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Tag: Future
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The future of embattled writer’s festivals – Campus Review
Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah speaking at a pro Palestine protest at Macquarie University in Sydney. Picture: Richard Dobson.
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Exploring AR and VR in Education: The Future Unveiled
In 1995, Tiffin and Rajasingham envisaged…
‘Shirley zips into her skin-tight school uniform, which on the outside looks something like a ski suit. The lining of the suit in fact contains cabling that makes the suit a communication system and there are pressure pads where the suit touches skin that give a sense of touch. Next, she sits astride something that is a bit like a motorbike, except that it has no wheels and is attached firmly to the floor. Her feet fit on to something similar to a brake and accelerator and her gloved hands hold onto handlebars. She shouts, “I’m off to school, Dad.” Her father, who is taking time out from his teleworking, begins to remind her that the family are going teleshopping in the virtual city later in the day, but it is too late, his daughter has already donned her school helmet. She is no longer in the real world of her real home, she is in the virtual world of her virtual school.’
(Tiffin & Rajasingham, 1995). Cover note
Thirty years ago, for many, this was the future of education. The authors presented a radical future for training and education inspired by emerging technologies and the promise of ubiquitous connectivity. It looked forward to a world of education that made full use of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). It did ask serious questions about how society would be affected and how the majority of students would be trained in these new technologies and new pedagogies. How would Shirley develop as an individual, given that her interactions with teachers and fellow students were all virtual?
In May 2019, I was invited to deliver a presentation at an AR/VR Conference in Auckland. I re-read Tiffin and Rajasingham’s book. My presentation was ‘Designing Learning Making use of AR/VR’. In short, my pitch to the “we are within a year or two…” crowd was that the technology already exists. What was lacking were meaningful, scalable user cases. This is still my concern. What is AR/VR actually good for?
The technology is here … somewhere
Ongoing technical advances in AR and VR continue to nudge higher education from passive consumption toward the promise of immersive, high-stakes experiential learning. More importantly, educational designers have stopped promising a ‘Shirley-like’ experience and are working to meet specific learning outcomes.
That is not to say that many institutions in the Occidental world still have their virtual learning labs with areas for tethered high-performance simulation, untethered mobile exploration, and collaborative “Mixed Reality” (MR) hubs. Equipped with high-fidelity Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs), such as the Apple Vision Pro or HTC Vive Pro Eye, which often include integrated eye-tracking for behavioural research, there are VR-ready workstationswith NVIDIA RTX GPUs or wearable Backpack PCs for untethered movement. All of which is a significant investment.
Justifiable in computing, animation, or physical movement contexts, certainly. But difficult to justify for the purpose of designing learning experiences across a range of disciplines.
User-Cases
There are, of course, some fairly self-evident user cases for which these labs develop learning experiences. VR (and to a lesser extent AR) has been developed in the medicine and nursing programmes to provide “low-risk simulations,” where students practice surgical procedures or volatile chemical experiments repeatedly without the associated material costs or physical dangers. AR is used for “real-time project overlays,” enabling students in Architecture and Engineering to visualise Building Information Modelling (BIM) data directly on physical construction sites.
One should remain cautious about the limits of the apparent immersion and its claims to represent experiential learning. While hardware manufacturers and VR/AR design agencies claim improvements in retention of up to 75% compared to traditional lectures (ClassVR, n.d.), evidence for specific, measurable skills is harder to find. Depending on the skills and abilities one seeks to develop in a student, there are certainly better ways to do so than in a traditional teacher-led classroom setting. But fieldwork, real-world work-based exposure, and even well-crafted educational videos are also likely to be better than ‘sit-and-listen’ contexts.
I am particularly dubious of contexts in which there is no haptic response, given that very few benefit from Shirley’s haptic suit.
The evidence for effective AR/VR training experiences comes primarily from large manufacturers that need staff to be familiar with expensive machinery before they are introduced to hands-on training. Knowing which widget goes into which do-dah saves time during mentored training. But there is still the need to know whether a screw is tightened correctly, can you feel it slip into the groove, or do you feel the tension? As Boeing is finding. (Perkins & Salomon, 1989)
I am not averse to AR/VR developments in higher education. Still, departments need to think carefully about where limited resources are allocated and which skills and abilities are genuinely being developed and assessed. More of that on Friday’s Subscriber’s post on Substack
For a contemporary review of the current state of AR/VR, explore the blogs on Treeview Studio (Torrendell, 2026).
References
ClassVR. (n.d.). Benefits of VR. ClassVR. Retrieved 9 February 2026, from https://www.classvr.com/benefits-of-virtual-reality-in-education/
Perkins, D. N., & Salomon, G. (1989). Are Cognitive Skills Context-Bound? Educational Researcher, 18(1), 16–25. https://doi.org/10.2307/1176006
Tiffin, J., & Rajasingham, L. (1995). In search of the virtual class: Education in an information society. Routledge.
Torrendell, H. (2026, January 4). Virtual Reality Guide 2026: Complete VR Technology Overview – Treeview. https://treeview.studio/blog/virtual-reality-complete-guide
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Sleepwalking into criminal liability? Accessibility and the future of universities
If accessibility was being treated as an afterthought in higher education, then that ended in June 2025.
The European Accessibility Act (EAA) came into force on 28 June 2025, and it applies to all UK universities that serve EU disabled students, sell into EU markets, or run EU-based partnerships and enterprises.
Meanwhile, for those universities looking to expand operations into other international markets, India has gone further.
Its Supreme Court has declared accessibility a constitutional right, new standards are enforceable in law, and fines are already being issued.
Global convergence is happening. Universities that think they can ignore it may be sleepwalking into criminal liability.
Beyond PSBAR
The UK already has the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations (PSBAR), which legal eagles will recall came into force in 2019 across public-sector bodies in Europe and the UK. PSBAR already monitors the accessibility of digital products such as websites and apps, and sanctions are civil.
The EAA goes further and extends the remit of what’s covered. While some member states are still determining their sanctions, Ireland issues fines of up to €60,000, with the possibility of time in prison. France issues fines of €20,000 per non-compliant website, per year. Germany’s Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz (BFSG) or “Accessibility Strengthening Act” includes fines of up to €100,000.
For vice chancellors and chief operating officers, this is no longer a compliance box to tick. It’s a personal risk.
Both PSBAR and EAA cover:
- Virtual Learning Environments, Continuing Professional Development platforms, and publishing systems
- Websites, apps, digital documents, and email attachments
- Audiovisual media and cultural collections
Now hardware is also in scope for EAA, from smartphones to laboratory kit. That means every corner of the institution must be born accessible – IT, procurement, estates, marketing, research, teaching, enterprise, and the university press. And don’t forget the sector’s elephant in the room – legacy systems. Retrofitting is messy, costly, and in many cases unworkable.
Faced with ageing platforms and the difficulty of retrofitting legacy systems and content, many institutions are turning to so-called “quick-fix” tools such as overlays that promise to make websites accessible and compliant at the flick of a switch.
While these can appear to improve surface-level usability, regulators have made clear that they do not replace compliance with core standards such as Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
For leaders, the risk is assuming that bolt-ons have solved the problem – when in reality, only intentional design, governance, and testing with disabled people will stand up to regulatory scrutiny.
Who owns accessibility?
The uncomfortable truth is that many universities don’t know who owns accessibility. Governance is weak, responsibilities diffuse, and decisions are made without the right expertise in the room.
Too often, a shiny new rebrand is unveiled before anyone realises it isn’t accessible. By then, fixes are expensive and reputationally embarrassing. The solution? Put digital experience and accessibility specialists at the table from the start, to help with scoping, strategy, procurement, governance, and sign-off. These governance challenges have been raised across the sector.
Fans of Cartesian dualism may suggest the sector faces a choice:
- Basic compliance – scramble to patch systems, pray regulators don’t look too closely.
- Inclusive excellence – embed accessibility in governance, procurement, and culture.
The second option unlocks real gains – improved student experience with a knock-on for NSS scores, stronger international recruitment, efficiencies in procurement, and staff upskilling. It can also help secure routes to research funding, given Research Council and Horizon priorities for EDIA (Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and… Accessibility).
Some universities are deploying accessibility apprenticeships and paid accessibility internships, as well as disabled student panels for accessibility. This is the kind of initiative that could give the UK sector a genuine competitive edge, and is testament to the great work taking place at a grassroots level across the sector.
For those teams managing universities’ sprawling and complex digital estates, clear plans and roadmaps are needed to guide procurement, commissioning, audits, and improvements.
Having a well-defined strategy, proper planning, and good digital governance can make the process much smoother. However, without sustained backing from the top, and the mandate or authority to decommission ineffective systems and websites, these teams are limited in what they can achieve.
The global direction of travel
If Europe feels far away, look at India. In 2025, over 150 organisations were fined under new accessibility rules. Educational institutions are explicitly in scope. Early adoption of EAA standards positions UK universities ahead of this regulatory convergence. While UK laws may differ in some respects from India’s, they are all pointing in the same direction – accessibility is an essential requirement for the physical environment, digital systems, documents, media, hardware, and services.
Accessibility is about disabled students. It’s also a test of digital maturity, institutional leadership, and international credibility. The European Accessibility Act is a wake-up call. The only real choice left is whether universities treat it as a burden or seize it as an opportunity for inclusive excellence.
Global accessibility standards are coming. The only question is whether the UK sector will be ahead of the curve or behind it.
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A New Model for the Future of “Inside Higher Ed”
While everyone was knocked sideways by the events of 2025, our small but mighty newsroom has exhausted itself making sure you’re aware of all the changes in the sector. And you’ve shown us that you need to know what we’re covering. Last year our page views went up by 40 percent and traffic from our core readership rose nearly 65 percent. Readers engaged with us on our social platforms 60 percent more than in 2024.
It’s heartening to know Inside Higher Ed’s journalism matters at a time when the sector faces existential threats on multiple fronts. Highlights from the year include our map of canceled international student visas, our investigation into fake colleges and our rigorous coverage of the shifting relationship between the federal government and higher education. I’m grateful that after 20 years, Inside Higher Ed remains a trusted source of news and analysis for the higher education sector.
The news has already picked up speed this year, with the Department of Education wrapping up negotiated rule making and setting the stage to overhaul accreditation. We’ll continue to cover everything happening on the Hill as well as track how colleges respond to artificial intelligence, find new ways to be financially sustainable and continue to innovate what they do in the classroom. We’ve also got some exciting projects coming out later this year, including one that looks at how apprenticeships can be a crucial bridge between higher ed and workforce readiness.
Yet even as we celebrate our successes, we also face significant headwinds. The journalism industry has similar challenges to those plaguing higher ed: the rise of misinformation, a loss of trust in institutions, financial instability and a resistance to change. The business models that support high-quality journalism are evolving, and the rise of artificial intelligence and changes to the way people find and use information threaten the future of news reporting.
And like colleges, Inside Higher Ed goes back to our mission when things get tough. We know our purpose: to report the issues that matter most to the rich ecosystem of U.S. higher education institutions—from the open-access community colleges and regional publics to the bigger, wealthier and more selective privates and everything in between—and help connect the dots for our readers.
That mission requires a strategic shift in how we operate. Starting in April, we will be asking our readers to support us by becoming paying subscribers to access our news and deep dives. Readers will be able to access a few free articles a month. And all our surveys, student success advice, Views, career content and columns will remain open for anyone to read. We’ll offer a variety of ways readers can subscribe, including rates for institutions, groups and individuals.
This represents a significant evolution in our model and will enable us to continue to invest in Inside Higher Ed’s high-quality, independent journalism. We are passionate about higher education and its power to transform students’ lives and protect our democracy. This change will ensure that Inside Higher Ed can continue informing this crucial work by providing the journalism the sector deserves and depends on for another 20 years (and more!).
Thank you for reading Inside Higher Ed and for your continued support. We’ll be back in touch with more information in the coming weeks. If you have any immediate questions, you can email [email protected].
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The Future of Online Learning Is AI-Powered
AI-powered online learning is reshaping how higher education supports students, scales care, and prepares learners for an evolving workforce. This article explores how AI can help institutions close support gaps, improve outcomes, and lead intentionally in the future of online education—grounded in insights from Carnegie’s Online Learner & Leader Study.
Online Learning Is Now Central to Institutional Strategy
Higher education has always evolved in response to new tools, new learners, and new expectations. What makes this moment different is not just the pace of change, but the opportunity it presents.
Online learning now sits at the center of institutional strategy. It is where access, innovation, workforce relevance, and financial sustainability intersect. And increasingly, it is where presidents and academic leaders have the greatest leverage to shape the future rather than react to it.
AI is accelerating that shift toward AI-powered online learning.
Not as a disruption to fear, but as a capability to design for scale, support students more intentionally, and lead with clarity in a complex moment.
This Moment Is About More Than Technology
There is growing recognition that online learners are not a monolith. They are career builders, caregivers, degree completers, and explorers and they’re often balancing work, family, financial pressure, and uncertainty about what the future of work will demand.
At the same time, higher education leaders are navigating an equally complex reality. Online enrollment growth is a priority. Budgets are not keeping pace. Staffing models were not designed for always-on, asynchronous, national audiences. Support teams are stretched thin.
The result is a widening gap between what students need and what institutions can sustainably provide.
This is not a failure of commitment. It is a structural mismatch.
And it is precisely where AI creates a meaningful opportunity.
AI as the Bridge Between Need and Capacity in Online Learning
When leaders talk about AI in higher education, the conversation often jumps to tools, policies, or risk. Those matter. But they miss the larger shift underway.
AI as Institutional Infrastructure
AI is not just another system to adopt. It is a new layer of infrastructure.
AI is like water. It should not live in a single pipe or department. It should flow through the entire institution—quietly, consistently, and in service of core needs.
Nowhere is that more evident than in online student support.
What Online Learners Say They Need
Findings from Carnegie’s Online Learner & Leader Study demonstrated this clearly. Learners overwhelmingly said they value flexibility and autonomy. Most prefer asynchronous formats. But that same flexibility increases demand for timely, personalized, and reliable support—often outside traditional business hours.
Higher ed leaders in our study acknowledge the challenge. They also acknowledge the constraint: limited staffing and limited budgets.
Scaling Support Without Replacing Human Connection
This is where AI in online education can change the equation.
Thoughtfully deployed AI support does not replace human connection. It scales it.
AI enables institutions to provide consistent, responsive assistance for high-volume needs—course navigation, program policies, technology troubleshooting—while ensuring students can escalate to a human when it matters most. It helps institutions move from reactive support to proactive guidance. From fragmented touchpoints to a more seamless experience across the student lifecycle.
Just as importantly, it allows institutions to do so in a way that is financially sustainable. By absorbing routine, high-volume interactions, AI frees human teams to focus on moments that require judgment, empathy, and expertise—protecting both the student experience and the institutional cost structure as online enrollment scales.
In other words, AI becomes the connective tissue between student expectations and institutional reality.
Differentiation Will Belong to the Institutions That Embed AI—Not Bolt It On
As online options proliferate, differentiation has become harder to claim and easier to lose. Program quality remains foundational. But quality alone no longer determines which institutions students consider.
Students navigate a crowded, search-driven marketplace. They look for clarity. Credibility. Signals that an institution understands their lives and is equipped for what comes next.
AI as a Signal of Readiness and Relevance
Increasingly, how institutions use AI in online education will be one of those signals.
Not because students want novelty. But because they expect modern, technology-forward experiences that reflect the world they already inhabit.
Integration Across the Student Lifecycle
The institutions that stand apart will not be those with the most pilots or the flashiest tools. They will be the ones that integrate AI intentionally across systems:
- Across the student lifecycle, from recruitment and onboarding to advising, persistence, and completion
- Across support functions, ensuring consistency, transparency, and availability
- Across academic and co-curricular experiences, reinforcing relevance and readiness
This kind of integration sends a powerful message: we are prepared for this moment—and for the future our students are walking into.
The inverse is also true. Institutions that delay or limit AI to isolated pilots risk falling behind not because of rankings or prestige, but because the lived experience they offer no longer matches learner expectations. Inaction is not neutral—it is a strategic choice with competitive consequences.Student Success and Workforce Readiness Are Now Intertwined
AI is reshaping how learners think about their futures. Many express optimism about its potential. Just as many express anxiety—about job stability, ethical use, and keeping pace with change.
They are not just asking institutions for credentials. They are asking for preparation.
Preparing Students to Work Alongside AI
The responsibility for higher education is clear. Institutions must help students develop not only knowledge, but fluency. Not only skills, but judgment.
That does not require turning every online program into a technical degree. It does require embedding AI literacy, ethical reasoning, and applied use across disciplines—so graduates understand how to work alongside AI, not compete against it.
Online learning is uniquely positioned to lead here. Its scale, flexibility, and digital foundation make it an ideal environment to normalize responsible AI use as part of learning itself—not an optional add-on, but an expected competency.
When AI is embedded thoughtfully, student support and workforce preparation reinforce one another. Students experience AI as a tool for organization, exploration, and problem-solving. Institutions model how complex systems can be used responsibly, transparently, and in service of human goals.
Supporting Faculty While Preserving the Human Core
The same is true for faculty.
When AI is used to reduce administrative burden, support feedback and personalization, and streamline course management, it preserves faculty time for mentorship, inquiry, and teaching—reinforcing, rather than eroding, the human core of education.
Governance Matters—But It Cannot Be the Only Strategy
Many institutions are appropriately focused on AI governance, ethics, and integrity. Policies are essential. Guardrails matter.
But governance alone does not constitute leadership.
Balancing Discipline With Momentum
The risk is not that institutions move too quickly. It is that they move cautiously without moving strategically.
The Online Learner & Leader Study reveals a familiar pattern: learners are already engaging with AI in their daily lives, even as institutions deliberate. They are experimenting, adapting, and forming habits—often without institutional guidance.
This creates an opportunity for higher education to lead with purpose.
The most effective approaches balance discipline with momentum:
- Clear guidance on ethical and acceptable use
- Transparency about where and how AI is deployed
- Human-centered design that keeps people—not tools—at the center
- A focus on outcomes, not novelty
Central to this balance is trust. Responsible stewardship of student data, clear boundaries around use, and transparency about decision-making are not compliance exercises—they are differentiators in a landscape where trust increasingly shapes choice.
AI readiness is not about perfection. It is about alignment.
What This Means for Higher Ed Leadership
For senior leaders, the question is no longer whether AI will shape online learning. It already is.
The question is whether institutions will allow that future to emerge unevenly—or design it intentionally.
What Leadership Looks Like in an AI-Powered Future
The institutions that lead will:
- Treat AI as enterprise infrastructure, not a side project
- Use AI to close support gaps, not widen them
- Embed AI across the student lifecycle to improve experience and outcomes
- Prepare students for an AI-enabled workforce with confidence and clarity
- Differentiate themselves through coherence, not complexity
Practically, this means starting where impact is greatest—often at key lifecycle moments like onboarding, advising, and student support—while building governance and implementation in parallel. AI readiness is not an IT initiative; it is a cabinet-level responsibility.
This is not about replacing what makes education human. It is about protecting it—by ensuring systems can scale care, guidance, and opportunity in a moment of constraint.
Looking Ahead: The Future of Online Learning
Online learning is no longer peripheral. It is central to institutional resilience, relevance, and reach.
AI will not determine the future of online education on its own. Leadership will.
The data is clear. The expectations are rising. The tools are here.
The opportunity now is to integrate AI in higher education like water—quietly, purposefully, and everywhere it can make learning more accessible, more supportive, and more aligned with the futures students are trying to build.
For leaders interested in grounding these decisions in research and real learner insight, the Online Learner & Leader Study offers a clear view into where expectations and realities diverge—and where alignment can unlock meaningful impact.
Frequently Asked Questions About AI in Online Education
How is AI being used in online education today?
AI is increasingly used to support online learners through personalized assistance, timely support, and scalable student services. Common applications include course navigation, advising support, technology troubleshooting, and proactive outreach.
Why is AI important for online student support?
Online learning increases flexibility but also raises expectations for responsiveness and personalization. AI helps institutions meet these expectations at scale while allowing human teams to focus on moments requiring judgment, empathy, and expertise.
Does AI replace human interaction in online learning?
No. When deployed thoughtfully, AI supports and scales human connection rather than replacing it. It handles routine, high-volume needs so faculty and staff can focus on meaningful engagement.
How does AI prepare students for the future of work?
AI-enabled online learning helps students build fluency, ethical awareness, and applied experience with AI tools—preparing them to work alongside AI in evolving professional environments.
What insights does Carnegie’s Online Learner & Leader Study provide?
The study highlights gaps between learner expectations and institutional capacity, particularly around flexibility, support, and preparedness for an AI-enabled future—offering leaders data-driven guidance for aligning strategy and execution.
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Shape the Future or Get Left Behind: The New Reality for Higher Ed Leaders
Higher education is fundamentally rewiring in ways most legacy playbooks can’t handle.
Declining birth rates, growing skepticism about the value of a traditional degree and the rapid acceleration of artificial intelligence have exposed the fragility of many institutional models.
The leaders who treat this as a reset moment to rebuild for the Modern Learner will be the ones who thrive in the rewired landscape.
On a recent episode of the Job Ready podcast, EducationDynamics’ President of Enrollment Management Services, Greg Clayton, sat down with hosts Jeff Nelder and Charlie Nguyen to unpack what it will really take for institutions to thrive in this AI-powered, skills-driven market. Explore the key takeaways from that conversation and what they mean for any institution that intends to shape the future instead of being shaped by it.
You either evolve, or you don’t exist anymore.
Greg Clayton, President, Enrollment Management Services
Why Reputation and Revenue Now Drive Enrollment Growth
Revenue and reputation now function as the pillars of institutional viability.
Revenue growth is no longer just about filling seats. Institutions need diversified pathways, new program models and market strategies built around how learners actually discover, evaluate and choose programs today.
Reputation can no longer be reduced to prestige markers like rankings or athletics. Modern Learners quickly filter out surface-level messaging and evaluate institutions based on cost, convenience and career outcomes. Institutions that lead with tradition instead of value are losing ground.
Increasingly, learners also look for clear proof that an institution can deliver real job readiness and connect education to concrete career trajectories.
In this reality, reputation is revenue. It is earned by demonstrating academic rigor, employment relevance and a credible return on investment. Institutions that make those elements impossible to miss in the market win attention, trust and enrollment. Institutions that don’t are training Modern Learners to look elsewhere.
It’s not simply, ‘am I a flagship public institution with a football team’… What we’re talking about is, does the institution have a reputation for delivery of excellence that meets academic standards but also creates job readiness in the marketplace?
Greg Clayton, President, Enrollment Management Services
How AI Is Reshaping Discovery in Higher Education Marketing
Artificial intelligence is not a priority for tomorrow. It’s already here and rewriting the rules of search, discovery and decision-making.
Today, a large majority of .edu-oriented Google searches surface an AI overview before traditional organic results. For many prospects, the first touchpoint with an institution is now mediated by an AI-generated summary, not the homepage.
When institutions are not actively managing how they appear in those AI overviews, they effectively cede their first impression to an algorithm trained on everyone else’s narrative.
This shift changes how institutions are discovered. Program details, brand signals and reputation markers are being interpreted and condensed by AI systems, which means fragmented or inconsistent market signals are quickly reflected in fragmented AI outputs.
Because AI now influences how learners search, compare and choose, institutions need a new blueprint for understanding how brand, reputation and revenue actually work together.
EducationDynamics’ AI visibility pyramid provides that blueprint, making one thing clear: revenue is no longer a standalone goal, but the outcome of coordinated brand amplification and reputation building. When an institution’s digital footprint and third-party credibility are reinforced through AI density—the consistency with which an institution appears in AI-generated responses—revenue follows at the top.
In this environment, content, PR, advertising and enrollment operations can’t operate in isolation. Disconnected efforts dilute AI visibility and waste spend. Institutions that orchestrate these functions around a unified strategy for AI discoverability will be the ones that win attention and intent.
How the Enrollment Cliff Is Exposing Fragile Models
The wave of closures and mergers over the past decade is not random. It is the predictable outcome of models built for a world that no longer exists.
The most vulnerable institutions tend to be heavily tuition dependent, slow to diversify revenue and reluctant to make structural changes even as market conditions shift around them.
Flagship publics and highly endowed privates have more buffer. Many regional and tuition-dependent institutions do not. As demographics tighten and competition increases, legacy models that once felt stable are now under significant strain.
Many of the institutions struggling most today share a common pattern: delayed pivots to online and hybrid delivery, continued reliance on tuition as the primary revenue source and limited attention to Modern Learner expectations around flexibility and cost. Those dynamics are now being tested by the market.
By contrast, institutions that are evolving have accepted that yesterday’s playbook is no longer sufficient. They are actively redesigning their models around revenue diversification, program-market fit and measurable outcomes. They understand that the expectations of Modern Learners have fundamentally changed and that tomorrow’s challenges will not be solved with yesterday’s solutions.
How Student Behavior Is Reshaping Enrollment Strategy
Modern Learner behavior has moved beyond traditional age-based segments. Preferences for online, hybrid and flexible formats cut across generations. Convenience, outcomes and affordability matter just as much to working adults and career switchers as they do to recent high school graduates.
Modern Learners are the architects of their own educational journeys. They don’t wait to be recruited and they don’t stay loyal when processes are rigid and difficult to navigate.
This is especially true for the roughly 43 million Americans with some college and no credential. Many institutions have struggled to reach this audience due to higher acquisition costs, limited capital or an assumption that these learners fall outside their “core” market.
That assumption no longer aligns with how learners actually make decisions. Strategies built for 18–22-year-old residential students do not automatically translate to working adults balancing jobs, family and study. Reaching this audience requires rethinking acquisition channels, messaging, support models and program design.
Institutions that are successfully engaging this segment treat education as a lifelong relationship, not a one-time transaction. They are building pathways for learners to return to upskill and reskill over time, often in partnership with employers, creating recurring value for learners and recurring revenue for the institution.
Attracting traditional students into your institution does not work when it comes to tapping into the 43 million [Americans with] some college, no credential. It’s two completely different things.
Greg Clayton, President, Enrollment Management Services
Why Employer Alignment Now Shapes Reputation and Outcomes
Employer partnerships remain one of the most underleveraged assets in higher education. At the same time, employers consistently report difficulty finding candidates with applied, job-ready skills, particularly as AI reshapes roles and workflows across industries.
That disconnect is not a minor gap. It is a credibility problem. When programs are not aligned with the roles employers are hiring for, institutions are asking students to fund an education the market does not fully value.
High-impact employer partnerships go far beyond tuition discounts and logo swaps. Those are table stakes. The partnerships that move the needle help define the skills and competencies programs should teach, inform curriculum refresh cycles and create structured pathways into internships, apprenticeships and full-time roles.
When job readiness is deliberately designed into every program — including comfort with AI tools and workflows — institutions are better able to prove their value to both learners and employers. That, in turn, strengthens reputation, improves outcomes data and creates new opportunities for sustainable revenue.
What Institutions Are Rebuilding to Compete
Across the sector, a distinct pattern is emerging among institutions that are gaining ground. They aren’t optimizing at the edges. They’re reworking the systems that drive growth.
These institutions treat revenue as mission fuel, not a dirty word. They understand that without sustainable margin, they can’t expand access, invest in innovation or support students at the level the market now expects.
They make ROI explicit — in their marketing, advising and student experience. Cost, convenience and career outcomes are addressed head-on, not buried in fine print. Modern Learners can clearly see how a program connects to specific skills, roles and advancement paths.
Program portfolios are tightly aligned with workforce needs. Curricula are refreshed frequently. Skills and competencies are mapped to real job requirements, not just internal assumptions. Job readiness and AI literacy are integrated into programs, not offered as optional extras.
Brand, marketing and enrollment are orchestrated around AI-driven discovery. These institutions understand that AI is now a primary gateway to information, so they actively manage how they show up in AI overviews and search — not just in traditional rankings and media.
Employer partnerships are deep and operational. Employers help shape programs, provide work-based learning, and validate the skills graduates bring to the table. B2B and workforce channels become meaningful contributors to both impact and revenue.
Institutions design for Modern Learners across ages and life stages. They build flexible pathways, stackable credentials and re-entry points so learners can return to upskill and reskill over time. Education becomes an ongoing relationship, not a one-time transaction.
The common thread is not size, sector or selectivity. It is a willingness to challenge internal inertia, reject the status quo and align every part of the institution with how learners and employers actually behave today. In this market, safety often masquerades as stability — and stagnation carries real risk.
The Decision Facing Higher Ed Leadership
Taken together, these dynamics create a defining choice for higher education leaders: optimize a fading model or rebuild for an AI-powered, skills-driven market. There is no middle ground.
Those that clearly communicate ROI, align programs with workforce demand, build AI into their discovery strategy and use reputation to drive growth will define what comes next.
At EducationDynamics, we’re partnering with leaders ready to make that shift. For a deeper look at how and where to begin, listen to Greg Clayton’s full conversation on the Job Ready podcast.
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The fragile future of EDI demands bold university leadership
Higher education institutions are absolutely critical to enabling communities, economies, knowledge, and innovation to tackle the most pressing issues and advance as a diverse society.
Alongside this, universities would not exist if they did not prioritise and invest in equal and equitable opportunities, access, and connecting with diverse and intersectional communities across the world.
Upon reflecting on the role higher education has played throughout history, we know that universities have never played it safe.
Our higher education sector performs an instrumental role in being a critical mirror to social, cultural, and political narratives.
However, it is challenging to be critical when societal views and beliefs are polarised, with only some who are able to cultivate opportunities to build good relations and celebrate differences.
Value and values
It is amongst such divisive rhetoric that there are movements questioning the value of equality, diversity, and inclusion in organisations, systems, and society – we make a statement not to minimise the profession by using the acronym.
The world opened their eyes in 2020, again, to the intersectional trauma of structural racism, sexism, classism, harassment, bullying, victimisation, and discrimination, to name some.
The higher education sector “reacted” to impress on society that equality, diversity, and inclusion would be sustained to protect the civil liberties of staff and students, who help to ensure that our institutions play a transformative role in education and society.
Five years on, we find ourselves in a time where equality, diversity, and inclusion have, in some cases, been absolved into safer initiatives like “organisational development” and “social responsibility”.
These initiatives can often disguise the goodness of the work towards equality, diversity, and inclusion rather than champion it to the world.
This is not a new issue for those helping to cultivate a socially just, fair, dignified, and respectful society. The work of equality, diversity, and inclusion has always been precarious, and the “academy” is a microcosm reflective of wider society.
The risk-aversion and caution often adopted by universities as a result can be performative, rarely penetrating the deep-rooted structural and systemic problems that permeate the sector.
Another American import
This precariousness is now tested from discussions to end diversity, equality, and inclusion from across the Atlantic.
While we may feel the physical distance, recent reports highlight that UK universities receiving funding from the USA have to prove none of their spend is going towards diversity, equality, and inclusion. This highlights a level of political interference in the autonomy of universities not often seen before.
We, as the higher education community, know why equality, diversity and inclusion matters, so let us look at the data from McKinsey & Company’s 2023 research:
- More diversity in both boards and executive teams, in both gender and ethnicity, is correlated with higher social and environmental impact scores.
- Organisations in the top quartile for gender diversity are 39 per cent more likely to outperform peers.
- Organisations in the top quartile of board-gender diversity are 27 per cent more likely to outperform financially.
- 77 per cent of consumers are motivated to purchase from organisations committed to making the world a better place.
- Higher levels of ethnic representation in leadership teams are correlated with higher financial, social, and environmental sustainability across the board.
- A strong link between leadership diversity and a motivated workforce.
Recent research from the University of Oxford, UCL Policy Lab, and More in Common found that:
“Britons are five times more likely to express positive views about EDI and that the initiatives are beneficial to them.
Recently, UCL Provost Michael Spence made a public statement highlighting:
“We are, and were always intended to be, an institution to which it is possible to bring your ‘whole self,’ to bring your history, culture, identity, and views of the world, free of arbitrary discrimination… If we do not, then we run the risk of only poorly serving the needs of this wonderful, global, and incredibly diverse city – London – of which we are a part.
In resistance to those wanting to dismantle diversity, equality, and inclusion in higher education across the Atlantic, Harvard University released a statement saying that:
“…no government regardless of which party is in power should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.
We see some institutions speaking truth to power to safeguard academic and educational freedom, equitable access, and liberty. It is in this climate that higher education institutions need to strengthen their collective voice to safeguard the championing of equality, diversity, and inclusion that are essential to the civic impact of universities.
It is remarkable that there is resistance to helping create and sustain a more equitable, fair, dignified, respectful, socially just, and inclusive society. This is a resistance that exists and appears to be rising.
For institutions who are yet to re-affirm their commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion, we ask these questions – is this what we are and is this who you want to be?
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Tech Titans, Ideologues, and the Future of American Higher Education — 2026 Update
This article is an update to our June 2025 Higher Education Inquirer report, Tech Titans, Ideologues, and the Future of American Higher Education. Since that report, the landscape of higher education has evolved dramatically. New developments — the increasing influence of billionaire philanthropists like Larry Ellison, private-equity figures such as Marc Rowan, and the shocking assassination of Charlie Kirk — have intensified the pressures on traditional colleges and universities. This update examines how these forces intersect with ideology, governance, financial power, and institutional vulnerability to reshape the future of American higher education.
American higher education is under pressure from multiple directions, including financial strain, declining enrollment, political hostility, and technological disruption. Yet perhaps the greatest challenge comes from powerful outsiders who are actively reshaping how education is perceived, delivered, and valued. Figures such as Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, Alex Karp, Charlie Kirk, Larry Ellison, and Marc Rowan are steering resources, ideology, and policy in ways that threaten traditional universities’ missions. Each brings a distinct ideology and strategy, but their combined influence represents an existential pressure on the system.
Larry Ellison, the billionaire founder of Oracle, has pledged to give away nearly all his fortune and already directs hundreds of millions toward research, medicine, and education-related causes. Through the Ellison Institute of Technology, he funds overseas campuses and scholarship programs at institutions like the University of Oxford. Ellison represents a “disruptor” who does not challenge degrees outright but reshapes the allocation of educational resources toward elite, globally networked research.
The University of Phoenix cyberbreach is more than another entry in the long list of attacks on higher education. It is the clearest evidence yet of how private equity, aging enterprise software, and institutional neglect have converged to create a catastrophic cybersecurity landscape across American colleges and universities. What happened in the summer of 2025 was not an unavoidable act of foreign aggression. It was the culmination of years of cost-cutting, inadequate oversight, and a misplaced faith in legacy vendors that no longer control their own risks.
The story begins with the Russian-speaking Clop cyber-extortion group, one of the most sophisticated data-theft organizations operating today. In early August, Clop quietly began exploiting a previously unknown vulnerability in Oracle’s E-Business Suite, a platform widely used for payroll, procurement, student employment, vendor relations, and financial aid administration. Oracle’s EBS system, decades old and deeply embedded across higher education, was never designed for modern threat environments. As soon as Clop identified the flaw—later assigned CVE-2025-61882—the group launched a coordinated campaign that compromised dozens of major institutions before Oracle even acknowledged the problem.
Among the most heavily affected institutions was the University of Phoenix. Attackers gained access to administrative systems and exfiltrated highly sensitive data: names, Social Security numbers, bank accounts, routing numbers, vendor records, and financial-aid-related information belonging to students, faculty, staff, and contractors. The breach took place in August, but Phoenix did not disclose the incident until November 21, and only after Clop publicly listed the university on its extortion site. Even after forced disclosure, Phoenix offered only vague assurances about “unauthorized access” and refused to provide concrete numbers or a full accounting of what had been stolen.
Phoenix was not alone. Harvard University confirmed that Clop had stolen more than a terabyte of data from its Oracle systems. Dartmouth College acknowledged that personal and financial information for more than a thousand individuals had been accessed, though the total is almost certainly much higher. At the University of Pennsylvania, administrators said only that unauthorized access had occurred, declining to detail the scale. What links these incidents is not prestige, geography, or mission. It is dependency on Oracle’s aging administrative software and a sector-wide failure to adapt to a threat environment dominated by globally coordinated cybercrime operations.
Marc Rowan, co-founder and CEO of Apollo Global Management, has leveraged private-equity wealth to influence higher education governance. He gave $50 million to Penn’s Wharton School, funding faculty and research initiatives and has recently pushed alumni to withhold donations over issues of campus policy and antisemitism. Rowan also helped shape the Trump administration’s Compact for Academic Excellence, linking federal funding to compliance with ideologically driven standards. He exemplifies how private wealth can steer university governance and policy, reshaping priorities on a national scale. Together, Ellison and Rowan illustrate the twin dynamics of power and influence destabilizing higher education: immense private wealth, and the ambition to reshape institutions according to their own vision.
With these powerful outsiders shaping the landscape, traditional universities increasingly face pressures to prioritize elite, donor-driven projects over broad public missions. Private funding favors high-prestige initiatives over public-access education, and large contributors can dictate leadership and policy directions. University priorities shift toward profitable or ideologically aligned projects, creating a two-tier system in which elite, insulated institutions grow while public universities struggle to compete, widening disparities in access and quality.
The stakes of this upheaval have become tragically tangible. The assassination of Charlie Kirk in 2025 was a horrific reminder that conflicts over ideology, money, and influence are not abstract. Violence against public figures engaged in higher education policy and advocacy underscores the intensity of polarization and the human costs of these struggles. Such events cast a shadow over campuses, donor boards, and political advocacy alike, highlighting that the battle over the future of education is contested not only in boardrooms and legislatures but in life and death.
Students face shrinking access to affordable, publicly supported higher education, particularly those without means or connections to elite institutions. Faculty may encounter restrictions on academic freedom and institutional autonomy, as donor preferences and political pressures increasingly shape hiring, curriculum, and governance. Society risks losing the traditional public mission of universities — fostering critical thinking, civic engagement, and broad social mobility — as education becomes more commodified, prioritizing elite outcomes over the public good.
Building on our June 2025 report, this update underscores the accelerating influence of tech titans, ideologues, and billionaire philanthropists. Figures such as Ellison and Rowan are reshaping not just funding streams but governance structures, while the assassination of Charlie Kirk painfully illustrates the human stakes involved. Traditional colleges face a stark choice: maintain their public mission — democratic access, critical inquiry, and civic purpose — or retreat into survival mode, prioritizing donor dollars, corporate partnerships, and prestige. The pressures highlighted in June are not only continuing but intensifying, and the consequences — for students, faculty, and society — remain profound.
Sources
Fortune: Larry Ellison pledges nearly all fortune (fortune.com)
Times Higher Education: Ellison funds Oxford scholars (timeshighereducation.com)
Almanac UPenn: Rowan gift to Wharton (almanac.upenn.edu)
Inquirer: Rowan donor pressure at Penn (inquirer.com)
Inquirer: Rowan and Trump’s Compact (inquirer.com)
Higher Education Inquirer original article (highereducationinquirer.org) -
India and the world – co-creating the future of global education
For much of the past few decades, global higher education’s engagement with India followed a narrow script. India was the source of students; institutions elsewhere were the destination. Success was measured in enrolments and mobility flows.
That framing is no longer adequate – nor is it aligned with the scale of the challenges and opportunities now facing the world. The coming decade will be shaped by ageing populations, rapid technological disruption and the green transition, creating a global talent challenge. At this moment, India stands out as the world’s youngest and most dynamic talent nation – and by 2030, one in five global workers is projected to be Indian.
If global progress on artificial intelligence, climate and sustainability, healthcare, inclusive growth and productivity is to be meaningful, India and the world must work together – not through transactional pipelines, but through deeper collaboration between education, industry and governments.
India is not only a key driver of international student mobility; it is increasingly the talent engine of the world. Yet many international engagements with India remain fragmented. MoUs are signed without delivery pathways. Recruitment activity is often disconnected from research, innovation, skills and employability. What is missing is not ambition, but shared infrastructure: platforms that bring universities, domestic and international, together with policymakers, employers, innovators and students to design solutions – not just discuss them.
The next phase of global engagement with India will be defined by mutually beneficial, equitable co-creation
The next phase of global engagement with India will be defined by mutually beneficial, equitable co-creation.
This requires moving beyond “India as a market” to “India as a partner” – and engaging India as a federal ecosystem in which states are decisive actors in shaping education, research, industry collaboration and workforce strategy. Tamil Nadu exemplifies this shift.
Long recognised as India’s leading state for higher education, research and industry integration, Tamil Nadu is now advancing a next-generation model for global collaboration through Knowledge City – India’s first integrated global education district. Designed as a full ecosystem rather than a standalone campus, Knowledge City is planned as an 870-acre, purpose-built education, research and innovation district with universities and research at its core, co-located with industry clusters and supported by plug-and-play infrastructure for global institutions.
The significance is not branding; it is architecture. Knowledge City enables joint degrees, transnational education delivery, applied research hubs, innovation clusters and skills pathways that are inherently industry-aligned. It is designed to make academic–industry collaboration the default rather than the exception, and to convert education into workforce and innovation outcomes at scale.
This moment also demands a different kind of convening infrastructure. Not conferences as showcases, but platforms built to translate intent into execution – where governments, domestic and international universities, employers, innovators and student communities can align on priorities and progress. This includes structured engagement through B2B exhibitions, curated G2G, G2B and B2B dealrooms, and focused dialogues that enable partnerships to move from discussion to delivery.
For those holding responsibility across education, skills, talent and innovation – including ministers and policymakers; vice-chancellors and senior academics; international directors and employability leaders; CEOs, investors; innovators; global employers and talent platforms; testing and credentialing bodies, think tanks and foundations – this conversation is now critical to shaping the decade ahead.
The focus is not only internationalisation and transnational education – though those remain central. It also spans the domains where universities are now system actors: AI and future learning, climate and sustainability, healthcare, creative economies, diversity and inclusion, academic-industry collaboration, employability and entrepreneurship, and the role of universities in nation-building. These are not “themes”; they are national and global imperatives.
A delivery-oriented platform should therefore be judged by outcomes. The most serious convenings are those that build the partnerships and systems required for the decade ahead: aligning education with future skills and workforce demand; strengthening sustainable transnational education models; building ethical, student-centred mobility frameworks; developing global communities of practice; providing data and intelligence for decision-making; and co-creating Knowledge City as a living global education lab for research, education and innovation partnerships.
It is in this spirit that the inaugural India Global Education Summit (IGES) will take place on January 2026 28-29, co-organised by the government of Tamil Nadu and NISAU. The invitation is intentionally inclusive: to Indian institutions and stakeholders shaping India’s domestic education and skills future, and to international partners seeking equitable collaboration with India at scale.
Registration is complimentary for academic institutions and universities, ensuring broad participation across the global higher education community. For those shaping education, skills, talent and innovation strategies, this is an opportunity to move from conversation to co-creation.
Registration details are available at educationsummit.global.
About the author: Sanam Arora is founder and chair of NISAU (National Indian Students and Alumni Union UK) and convenor of the India Global Education Summit.
