Tag: good

  • Higher education data explains why digital ID is a good idea

    Higher education data explains why digital ID is a good idea

    Just before the excitement of conference season, your local Facebook group lost its collective mind. And it shows no sign of calming down.

    Given everything else that is going on, you’d think that reinforcing the joins between key government data sources and giving more visibility to the subjects of public data would be the kind of nerdy thing that the likes of me write about.

    But no. Somebody used the secret code word. ID Cards.

    Who is she and what is she to you?

    I’ve written before about the problems our government faces in reliably identifying people. Any entitlement– or permission– based system needs a clear and unambiguous way of assuring the state that a person is indeed who they claim they are, and have the attributes or documentation they claim to.

    As a nation, we are astonishingly bad at this. Any moderately serious interaction with the state requires a parade of paperwork – your passport, driving license, birth certificate, bank statement, bank card, degree certificate, and two recent utility bills showing your name and address. Just witness the furore over voter ID – to be clear a pointless idea aimed at solving a problem that the UK has never faced – and the wild collection of things that you might be allowed to pull out of your voting day pocket that do not include a student ID.

    We are not immune from this problem in higher education. I’ve been asking for years why you need to apply to a university via UCAS, and apply for funding via the Student Loans Company, via two different systems. It’s then never been clear to me why you then need to submit largely similar information to your university when you enroll.

    Sun sign

    Given that organs of the state have this amount of your personal information, it is then alarming that the only way it can work out what you earn after graduating is by either asking you directly (Graduate Outcomes) or by seeing if anyone with your name, domicile, and date of birth turns up in the Inland Revenue database.

    That latter one – administrative matching – is illustrative of the government’s current approach to identity. If it can find enough likely matches of personal information in multiple government databases it can decide (with a high degree of confidence) that records refer to the same person.

    That’s how they make LEO data. They look for National Insurance Number (NINO), forename, surname, date of birth, postcode, and sex in both HESA student records and the Department for Work and Pension’s Customer Information System (which itself links to the tax database). Keen Wonkhe readers will have spotted that NINO isn’t returned to HESA – to get this they use “fuzzy matching” with personal data from the Student Loans Company, which does. The surname thing is even wilder – they use a sound-based algorithm (SOUNDEX) to allow for flexibility on spellings.

    This kind of nonsense actually has a match rate of more than 90 per cent (though this is lower for ethnically Chinese graduates because sometimes forenames and surnames can switch depending on the cultural knowledge of whoever prepared the data).

    It’s impressive as a piece of data engineering. But given that all of this information was collected and stored by arms of the same government it is really quite poor.

    The tale of the student ID

    Another higher education example. If you were ever a student you had a student ID. It was printed on your student card, and may have turned up on various official documents too. Perhaps you imagined that every student in the UK had a student number, and that there was some kind of logic to the way that they were created, and that there was a canonical national list. You would be wrong.

    Back in the day, this would have been a HESA ID, itself created from your UCAS number and your year of entry (or your year of entry, HESA provider ID, and an internal reference number if you applied directly). Until just a few years ago, the non-UCAS alternative was in use for all students – even including the use of the old HESA provider ID rather than the more commonly used UKPRN. Why the move away from UCAS – well, UCAS had changed how they did identifiers and HESA’s systems couldn’t cope.

    You’re expecting me to say that things are far more sensible now, but no. They are not. HESA has finally fixed the UKPRN issue within a new student ID field (SID). This otherwise replicates the old system but with one important difference: it is not persistent.

    Under the old approach, the idea was you had one student number for life – if you did an undergraduate degree at Liverpool, a masters at Manchester Met, and a PhD at Royal Holloway these were all mapped to the same ID. There was even a lookup service for new providers if the student didn’t have their old number. I probably don’t even need to tell you why this is a good idea if you are interested – in policy terms – in the paths that students within their career in higher education. These days we just administratively match if we need to. Or – as in LEO – assume that the last thing a student studied was the key to or cause of their glittering or otherwise career.

    The case of the LLE

    Now I hear what you might be thinking. These are pretty terrible examples, but they are just bodges – workarounds for bad decisions made in the distant past. But we have the chance to get it right in the next couple of years.

    The design of the Lifelong Learning Entitlement means that the government needs tight and reliable information about who does what bit of learning in order that funds can be appropriately allocated. So you’d think that there would be a rock-solid, portable, unique learner number underpinning everything.

    There is not. Instead, we appear to be standardising on the Student Loans Company customer reference number. This is supposed to be portable for life, but it doesn’t appear in any other sector datasets (the “student support number” is in HESA, but that is somehow different – you get two identifiers from SLC, lucky you). SLC also holds your NINO (you need one to get funding!), and has capacity to hold another additional number of an institution’s choice, but not (routinely) your HESA student ID or your UCAS identifier.

    There’s also space to add a Unique Learner Number (ULN) but at this stage I’m too depressed to go into what a missed opportunity that is.

    Why is standardising on a customer reference number not a good idea? Well, think of all the data SLC doesn’t hold but HESA does. Think about being able to refer easily back to a school career and forward into working life on various government data. Think about how it is HESA data and not SLC data that underpins LEO. Think about the palaver I have described above and ask yourself why you wouldn’t fix it when you had the opportunity.

    Learning to love Big Brother

    I’ll be frank, I’m not crazy about how much the government knows about me – but honestly compared to people like Google, Meta, or – yikes – X (formerly twitter) it doesn’t hugely worry me.

    I’ve been a No2ID zealot in my past (any employee of those three companies could tell you that) but these days I am resigned to the fact that people need to know who I am, and I’d rather be more than 95 per cent confident that they could get it right.

    I’m no fan of filling in forms, but I am a fan of streamlined and intelligent administration.

    So why do we need ID cards? Simply because in proper countries we don’t need to go through stuff like this every time we want to know if a person that pays tax and a person that went to university are the same person. Because the current state of the art is a mess.

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  • The Wonkhe HE staff survey – how good is work in higher education?

    The Wonkhe HE staff survey – how good is work in higher education?

    As financial pressures continue to bear down on higher education institutions across the UK, there is a visible impact on higher education staff, as resources shrink, portfolios are rationalised, and redundancy programmes are implemented. These are definitively tough times for the sector and its people.

    One way this plays out is in the industrial relations landscape, with unions balloting for industrial action, as well as, on some specific issues, advancing joint work with employers.

    But there is a wider, arguably more nuanced, lens to bring to bear, about how the current circumstances are reshaping staff experiences of working in higher education, and what options are available to those with responsibility for leading and supporting higher education staff.

    When the Wonkhe team came up with the idea of running a national survey for higher education staff we knew from the outset that we would not be able to produce definitive statements about “the HE staff experience” derived from a representative sample of responses. There is no consensus over how you would define such a sample in any case.

    The best national dataset that exists is probably found in UCEA publications that combine institutional staff experience survey datasets at scale – one published in 2024 titled “What’s it really like to work in HE?” and one in May this year diving into some of the reported differences between academic and professional staff, “A tale of two perspectives: bridging the gap in HE EX.”

    Instead we wanted to, firstly, ask some of the questions that might not get asked in institutional staff surveys – things like, how staff feel about their institution’s capacity to handle change, or the relative importance of different potential motivating factors for working in HE, or, baldly, how institutional cost-cutting is affecting individuals. And secondly, as best we can, to draw out some insight that’s focused on supporting constructive conversations within institutions about sustaining the higher education community during challenging times.

    We’ll be reporting on three key areas:

    1. “Quality of work” – discussed further below
    2. Professional motivations, the relative importance of different motivators for our sample group, and the gap between the level of importance afforded key motivators and the extent to which respondents believe they actually get to experience these in their roles – DK has tackled that subject and you can read about his findings here
    3. Views on institutional change capability – coming soon!

    We’ve not covered absolutely everything in this tranche of reporting – partly because of time pressures, and partly because of format constraints. We have a fair bit of qualitative data to dive into, as well as the third area of investigation on institutional change capability all still to come – watch this space.

    The methodology and demographics bit

    We promoted the survey via our mailing list (around 60,000 subscribers) during July and August 2025, yielding a total of 4,757 responses. We asked a whole range of questions that we hoped could help us make meaningful comparisons within our sample – including on things like nationality, and type and location of institutions – but only some of those questions netted enough positive responses to allow us to compare two or more good-sized groups.

    Our working assumption is that if there was a group of around 500 or more who share a particular characteristic it is reasonable to compare their responses to the group of respondents who did not have that particular characteristic. We have conducted analysis of the following subgroups:

    • Career stage: Early career (n=686), mid career (n=1,304), and late career (n=2,703)
    • Those with an academic contract (n=1,110) and those with a non-academic contract (n=3,394) – excluding some other kinds of roles/contracts
    • Time in higher education: five years or fewer (n=908); 6-10 years (n=981); 11-20 years (n=1,517) and more than 20 years (n=1,333)
    • Working arrangements: on-site (n=988); working from home or remotely (n=475); and flexible/hybrid (n=3,268)
    • Leadership role: respondents who said they have formal management or leadership responsibility in their current role for projects, programmes, resources, or people (n=3,506), and those who did not (n=1,214)

    And we also looked at the following identity characteristics:

    • Gender: men (n=1,386) and women (n=3,271)
    • Sexuality: those who identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual or queer (n=654) and those who did not (n=4,093)
    • Ethnicity: those who identified as being of a minoritised ethnicity (n=247) and those who did not (n=4,444)
    • Disability: those who identified as being disabled (n=478) and those who did not (n=4,269)

    In one case – that of respondents who identified as being of a minoritised ethnicity – our sample didn’t meet the threshold for wholly robust analysis, but we found some differences in reported experience, which we think is worth reporting given what we already know about this group of staff, and would caution that these findings should be viewed as indicative rather than definitive.

    In some cases we have combined subgroups to make larger groups – for example we’ve grouped various academic roles together to compare with roles on other kinds of contracts. In others we’ve ignored some very small (usually n=3 and below) groups to make for a more readable chart; for this reason we don’t often show all responses. And although our response rates are high you don’t have to refine things much to get some pretty low numbers, so we’ve not looked at intersections between groups.

    We have reported where we found what we considered to be a meaningful difference in response – a minimum of four percentage points difference.

    The financial context

    88 per cent of respondents said their institution has taken material steps to reduce costs in the last 12 months, offering a background context for answers to the wider survey and the assurance that the thing we are looking at is definitely staff views against a backdrop of change.

    51.6 per cent said they personally had been negatively affected by cost reduction measures, while 41.9 per cent said the personal impact was neutral. This suggests that while cost reduction may be widely viewed as negative, that experience or the views that arise from it may not be universal.

    Of those that said they had been negatively affected we found no meaningful differences among our various comparator groups. Leaders and those later in their career, were as likely to report negative impacts as those without leadership responsibilities or earlier in their career, suggesting that there is little mileage in making assumptions about who is more likely to be negatively impacted – though of course we did not try to measure the scale of the impact, and we’re mindful we were talking to people who had not lost their jobs as a result of cost-saving measures.

    The one exception was between those on academic contracts, of whom nearly two third (65.3 per cent) reported negative impacts, and those on non-academic contracts, of whom the number reporting negative impact was closer to half (47.4 per cent). This difference gives important context for the wider findings, in which those on academic contracts are consistently more likely to offer a negative perspective than those on non-academic contracts across a range of questions. This tallies to some degree with the national picture explored in UCEA’s “Bridging the gap” report in which academics were more likely to report challenges with workload, work-life balance, and reward and recognition, than professional staff – though higher levels of work satisfaction.

    Regretting and recommending HE

    We asked whether, taking into account what is known about other available career paths, whether respondents feel that choosing to work in HE was the right decision for them – two thirds said yes (66.9 per cent) while 23.8 per cent were unsure. Only 9 per cent said no.

    Those approaching the end of their career were more likely to agree (74.3 per cent) compared to those mid-career (65 per cent) or early career (61.2 per cent). Those with leadership responsibilities were also slightly more likely to agree, at 68.2 per cent, compared to 62.3 per cent for those without leadership responsibilities.

    Those on academic contracts were slightly less likely to agree, at 60.8 per cent compared to 68.9 per cent for those on non-academic contracts.

    However, the real divide opens up when we looked at responses to our follow up question: whether respondents would recommend a career in higher education to someone they cared about who was seeking their advice. A much smaller proportion of our sample agreed they would recommend a career in HE (42.2 per cent), with much higher rates of “unsure” (32.1 per cent) and “no” (24.5 per cent) – most likely reflecting the impact of current challenges as compared to people’s longer-term lived experience.

    For the recommend question, the career-stage trend reverses, with those approaching the end of their careers less likely to say they would recommend a career in HE (39.2 per cent) compared to 41.6 per cent for those mid-career and 50.4 per cent for early career respondents.

    There was a substantial difference by role: only 25.7 per cent of those on academic contracts would recommend a career in HE, compared to 46.9 per cent of those on non-academic contracts.

    We did not find any differences by gender, ethnicity, disability, or sexuality on either confidence in the decision to work in HE or willingness to recommend it as a career.

    Quality of work

    One of the great things about higher education as an employment sector is that there are lots of ways to be employed in it and lots of different types of jobs. What one person values about their role might be quite different from what another person appreciates – and the same for the perceived downsides of any given role.

    So rather than trying to drill down into people’s reported experiences based on our own probably biased views about what “good work” looks and feels like, we turned to the idea of “quality of work” as a guiding framework to look at respondents’ experiences and perceptions. We asked 16 questions in total derived from this 2018 Carnegie UK-RSA initiative on measuring job quality in the UK which proposes seven distinct dimensions of work quality, including pay and conditions, safety and wellbeing, job design, social support, voice, and work-life balance.

    We also kept in mind that, while support, safety and wellbeing at work are foundational conditions for success, so is effective performance management and the opportunity to apply your skills. In the spirit of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs we clustered our questions broadly into four areas: safety, security, and pay/conditions; the balance between support and challenge; relationships with colleagues; and “self-actualisation” incorporating things like autonomy and meaningfulness.

    For each question, respondents were offered a choice of Strongly disagree, Disagree, Agree, and Strongly agree. Here we report overall levels of agreement (ie Agree and Strongly Agree)

    You can see the full findings for all our comparator groups in the visualisation below.

    [Full screen]

    Headlines on quality of work and interaction with willingness to recommend

    You can see all the workings out below where I’ve gone through the results line by line and reported all the variations we could see, but the TL;DR version is that the quality dimensions that jump out as being experienced comparatively positively are physical safety, good working relationships with colleagues, and meaningfulness of work. Two key areas that emerge as being experienced comparatively negatively are feeling the organisation takes your wellbeing seriously, and opportunities for progression – the level of agreement is startlingly low for the latter.

    We compared the various quality dimensions against whether people would recommend a career in higher education for the whole sample and found that across every question there was a direct correlation between a positive response and likelihood to recommend a career in HE – and the inverse for negative responses. We think that means we’re asking meaningful questions – though we’ve not been able to build a regression model to test which quality questions are making the largest contribution to the recommend question (which makes us sad).

    [Full screen]

    Going through the various comparator groups for the quality of work questions we find that there are three core “at risk” groups – one of which is respondents of a minorised ethnicity, which comes with caveats regarding sample size. Another is those on academic contracts, and the third is disabled respondents. These groups did not consistently respond more negatively to every question on quality of work, but we did find enough differentiation to make it worth raising a flag.

    So to try to see whether we could find some core drivers for these “at risk” groups, we plotted the response to the “recommend” question against the responses to the quality questions just for these groups. At this point the samples for disabled and minoritised ethnic responses become just too small to draw conclusions – for example, under 100 respondents who identified as being of a minoritised ethnicity said they would not recommend a career in HE.

    However, over 400 of those on academic contracts said they would not recommend a career in HE, so we compared the answers of that group to those of respondents on non-academic contracts who also would not recommend a career in HE (just shy of 700 respondents). Interestingly for a number of the quality questions there was no differentiation in response between the groups, but there was noticeable difference for “reasonable level of control over work-life balance”, “able to access support with my work when I need it”, and “opportunities to share my opinion” – in the sense that among the group that would not recommend HE the academic cohort were more likely to give negative responses to these questions, giving a modest indication of possible priority areas for intervention.

    We also found that those who had worked in higher education for five years or fewer were frequently more likely to report agreement with our various propositions about quality work. While there’s clearly some overlap with those early in their career they are not entirely the same group – some may have entered HE from other sectors or industries – though early career respondents do also seem to emerge as having a slightly more positive view as well, including on areas like emotional safety, and wellbeing.

    Safety, security and pay and conditions

    The four statements we proposed on this theme were:

    • I feel reasonably secure in my job
    • I am satisfied with the pay and any additional benefits I receive
    • I feel physically safe at work
    • I feel emotionally safe at work

    On job security, overall two thirds (66.3 per cent) of our sample agreed or strongly agreed that they feel reasonably secure in their job. Those on academic contracts reported lower levels of agreement (57.8 per cent). Those who said they had been employed in higher education for five years or fewer reported higher levels of agreement (71.4 per cent). Respondents who identified as disabled reported slightly lower levels of agreement (61.9 per cent).

    On satisfaction with pay, conditions and additional benefits, overall 63.8 per cent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they were satisfied. Those on academic contracts reported lower levels of agreement (56.3 per cent). Those who identified as having a minoritised ethnicity had the lowest levels of agreement of all our various comparators (53.1 per cent), and were twice as likely to strongly disagree that they were satisfied with pay and benefits than those from non-minoritised ethnicities (15.2 per cent compared to 7.9 per cent). Those who identified as disabled had lower levels of agreement (54.6 per cent agreement) compared to those who did not consider themselves disabled (64.9 per cent agreement)

    On physical safety, the vast majority of respondents (95.8 per cent) agreed or strongly agreed they feel physically safe at work with very little variation across our comparator groups. While the overall agreement was similar between men and women, notably men were more likely to register strong agreement (66.3 per cent) than women (51.9 per cent).

    On emotional safety the picture is more varied. Overall 72 per cent agreed or strongly agreed they feel emotionally safe at work. Those who reported being earlier in their career reported higher levels of agreement (78.6 per cent), as did those who reported having worked in the HE sector for five years or fewer (78.6 per cent). Those with academic contracts reported lower levels of agreement (61.62). Those who identified as having a minoritised ethnicity had lower levels of agreement (62.7 per cent) and were more than twice as likely to strongly disagree they feel emotionally safe at work than those who are not minoritised (14.2 per cent compared to 6.1 per cent).

    Balance, challenge, and performance

    The four statements we proposed on this theme were:

    • The work I do makes appropriate use of my skills and knowledge
    • I have a reasonable level of control over my work-life balance
    • My organisation demonstrates that it takes my wellbeing seriously
    • My organisation demonstrates that it takes my performance seriously

    On using skills and knowledge 79.2 per cent of our sample agreed or strongly agreed that their work makes appropriate use of their skills and knowledge. There was very little variation between comparator groups – the one group that showed a modest difference was those who reported being disabled, whose agreement levels were slightly lower at 75.3 per cent.

    On control over work-life balance, 80.7 per cent of our sample agreed or strongly agreed they have a “reasonable” level of control. Those who had worked in higher education for five years or fewer were more likely to agree (87.2 per cent). 86.5 per cent of those who work from home agreed, compared to 74.4 per cent of those who work on campus or onsite, and 81.7 per cent of those who have hybrid or flexible working arrangements. Those who reported having leadership responsibilities had lower levels of agreement (78.9 per cent) compared to those who did not (85.9 per cent).

    The biggest difference was between those on academic contracts (66 per cent agreement) and those on non-academic contracts (85.3 per cent agreement). There were also slightly lower scores for disabled respondents (74.7 per cent compared to 81.2 per cent for non-disabled respondents) and for minoritised ethnicities (76.6 per cent compared to 81 per cent for non-minoritised ethnicities).

    On wellbeing, 57.8 per cent of our sample agreed or strongly agreed that their organisation demonstrates that it takes their wellbeing seriously. This was higher for early-career respondents – 60 per cent agreement compared to 57.9 per cent for those in mid-career, and 55.5 per cent for those approaching the end of their career. Agreement was higher for those with five years or fewer in higher education at 68.4 per cent agreement, compared with 54.5 per cent for those with more than 20 years’ experience.

    Those on academic contracts were substantially less likely to agree with only 39.7 per cent agreement that their organisation demonstrates that it takes their wellbeing seriously. Disabled respondents were also much less likely to agree than non-disabled respondents, at 47.7 per cent and 59 per cent respectively. Those working from home reported slightly lower levels of agreement, at 52.6 per cent.

    On performance, 63.1 per cent of our sample reported that their organisation demonstrates that it takes their performance seriously. This was slightly higher for those who had five years or fewer in higher education, at 69.6 per cent. Again, there was a difference between those on academic contracts with 57.8 per cent agreement and those on non-academic contracts, with 64 per cent agreement. Disabled respondents were slightly less likely to agree (58 per cent agreement) than non-disabled (63.8 per cent agreement).

    Relationships with colleagues

    The four statements we proposed on this theme were:

    • I am able to access support with my work when I need it
    • I am given sufficient opportunities to share my opinion on matters that affect my work
    • For the most part I have a good working relationship with my colleagues
    • I generally trust that the people who work here are doing the right things

    On accessing support, 76.2 per cent of our sample agreed they are able to access support when they need it. There was higher agreement among those early in their career at 81.3 per cent, and similarly among those who had worked five years or fewer in HE, at 82.8 per cent. There was lower agreement among those on academic contracts: 62.3 per cent agreement versus 80.5 per cent for those on non-academic contracts. Those from a minoritised ethnicity had lower agreement at 70.6 per cent, as did disabled respondents at 67.4 per cent.

    On opportunities to share opinion, 70.4 per cent of our sample agreed or strongly agreed they were given sufficient opportunities to share their opinion on matters that affect their work. There was a small difference between those who held a leadership role and those who did not, at 71.9 per cent and 66 per cent agreement respectively. Again, those on academic contracts had lower levels of agreement, at 58.2 per cent compared to 73.9 per cent for those on non-academic contracts. Disabled staff also had lower agreement at 60.9 per cent.

    On working relationships, cheeringly, 96.1 per cent of our sample agreed or strongly agreed they have good working relationships with their colleagues. While this held true overall across all our comparator groups regardless of leadership roles, working location, personal characteristics or any other factor, notably those of a minoritised ethnicity strongly agreed at a lower rate than those who did not identity as being from a minoritised ethnicity (39.6 per cent strong agreement compared to 48.3 per cent).

    On trust, 70.8 per cent of our sample agreed or strongly agreed that they generally trust the people they work with are doing the right things. This was very slightly lower among those who work from home or remotely, at 65.9 per cent. Agreement was lower among those on an academic contract, at 61.6 per cent, compared to 73.4 per cent of those on a non-academic contract. Agreement was also lower among disabled respondents, at 63.8 per cent.

    “Self-actualisation”

    The four statements we proposed on this theme were:

    • My current job fits with my future career plans and aspirations
    • I am comfortable with the level of autonomy I have in my job
    • There are sufficient opportunities for progression from this job
    • The work I do in my job is meaningful

    On career plans, 76.1 per cent of our sample agreed or strongly agreed that their current job fits with their future career plans and aspirations. Those who said they work from home or remotely had slightly lower levels of agreement at 69.3 per cent. Those who said they do not have any kind of leadership role had slightly lower levels of agreement at 69.4 per cent.

    On autonomy, 82.5 per cent of our sample agreed or strongly agreed they were comfortable with the level of autonomy they have in their job. Those with an academic contract had very slightly lower levels of agreement at 77.9, compared to 83.8 per cent agreement among those on non-academic contracts. Those of a minoritised ethnicity had lower levels of agreement at 73.9 per cent, as did disabled respondents, at 75.9 per cent agreement.

    On progression, a startling 29.5 per cent agreed or strongly agreed that there are sufficient opportunities for progression from their current position. There was a modest difference between those with leadership roles, 31.1 per cent of whom agreed, compared to 25 per cent of those without a leadership role. Those on academic contracts had higher levels of agreement at 38.5 per cent, compared to 26.8 per cent of those on non-academic contracts.

    On meaningful work, 86.1 per cent of our sample agreed or strongly agreed that the work they do in their job is meaningful. Those who work from home or remotely had very slightly lower levels of agreement at 77.9 per cent but otherwise this held true across all our comparator groups.

    Aspiration to lead and preparedness to lead

    We asked about whether respondents aspire to take on or further develop a leadership role in higher education, and if so, whether they are confident they know what a path to leadership in higher education involves in terms of support and professional development. These questions are particularly relevant given the generally negative view about opportunities to progress held by our survey respondents.

    [Full screen]

    Overall, 44.5 per cent of our sample said they aspire to take on or further develop a leadership role. Curiously, this was only slightly higher for those who already have some level of leadership responsibility, at 48.3 per cent. This can be explained to some degree by differentiation by career stage: 58.8 per cent of early career respondents aspired to take on or develop leadership roles, as did 50.9 per cent of mid-career respondents.

    Aspiration to lead was higher among those identifying as lesbian, gay, or bisexual at 52.6 per cent compared to 43.2 per cent for those who did not. Aspirations were also higher among respondents of a minoritised ethnicity, at 54.5 per cent, compared to 43.8 per cent among those not of a minoritised ethnicity.

    We also asked respondents whether they are confident they know what a path to leadership involves in terms of support and professional development, where we found some important variations. Confidence about pathways to leadership was lower among early career respondents, at 22.8 per cent agreement, and even mid-career respondents confidence was lower than the numbers reporting they aspire to leadership, at 36.6 per cent.

    While there was no difference in aspiration between respondents on academic contracts and those on non-academic contracts, those on academic contracts were more likely to say they are confident they know what a path to leadership involves, at 50.3 per cent compared to 34.8 per cent.

    While there was no difference in aspiration between men and women respondents, women were slightly less likely than men to report confidence in knowing about the path to leadership, at 37.5 per cent compared to 42 per cent. Those who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual, those of a minoritised ethnicity, and disabled respondents were also slightly less likely than their comparator groups to express confidence, despite having expressed aspiration to lead at a higher rate.

    These findings around demographic difference suggest that there remains some work to be done to make leadership pathways visible and inclusive to all.

    We’ll be picking up the conversation about sustaining higher education community during tough times at The Festival of Higher Education in November. It’s not too late to get your ticket – find out more here.

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  • September 11th, 24 Years Later. Never Forget. Take a moment. Do a good deed.

    September 11th, 24 Years Later. Never Forget. Take a moment. Do a good deed.


    I was in EMS for 22 years before retiring due to a back injury. One of my most memorable experiences was responding to New York City as a Paramedic in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11. I will never forget that experience. What I saw and did are still with me, as is a type of asthma from breathing the dust. My Experience as a Paramedic on 9-11-01

    We lost over 3,000 American’s that day, including 8 EMS Providers, 60 Police Officers and 343 Firefighters in NYC. Many EMTs and paramedics have died and continue to die each year since September 11, 2001 due to their exposure working at the site.

    Since that day, over 400 FDNY Firefighters, EMS and other responders have died from 9/11 related illnesses, and hundreds of others are sick, including EMS, PD and civilians. There is a new area at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in NYC for these individuals who are sick. 

    As time passes, people seem to forget what happened and the toll it has taken. We need to make sure we never forget and educate our children about what happened. Talk to them about it, tell them how you felt and what the experience was. Take them to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in NYC. It is an amazing, somber experience going there. My 8 year old daughter has been to ground zero and the park, but not into the museum. That will come later.

    I still vividly remember where I was (engineer at Sikorsky Aircraft) when it happened, responding down there as a paramedic, the sights, the smells, the people. I was at Ground Zero for the last part of my shift down there on 9/12. It was sobering to see the pile, knowing there were people in there.

    As the years have gone by, we have lost first responders to 9/11 related diseases, many struggle with PTSD or other medical issues. The current generation doesn’t know this as anything but history. The worst part for many of us was not being able to save people and the many days and weeks hoping against all odds that we would find people alive.

    I went to the 9/11 Memorial Museum in NYC in 2012. It was an amazing, heartbreaking experience. I recommend that every American go there and see it, remember those who were lost, and pray something like this never happens again.

    9/11 still haunts me to this day, as it does most of us who responded. But we persevere and move on, not letting the terrorists win.

    The anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks has become a very important National Day of Service and Remembrance in America, known as “9/11 Day”.

    9/11 Day is a time when Americans are asked to join together in unity, remember those lost on 9/11, and if possible, perform good deeds or other acts of service as a positive tribute to the 9/11 victims, as well as first responders and military personnel who rose in service in response to the terrorist attacks.

    This year, the organizers of 9/11 Day are asking all of us to participate virtually through a special program called “Take a moment. Do a good deed”, There is no cost or required donation involved. The goal is to inspire one million acts of kindness that participants are able to do from home.

    Here’s how:

    Visit www.911day.org.

    24 years after 9/11, we’re remembering the outreach, love and support that emerged in response to the tragedy. Let’s keep that togetherness alive. Join us in turning 9/11 into a global day of doing good.

    They also have Toolkits and Lesson Plans around 9/11 and #911day. 

    So please share a message of support for 9/11 Day, about your deed, using #911day

    Nothing could be more important right now than joining together in unity and to pay tribute by helping those most in need. Never forget what we are capable of doing together. Thank you!


    I’m also very proud that my company, CDW, is a sponsor of 911day and supports the military, first responders, and all affected by 9/11.

    United We Stood, United We Stand
    Today is a day Americans will never forget.

    It is a day of remembrance, a day of reflection and a day to be proud.

    It is a day we honor and remember the thousands of lives lost, the survivors, and those who rose up in service in response to the attacks on 9-11-2001.

    It is a day we pay tribute to and reflect on the sacrifices of the public safety workers and the men and women in our military who serve us and protect us 365 days a year.

    It is a day Americans can be proud of the way we came together following the attacks on 9-11.

    United We Stood. United We Stand.

    Here are some more resources about my experience on 9/11 and 9/11 in general:

    My Experience as a Paramedic on 9-11-01

    Remembering 9/11 (from 2009)

    Great collection of sites about Osama bin Laden, terrorism, and the wars in the Middle East from Larry Ferlazzo.

    http://www.history.com/content/9-11/102-minutes

    http://makehistory.national911memorial.org/

    http://www.national911memorial.org/site/PageServer?pagename=New_Home

    http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1921566_1932073,00.html

    .

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  • Good Marketing Won’t Fix Unpopular Programs

    Good Marketing Won’t Fix Unpopular Programs

    In full disclosure, I work in higher education marketing. But I’m here to say: Marketing can’t fix a bad program. OK, maybe “bad” is too strong of a word, but degree programs that aren’t aligned to the modern learner’s needs and expectations — or the job market — can be challenging. Let’s discuss.

    For this article, we’ll primarily focus on adult online learners. And these prospective students are very different from those coming right out of high school. According to Common App, first-time college students apply to about six different colleges, on average. The online learner typically inquires with only two institutions, according to an EducationDynamics report, and 45% apply to just one.

    What does this mean for schools with online programs? You have to get in front of your target audience quickly and make your case clearly. But if you don’t have the right mix of features or programs for these students, it doesn’t matter if your marketing is excellent.

    Give Online Learners What They Need 

    Online learners typically work at least part time and often full time. They have different needs and expectations for their higher education experience. They need flexibility. They also don’t want to be in school longer than necessary. Most are earning a degree to improve their career options. 

    Below are a few things to consider when formatting your programs and processes for online students.

    Efficiency 

    Once online learners have decided to take the step of applying, they’re committed and want to get started quickly. According to the EducationDynamics report, 80% enroll in the school that admits them first, and more than 50% expect to begin courses within a month of being admitted. 

    That means admissions teams have to move quickly and the programs must offer multiple start dates per year. If you make prospective students wait, you lose out. Delays can make an otherwise good program fall into the “bad” category.

    This one can be challenging. You need enough students to merit multiple start dates. That’s where that good marketing comes in!

    Relevant Skills

    Online learners choose online because they’re working and need a flexible school schedule to accommodate their work and personal commitments. But let’s focus on the work part here. These students need skills and credentials that will boost their earnings and opportunities. That’s one of the most cited reasons for returning to school.

    So, again, the degree must match the skills students need to find work. If the only online programs you offer are in computer science, you may find that you’re wasting your marketing dollars. Yes! Computer science! In the age of artificial intelligence (AI), computer science and engineering graduates are struggling to find work. 

    Personal opinion: Liberal arts and studies will become more important if they can teach students the durable skills needed in the AI era — communication, critical thinking, and research skills.

    Clear Information

    Degree program pages and websites sometimes obscure information users need to make decisions. And we saw above how quickly online learners are making decisions and want to get started. If your program page hides costs, financial aid information, credit hours, and requirements, you’re going to drop out of their consideration set. 

    Online learners want to weigh available information and make informed decisions. Some will certainly have price sensitivity, but it’s not the only consideration, so don’t hide tuition rates and fees. The EducationDynamics report notes that “flexibility can even overcome cost, with 30% of respondents indicating they would enroll at a more expensive institution if the available format, schedule, or location were ideal.” Show your cards. Let the students make their decisions with the information available.

    If your program doesn’t meet student requirements in this area, marketing won’t make a significant impact on your enrollments.

    Be Discriminating in Your Marketing Spend

    Sometimes there are politics at play or other reasons to market or support certain programs, but when possible, be thoughtful and intentional about where you spend your marketing dollars. Because marketing can’t solve for a challenging program, you must put your budget toward programs that meet student needs, including those that meet the criteria above.

    It’s tempting to give equal shares to all programs, but unless you have an unlimited budget, that’s not the best use of your funds. 

    If you must give some marketing love to all programs, even the “bad” ones, try a brand-focused approach that connects to an all-programs page. For example, send some limited traffic to a dedicated landing page that briefly covers all available programs. That way, you’ve covered the challenged programs without dedicated resources.

    Use the remainder of your budget on programs that align with students’ needs, so you can enjoy a lower cost per enrollment. Who doesn’t love a “chase the winners” strategy?

    Need More Help?

    Archer Education has deep expertise in both of these areas: marketing and program assessments. Our Strategy and Development team can help you take an unfiltered view of your programs and processes to create a plan for future success, even as the market shifts. If you have good programs and need marketing support, we’re here for that, too.

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  • Sarah Bendall on good governance – Campus Review

    Sarah Bendall on good governance – Campus Review

    NSO First Assistant Ombudsman Sarah Bendall spoke to Campus Review editor Erin Morley about how student complaints reflect current sector issues, like governance, and how it will work with the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC).

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  • Top Tips: Take good notes

    Top Tips: Take good notes

    The key to a great news story is a great interview. But all your work getting that interview will be wasted if you don’t have great notes. 

    When I first started out as a journalist, people didn’t always record their interviews. I rarely used a recorder. I found that it did something to my brain. Part of my brain would be worried that the recording wasn’t working. 

    When I became an editor, I found that I could tell when a reporter had used a recorder. The quotes in the story were often too long or too flat — they lacked something, maybe emotion or emphasis. 

    When you interview someone without taping it, you have to listen carefully. There isn’t any backup. And because it is difficult to take down everything someone says word for word, your brain works with your ears and your hand to take down what is most important – the essential facts and details, the emotion, the surprising things someone says. 

    If you have recorded that same interview, you won’t be doing that. You know you have a backup. And when you go back and listen to the recording, something is different. The statements all flatten out and you end up putting in the story what sounds most explanatory or most impressive. In other words, you can’t tell what was most interesting when you were sitting there or on the phone. 

    A recording is not enough.

    These days it is standard practice to record interviews, if for no other reason than we need the audio for podcasts or audio clips. 

    But for a great story and to be a great storyteller you should master the art of notetaking. When doing an interview forget that the recorder is on. Imagine it isn’t working (and it might not be working!) So here are some tips for taking notes: 

    First, don’t try to take down every word. Instead, listen for what is important. 

    “Quotes can be short,” said News Decoder Educational News Director Marcy Burstiner.

    Don’t try to write everything down word for word. It’s OK to paraphrase. Put quote marks only around actual quotes. If you didn’t put quote marks around something in your notes DON’T put the quote marks in your story. 

    Master shorthand.

    Second, create your own system of shorthand.

    Shorthand is a system of writing in a code that allows you to take down words fast and accurately. There are some standard ways of doing that and courses to teach you how. It was developed for stenographers. Before recorders came along, offices employed people to take down dictation. The boss would dictate letters and reports to their secretaries who would then type them up. But you can create your own system of shorthand.

    For example, instead of writing down the person’s name every time they start talking (when you are talking to multiple people at the same time) use their initials. You can also lv out the vwls of common wrds. 

    U can write in text message 4mat b/c that also wrks. I am not a fast writer so I came up with my own system early on in my career. I put ?? when I’m not sure what the person said but I don’t want to interrupt them. I put ** when I want to go back to it to follow up. I circle words or underline them when I sense it is important.

    For something outrageous I write !!

    Take lots and lots of notes.

    Writing down words and ideas cements them in your mind.

    Finally, use a pen and paper. There are a number of reasons to do this. If you are interviewing someone in person and you try to take your notes on a laptop or tablet, your head will be down half the time and you can’t circle stuff easily. 

    Second, there is some science behind the notion that we retain information better when we write things down hand to paper. 

    As a journalist, I was a messy note taker. That piece of paper in the photo image at the top of the story is an actual page of notes I once took. If I had time before I had to submit my article I would take the effort to type my notes onto a Word or Google Doc. Later I fell in love with spreadsheeting and would type my notes into a Google Spreadsheet, which would allow me to match up information with information from other interviews and sort them. This became handy when I was doing a story that involved a lot of interviews and complicated information. 

    When going to interviews I sometimes forgot a notepad and would have to grab paper anyway I could. I’ve taken notes in the margins of flyers and brochures and on the backside of stuff I got in the mail.

    But the best practice is to always keep a notepad on you, just as photographers always keep a camera on them. 

    Finally, when you are ready to start writing, write from your notes first before going to the recording. Use the recording to make sure you got your quotes right and that you paraphrased what the person said correctly. Trust that your brain and your ears and your hand will have taken down the best information and the most engaging quotes. 

    Questions to consider:

    1. Why take notes if you are recording an interview?

    2. What is the difference between quoting someone and paraphrasing something they said?

    3. How good a notetaker are you?

     

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  • The Good Enough Manuscript (opinion)

    The Good Enough Manuscript (opinion)

    I recently coached a scholar through drafting a proposal for her second book. Her manuscript is almost complete, and our work together involved putting together a strong pitch for a few of the university presses that publish in her field. As she shared the last component of her book proposal with me for feedback, she observed with satisfaction that the proposal was indeed coming together but that the hard part would be working up the nerve to send the project off. If she only knew how many times I’ve seen that “hard part” be the step that kept people from realizing the publishing success they so deserve.

    As a professional developmental editor and publishing consultant who has spent the last 10 years helping academics bring their books and articles to print, I’m well-versed in the struggles of the scholarly writer. It’s no small feat to find time to research and write amid other professional obligations (like teaching and service) and personal commitments (like childcare, eldercare and self-care), not to mention national and global turbulence. Those who manage to complete a scholarly manuscript under these conditions should be applauded. But then the writer who has already accomplished so much faces another hurdle: persuading a press or journal to publish the text they’ve written.

    A common reaction to this hurdle is to find ways to delay having to confront it. I see writers get stuck in endless rounds of revision, going back and forth about which citations to include, tinkering with sentence structure and word choice, waiting to contact publishers until they’ve landed on the perfect phrasing for their cover letters.

    The truth is that the minute details don’t matter as much in the first submission as authors might think, especially at book publishers. You do want to put your best foot forward, to show that you value an editor’s time and that of the peer reviewers who will consider your work for publication. But it’s expected that your manuscript will evolve with the input of peer reviewers and that polishing words and sentences will happen during the final revision and copyediting stages. The writer’s goal when submitting to publishers should therefore not be a perfectly finished text, but a “good enough” manuscript that allows a press or journal to seriously consider whether they want to give a greater platform to the writer’s ideas.

    But what constitutes “good enough” in the eyes of scholarly publishers? The first criterion publishers are looking for is a sense of fit with their existing offerings. This actually has little to do with the quality of your writing. It’s more about whether the readership that the press or journal has already cultivated is generally welcoming to the topic, methods and theoretical framework of your piece.

    To ensure your manuscript is good enough in the area of fit, do your homework on what your target press or journal has recently published in the last year or two. Get clear on whom you are writing for and find outlets where those readers are already gathering. The risk of rejection goes down exponentially when you send your manuscript to the right place.

    Turning to your manuscript itself, before sending it to a publisher, you should evaluate it for what I call the four pillars of scholarly writing: argument, evidence, structure and style. Scholarly manuscripts must have a solid foundation in all four areas to be successful in the publishing process, because each of these fundamental aspects of the text has the potential to make or break the text’s chances of being received well by peer reviewers, getting approved for publication and ultimately reaching readers in the author’s scholarly field and beyond.

    Your argument is the main claim that drives your text and that you want readers to accept. Is it clearly stated near the beginning and does it remain present throughout the text? Your evidence backs up the argument for the reader. Do you have sufficient evidence and do you analyze it effectively to guide your reader to the points you want them to accept?

    The structure of your manuscript supports the reader in encountering your evidence and absorbing your points in a logical and engaging order. Structural concerns include the way the text is organized into chapters, sections and paragraphs, as well as your use of titles, headings, transitions and other signposts to move your reader along. Have you put thought into why the components of your text are organized the way they are, and have you used appropriate cues to make the structural logic obvious to your reader? By style, I mean the overall presentation of your writing, including how your attitude toward both reader and subject matter shows up on the page. Depending on the publishing venue, the style of a scholarly manuscript may be informal or formal, passionate or detached. Consider what will be most effective with your most important readers and ensure stylistic consistency across your text.

    After attending to big-picture matters, you will want to double-check that everything in your text is accurate and that sloppy errors don’t interfere with a reader’s understanding of what you want to say. But resist the temptation to tinker endlessly with superficial details. Everyone’s time, labor and mental fortitude are limited these days, so spend yours where they will get you the greatest return on investment.

    Try to reframe the editorial and publication process in your mind, thinking of it not as an adversarial set of gatekeeping encounters—though it can be that at times—but as a process designed to make your work the best it can be before it goes public. Your manuscript doesn’t have to be perfect when entering the process, because you’ll be taking it through several cycles of development before considering it to be finished. There will be multiple opportunities to improve it, and editors, peer reviewers and supportive readers will be alongside to help.

    The prospect of hitting “send” on your manuscript can be incredibly nerve-racking, but your ideas can’t reach anyone, let alone do good work in the world, if you don’t put them out there. You must eventually let go of the manuscript so it can go do its work.

    Doubts are natural. You may worry that a reader you respect will have reasonable objections or that you’ve missed something important. Perhaps you also worry about exposing yourself to criticism or rejection on the basis of your ideas, identity, background or political beliefs. Such fears are legitimate, especially for those scholars who are already marginalized in the academy. Name these fears and acknowledge that you have a right to feel your anxieties. Then assess whether the actual risks are worth silencing yourself by not putting your work out there at all.

    Laura Portwood-Stacer is the author of Make Your Manuscript Work (Princeton University Press, 2025), which offers a practical method to develop scholarly texts for publication, including a list of the most common areas where manuscripts need improvement. She is also the author of The Book Proposal Book (Princeton, 2021) and the Manuscript Works Newsletter, providing weekly guidance for scholarly writers and publishing professionals.

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  • Sharing is good, except when it isn’t

    Sharing is good, except when it isn’t

    In the wake of the floods in the U.S. state of Texas earlier this month news circulated on social media of two girls being rescued. One of the first posts sharing the story included a screenshot of a post to social media that read:

    Rescuers find 2 girls in tree, 30-feet up, near Comfort

    The dramatic rescue occurred closer to Comfort, which is in Kendall County, witnesses said. The girls were found in the tree during ongoing search operations for victims of Friday’s catastrophic flooding that has killed 59 people across Kerr County.

    A Facebook search of the post’s keywords returned dozens of identical or similarly-worded posts retelling the harrowing rescue. Other versions of the story were also shared across social media platforms like Instagram Threads, as well as in now-deleted articles across various news outlets. 

    But the story was fabricated. 

    It was a prime example of a type of misinformation known as “copypasta.” 

    Inciting fear

    Social media posts that utilize copypasta — a portmanteau of “copy” and “paste” — are often used to incite fear or evoke emotions, prompting users to like and share the content. These posts are used for various reasons, whether to polarize different political groups further or to attract a broader audience and spread misinformation. 

    Alex Kasprak is an investigative journalist who reported for the digital fact-checking website Snopes for nearly a decade. In his experience, Kasprak says copypasta plays a central role in online misinformation. (For more on Snopes’ take on copypasta, head to this link.) 

    “The simplest way to put it, is that copypasta is a text that you see that is identical or nearly identical posted either with somebody’s name as an author or without it in an identical form on multiple posts such that it’s clear that whoever is posting it copied it from somewhere else,” said Kasprak. 

    “What you end up getting in that sort of phenomenon is a game of telephone.”  

    Copypasta serves as a new-age version of chainmail, seen in the early days of email, which promised good luck for forwarding a message or foretold misinformation if you let the email sit in an inbox. 

    Lacking credibility

    In the case of copypasta, social media users are encouraged to comment, share or tag their friends in a post to boost engagement. Such emotion-evoking messages can serve as an entry point into more polarizing content, which is often rife with false information. 

    To identify copypasta, look for signs of vague or generic information that lacks a credible source or call to action. The way a post is written can also serve as an indication that it may be a copy-and-paste text. 

    “With copypasta, everything generally kind of travels forward, including errors in grammar or mistranslations,” Kasprak said. “If there are weird sentences that just kind of end or don’t fully make grammatical sense, that is an indicator that the tone of the message doesn’t match.”

    If the post is shared by someone that you know on your feed, but the tone is different than how they usually post or talk, the content likely originated from another source — credible or not, Kasprak said. 

    In addition to spreading false information, copypasta can be used as part of bigger campaigns to push particular sentiments or ideologies. For example, back in 2017, U.S. government officials found evidence that Russian “trolls” took to social media and also deployed social media campaigns to connect certain users to various organizations or movements.

    Danger to the infosphere

    During these online campaigns, nefarious actors meddled in the election by posting emotional content to get users to engage, gradually bringing them down a digital rabbit hole of more polarizing issues.

    Kasprak adds that copypasta content also harms the “infosphere,” or public knowledge otherwise rooted in fact. When copypasta becomes widespread and is presented as a “pseudofact,” people begin to cite it as common knowledge. A commonly held belief that many people cite as fact, for example, is that a mother bird will abandon its offspring if a human touches it. Experts agree that this notion is not true. 

    Another tactic behind those who post copypasta is to poison AI models in a similar way that fake news websites do. When enough content on the internet makes a particular claim, AI technologies may focus on this noise and refer to it as fact. In this way, AI programs are “trained” to focus and “believe” those posts over other sources of information.

    Emotion-evoking posts may also fall into the copypasta category if they are not rooted in unbiased facts. If emotional language used in the post immediately sparks anger, sadness or another strong emotion, it may be a fake post. 

    “In general, the big thing to watch out for is if something fits perfectly into your notion of how the world works,” said Kasprak. Posts that validate a person’s view of the world or evoke strong emotions in a positive or negative way are more likely to be a red flag. 

    Kasprak advises users to check their biases when reading potential copypasta content; if something makes you angry or sad, double-check its source and legitimacy. 

    “Pause if you feel strongly about wanting to share something, because those posts are the ones where the risk of copypasta is higher,” said Kasprak. When he comes across a post he believes to be copypasta, Kasprak says that he tries to “tear apart” the argument, primarily if it supports his beliefs, until it dissolves. 

    “Check your blind spots and be vigilant in checking your work,” said Kasprak. 

    When in doubt, don’t share.

     

    Questions to consider:

    1. What is meant by “copypasta”?

    2. How can something false become part of commonly believed?

    3. Can you remember the last thing you reposted on social media? What kind of things do you share with your network?

     

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  • Homeless Student Counts in California Are Up. Some Say That’s a Good Thing – The 74

    Homeless Student Counts in California Are Up. Some Say That’s a Good Thing – The 74


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    In Kern County, the first rule in counting homeless students is not saying “homeless.”

    Instead, school staff use phrases like “struggling with stable housing” or “families in transition.” The approach seems to have worked: More families are sharing their housing status with their children’s schools, which means more students are getting services.

    “There’s a lot of stigma attached to the word ‘homeless,’” said Curt Williams, director of homeless and foster youth services for the Kern County Office of Education. “When you remove that word, it all changes.”

    Largely as a result of better identification methods, Kern County saw its homeless student population jump 10% last year, to 7,200. Those students received transportation to and from school, free school supplies, tutoring and other services intended to help them stay in school. For the purposes of this data, the definition of homelessness is broader than the state’s point in time count.

    The trend is reflected statewide. In the latest state enrollment data released last month, California had 230,443 homeless students — a 9.3% increase from the previous year. Some of the increase is due to the state’s ongoing housing shortage, but most of the increase is because of better identification, advocates and school officials said.

    Homeless students face numerous obstacles in school. They have higher rates of discipline and absenteeism, and fare worse academically. Last year, only 16% of homeless students met the state’s math standard, some of the lowest scores of any student group.

    “Schools can’t solve homelessness, but they can ensure the students are safe in the classroom and getting the education they need to get out of homelessness,” said Barbara Duffield, executive director of Schoolhouse Connection, a national homeless youth advocacy group. “That starts with identifying the child who’s homeless.”

    Challenges of counting homeless students

    Under the federal McKinney-Vento Act, schools are required to count their homeless students throughout the school year and ensure they receive services. Homeless students also have the right to stay enrolled in their original school even if they move.

    For many years, schools struggled to identify homeless students. Under state law, schools must distribute forms at the beginning of the school year asking families where they live — in their own homes, in motels, doubled-up with other families, in shelters, cars or outdoors.

    Some schools were less-than-diligent about collecting the form, or reassuring families understood the importance. Often, homeless families were reluctant to submit the form because they were afraid the school might contact a child welfare agency. Immigrant families sometimes feared the school might notify immigration authorities. And some families didn’t realize that sharing quarters with another family — by far the most common living situation among homeless families – is technically defined as homeless, at least under McKinney-Vento.

    A 2021 bill by former Assemblymember Luz Rivas, a Democrat from Arleta in the San Fernando Valley, sought to fix that problem. The bill requires schools to train everyone who works with students — from bus drivers to cafeteria workers to teachers — on how to recognize potential signs of homelessness. That could include families who move frequently or don’t reply to school correspondence.

    The bill seems to have helped. Last year, the state identified 21,000 more homeless students than it had the previous year, even as overall enrollment dropped.

    Still, that’s probably an undercount, researchers said. The actual homeless student population is probably between 5% and10% of those students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, according to the National Center for Homeless Education. In California, that would be a shortfall of up to 138,713 students.

    Influx of funding

    Another boost for identifying homeless students came from the American Rescue Plan, the federal COVID-19 relief package. The plan included $800 million for schools to hire counselors or train existing staff to help homeless students. Nearly all schools in California received some money.

    About 120 districts in California won grant money through the McKinney-Vento Act, which last year dispersed about $15.9 million in California to pay for things like rides to school, backpacks, staff and other services. Districts are chosen on a competitive basis; not all districts that apply receive funds.

    But those funding sources are drying up. Most of the pandemic relief money has already been spent, and President Donald Trump’s recently approved budget does not include McKinney-Vento funding for 2026-27.

    The cuts come at a time when advocates expect steep increases in the number of homeless families over the next few years, due in part to national policy changes. Republican budget proposals include cuts to Medicaid, food assistance and other programs aimed at helping low-income families, while the immigration crackdown has left thousands of families afraid to seek assistance. For families living on tight budgets, those cuts could lead to a loss of housing.

    And in California, the shortage of affordable housing continues to be a hurdle for low-income families. Even Kern County, which has traditionally been a less pricey option for families, has seen a spike in housing costs as more residents move there from Los Angeles.

    Joseph Bishop, an education professor at UCLA and co-author of a recent report on homeless students nationwide, said the loss of government funding will be devastating for homeless students.

    “California is the epicenter of the homeless student crisis, and we need targeted, dedicated support,” Bishop said. “Folks should be extremely alarmed right now. Will these kids be getting the education they need and deserve?”

    Better food, cleaner bathrooms

    In Kern County, identification has only been one part of the effort to help homeless students thrive in school. Schools also try to pair them with tutors and mentors, give them school supplies and laundry tokens, and invite them to join a program called Student Voice Ambassadors. There, students can tour local colleges, learn leadership skills and explore career options.

    As part of the program, staff ask students what would make school more enticing — and then make sure the suggestions happen. At one school, students said they’d go to class if the bathrooms were cleaner. So staff improved the bathrooms. At another school, students wanted better food. They got it.

    Williams credits the program with reducing absenteeism among homeless students. Two years ago, 45% of Kern County’s homeless students were chronically absent. Last year, the number dropped to 39% – still too high, he said, but a significant improvement.

    “Without McKinney-Vento funds, the Student Voice Ambassador program would go away,” Williams said. “How will we keep it going? I don’t know.”

    This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.


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  • Three Ways to Give Donation-Minded Visitors a Good Story

    Three Ways to Give Donation-Minded Visitors a Good Story

    In a study of 99,542 donors who supported causes between 2020 and 2024 with gifts totaling less than $5,000 a year (nearly 97 percent of all donors), just 5.7 percent supported education institutions. That’s according to “The Generosity Report: Data-Backed Insights for Resilient Fundraising,” published this April by Neon One, a provider of nonprofit operational technology.

    While major gifts will always be a crucial part of higher ed advancement success, it’s important to remember that smaller gifts add up, and during this uncertain time higher ed leaders must prioritize capturing the interest of every could-be donor.

    Among the donors studied, nearly 30 percent gave to more than one nonprofit, for a combined average of about $545 in 2024, an increase from $368 in 2020. Many—if they have a good relationship with a nonprofit and are asked—will increase their level of support.

    Sharing donation impact stories on a college’s main giving page is an approach not taken enough, in my experience. Typically, the “make a gift” or “give now” link, found prominently on an institution’s homepage, brings a visitor to a form. (“Yes, we’ll take that credit card info now.”) While no one wants to distract anyone from giving online, some colleges are clearly making efforts to inspire and inform giving by sharing how donations are helping students succeed and contributing to research and other efforts benefiting the community or beyond.

    In uncovering examples of colleges using engaging narratives on their donation pages, I now have a clear sense of several practices to consider. For anyone asking how an already resource-strapped marketing and comms team is supposed to make time for additional storytelling, here’s some good news: Most institutions are probably already publishing articles that can be gently repurposed for alumni and other friends thinking about making a gift.

    Following are three actions to take when the goal is telling impact stories on a main giving page.

    1. Find (and tweak) or create the content.

    Do some sleuthing to locate any articles already written about programs and supports made possible at least in part with donor funding. While giving sites can include articles about major gifts that center around the donor, focusing on individuals or communities that are better because of the initiative is more compelling.

    Donation-related video content—although probably needing to be built from scratch—is a great way to highlight real student successes, whether it’s a scholarship that opened up access, emergency funds that allowed a student to stay in school or the excitement of commencement. Minnesota State University, Mankato, recorded accepted students finding out they had received scholarships and students who had benefited from emergency funding sharing how the gift had “saved the day.” Gratitude-focused videos, especially when they use student voices, need not reveal specific personal circumstances.

    To help find individuals to feature, some giving pages invite students, alumni, employees and donors to suggest or contribute their own impact stories.

    1. Provide a mix of content formats and collections.

    Slideshows, blown-up quotes and infographics (individual graphics or numbers-driven stories) are a few visual content tactics spotted on giving pages.

    Lewis & Clark College tells succinct stories on its giving page through a slideshow with three students sharing how their financial aid offers allowed them to enroll. The Oregon college’s giving page also includes a collection of five featured stats, highlighting how gifts from the past year have made an “immediate impact on the areas of greatest need.” Rather than just presenting the most obvious numbers, such as giving totals, these data points note, for example, the number of potential jobs and internships sourced by the career center, or how many new titles were purchased by the library.

    When strategizing about giving page content, consider a series of similar stories that use a standard title or title style. These can even be short first-person pieces, such as “The next decade of [community, achievement, opportunity, gratitude, etc.] begins with you,” a series created for McGill University in Montreal.

    To make an impact story most effective at inspiring a gift, be sure to take the extra step of adding a call-to-action message and link within each article. Even institutions doing this tend to be inconsistent about it. Try adding an italicized note at the end, a sentence within the text or a box that explains the related fund, as University of Colorado at Boulder does.

    1. Be thoughtful about giving page content organization.

    Content-rich giving pages don’t start with a gift form or a bunch of stories. Instead, a single large photo or slideshow featuring students and a short, impactful message seems to be the preferred approach.

    As a visitor scrolls down, additional content tiers can offer more detail and giving encouragement—such as students expressing gratitude for support. More comprehensive feature articles and/or collections of impact story content tend to appear toward the bottom of the page, with a few teaser stories and often a link to see more. Larger collections of stories can be broken into categories and made searchable.

    Some institutions place links to impact story pages in more than one place and include multiple “make a gift” buttons on the main giving page.

    A new focus on giving content should also trigger some tweaks to the gift form itself. Does it include a drop-down menu with specific fund options? Can a donor write in where to direct the gift?

    Or consider McGill’s approach: Each of five big ideas listed on its giving stories page takes visitors to a gift form, followed by a description of the meaning of that idea, followed by specific stories that bring it to life.

    What inspirational success stories could you be sharing with friends who click to donate?

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