Tag: high

  • I earned my associate degree while still in high school, and it changed my life

    I earned my associate degree while still in high school, and it changed my life

    by Maxwell Fjeld, The Hechinger Report
    December 1, 2025

    Earning an associate degree alongside my high school diploma was an ambitious goal that turned into a positive high school experience for me. By taking on the responsibilities of a college student, I further prepared myself for life after high school.  

    I needed to plan out my own days. I needed to keep myself on task. I needed to learn how to monitor and juggle due dates, lecture times and exams while ensuring that my extracurricular activities did not create conflicts. 

    All of this was life-changing for a rural Minnesota high school student. Dual enrollment through Minnesota’s PSEO program saved me time and money and helped me explore my interests and narrow my focus to business management. After three years of earning dual credits as a high school student, I graduated from community college and was the student speaker at the commencement earlier this year in May — one month before graduating from high school. 

    As a student earning college credits while still in high school, I gained exposure to different career fields and developed a passion for civic engagement. At the beginning of my senior year, while taking courses at the local community and technical college, I was elected to serve as that school’s first cross-campus student body president. 

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

    While most states have dual-enrollment programs, Minnesota’s support for its PSEO students stands out. As policymakers consider legislative and funding initiatives to strengthen dual enrollment in other states, I believe that three features of our program could provide a blueprint for states that want to do more. 

    First, the college credits I earned are transferable and meet degree requirements.  

    Second, the PSEO program permitted me to take enough credits each semester to earn my associate degree. While the number of dual-enrollment credits high school students can earn varies by state and program, when strict limitations are set on those numbers, the program can become a barrier to higher education instead of an alternate pathway.  

    Third, Minnesota’s PSEO program limits the cost burden placed on students. With rising costs and logistical challenges to pursuing higher education credentials, the head start that students can create for themselves via loosened restrictions on dual-enrollment credits can make a real financial impact, especially for students like me from small towns. 

    Dual-enrollment costs vary significantly from state to state, with some programs charging for tuition, fees, textbooks and other college costs. In Minnesota, those costs are covered by the Department of Education. In addition, if families meet income requirements, the expenses incurred by students for education-related transportation are also covered.  

    If I did not have state support, I would not have been able to participate in the program. Financial support is a crucial component to being a successful dual-enrollment student. When the barrier of cost is removed, American families benefit, especially students from low-income, rural and farming backgrounds.  

    Early exposure to college helped me choose my major by taking college classes to experiment — for free. When I first started, I was interested in computer science as a major. After taking a computer science class and then an economics class the following semester, I chose business as my major.  

    The ability to explore different fields of study was cost-saving and game-changing for me and is an opportunity that could be just as beneficial for other students. 

    Targeted investments in programs like this have benefited many students, including my father in the 1990s. His dual-enrollment experience allowed him to get a head start on his education and gain valuable life skills at a young age and is a great example of dual enrollment’s potential generational impact. 

    Related: STUDENT VOICE: I’m thriving in my dual-enrollment program, but it could be a whole lot better 

    When dual-enrollment students receive guidance and support, it can be transformational. Early exposure to college introduced me to college-level opportunities. As student government president, I went to Washington, D.C., to attend a national student summit. I was able to meet with congressional office staffers and advocate for today’s students and for federal investment in dual-enrollment programs, explaining my story and raising awareness. 

    The daily life of high school is draining for some and can be devastating for others. I had many friends who came to believe that the bullying, peer-pressure and culture they experienced in high school would continue in college, so they deemed higher education “not worth it.” 

    Through dual enrollment, I saw the difference in culture; students who face burnout from daily high school life can refocus and feel good about their futures again. 

    Congress can help state legislatures by establishing strong dual-enrollment programs nationwide. With adequate government support, dual-enrollment programs can help students from all walks of life and increase college graduation rates. If all states offer access to the same opportunities that I had in high school, our next generation will be better prepared for the workforce and more successful. 

    Maxwell Fjeld is pursuing his bachelor’s degree at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities’ Carlson School of Management after earning an associate degree upon high school graduation through dual enrollment. He is also a student ambassador fellow at Today’s Students Coalition. 

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected]. 

    This story about dual-enrollment programs was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter. 

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  • High quality learning means developing and upskilling educators on the pedagogy of AI

    High quality learning means developing and upskilling educators on the pedagogy of AI

    There’s been endless discussion about what students do with generative AI tools, and what constitutes legitimate use of AI in assessment, but as the technology continues to improve there’s a whole conversation to be had about what educators do with AI tools.

    We’re using the term “educators” to encompass both the academics leading modules and programmes and the professionals who support, enable and contribute to learning and teaching and student support.

    Realising the potential of the technologies that an institution invests in to support student success requires educators to be willing and able to deploy it in ways that are appropriate for their context. It requires them to be active and creative users of that technology, not simply following a process or showing compliance with a policy.

    So it was a bit worrying when in the course of exploring what effective preparation for digital learning futures could look like for our Capability for change report last year, it was noticeable how concerned digital and education leaders were about the variable digital capabilities of their staff.

    Where technology meets pedagogy

    Inevitably, when it comes to AI, some HE staff are enthusiastic early adopters and innovators; others are more cautious or less confident – and some are highly critical and/or just want it to go away. Some of this is about personal orientation towards particular technologies – there is a lively and important critical debate about how society comes into a relationship with AI technology and the implications for, well, the future of humanity.

    Some of it is about the realities of the pressures that educators are under, and the lack of available time and headspace to engage with developmental activity. As one education leader put it:

    Sometimes staff, they know that they need to change what they’re doing, but they get caught in the academic cycle. So every year it’s back to teaching again, really, really large groups of students; they haven’t had the time to go and think about how to do things differently.

    But there’s also an institutional strategic challenge here about situating AI within the pedagogic environment – recognising that students will not only be using it habitually in their work and learning, but that they will expect to graduate with a level of competence in it in anticipation of using AI in the workplace. There’s an efficiency question about how using AI can reprofile educator working patterns and workflows. Even if the prospect of “freeing up” lots of time might feel a bit remote right now, educators are clearly going to be using AI in interesting ways to make some of their work a bit more efficient, to surface insight from large datasets that might not otherwise be accessible, or as a co-creator to help enhance their thinking and practice.

    In the context of learning and teaching, educators need to be ready to go beyond asking “how do the tools work and what can I do with them?” and be prepared to ask and answer a larger question: “what does it mean for academic quality and pedagogy when I do?”

    As Tom Chatfield has persuasively argued in his recent white paper on AI and the future of pedagogy, AI needs to have a clear educative purpose when it is deployed in learning and teaching, and should be about actively enhancing pedagogy. Reaching this halcyon state requires educators who are not only competent in the technical use of the tools that are available but prepared to work creatively to embed those tools to achieve particular learning objectives within the wider framework and structures of their academic discipline. Expertise of this nature is not cheaply won – it takes time and resource to think, experiment, test, and refine.

    Educators have the power – and responsibility – to work out how best to harness AI in learning and teaching in their disciplines, but education leaders need to create the right environment for innovation to flourish. As one leader put it:

    How do we create an environment where we’re allowing people to feel like they are the arbiters of their own day to day, that they’ve got more time, that they’re able to do the things that they want to do?…So that’s really an excitement for me. I think there’s real opportunity in digital to enable those things.

    Introducing “Educating the AI generation”

    For our new project “Educating the AI generation” we want to explore how institutions are developing educator AI literacy and practice – what frameworks, interventions, and provisions are helpful and effective, and where the barriers and challenges lie. What sort of environment helps educators to develop not just the capability, but also the motivation and opportunity to become skilled and critical users of AI in learning and teaching? And what does that teach us about how the role of educators might change as the higher education learning environment evolves?

    At the discussion session Rachel co-hosted alongside Kortext advisor Janice Kay at the Festival of Higher Education earlier this month there was a strong sense among attendees that educating the AI generation requires universities to take action on multiple fronts simultaneously if they are to keep up with the pace of change in AI technology.

    Achieving this kind of agility means making space for risk-taking, and moving away from compliance-focused language to a more collaborative and exploratory approach, including with students, who are equally finding their feet with AI. For leaders, that could mean offering both reassurance that this approach is welcomed, and fostering spaces in which it can be deployed.

    In a time of such fast-paced change, staying grounded in concepts of what it means to be a professional educator can help manage the potential sense of threat from AI in learning and teaching. Discussions focused on the “how” of effective use of AI, and the ways it can support student learning and educator practice, are always grounded in core knowledge of pedagogy and education.

    On AI in assessment, it was instructive to hear student participants share a desire to be able to demonstrate learning and skills above and beyond what is captured in traditional assessment, and find different, authentic ways to engage with knowledge. Assessment is always a bit of a flashpoint in pedagogy, especially in constructing students’ understanding of their learning, and there is an open question on how AI technology can support educators in assessment design and execution. More prosaically, the risks to traditional assessment from large language models indicate that staff may need to spend proportionally more of their time on managing assessment going forward.

    Participants drew upon the experiences of the Covid pivot to emergency remote teaching and taking the best lessons from trialling new ways of learning and teaching as a useful reminder that the sector can pivot quickly – and well – when required. Yet the feeling that AI is often something of a “talking point” rather than an “action point” led some to suggest that there may not yet be a sufficiently pressing sense of urgency to kickstart change in practice.

    What is clear about the present moment is that the sector will make the most progress on these questions when there is sharing of thinking and practice and co-development of approaches. Over the next six months we’ll be building up our insight and we’d love to hear your views on what works to support educator development of AI in pedagogy. We’re not expecting any silver bullets, but if you have an example of practice to share, please get in touch.

    This article is published in association with Kortext. Join Debbie, Rachel and a host of other speakers at Kortext LIVE on Wednesday 11 February in London, where we’ll be discussing some of our findings – find out more and book your place here.

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  • The high costs of cheap food

    The high costs of cheap food

    From New York to Jakarta, the scene is the same: Shelves overflowing with cheap, ultra-processed snacks and sugary drinks have become the new normal for millions of children. As a result, for the first time in history, more children are obese than underweight.

    UNICEF’s new Feeding Profit report explains why: Across the globe, cheap and intensely marketed ultra-processed foods dominate what families are able to put on the table, while nutritious options remain out of reach.

    Across the world, one in 20 children under five and one in five children and adolescents aged five to 19 are overweight. The number of overweight children and teens in 2000 almost doubled by 2022, with South Asia experiencing an increase of almost 500%. In East Asia, the Pacific, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, the increase was at least 10%.

    Ultra-processed foods and beverages, defined as industrially formulated, are composed primarily of chemically-modified substances extracted from foods, together with additives and preservatives to enhance taste, texture and appearance as well as shelf life.

    These foods — which are often cheaper, nutrient poor and higher in sugar, unhealthy fats and salt — are now more prevalent than traditional, nutritious foods in children’s diets.

    Can we wean ourselves off ultra-processed foods?

    Studies show there’s a direct link between eating a lot of ultra-processed foods and an increased risk of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents. Among teens aged 15-19 years, 60% consumed more than one sugary food or beverage during the previous day, 32% consumed a soft drink and 25% consumed more than one salty processed food.

    Today, children’s paths to healthy eating are shaped less by personal choice than by the food environments that surround them. Those are the places where and conditions under which people make decisions about what to eat. They connect a person’s daily life with the broader food system around them, and are shaped by physical, political, economic and cultural factors that help determine what foods are available, affordable, appealing and regularly eaten.

    Such environments are steering children toward ultra-processed, calorie-dense options, even when healthier foods are available.

    Around the world, countries are beginning to push back. In Mexico, where nearly four million children aged 4-10 are obese, the government took a bold step in March 2025. It banned the sale of ultra-processed foods and sugary drinks in schools.

    The new rules go beyond restriction: Schools must offer fresh, regional foods such as fruits, vegetables and seeds, promote water as the default beverage, and establish health education programs. The policy also calls for regular health monitoring, mandatory fortification of wheat and corn flours, and more opportunities for physical activity, with penalties for schools that fail to comply.

    Taking steps to slim down our diets

    In September 2025, Malaysia’s Ministry of Education followed similar steps. It now prohibits 12 categories of ultra-processed foods and drinks in school canteens, from instant noodles and skewered snacks to frozen desserts and candy.

    But even as countries rewrite their food policies, millions of families still face difficult choices at the market.

    Shauna Downs, associate professor of food policy and public health nutrition at Rutgers University, has seen firsthand how hunger and obesity can coexist within the same communities in her research on informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya.

    “People are able to find nutrient-rich foods, like leafy greens, fruits, and vegetables, and animal-source foods, but they’re often expensive, and what they can get that’s cheaper is things like mandazi [fried dough], which provide energy, and they taste good, but they’re not getting the nutrients they need,” she said.

    Families that want to buy the nutrient-rich foods are forced into heartbreaking choices, Downs said.

    “So now they’re making a decision between ‘Am I gonna buy this food from the market, which my family needs, or am I gonna pay for my child to go to school?’” she said.

    Looking at food environments

    By spotlighting the food environment, consumers and researchers alike can move past the tired “eat less, move more” narrative to fight childhood obesity and ask a better question: Why wasn’t the healthy plate the obvious, easy and most affordable choice in the first place?

    Long before ultra-processed foods flooded grocery shelves, they quietly took over another key part of children’s lives: school cafeterias. Back in 1981, the Reagan administration cut US$1.5 billion in U.S. school food funding, pushing public institutions to rely on convenience over nutrition.

    Pamela Koch, associate professor of nutrition and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, said that one of the things cut was for funding for schools  upgrade their kitchens.

    “That was the same time as the food supply was becoming more and more [saturated] with highly-processed food, and a lot of food companies realized, ‘Wait, we could have a market selling to schools. Schools don’t have money to buy supplies’,” Koch said.

    Companies began offering deals: Sign a long-term contract and receive a free convection oven to reheat ultra-processed foods. For schools facing budget cuts and limited staffing, the decision was simple. The cost of that convenience would echo for decades.

    Let’s start with school meals.

    The nonprofit Global Child Nutrition Foundation, highlights school meals as an essential lever for transforming food systems: Create demand for nutritious foods, improve the livelihoods of those working in the food system and promote climate-smart foods. However, the cost of scaling up national programs depends on the strength of supply chains, underlying food markets, logistics and procurement models.

    Countries that depend on imported food, already challenged by infrastructure and expensive trading costs, will face additional challenges in delivering healthy school meals.

    In much of the world, climate stress and weak infrastructure are making nutritious food both more difficult to grow and more expensive to purchase.

    Small-scale farmers, sheep and cattle farmers, forest keepers and fishers — known collectively as smallholder farmers — grow much of the food in low-income countries. They face worsening yields due to climate change, land degradation and lack of access to the technology and resources that support sustainable food production.

    At the same time perishable foods are becoming more expensive because the global supply chain — how food gets shipped from a farm in one country through distribution networks to store shelves in another country — is increasingly threatened by political tension, the lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change.

    Durability over nutrition

    Kate Schneider, assistant professor of sustainable food systems at Arizona State University, said that smallholder farmers grow food as their livelihood. “They’re not able to grow enough food, which is partly a story of climate change,” Schneider said. “Multiple generations now have been farming … year after year on the same land, but without external inputs –– fertilizers and modern, high-yielding seeds –– they are resulting in very low yields.”

    Even when fresh fruits and vegetables are available, logistical barriers make it easier to sell ultra-processed foods. Fresh produce is heavy, vulnerable to spoilage and expensive to move, especially in countries with poor transport networks.

    “When we’re thinking about fresh items, they’re perishable, and they need a cold chain,” Schneider said. “You’re paying, when you buy an apple, for the three that also rotted.”

    Meanwhile, ultra-processed products like soda avoid this problem entirely: “It’s cheaper for them to have a ton of different bottling plants around countries than to distribute long distances,” Schneider said.

    The result of these challenges is a global system that rewards durability over nutrition and continues to make healthy food increasingly out of reach.

    Connecting sustainability of diets and the environment

    The EAT-Lancet Commission 2.0, a scientific body redefining healthy and sustainable diets, offers a different view: The ultra-processed foods fuelling obesity are also pushing food systems beyond climate and biodiversity limits.

    Its newly published report says that nearly half the world’s population can’t afford a healthy diet, while the richest 30% generate more than 70% of food-related environmental damage.

    The planetary health diet suggests a plant-rich diet that consists of whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts and beans, with only moderate or small amounts of fish, dairy and meat.

    To build healthier and more just food systems, experts also recommend a whole list of other things: make nutritious diets more accessible and affordable; protect traditional diets; promote sustainable farming and ecosystems; reduce food waste.

    And all of this should be done with the participation of diverse sectors of the society.

    The responsibility of transforming food systems falls not only on governments but also on donors and financial partners, development and humanitarian organizations, academic institutions and civil society. The stakes are high, but so is the potential to change. With bold, coordinated action, the next generation of children can be nourished by healthy food, while building food systems that sustain both people and the planet. 

    Questions to consider:

    1. How is obesity connected to the environment?

    2. What are some governments doing to try to tackle the obesity crisis?

    3. What changes could you make to your diet to make it healthier?

     

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  • With Butchers Disappearing, High Schools Look to Step In – The 74

    With Butchers Disappearing, High Schools Look to Step In – The 74


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    LEWISTOWN — Slaughterhouses and butchers used to be scattered throughout the United States, numbering about 10,000 in 1967.

    Only about 3,000 remain and about 85% of the American meatpacking industry is controlled by four companies: JBS, Tyson Foods, Cargill and Smithfield. The other 15% of that market share is held in part by small and very small meat producers scattered across the country, including some in Montana.

    About half of small and medium meat processors have disappeared in the last 20 years, and a decades long University of Illinois study found the average length of a meat processing business surviving was 9.7 years. Between inspections, startup costs and other factors, it’s not an easy business to get into or keep afloat. 

    This is true for much of the agricultural industry, and many small businesses have disappeared as corporate America has exerted its will on farmers and ranchers. About 70% of the consumer’s dollar went to cattle producers in 1970, with the other 30% going to processors and retailers. Cattle producers now get about 30% of the consumer’s dollar, according to Farm Action.

    Additionally, about 98% of America’s beef is processed in just over 50 plants. Beef processing co-ops have been created around the state in an effort to help give beef producers more options, but there’s another problem too — employees.

    That’s the place some educators in Montana are looking to step in. Fergus High School in Lewistown, for example, has a robust agricultural education program. It’s also part of the Central Montana Career and Technology Education Academy, a public charter school that was set up this year to connect students with skills and knowledge needed to work in agriculture.

    ‘A dying art’

    Logan Turner, one the teachers at Fergus High School, put it pointedly.

    “Kids aren’t really getting into it,” he said. “Cutting meat is kind of a dying art.”

    His goal has been, in part, to help change that trend. The technical academy seeks to bridge a gap of agricultural knowledge. Beyond meat cutting, classes at the school include farm business management, fabrication and science classes geared toward teaching about soil health among others.

    Turner grew up on his family’s farm outside Missoula and quickly decided he wanted to be a teacher. There’s an urgency for him too, with worries, among them a feeling no one knows where their food comes from and the world’s growing population. 

    “We’ve always been faced with this big issue as agriculturalists,” Turner said. “2050 is right around the corner, and there’s going to be two billion more people on the face of the planet, and how are we going to feed them all? I think it all starts with education and understanding … and so I felt like being an educator probably was the best way for me to contribute.”

    Only about three percent of the food Montanans eat is produced in the state. There are options for eating local food, but they can sometimes be hard to find. 

    Having kids learn about these could also help them enter the workforce with more ideas about what they want to do, which is one of the goals of the program. Orin Johnson, the Central Montana CTE Academy director, said they also want to get students as close as possible to certification in a variety of careers.

    “Every kid doesn’t learn the same way,” Johnson said. “And some really do strive and need to be hands on, and it’s about finding a way to create opportunities that they can be hands on.”

    Students at the school have shown interest and it’s included partnerships with Future Farmers of America and the Montana Farmers Union, which gave the meat processing program two grants totaling about $13,000 over the summer.

    “We do a lot of meat processing at my house because my dad loves hunting, and so we do a lot of wild game,” said Shyanne Ricks, a student at the school who’s gone through the program. “And so doing the meats class really helps with seeing the whole process, not just wild game.”

    Ricks, along with Tori Rindal, a freshman at the school, and the other Lewistown agricultural education teacher — Jared Long — went to the Montana Farmers Union Annual convention and spoke about the program.

    Rindal said she’s hoping to take the meats class next year. Long pointed out agricultural education is broad and students can take many different paths.

    The program offers five pathways: welding, natural resource and conservation, meat processing, animal science and agricultural mechanics. There’s a variety of classes within those, both Long and Turner explained.

    “The common misconception is that it’s just cows and plows,” Long said. “So that’s really our job, we feel like, is to open doors to kids that they might never have.”

    Daily Montanan is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Daily Montanan maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Darrell Ehrlick for questions: [email protected].


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  • NEW HIGH: 3/4 of Americans say free speech is headed in the wrong direction

    NEW HIGH: 3/4 of Americans say free speech is headed in the wrong direction

    PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 13, 2025 — A new poll from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression finds that a record number of Americans now believe that freedom of speech in the country is headed in the wrong direction.

    The quarterly National Speech Index tracks changing attitudes toward free speech among the American public over time. Since its inception in January 2024, the NSI has asked respondents, “When it comes to whether people are able to freely express their views do you think things in America are heading in the RIGHT or WRONG direction?”

    A staggering 74% of Americans in the October edition of the NSI responded that things are headed in the wrong direction for free speech, compared to only 26% who believe things are headed in the right direction. This represents a 10-point jump since the previous July survey.

    Notably, drops in confidence across all political parties contributed to the record-levels of pessimism. From July of this year, Democrats who think things are heading in the right direction fell from 17% to 11%, Independents fell from 31% to 19%, and Republicans fell from 69% to 55%.

    “In the last three months, America watched as Charlie Kirk was murdered for simply debating on a college campus, followed immediately by a wave of censorship of those who opposed his views,” said FIRE Research Fellow & Polling Manager Nathan Honeycutt. “It’s no surprise that a record number of Americans of all parties now think that it’s a dire time for free speech in America.”

    To test support for academic freedom in the aftermath of the Kirk shooting, the October NSI also asked respondents about four politically charged — but constitutionally protected — remarks made by a professor on social media following the shooting. For each statement, majorities of Americans said the professor should not be fired. But their level of support varied by the statement, and substantial minorities in each case reported that the professor “probably” or “definitely” should be fired.

    • 45% say a professor who posted “It’s O.K. to punch a Nazi” should probably or definitely be fired from their job.
    • 37% say a professor who posted “These fascist Bible-thumpers want to drag us back to the Dark Ages” should probably or definitely be fired from their job.
    • 24% say a professor who posted “Our colleges and universities are progressive indoctrination centers” should probably or definitely be fired from their job.
    • 14% say that a professor who posted “We are going to make America great again” should probably or definitely be fired from their job.
    Percentage of Americans who said a professor should be fired if they said the following on social media after Charlie Kirk’s assassination: (Bar Chart)

    “Americans were most divided on the statement supporting political violence, but it’s heartening that most Americans correctly backed academic freedom,” said FIRE Chief Research Advisor Sean Stevens. “On the other hand, it’s deeply concerning that we intentionally included some rather tame political statements — including the winning slogan of the last presidential election — and vocal minorities still called for the professor’s firing.”

    Overall, Americans view political violence as a problem across the ideological spectrum, with only modest differences in responses when asked about different ideologies. 57% of respondents said they agreed at least somewhat with the statement “Political violence is a problem among progressives.” But 56% said the same of conservatives, and 58% said they agreed at least somewhat that political violence was a problem across all political groups.

    “Americans seem to recognize that political violence isn’t a partisan problem — it’s a national one,” said Honeycutt. “Our polling suggests that the public is less interested in pointing fingers and more interested in fixing the toxic culture of hostility in our politics.”

    FIRE also asked for the first time several questions about “jawboning,” the unconstitutional practice in which the government censors by pressuring private actors to silence speech. Around half of Americans said they were “very” or “extremely” concerned about the government pressuring social media companies (53%), video platforms (50%), or private broadcast companies (52%) to remove content based on the ideology expressed.

    Slightly less, 46%, said they were very or extremely concerned about the federal government pressuring banks to disaffiliate with groups or individuals because of their viewpoints, a practice also known as “debanking.” 35% said they were very or extremely concerned about the federal government pressuring tech companies to remove misinformation from internet search results.

    Percentage of Americans who are concerned about the federal government pressuring ... (Bar Chart)

    “Americans are deeply concerned about jawboning — and they’re right to be,” said FIRE Legislative Director Carolyn Iodice. “Both parties have been guilty in recent years of using government pressure to silence speech. This isn’t a partisan issue; it’s a constitutional one.”

    The National Speech Index is a quarterly poll designed by FIRE and conducted by the Dartmouth Polarization Research Lab to capture Americans’ views on freedom of speech and the First Amendment, and to track how Americans’ views change over time. The October 2025 National Speech Index sampled 1,000 Americans and was conducted from October 20 to 28. The survey’s margin of error is +/- 3.0%.

    The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE educates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve them.

    The Polarization Research Lab (PRL) is a nonpartisan collaboration between faculty at Dartmouth College, Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania. Its mission is to monitor and understand the causes and consequences of partisan animosity, support for democratic norm violations, and support for partisan violence in the American Public. With open and transparent data, it provides an objective assessment of the health of American democracy.

    CONTACT:

    Alex Griswold, Communications Campaign Manager, FIRE: 215-717-3473; [email protected]

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  • More South Carolina Students Are Graduating, But Many Aren’t Ready for Life After High School – The 74

    More South Carolina Students Are Graduating, But Many Aren’t Ready for Life After High School – The 74


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    COLUMBIA — South Carolina high schools posted their highest graduation rate in a decade, but a quarter of students still aren’t ready for college or the workforce, according to state report card data released Monday.

    Generally, South Carolina’s schools improved compared to last year, according to the statewide data that gauges how well schools perform based on test scores, classroom surveys and student growth, among other metrics. Education officials applauded a 10-year high in the number of students graduating on time — meaning they graduated four years after entering ninth grade — while saying they would continue pushing for programs to improve how well those students were prepared for life after high school.

    “We have to make sure that our diplomas are worth more than the piece of paper that they are written on,” said state Superintendent Ellen Weaver.

    Overall, 270 schools rated “excellent” this year, an increase from 232 last year. The bottom tier of “unsatisfactory” decreased from 49 to 31, and “below average” schools dropped from 186 to 145.

    Any time the number of schools in the lowest tier shrinks, that’s good news, since it means children across the state are getting a better education, said Patrick Kelly, a lobbyist with the Palmetto State Teachers Association.

    “There’s encouraging information here,” Kelly said of the report cards.

    Officials from the state Department of Education and the independent Education Oversight Committee, which is tasked by state law with grading schools, announced the results at Annie Burnside Elementary School in Columbia, which jumped two tiers this year, from “average” to “excellent.”

    At the Richland District One school, 83% of the 306 students live in poverty. The school’s big rating boost was due to significant student improvement, as shown by their test scores, and results on a survey about the school’s general environment, according to its report card.

    “Our academic gains are no coincidence,” said Principal Janet Campbell. “They are the result of setting measurable goals, challenging our students to reach them and supporting them along the way.”

    Graduation rates and readiness

    This year, 87% of high schoolers graduated on time, up from 85% last year. That’s worth celebrating, Kelly said.

    “Our goal should be for every student in South Carolina who has the ability to earn a high school diploma,” he said.

    Three-quarters of students were ready for either college or a career after graduation, a gain of 3 percentage points, according to the state data. Less than a third were ready for both.

    Although the gap between students who are graduating and those who are prepared for what comes next continues to shrink slightly, state officials remain concerned about it, Weaver said.

    “At the end of the day, we want our students, when they leave a South Carolina high school, to know that that diploma that they carry is a diploma of value,” Weaver said. “This is a diploma that is going to ensure that they are ready to go onto whatever post-secondary success looks like for them.”

    All 11th graders in the state take a test assessing skills commonly needed for jobs, divided into four areas: math, reading, understanding data and “soft skills,” which include aspects of a job such as dressing professionally and working well with others. Results are graded from 1 to 5, with higher scores suggesting students are ready to pursue more careers.

    Students are considered career-ready if they receive a score of 3 or higher on that test, earn a technical education certificate, complete a state-approved internship or receive a high enough score on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery to enlist in the military. This year, 73% of students met that benchmark, compared to 70% last year, according to report card data.

    College readiness is based on a student’s score on the ACT or SAT college entrance exam, college credit earned through a dual-enrollment course and/or scores on end-of-course Advanced Placement tests.

    One-third of graduating students were college-ready, which is on par with at least the past five years, according to state data. The rate of high school students applying for college also continued to decrease, with 59% reporting filling out applications this year, compared with 61% last year.

    A gap between graduation rate and readiness for the next step suggests schools are sometimes passing students without actually imparting the skills they need to succeed in life, Kelly said.

    For instance, district policies setting minimum grades teachers can give makes it easier for students to pass their classes, even if they haven’t actually done the work, Kelly said. Alternatives for students who fail tests or classes are sometimes easier, meaning a student can catch up without actually learning the same skills as their peers, he said.

    “We’ve put some policies in place that make it harder to evaluate what a student knows and can do,” Kelly said.

    Beginning this school year, students can follow a so-called pathway to earn credentials that build on each other every year, allowing students to learn more advanced skills meant to make it easier to find a job in the field they want to pursue, said April Allen, chair of the Education Oversight Committee’s governing board.

    “At the same time, we recognize that strengthening the system must go hand-in-hand with addressing the barriers that keep students from wholly engaging in school,” said Allen, who’s also a government relations director for Continental Tire.

    Chronic absenteeism and test scores

    For example, the number of students who missed at least 10 days of school this year remained a concern, Allen said.

    Around 23% of students were chronically absent, essentially the same number as last year. The more days of school a student misses, the less likely they are to perform as expected for their grade level on end-of-year tests, according to a report the committee put out last year.

    Those tests, in turn, play a role in determining how well a school or a district is performing. Officials and teachers’ advocates credited the Palmetto Literacy Project and a change in how early educators teach reading for improving English scores, but math scores remain low, with less than half of third- through eighth-graders able to perform on grade level, according to state testing data.

    Just over half the state’s high school students scored at least a C, which is a 70%, on their end-of-course Algebra I exams, often taken freshman year, according to report card data. Nearly 69% passed their English 2 exams, typically taken sophomore year.

    While rooting for improvement, teachers’ advocates also warned against depending too heavily on a single exam score in deciding how well teachers and students are performing. A single, high-pressure exam at the end of the year is not necessarily the best indicator of school performance, said Dena Crews, president of the South Carolina Education Association.

    “If people are making judgments based on that, they’re missing a whole lot about schools and districts,” Crews said.

    Teacher support

    The Department of Education plans to focus on teachers in 2026, Weaver said.

    “The No. 1 thing that we have to do to support student learning is take care of our teachers,” Weaver said.

    She is asking legislators to raise the minimum pay for a first-year teacher to $50,000, up from $48,500. Legislators have increased the pay floor in increments for years, with the stated goal of reaching $50,000.

    Weaver is also asking for $5 million to continue a pilot program that awards teachers bonuses based on how well their students perform on tests. She also wants to start a program that offers extra pay to exceptional teachers who mentor others. The additional responsibility would be another way to earn more money without leaving the classroom to go into school administration, she said.

    Supporting teachers is key in improving how well schools are performing, Kelly said. The promising results in this year’s report cards came after the first dip in teacher vacancies since 2019, he added.

    “It should not be a surprise to see school performance improve as teacher vacancies go down,” Kelly said.

    SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. SC Daily Gazette maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seanna Adcox for questions: [email protected].


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  • Tense board relationships fuel high superintendent turnover

    Tense board relationships fuel high superintendent turnover

    Since the COVID-19 pandemic, high superintendent turnover rates have not let up — and that’s not surprising, said Wendy Birhanzel, a district leader in Colorado. 

    Nearly a quarter (23%) of the 500 largest districts experienced a change in their superintendency between July 1, 2024 and July 1, 2025, according to a September report by ILO Group, a national education strategy and policy firm. This turnover is up from last year’s survey results showing a 20% rate and a notable uptick from pre-pandemic averages ranging from 14% to 16%, ILO Group found.

    The job of a superintendent “became a very different role” after COVID-19 shuttered school buildings nationwide in March 2020, said Birhanzel, who is in her seventh year as superintendent at Harrison School District 2 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. “Education is very politicized right now, and can be a little tricky to navigate from all the different sides of everyone in their opinions.”

    Birhanzel said she mentors superintendents in Colorado and throughout the country, and she finds many saying they are “overwhelmed by the constant pressure” from their school boards, students’ families or school staff who are unhappy with the district. 

    While it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of high superintendent turnover nationwide, one underlying reason may be the “real tension” that’s emerged in communities since the pandemic, said Julia Rafal-Baer, CEO of ILO Group and Women Leading Ed, a national network for women education leaders. 

    From controversial COVID-19 policies to rules on screens and devices and growing district enrollment and financial challenges, she said, things have “come to a head” and landed on district leaders. 

    Moreover, the superintendency is one of the most influential roles in K-12 as it directly impacts high-level strategy as well as the teacher workforce and their working conditions, Rafal-Baer said. 

    “And yet we are paying less attention to the fact that the churn [in the superintendency] that we thought would be temporary is our new normal, and it’s straining our districts when students need that kind of steady, effective leadership,” she said.

    Many districts typically outline a five-year strategic plan with set missions and goals that then acts as a blueprint for the system’s needs, said Dennis Willingham,  superintendent at Walker County School District in Jasper, Alabama. 

    Superintendent turnover is concerning because that means district leaders are likely not staying long enough to execute those five-year strategies effectively, he said. 

    Then when a new superintendent steps into the role, they may want to take the district into a totally different direction, Willingham said, which can be discouraging and confusing to school communities. 

    Birhanzel also noted that superintendent turnover can lead to “a domino effect” with more district turnover in other roles like administrators, principals, teachers and even bus drivers. “It goes deeper than just one position,” she said. 

    Despite the high turnover, just one-third of superintendent roles are held by women, according to ILO Group data. Even with year-over-year improvement, parity between men and women won’t be reached until 2054 if the current pace continues, the firm said.  

    What can be done?

    Willingham and Birhanzel agreed that much of the pressure put on superintendents stems from disagreements or tension with their school boards. While both superintendents reported good relationships with their boards, they said they recognized that the positive dynamic they experience can be rare. 

    Pressure from strained school board relationships “takes away the focus” from the school system and “also the joy of being a superintendent,” Willingham said.

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  • Making the Most of College Fairs and High School Visits

    Making the Most of College Fairs and High School Visits

    A Practical Framework for Admissions Leaders to Reach More Students, More Meaningfully

    College fairs and high school visits have long been the bread and butter of admissions outreach. But are they still relevant in a digital age saturated with webinars, virtual tours, and TikTok campus tours?

    The answer is a resounding yes! The 2025 E-Expectations survey of college-bound high school students shows they rate these experiences as helpful and impactful, with fairs standing out as one of the most widely used resources in the college search (RNL, Halda, & ModernCampus, 2025).

    Here is the catch: just showing up is not enough. The latest research tells us that the true impact of fairs and visits depends on how thoughtfully they are designed, where institutions decide to spend their travel dollars, and, maybe most importantly, whether the students and families who need access the most are actually being reached (Huerta, 2020; Institute for Higher Education Policy [IHEP], 2021).

    This blog brings together three key perspectives, each offering a piece of the puzzle:

    • The student voice: What the latest E-Expectations data reveals about how students use and value fairs and visits.
    • Practice-level insights: What enrollment professionals and researchers like Huerta (2020) have learned about structuring these events so they support, rather than overwhelm, students.
    • Policy and systems view: How institutional budgets, recruitment, travel, and school selection practices shape which communities are included, or left out (IHEP, 2021; Niche, 2023).

    By weaving these perspectives together, my goal is simple: to offer admissions leaders a practical framework, a clear and actionable checklist, for designing and delivering college fairs and high school visits that truly serve the full range of students and families you want to reach.

    What students say about fairs and visits

    2025 E-Expectations Trend Report: Explore the online experiences, behaviors, and expectations of college-bound high school students2025 E-Expectations Trend Report: Explore the online experiences, behaviors, and expectations of college-bound high school students

    In the 2025 E-Expectations survey, 80% of respondents attended a college fair, and 85% of those found it helpful (RNL, Halda, & ModernCampus, 2025). Helpfulness peaks in 10th grade but stays strong from 9th (82%) through 12th (85%). First-generation students also find fairs helpful (86%).

    High school visits tell a similar story. Niche (2023) reports that over 70% of students say meeting an admissions representative at their school influenced their decision to consider a college. Campus visits are even more powerful: 85% said a visit nudged them to apply or enroll. The message is clear: students want in-person engagement even in the digital age.

    However, college recruiters visit suburban and affluent schools more often, leaving rural, urban, and first-generation students with fewer recruiter visits (Niche, 2023). If your travel schedule seems stuck on the same comfortable zip codes year after year, you are seeing this problem play out firsthand. The right students are not always getting the right opportunities.

    Reimagining college fairs for equity

    College fairs and campus visits are only helpful when they reach the students who actually need them. Huerta (2020) does not sugarcoat the gaps: “traditional college fairs often disproportionately serve White and affluent students, while low-income, first-generation, and students of color are left out of these critical opportunities for exposure and access” (p. 3).

    How can fairs and visits have a greater impact? Preparation is everything, especially for first-generation students. The right support before the fair can make all the difference. Huerta (2020) says it plainly: “Pre-fair activities such as setting up professional emails, preparing questions, or even taking short career tests equip students to maximize the limited time they have with recruiters” (p. 5). With a plan, the fair is less overwhelming and more empowering.

    What about addressing affordability questions during these activities? Huerta (2020) is clear: “Workshops on financial aid, scholarships, and affordability should be at the center of college fair programming, not optional add-ons” (p. 6). Put cost and aid front and center, and you not only build trust, you tackle one of the biggest barriers families face. If you have ever watched a parent’s shoulders relax after a frank talk about financial aid, you know this is not just theory—it is practical, high-impact work.

    Now picture a fair that feels like a true community event, a place where everyone belongs. Huerta (2020) recommends an equity checklist: multilingual resources, childcare, transportation, and intentional outreach. Suddenly, the fair is not just another recruitment event; it is a space where families actually feel welcome (p. 7). You are not just handing out brochures, you are opening doors.

    Enrollment and admissions implications

    • Go beyond the usual feeder and affluent schools and make a conscious effort to reach overlooked students.
    • Prepare students and families with guides and resources before the visit.
    • Strengthen access with multilingual support, childcare, and transportation options.
    • Measure success by engagement of underserved groups of students, not just attendance.

    Rethinking recruitment policies through the institutional lens

    Zooming out, let us talk about how big-picture policies and budgets shape everything from your team’s travel routes to who gets a seat at the table.

    Travel budgets shape access

    Recruitment travel is costly and eats up a large chunk of resources. Public institutions report spending a median of $536 per recruited student and close to $600,000 a year on enrollment management vendors (IHEP, 2021). Almost one-fifth of recruitment budgets go toward travel for high school visits and college fairs (p. 9). Every travel dollar is a map, deciding which schools and communities get face time with colleges.

    Over-investment in feeder and affluent schools

    IHEP (2021) does not mince words: colleges target suburban and affluent schools, reinforcing privilege, while rural, low-income, Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and AAPI students are left seeing fewer recruiters (p. 11). Nearly nine million students live in rural areas, but cost and assumptions about mobility keep colleges away (IHEP, 2021, p. 11). If you have ever skipped a rural or urban school because “it is too far” or “students from there do not enroll anyway,” you are not alone, but the pattern has real consequences.

    The “iron triangle” of prestige, revenue, and access

    IHEP (2021) calls the balancing of academic profile, revenue, and access the “iron triangle” of recruitment. Too often, access gets squeezed out by prestige or dollars. One example? The out-of-state recruitment push for higher tuition, which can crowd out in-state, low-income, and racially diverse students—the very populations public institutions were built to serve (IHEP, 2021, p. 10). There is a real tension here: the pressure to chase rankings and revenue versus the public mission to expand access.

    Enrollment and admissions implications

    Audit travel strategies so you don’t overlook rural, urban, and high first-generation schools.
    Resist the urge to chase rankings or revenue at the cost of access.
    Measure equity ROI to look at who you reached and not just enrollment numbers.
    Honor the public mission—for public institutions, especially, recruitment travel should put in-state, underrepresented, and transfer students first.

    The “Comprehensive Equity Checklist” for college fairs and high school visits

    (Adapted from Huerta, 2020; IHEP, 2021; Niche, 2023)

    If you are looking for a place to start, here is a checklist you can use to make sure your next fair or visit is as equitable and impactful as possible:

    Access and Inclusion

    • Provide multilingual materials (flyers, signage, applications, financial aid guides).
    • Offer live interpretation services for families with limited English proficiency.
    • Ensure transportation options (buses, metro passes, shuttles) for students and families.
    • Provide childcare or family-friendly spaces so parents and guardians can attend.
    • Make fairs and visits physically accessible (ADA-compliant venues, inclusive spaces).

    Student and Family Preparation

    • Equip students with pre-fair tools: professional email setup, question prompts, résumé templates, and career interest surveys.
    • Offer prep sessions for families on navigating fairs, admissions language, and understanding financial aid.
    • Provide clear expectations before high school visits (e.g., topics covered, documents to bring).

    Financial Aid and Affordability Resources

    • Make financial aid and scholarship workshops central, not optional, at fairs.
    • Ensure recruiters can clearly explain the cost of attendance, aid packages, scholarships, and ROI.
    • Share state aid and local scholarship resources during visits.
    • Provide simple, multilingual financial aid guides for families to take home.

    Recruiter Diversity and Training

    • Send representatives who reflect racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity.
    • Train recruiters in cultural competency, equity, and family engagement strategies.
    • Encourage authentic, student-centered conversations rather than scripted pitches.
    • Pair senior admissions leaders with feeder schools while ensuring new schools also receive attention.

    Event and Visit Design

    • Avoid overwhelming “information overload” by structuring fairs with breakout sessions (e.g., Paying for College 101, Essay Writing Tips, Navigating Campus Visits).
    • Set up reflection areas where students can take notes and debrief.
    • Schedule visits that reach all grade levels, not just seniors, to build early awareness (9th–10th grade especially).
    • Balance large-scale fairs with smaller, targeted events for first-generation and underserved students.

    Travel Strategy and School Selection

    • Audit recruitment travel annually: which schools are visited and which are left out (rural, urban, high first-generation, under-resourced)?
    • Intentionally expand beyond feeder and affluent schools to reach underserved communities.
    • Balance in-state versus out-of-state recruitment to honor institutional missions and equity commitments.
    • Use hybrid and virtual visits to reach schools where travel is limited.

    Data, Metrics and Accountability

    • Collect and analyze participation data disaggregated by race, income, geography, and first-generation status.
    • Track equity ROI: not just attendance numbers, but who was reached and how engagement expanded access.
    • Report back annually to leadership with both quantitative metrics (schools visited, demographics reached) and qualitative feedback (student and counselor satisfaction).
    • Equitable recruitment means more than showing up. It requires intentional design, inclusive practices, and accountability. This checklist can help you ensure that your fairs and visits open doors, instead of reinforcing barriers.

    The bottom line: Opportunity by design

    College fairs and high school visits remain powerful entry points for students exploring higher education. The data is clear: students find them helpful, and when done well, these moments spark interest, build trust, and create momentum in the college search process. But as the research shows, the true impact depends on how these events are implemented and who gets to participate. Fairs that overwhelm students or focus only on affluent schools, and travel that bypasses rural or first-generation communities, risk narrowing opportunity rather than expanding it.

    Admissions leaders hold both the keys and the responsibility to change this. Rethink what success looks like. Expand your travel map beyond traditional feeder schools. Center on affordability and preparation on every visit. Use a comprehensive checklist to plan. If you do, you will reach more students, more meaningfully. Measure the value of college fairs and high school visits by the quality of the student and family experience, the strength of your partnerships with counselors, and the breadth of the communities you serve. In doing so, you will not just make the most of fairs and visits, you will reaffirm your mission to open doors of opportunity for every student who is ready to walk through them.

    Talk with our marketing and recruitment experts

    RNL works with colleges and universities across the country to ensure their marketing and recruitment efforts are optimized and aligned with how student search for colleges.  Reach out today for a complimentary consultation to discuss:

    • Student search strategies
    • Omnichannel communication campaigns
    • Personalization and engagement at scale

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  • How rare are colleges that enroll and graduate high shares of Pell Grant students?

    How rare are colleges that enroll and graduate high shares of Pell Grant students?

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    When it comes to colleges where Pell Grant recipients are at least 55% likely to graduate, there are not a whole lot throughout the U.S. In fact, nearly half of states — many of them Southern with some of the highest poverty rates in the country — don’t have any at all.

    That’s what Becca Spindel Bassett, higher education professor at the University of Arkansas, discovered in a recent analysis in which she sought to identify and map institutions of higher education that she describes as “equity engines.” 

    These are colleges where at least 34% of the students receive Pell Grants and at least 55% of those Pell Grant recipients earn a bachelor’s degree within six years.

    Out of the 1,584 public and private nonprofit four-year institutions that Bassett studied nationwide, she found only 91 — or less than 6% — that qualified for her “equity engine” distinction. 

    And they’re all clustered in 26 states, resulting in what Bassett calls a “spatial injustice” for low-income students who live in one of the states without any equity engines or in areas with limited access to such institutions.

    The almost eight dozen existing equity engines represent a diverse range of institutional types, including regional public universities, small Christian colleges and historically Black institutions. 

    As for whether states can invest more in colleges that are close to being equity engines — a key recommendation of Bassett’s study — it all depends.

    “It’s worth noting that over half of Equity Engines are private colleges and universities, so their relationship to the state and dependency on state funding varies,” Bassett said in an email to Higher Ed Dive.

    But improving Pell graduation rates isn’t only a question of funding models, she said. 

    Leaders at aspiring equity engines can learn best practices and approaches from these colleges and should be prepared to enact “organizational learning and change,” Bassett said. However, much is unknown about what enables colleges to become equity engines, including whether it depends on their programs and services or their policy and funding environments. 

    While Bassett’s study doesn’t answer those questions, a forthcoming book will describe how two of the colleges she identified as equity engines were able to achieve their results, she said. 

    Michael Itzkowitz, founder and president of the HEA Group, a higher ed-focused research firm and consultancy, said in an email that identifying colleges with strong graduation rates is a “good first step” because students who earn a degree “typically earn more than those who do not.” 

    However, Itzkowitz, who under former President Barack Obama served as the director of The College Scorecard — an online federal tool with various data on higher education institutions — added that it’s also critical to consider whether graduates are actually better off economically since “not all institutions and degrees are created equal.”

    “Students who earn a credential at one institution may experience wildly different outcomes if they earned the same degree elsewhere,” he said.

    David Hawkins, chief education and policy officer at the National Association for College Admission Counseling, said in an email that colleges would do well to emulate the equity engines Bassett identified, such as the University of Illinois Chicago. Bassett’s study calls the university a “major driver” of bachelor’s degree completion among Pell Grant recipients in the state, noting those students have a 58% six-year graduation rate.

    Among other things, Hawkins said, such institutions deploy a wide range of services — such as evening or online courses for working students, and transportation to campus — that have been proven to help low-income students cross the finish line.

     “From my perspective, the United States will only remain competitive if we can invest in a postsecondary infrastructure that serves all students who seek opportunity through higher education,” Hawkins said.  

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  • For students, the costs of failure are far too high

    For students, the costs of failure are far too high

    Back in May, I argued that the UK’s “pace miracle” – the system that produces the youngest, fastest-completing graduates in Europe – is damaging students’ learning and health.

    Our system’s efficiency, I suggested, comes at the cost of pressure, exhaustion, and a creeping normalisation of distress.

    But what happens when students fall behind in that miracle? What happens when someone breaks the rhythm that the entire funding and regulatory framework assumes to be normal?

    For our work with SUs, Mack Marshall and I have been looking in detail at the rules and funding that surround “retrieval”.

    From what we can see, UK higher education doesn’t just expect rapid completion – it punishes deviation from it.

    When students stumble, the architecture designed to retrieve them from failure taxes disadvantage and rewards privilege.

    The illusion of generosity

    Pretty much every university we’ve looked at has policies designed to look fair. There is almost always a promise of one reassessment opportunity, and increasingly a public line about not charging resit fees. On paper, that sounds humane – but in practice, the design is economically brutal.

    When a student fails a module and resits within the same academic year, the direct cost may be zero. But there’s no maintenance support for any extra study they need to do. And if that student is placed on reassessment-only status for the following year – allowed to resit assessments without attending teaching – they become ineligible for maintenance funding for much, much longer.

    That means no support for rent, bills, or food for months. The student who can rely on family help revises in comfort. The student who can’t works full-time through summer and fails again, or drops out entirely.

    The sector calls the resit “free” and congratulates itself on removing barriers. But the barrier was never the invoice – it was the maintenance cliff.

    This is not a marginal anomaly – it’s the structural product of the same system that glorifies pace. It’s a logic that insists most degrees must be achieved within three years – one that also dictates that recovery from failure must happen outside the funded frame.

    To understand what happens to students who fail, students need to navigate a maze of regulations, finance policies, visa rules, and handbooks – each written in its own dialect of compliance.

    Students from professional families likely know where to look and what questions to ask. They have the vocabulary, the contacts, the confidence, while first-generation students rarely do. They may well discover “compensation” rules only after exam boards meet, and learn about extenuating circumstances after the deadline passes.

    The result is an information economy that mirrors the class system. The retrieval framework may be universal, but its navigation costs are socially distributed.

    The poverty penalty v pedagogy

    When students pass a module on reassessment, their mark is often capped at the pass threshold – 40 per cent for undergraduates, maybe 50 per cent for postgraduates. The principle sounds rigorous, but the reality is punitive.

    A student who failed once because they were caring for a parent, working nights, or suffering mental ill-health can never escape the academic scar tissue unless it’s a complex and approved mit-circs application. The capping rule converts a temporary difficulty into a permanent credential penalty.

    It is the same ideology that underpins the pace miracle – a meritocracy of difficulty that romanticises struggle and treats rest as weakness. Only it is encoded in assessment policy rather than culture.

    For international students, the same logic takes on a bureaucratic form. Those who fail a single module often face a choice between reassessment-only status – which ends their visa – or repeating with attendance purely to remain sponsored.

    Repeating with attendance can cost thousands of pounds in tuition and visa fees. Many have no realistic option but to pay. The system enforces what looks like a market choice – but is in practice compulsion.

    The Lifelong Learning Entitlement – fix or mirage

    In England at least, the forthcoming Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) ought to usher in flexibility. Funding will finally be linked to credits rather than years. Students will be able to study, pause, and return across their lifetimes. In theory, that should dismantle the rigid three-year cage.

    But in practice, everything will depend on how universities classify students, and how they’re allowed to resit. If reassessment-only learners are still coded as “not in attendance”, they still fall outside maintenance entitlement. The policy will have modernised the vocabulary of exclusion without addressing its cause.

    And even when students do qualify, the LLE’s promise of proportional maintenance means something subtle but serious – flexibility is offered as additional debt, not as forgiveness. Students who fall behind because of illness or bereavement will borrow more, not owe less.

    Unless maintenance is reconceived as a right to recovery rather than a privilege of progression, the LLE risks becoming a faster, more efficient version of the same trap.

    Across Europe, completion frameworks are slower and more forgiving. Some countries permit students a decade to complete a bachelor’s degree without financial penalty. Temporary setbacks don’t trigger existential crises – because variations in time are built into the design.

    As I referenced here, the HEDOCE project found that students in systems with longer completion horizons are less likely to drop out entirely and more likely to recover from setbacks. Those systems treat time as a pedagogical resource, not an efficiency problem.

    In contrast, our compressed model leaves no room for error. Once you stumble, the treadmill doesn’t slow down – it throws you off.

    Beyond efficiency

    Our systems for “retrieval” are not an isolated bureaucracy. They’re the endpoint of a philosophy – the same one I explored in the “pace miracle” piece. Both the speed and the punishment are symptoms of a culture that prizes output over understanding, and throughput over humanity.

    When the system is calibrated around efficiency, every deviation becomes failure, and every failure becomes costly. The student who needs time is framed as wasteful – and the institution that supports them risks financial loss.

    I suspect that is why academic pressure now appears so often in mental health reviews. The structure of funding itself generates the anxiety we later medicalise – what looks like individual struggle is really systemic design.

    If we genuinely wanted a system that supports learning rather than policing pace, we would start by aligning time, funding, and compassion.

    Maintenance support would continue for students on reassessment-only status. Resit marks would reflect achievement, not past misfortune. Compensation and extenuating circumstances policies would be clear, accessible, and generous.

    And more profoundly, universities would stop treating recovery as inefficiency. Every student who fails and returns would be evidence of persistence, not profligacy.

    In England, the LLE could be a turning point – a framework that finally recognises learning as cyclical and non-linear. Or it could simply re-brand the same cruelty in the language of flexibility.

    When I wrote about the UK’s “pace miracle”, I argued that we have built a higher education system that prizes speed and punishes delay – a model that achieves impressive completion rates at the cost of wellbeing, mastery, and fairness.

    Our retrieval systems are the mirror image of that miracle. One governs what happens when students move too slowly during the race – the other governs what happens when they fall altogether. Both reveal the same problem – UK HE mistakes motion for progress, and speed for success.

    A humane higher education system would not just help students recover from failure – it would stop treating recovery as failure in the first place.

    Until then, our miracle of efficiency will continue to hide a quiet cruelty. The students least able to afford failure will remain those the system punishes most heavily – not because they lacked talent or effort, but because we built a structure that makes time itself the privilege they can rarely get a loan for.

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