sabotages the decades-long partnership that has ensured U.S. global leadership in life-saving medical research,” American Council on Education President Ted Mitchell said in a statement on Friday.

“This decision is short-sighted, naive, and dangerous,” Mitchell added. “It is a self-inflicted wound that, if not reversed, will have dire consequences on U.S. jobs, global competitiveness, and the future growth of a skilled workforce.”

Mark Becker, president of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, described NIH’s policy change as a “direct and massive cut to lifesaving medical research.”

“NIH slashing the reimbursement of research costs will slow and limit medical breakthroughs that cure cancer and address chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease,” Becker said in a statement. APLU noted that funded indirect costs include patient safety, research security and hazardous waste disposal.

Jeremy Day, director of the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Comprehensive Neuroscience Center, said on social media that NIH’s cut would “cripple research infrastructure at hundreds of US institutions, and threatens to end our global superiority in scientific research.”

Meanwhile, institutions are grappling with what it means for their research programs going forward. The University of Michigan, for instance, said in a statement that NIH’s indirect cost funding supports development and maintenance of its laboratories as well as information technology and administrative support for regulatory compliance.

“This change would result in a significant decrease in the amount that U-M receives from the federal government to conduct vital research,” the university said.

Others echoed the warning. In a statement, the University of Wisconsin-Madison said NIH’s directive would “significantly disrupt vital research activity and delay lifesaving discoveries and cures.”

“Indirect costs contribute to everything from utilities charges to building out the laboratories where science is done, to infrastructure for clinical trials of new medicines and treatments,” the university said.
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February 10, 2025
A blanket removal of funding for level 7 apprenticeships will damage government plans to boost infrastructure

Level 7 apprenticeship growth has been one of the higher education success stories of recent years.

Our technical education system is weak by international standards, yet high level technical skills will be vital to the urban planning and infrastructure improvement ambitions of our current government, while at the same time boosting social mobility by allowing those who can’t afford to study on a traditional course at university the opportunity to gain a postgraduate qualification.

It therefore would appear counterintuitive that the government has been hinting that many if not all level 7 apprenticeships could have their eligibility for levy funding removed, couched in language of prioritising spending on growing lower level and new “foundation” apprenticeships.

This proposed redistribution fails to acknowledge that progression benefits apprentices at all levels, as those moving into senior roles create new vacancies or advancement opportunities via the positions they vacate.

Build baby build?

Nowhere is this clearer than in the built environment sector. The UK’s housing crisis is the pivotal issue that this government has promised to tackle. Their promise to build 1.5 million new homes by 2030 is ambitious – it has been labelled unachievable by the CEO of the UK’s largest housebuilding company because of skills shortages, and most councils are reporting that it won’t be possible to achieve.

If such a goal is to be accomplished, it will demand highly skilled professionals to streamline planning processes, deliver housing projects, and support regional infrastructure development.

At my institution, London South Bank University (LSBU), 70 per cent of our level 7 apprentices are on the chartered town planner standard. On a day-to-day basis they address planning bottlenecks and ensure that housing and infrastructure projects meet the various regulatory and environmental standards. Only last month the first level 7 chartered town planner apprentices in England graduated successfully from LSBU having joined their employer with no prior experience in the planning sector aged 18 after completing school.

Over half of the employers we work with at LSBU on level 7 apprenticeships are local authorities. Our apprentices enable councils to deliver projects in the wake of increased demand and reintroduced mandatory housing targets. The suggestion that, as employers, local authorities should step in and pay for the level 7 apprenticeships themselves is fanciful. The legacy of austerity has left one in four councils expecting to apply for an emergency government bailout in the next two years. If the Treasury decides to remove levy funding, employers will not be able to fill the gap.

If the UK hopes to comply with the Future Homes Standard and the National Retrofit Strategy V2, more highly trained architects are required. The profession is in high demand but short supply – it had been on the Shortage Occupation List until the previous government abolished the list last April.

Level 7 architect apprentices, of which LSBU currently train 78, design energy-efficient buildings and support urban regeneration. They contribute to both public housing schemes and private sector developments by driving innovation in sustainable construction and are already supporting the government’s ambition to retrofit five million homes by 2029.

Growth ambitions

In addition to their clear role in developing infrastructure, level 7 apprenticeships are vital for social mobility. They open doors for individuals from underrepresented groups, in part because apprentices earn whilst they learn and aren’t put off by the prospect of incurring student debt. A true leveller of the playing field, they provide excellent career progression opportunities and higher earnings potential. A greater proportion of our level 7 apprentices are from black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds (55 per cent) and are female (52 per cent) than those studying apprenticeships at lower levels.

Most of our level 7 apprentices are under the age of 25, so the characterisation that they are simply the reserve of older learners is unfounded. For example, at LSBU, we provide tailored pathways for young learners to embark on higher level apprenticeships in regionally relevant sectors from level 2 to level 7 through our unique group model which includes London South Bank Sixth Form (a new technically focused sixth form academy concept) and London South Bank Technical College (the first technical college for a generation).

Level 7 apprenticeships are central to this government’s ambitions around growth, sustainability, and equality of opportunity. Despite recent increases in uptake, they have actually accounted for a slightly smaller proportion of the total apprenticeship budget over the last couple of years.

Every standard addresses unique challenges and supports sector-specific needs. A blanket removal of funding from level 7 apprenticeships will risk planning reforms and housing developments. At the very least, apprenticeships in the ten sectors prioritised by Skills England as growth-driving need to be protected from Treasury cuts.

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February 10, 2025
VICTORY: University of Wyoming administrators reject student government’s proposal to slash media funding

Administrators at the University of Wyoming have agreed to cut student media funding by only 8.5%, repudiating a censorial student government proposal to punish student media by cutting the funding by 75% because students “don’t like” student newspaper the Branding Iron’s editorial choices. The change came after FIRE wrote to the university, explaining that the proposed funding cut was based on the content of the student newspaper, flagrantly violating the First Amendment.

On Nov. 19, the Associated Students of the University of Wyoming passed a resolution recommending a drastic 75% cut to the fee that funds student media, including the student newspaper Branding Iron. The resolution, drafted by the Tuition Allocation and Student Fee Review Committee, cited staffing challenges, the quantity of advertising, and supposed “errors” in content as reasons for the cut. During the debate, several senators made their true motivations plain, tying their votes to personal distaste for the Branding Iron’s editorial choices, writing quality, and student opinions.

When they distribute student fee funding, student government members exercise state power. The First Amendment bars the government, and the students to whom it delegates its power, from taking away resources based on the content of a media outlet’s expression. For good reason.

Student media often have to write critical stories about their peers, administrators, and student government officials. So it goes when serving as a check on power, but that work would be nigh impossible without the First Amendment’s guarantee that citizens cannot be retaliated against for what they say. Cutting funding based on content impairs student journalists’ ability to confidently report on the world around them, and FIRE has beat back similar efforts across the country.

Student media is the microphone that makes sure all these voices are heard. And FIRE is here to make sure that mic is never cut off.

Though several student senators argued they had no “vendetta” against the student paper, their reliance upon opinions about the content of student media was enough to render their decision content-based. And any content-based restriction, however innocuous the stated motivation, must be regarded with a jaundiced eye lest those in power go unchecked.

Thanks to FIRE’s efforts, student journalists at UW are back to covering events in their community and beyond.

Having such dedicated staff on the local beat is especially important in places like Wyoming, where there are fewer outlets to cover local issues.

“When we look at the University of Wyoming, and we consider that it is the only four year university in our entire state, our student media’s impact is so much more important,” said Branding Iron editor-in-chief Ven Meester. “We are a college campus in one of the reddest states in the nation. From student organizations, to speakers, to community events, we have an exceptional amount of political diversity.”

Student media is the microphone that makes sure all these voices are heard. And FIRE is here to make sure that mic is never cut off.

FIRE defends the rights of students and faculty members — no matter their views — at public and private universities and colleges in the United States. If you are a student or a faculty member facing investigation or punishment for your speech, submit your case to FIRE today. If you’re a faculty member at a public college or university, call the Faculty Legal Defense Fund 24-hour hotline at 254-500-FLDF (3533). If you’re a college journalist facing censorship or a media law question, call the Student Press Freedom Initiative 24-hour hotline at 717-734-SPFI (7734).

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February 5, 2025
How removing funding disparities for ‘disruptor institutions’ could help fulfil the ambition of the Lifelong Learning Entitlement
- Professor Harriet Dunbar-Morris is Pro Vice-Chancellor Academic and Provost at The University of Buckingham.
Whilst we are still waiting for the government to decide on the operationalisation of the future direction of the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE), it is easy to agree that providing all new learners with a tuition fee loan entitlement to the equivalent of four years of post-18 education to use up to the age of 60 is a good thing in principle.

In recent articles, Professor Deborah Johnston and Rose Stephenson have both presented useful positions and summaries on the status quo. For the University of Buckingham, the merits of the LLE are clear, but it is the relationship between the LLE and courses of different lengths that is central to our concern.

At Buckingham, we take pride in our unique approach to education. As a disruptor institution and the only private university in the UK with a Royal Charter, we emphasise our small and independent nature. Our distinctive positioning has enabled us to create a unique learning environment. We have successfully developed ‘accelerated degrees’, including our flagship degree models: the two-year undergraduate degree and the four-and-a-half-year undergraduate medical degree.

Where other institutions have a long summer holiday, at Buckingham we have a fourth term – the same amount of classroom time over a whole degree as in other universities, but a term in the summer which means that students can enter the labour market a year earlier and incur a year’s less accommodation and living expenses as well.

Alternatively, in three years, our students at Buckingham can undertake two qualifications: a foundation plus an undergraduate or an undergraduate plus a postgraduate degree. The year’s shape also more closely resembles the world of work and therefore ably prepares students more authentically for their future careers. We know this approach is working, and adds value. We are in the Top 10 for Graduate Prospects (outcomes) and:
- 92% of our graduates agree their current activity is meaningful (sector 85%).
- 88% of our graduates feel their current activity fits with their future plans (sector 78%).
- 83% of our graduates say they are using what they learn while studying (sector 69%).
- 97% of our graduates are in work or study (sector 89%).
- 72% of our graduates are in full-time employment (sector 61%).
Buckingham has been a beacon for accelerated degrees to help students achieve their degrees in a shorter period and get out into the workplace or onto further study sooner. We can also see this model allowing students to interrupt their studies and take their degrees in shorter chunks (each of our terms, for example), which would be possible with the LLE framework once it is implemented. However, there is a fundamental unfairness facing Buckingham and others that needs to be addressed.

To understand this issue, we must first delve into the technical world of registering with the Office for Students (OfS), the regulator for higher education in England. Providers of higher education can (although not at the moment as new registrations are paused) register with the OfS under two categories:

1) Approved (fee cap)
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February 5, 2025
Trump’s federal funding freeze concerns colleges

President Trump’s plan to temporarily freeze federal grants and loans set off a wave of confusion and concerns across higher ed Tuesday. But just minutes before it was set to take effect, a federal judge blocked the order.

It is now on hold until next Monday, at least.

College leaders worried they would lose access to a wide variety of federal funds, though the specific programs affected by the pause remained in flux throughout the day. Education Department officials said Pell Grants, student loans and Federal Work-Study would not be subject to the pause. But critical STEM research and student success initiatives were among the thousands of programs whose funding would have been paused until at least Feb. 10, according to the original White House directive released late Monday night.

University lobbyists and administrators predicted earlier Tuesday that the president’s unprecedented action would be blocked in the courts, but they warned of significant consequences as they worked to gather more information about the order. Comparable to a government shutdown, they said, the impact of a freeze, if it ever comes to pass, would largely depend on how long it lasts.

“Obviously it’s of great concern,” said Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity Washington University in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday morning. “Most of us are finding the memo to be so broad and so incomprehensible that we don’t even quite know what the long-term impact is … But it makes no sense. Rather than helping ‘make America great again,’ it absolutely debilitates America.”

Conservative policy experts say Trump’s actions are necessary to combat years of misguided spending and argue that institutions shouldn’t run budgets so razor-thin that a short-term loss of federal funds empties their coffers. But McGuire and other higher ed representatives say the proposed freeze along with other executive actions raises questions about whether they can count on stable federal funding in the long run.

Universities have already seen some disruptions to research funding since Trump took office eight days ago, as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation canceled meetings to review grant applications last week. Before the federal court released its ruling, the proposed extension of that freeze had only further fueled academics’ initial concerns.

The White House Office of Management and Budget had directed all federal agencies to pause any grants and loans they supervised in order to ensure that federal spending aligns with the president’s priorities, such as cracking down on diversity, equity and inclusion programs and illegal immigration. OMB specifically said it is aiming to cease any funding to activities that “may be implicated by the executive orders, including but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal,” according to the memo.

The two-page directive specifically exempted Social Security, Medicare and other programs that provide direct financial assistance to individuals. But colleges and universities would still lose access to grants that are targeted at minority-serving institutions, college preparation programs, childcare for student parents, food banks, student retention and graduation initiatives, campus hospital systems, and more. Over all, more than 2,600 grant programs are up for consideration across dozens of agencies, Bloomberg reported.

A follow-up memo was published Tuesday in an attempt to help clarify the president’s orders, but higher ed stakeholders said much uncertainty remains.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said early Tuesday afternoon that the freeze would not be “a blanket pause on federal assistance and grant programs,” and she repeatedly said that direct federal assistance to individuals wouldn’t be affected. But she didn’t have a clear answer about what would happen to federal money that goes to states, organizations or colleges that support individuals. She also pushed back on questions about the legality of the pause and said the move was aimed at ensuring that federal spending aligns with the president’s priorities.

“No more funding for illegal DEI programs,” she said. “No more funding for transgenderism and wokeness.”

Leavitt was asked about funding for minority-serving institutions and said she hadn’t “seen the entire list” of programs either affected or exempted from the pause.

Sarah Spreitzer, vice president and chief of staff for government relations at the American Council on Education, said concerns remain despite the legal injunction.

In the initial memo, OMB instructed agencies to conduct a comprehensive review by Feb. 7 of federal programs to ensure they comply with Trump’s executive orders. White House officials offered more guidance Tuesday about what that would entail. Agencies will have to answer a series of questions for each program listed on the 52-page document by Feb. 7. Those questions include whether the programs fund DEI or support “illegal aliens,” the promotion of “gender ideology” or “activities overseas.”

It’s just going to cause a lot of chaos when it comes to planning. It is definitely a developing story.”

—Sarah Spreitzer, American Council on Education

It’s unclear whether the judge’s order affects the broader review.

To Spreitzer and others, that broader review could threaten more federal programs, as those considered unaligned with the president’s agenda could be altered or cut back entirely.

“If there’s an injunction within a week and everything can start up again, I think that the impact is minimal,” Spreitzer said. But “there’s so much in that [memo] about the examination of all grants going forward … that go beyond just the pause that I think I’d have to see the further implementation instructions to understand the complete impact on the scientific and education enterprise.”

‘Unnecessary and Damaging’

Higher ed officials and student advocacy groups warned throughout the day that the pause, in addition to a recent flurry of executive orders, would cause unnecessary disruption to the primary goals and functions of American colleges and universities and could jeopardize crucial scientific research. The National Association of College and University Business Officers said in a statement that the pause could cause “unnecessary disruption to the lives of tens of thousands of students and families at colleges and universities across the country.”

“The overall impact to programs … could be both significant and chaotic,” NACUBO president Kara D. Freeman said. “College and university chief business officers will be front and center with their presidents, boards, and executive leadership in developing plans to mitigate immediate exposure and impacts. We urge the Trump administration to reconsider and rescind this misguided policy.”

Mark Becker, president of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, called the memo’s orders “unnecessary and damaging.”

“While we understand the Trump administration wants to review programs to ensure consistency with its priorities, it is imperative that the reviews not interfere with American innovation and competitiveness,” Becker said. “It will have far-reaching impacts in every corner of the country and hamper American innovation at a moment when it’s being fiercely challenged on a global stage.”

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement that she hopes Trump and Republicans on Capitol Hill will see how the pause could hurt American citizens and address the gap by resuming grant distribution.

“Federal programs need to be more efficient, but no one voted for a president to halt their services—services that were appropriated, authorized and extended by Congress,” she said in a statement. “Americans need a federal government that works for them, not against them.”

Democratic lawmakers have also raised the red flag, responding with outrage and “extreme alarm,” warning that the pause would undermine Congress’s authority and have “devastating consequences across the country.”

Reactions from professors and student advocacy groups were swift late Monday and early Tuesday.

“I don’t see how any Democrat can get away with voting to confirm Linda McMahon after this memo. The entire hearing should be focused on how the U.S. government is tearing apart everyday life for regular people,” Mike Pierce, executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, wrote on X.

Jody Freedman, a professor at Harvard Law School, took to BlueSky. “What is going on here?” she wrote. “I think what’s going on here is that Russell Vought (perhaps others in the administration too, but certainly him) … are testing the Republicans in Congress on this issue to see if they spring to life.”

“It’s like Hey, the door’s open, no one’s home, let’s rob the place. And by rob I mean, let’s take all the power Congress thinks it has over the appropriations,” she added.

‘Extremely Widespread’ Abuse

Congressional Republicans have said little in response to the pause, and conservative policy experts say the freeze is a necessary step to address years of “illegal spending” by Democrats to advance their political motives.

Inside Higher Ed reached out to both Senator Dr. Bill Cassidy and Representative Tim Walberg, chairs of the congressional committees that handle education policy, but neither responded with comment.

Michael Brickman, an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank, said that the Trump administration’s actions—though “aggressive”—are justified decisions aimed to restore the rule of law and ensure that government money “isn’t being set on fire at every turn.”

“What you’re seeing overall across the administration is an attempt to get a handle on the waste and the abuse of taxpayer dollars,” Brickman said.

He went on to say that though it would be ideal to only freeze certain programs and limit the consequences of stalled grants, breadth was a necessity in this scenario.

“We saw during the Biden administration, brazen attempts again and again to ignore the law” when utilizing federal funds, Brickman said. “Why let good money continue to go out the door when we know for the last four years that so much of it has been wasted … I wish it were narrow and targeted, but unfortunately, the abuse is extremely widespread.”

And if colleges don’t have a contingency plan in place for any kind of budgetary disruption, “that’s malpractice on their part,” he added.

‘Plan for the Worst’

McGuire, from Trinity, said the pause would likely affect grants for predominantly Black institutions, which her university uses to provide student advising, new lab materials and certification programs in high-demand areas of the workforce.

Trinity has already received its $250,000 in such grants for the current academic year, so no programs will have to shut down immediately if the freeze is reinstated, she said. But she worries about the reliability of federal funds moving forward. She explained that uncertainty about grants could mean cuts and amendments to the budget for fiscal year 2026.

“We hope for the best but plan for the worst,” she said. “We’re going into budget season right now, so we will probably have to plan alternative support for the programs funded through the PBI [grants].”

Spreitzer, from ACE, echoed the future impact but also noted that certain colleges could pay the price more immediately. Many large research universities require billions of dollars in federal grants to keep their labs and hospitals running every day, she said, and there’s variation in when grant funds are dispersed, so many may have yet to receive the dollars needed to keep the lights on.

“It’s going to depend on whether institutions have existing grants and whether they’re waiting for disbursements. It’s just going to cause a lot of chaos when it comes to planning,” she said. “It is definitely a developing story.”

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January 28, 2025
Report: Community Colleges Are Leaving Millions in Medicaid Funding on the Table Each Year

According to a newly released report, community colleges miss out on at least $115 million in available Medicaid funding each year. Only 3% of community colleges bill Medicaid for services, despite 84% of community colleges likely being eligible for Medicaid reimbursement.

The report, “Increasing Student Support and Success by Boosting Medicaid Engagement,” draws on data collected from a review of over 1,000 community colleges.

“There is a missed opportunity right now where community colleges could be getting in a significant source of recurring funds that they are not currently claiming,” said Ryan Stewart, report co-lead and Founder and CEO of Mile 2 Consulting, LLC. “I want to raise awareness of that and try to build a culture where more community colleges take advantage.”

There are growing mental health concerns among college students and an increase in demand for all student health services among community college students. Unfortunately, the demand for student health services often exceeds a community college’s resources.

Eligible health services include but are not limited to, psychological services, counseling, nursing services, physical therapy, Medicaid outreach and case management. According to Stewart, the call for community colleges to consider Medicaid reimbursements is more critical now than ever.

“We’ve seen this growing need for particularly mental health resources at at the college level, and we’ve also seen that many colleges relied on COVID relief funding,” said Stewart. “Those funds are now expired, so you have a lot of schools right now who are looking for ways to sustainably replace those funds, and Medicaid could be a really important source.”

Stewart previously served as the Secretary of Education for New Mexico and has inspired his thinking about how K-12 schools accessed student resources through Medicaid.

“In that role we had done a lot of work with our Human Services department because they were really passionate about making sure K-12 schools knew about Medicaid and were doing all they could to claim all available funds,” he said. “Since I’ve left that role, I’ve done a lot of work to try to look at this from a national perspective.”

Dr. Sara Goldrick-Rab, report co-lead and senior fellow at Education Northwest, brought a higher education perspective to the project.

“For more than a decade I’ve documented the clear need for community colleges to offer basic needs and related health services,” said Goldrick-Rab, who is also a columnist for Diverse. “A growing number of administrators are trying to offer that help to students but struggle to afford the costs. My hope is that this report spurs action and increases funding available to support student success at community colleges.”

Stewart and Goldrick-Rab projected the amount of money that community colleges could potentially generate through Medicaid reimbursement claims, taking into account the health services currently offered at the school, an estimate of the number of students receiving each category of services, an estimate of the number of Medicaid-eligible students enrolled at the school and an estimate of the average reimbursement per student.

According to the report, community colleges in the United States could collectively generate approximately $115 million in recurring reimbursement revenue from Medicaid.

“Healthcare access is a critical component of student success and if students are experiencing either mental health or physical health crises and don’t have access to care, that can be a barrier to successful post-secondary completion,” said Stewart. “But that has to be funded. A lot of these services are not cheap, and for colleges who are looking for every resource to try to sustain their whole portfolio of programming, finding sustainable resources like [Medicaid] where money is already appropriate could really make a big difference if you’re looking to either sustain or expand health service programming.”

When asked why they choose not to claim Medicaid reimbursements for eligible services, community college administrators listed several reasons, including the lack of capacity to manage the Medicaid billing process.

“The primary barrier colleges face when accessing this funding is a lack of information about its existence and what’s required to obtain it. Ironically, that’s the same challenge students face when accessing other funding like financial aid and SNAP,” said Goldrick-Rab. “Of course, some colleges will still struggle to have sufficient staff to offer services in the first place, [because] you have to offer them in order to be reimbursed and deal with the billing.

Goldrick-Rab said she and Stewart hope to offer technical assistance to teach colleges how to manage this process adequately.

“I believe addresssing the informational barriers alone will close a lot of the gap. Imagine if even 50% of the colleges offering eligible health services got Medicaid reimbursement, compared to just 3%? That would be a major win,” she added.

The report provides recommendations for community colleges, state Medicaid agencies, and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. It urges community colleges to create partnerships with their state Medicaid agencies so that they can be informed about their eligibility and request the support needed to optimize health services and revenue potential.

“Everyone is talking about the student mental health crisis, but until now, I haven’t seen many offering funding options,” said Goldrick-Rab. “We have to ensure community colleges have the resources needed to do this critical work.”

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January 24, 2025
Podcast: Funding, attendance, student hardship

This week on the podcast Minister of State for Skills Jacqui Smith helped launch a pamphlet on whether universities are “worth it” – and was notably cold on extra money. But does she mean outlay or eventual return to the Treasury?

Plus there’s changes afoot in Scotland, UKVI is cracking down on attendance for international students and students are still feeling the pinch financially – is a return to maintenance grants a lost possibility?

With Ben Vulliamy, Executive Director at the Association of Heads of University Administration, Dani Payne, Senior Researcher at the Social Market Foundation, Michael Salmon, News Editor at Wonkhe and presented by Jim Dickinson, Associate Editor at Wonkhe.

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Jacqui Smith rules out (much) more money while her department assesses the impacts

The Scottish government wants its own post-study work offer

A new funding body landscape emerges in Scotland

UKVI is tightening the rules on international student attendance

Higher education should lift students out of poverty – not trap them within it

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January 24, 2025
A new funding body landscape emerges in Scotland

Last June the Scottish government set out two proposals for changing up the funding bodies in post-compulsory education, following James Withers’ damning indictment of a “lack of cohesive approach, common purpose, or strategic narrative” in how Scotland’s skills system was organised.

There were two options on the table, and the less drastic reshuffle has prevailed following consultation: the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) will take on all the funding responsibilities from Skills Development Scotland (SDS), which currently handles apprenticeships and training. And the Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) will take further education student support off SFC’s hands, rather than being dissolved as per the other consultation option.

We’ll be left with one funder – SFC – and one student support distributor – SAAS. SDS will still exist, retaining its careers information and guidance roles. It all sounds fairly coherent, when put like that, though open to criticism that it is simply a rejiggling of the funding system component parts (Annex B to the business case presents an exhaustive list of all the possible permutations of changes to the landscape, which some poor civil servant had to go through). Certainly from what we’ve seen, many consultation responses stressed that when it came to funding, the burning question is “how much” rather than “who”.

Whether student support responsibilities stayed with SAAS or became a department of SFC was probably at the end of the day a somewhat moot point, and the Scottish government doesn’t bother to give any particular justification for the decision, besides it being slightly preferred by consultation respondees (44 per cent to 35 per cent). It would likely have been a whole heap of organisational work for little strategic reward.

But let’s not underestimate the overall change that’s going to take place. We’ve now got post-school funding responsibilities all in one place within the SFC, including apprenticeships and other training – a landscape-wide role for new chief executive Francesca Osowska (who starts this week) to get thinking about. It’s a similar tertiary lens to Medr in Wales, and the kind of thing that some commentators on the English system would bite your hand off for. That said, there’s no indication that the Scottish government will think about giving the SFC freer rein to assign funding across the skills system as it sees fit – we’ll still be puzzling over itemised budgets each December covering exactly how much will be spent where, for the foreseeable future.

Legislation to enact the changes will now arrive “in the coming weeks”, with a view to it all being in place by autumn 2026. This may prove ambitious given that there are elections in Holyrood in the interim.

Anyone for new powers?

The consultation also asked for feedback on changes to SFC governance (all largely welcomed by respondents), as well as on “enhanced functions” for the funding council. This wasn’t a set of proposals, but more along the lines of a call for ideas, on issues like the information that those funded need to return to SFC, or the strengthening of data collection processes (respondents unsurprisingly were pro-strengthening rather than anti-strengthening).

But it’s worth thinking about what’s changed since the consultation was launched. The financial situation at various Scottish universities has worsened significantly (meanwhile in England the sector has been hammering its regulator for not having collected more timely financial data). Higher education minister Graeme Dey has explicitly linked possible new powers with the SFC – for oversight and intervention – to its ability to respond to university financial crises.

So in the consultation responses we see “calls for up to date information on the financial sustainability of institutions and skills providers, and the financial health of the skills sector as a whole” – moves here would seem to chime with ministerial thinking. On the question of new powers of intervention, there’s likely to be much more pushback:

A number of fundable education bodies, individuals and others […] did not see any need for additional powers for SFC. These respondents suggested that SFC had all of the powers required for their current role, and that proposed reforms should be implemented before reviewing the need for new powers. This was also linked to a view that implementation of reforms should initially focus on policy and support.

Today’s announcement on the preferred rearrangement of funding bodies is not accompanied by any indication of where government policy is going on powers and duties for the SFC – this will come with the legislation, and then almost certainly be the subject of parliamentary horse-trading during the bill’s passage through Holyrood.

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January 23, 2025