Tag: Higher education affordability

  • ¿Qué ha pasado desde que Texas eliminó las matrículas estatales para los estudiantes indocumentados?

    ¿Qué ha pasado desde que Texas eliminó las matrículas estatales para los estudiantes indocumentados?

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    SAN ANTONIO — Ximena tenía un plan. 

    La joven de 18 años de Houston iba a comenzar clases este otoño en la Universidad de Texas en Tyler, donde le habían concedido una beca de 10.000 dólares al año. Esperaba que eso le permitiera alcanzar su sueño: un doctorado en Química, seguido de una carrera como profesora o investigadora.

    “Y entonces se produjo el cambio en la matrícula estatal, y fue entonces cuando supe con certeza que tenía que dar un giro”, dijo Ximena. (The Hechinger Report se refiere a ella solo por su nombre de pila porque ella teme represalias por su situación migratoria).

    Aunque Ximena pasó sus primeros años en el norte de México, la mayoría de sus recuerdos son de después de mudarse a Estados Unidos con su padre. Ha asistido a escuelas en Estados Unidos desde el jardín de infancia y, para ella, el 12.º grado consistió principalmente en explicar conceptos avanzados de química a sus compañeros de clase y dirigir laboratorios como asistente de enseñanza.

    Pero en junio, los sueños de Ximena se vieron truncados cuando la oficina del fiscal general de Texas y la administración Trump colaboraron para poner fin a las disposiciones de una ley estatal que ofrecía a miles de estudiantes indocumentados como ella tasas de matrícula más bajas en las universidades públicas de Texas. Los funcionarios estatales y federales argumentaron con éxito ante los tribunales que la política vigente desde hacía mucho tiempo discriminaba a los ciudadanos estadounidenses de otros estados que pagaban una tasa más alta. Ese razonamiento se ha replicado ahora en demandas similares contra Kentucky, Oklahoma y Minnesota, como parte de una ofensiva más amplia contra el acceso de los inmigrantes a la educación pública.

    En la UT Tyler, la matrícula y las tasas estatales para el próximo año académico ascienden a un total de 9.736 dólares, frente a los más de 25.000 dólares que pagan los estudiantes de fuera del estado. Ximena y su familia no podían permitirse el elevado coste de la matrícula, por lo que la joven se retiró. En su lugar, se matriculó en el Houston Community College, donde los costos para los estudiantes de fuera del estado son de 227 dólares por hora semestral, casi tres veces más que la tarifa para los residentes en el distrito. La escuela solo ofrece clases básicas de química de nivel universitario, por lo que, para prepararse para un doctorado o para trabajar en investigaciones especializadas, Ximena seguirá necesitando encontrar la manera de pagar una universidad de cuatro años en el futuro.

    Su difícil situación es precisamente lo que los legisladores estatales de ambos partidos políticos esperaban evitar cuando aprobaron la Texas Dream Act o Ley de Sueños de Texas, una ley de 2001 que no solo abrió las puertas de la educación superior a los estudiantes indocumentados, sino que también tenía por objeto reforzar la economía y la mano de obra de Texas a largo plazo. Con esa ley, Texas se convirtió en el primero de más de dos docenas de estados en aplicar la matrícula estatal a los estudiantes indocumentados, y durante casi 24 años, esta política histórica se mantuvo intacta. Los legisladores conservadores propusieron repetidamente su derogación, pero a pesar de los años de control de un solo partido en la legislatura estatal, no hubo suficientes republicanos que apoyaran la derogación, incluso esta primavera, días antes de que la oficina del fiscal general de Texas y el Departamento de Justicia federal decidieran ponerle fin.

    Ahora, a medida que se acerca el semestre de otoño, los estudiantes inmigrantes están sopesando si darse de baja de sus cursos o esperar a que se aclare cómo les afecta el acuerdo de consentimiento firmado por el estado y el Departamento de Justicia. Los defensores de los inmigrantes temen que las universidades de Texas estén excluyendo a posibles alumnos que se encuentran en situación legal y siguen reuniendo los requisitos para pagar la matrícula estatal a pesar de la sentencia judicial, incluidos los beneficiarios del programa de Acción Diferida para los Llegados en la Infancia (DACA), los solicitantes de asilo y los que tienen Estatus de Protección Temporal o TPS, porque el personal de la universidad carece de conocimientos sobre inmigración y no ha recibido directrices claras sobre quién debe pagar exactamente la matrícula más alta.

    En el Austin Community College, que presta servicio a un área tan grande como el estado de Connecticut, los miembros del consejo de administración no están seguros de cómo aplicar correctamente la sentencia judicial. Mientras esperan respuestas, hasta ahora han decidido no enviar cartas a sus estudiantes solicitándoles información confidencial para determinar las tasas de matrícula.

    Una valla publicitaria que promociona el Austin Community College en español se encuentra en una autopista que conduce a Lockhart, Texas. Credit: Sergio Flores for The Hechinger Report

    “Esta confusión perjudicará inevitablemente a los estudiantes, porque lo que vemos es que, ante la falta de información y la presencia del miedo y la ansiedad, los estudiantes optarán por no continuar con la educación superior o se esconderán en las sombras y se sentirán como miembros marginados de la comunidad”, afirmó Manuel González, vicepresidente del consejo de administración del ACC.

    Por su parte, los expertos en políticas públicas advierten de que la mano de obra de Texas podría verse afectada, ya que los jóvenes con talento, muchos de los cuales han cursado toda su educación en el sistema de escuelas públicas del estado, ya no podrán permitirse los títulos de asociado y licenciatura que les permitirían seguir carreras que ayudarían a impulsar sus economías locales. En virtud de la Ley Texas Dream, los beneficiarios estaban obligados a comprometerse a solicitar la residencia permanente legal lo antes posible, lo que les daba la oportunidad de mantener puestos de trabajo relacionados con sus títulos. Sin la condición de residentes, es probable que sigan trabajando, pero en empleos peor remunerados y menos visibles.

    Relacionado: ¿Te interesa recibir más noticias sobre universidades? Suscríbete a nuestro boletín quincenal gratuito de educación superior.

    “Es una visión muy cortoplacista en lo que respecta al bienestar del estado de Texas”, afirmó Barbara Hines, antigua profesora de Derecho que ayudó a los legisladores a redactar la Ley Texas Dream.

    A principios de siglo, casi dos décadas después de que los niños indocumentados obtuvieran el derecho a asistir a la escuela pública en Estados Unidos, los estudiantes inmigrantes y sus defensores seguían frustrados porque la universidad seguía estando fuera de su alcance.

    Para el mayor general retirado de la Guardia Nacional del Ejército Rick Noriega, un demócrata que en ese momento formaba parte de la Legislatura de Texas, esa realidad le tocó de cerca cuando se enteró de que un joven trabajador de su distrito quería matricularse en el community college local para estudiar mecánica aeronáutica, pero no podía permitirse pagar la matrícula fuera del estado.

    Noriega llamó a la oficina del rector de la escuela, que pudo proporcionar fondos para que el estudiante se inscribiera. Pero esa experiencia le llevó a preguntarse: ¿cuántos niños más de su distrito se enfrentaban a las mismas barreras para acceder a la educación superior?

    Así que colaboró con un sociólogo para encuestar a los estudiantes de las escuelas secundarias locales sobre el problema, que resultó ser muy frecuente. Y el distrito de Noriega no era una excepción. En un estado que durante mucho tiempo ha tenido una de las mayores poblaciones de inmigrantes no autorizados del país, los políticos de todos los partidos conocían a electores, amigos o familiares afectados y querían ayudar. Una vez que Noriega decidió proponer la legislación, un republicano, Fred Hill, pidió ser coautor del proyecto de ley.

    Para los defensores de la Ley Texas Dream, el mejor argumento a favor de la matrícula estatal para los estudiantes indocumentados era de carácter económico. Después de que el estado ya hubiera invertido en estos estudiantes durante la educación pública K-12, tenía sentido seguir desarrollándolos para que, con el tiempo, pudieran ayudar a satisfacer las necesidades de mano de obra de Texas.

    “Habíamos gastado todo ese dinero en estos jóvenes, y ellos habían hecho todo lo que les pedimos —en muchos casos, eran superestrellas, los mejores de su promoción y cosas por el estilo— y luego se topaban con este obstáculo, que era la educación superior, cuyo costo era prohibitivo”, dijo Noriega.

    La legislación fue aprobada fácilmente por la Cámara de Representantes de Texas, que en ese momento estaba controlada por los demócratas, pero el Senado, liderado por los republicanos, se mostró menos complaciente.

    “Ni siquiera pude conseguir una audiencia. Me dijeron rotundamente: “No, esto no va a salir adelante””, afirmó Leticia Van de Putte, la entonces senadora estatal que patrocinó la legislación en su cámara.

    Las nubes cubren el cielo detrás de la torre de la Universidad de Texas en Austin. Credit: Sergio Flores for The Washington Post via Getty Images

    Para persuadir a sus colegas republicanos, añadió varias restricciones, entre ellas la de exigir a los estudiantes indocumentados que vivieran en Texas durante tres años antes de terminar la escuela secundaria o recibir un GED. (Se estimó que tres años era el tiempo medio que tardaría una familia en pagar suficientes impuestos estatales para compensar la diferencia entre la matrícula estatal y la matrícula fuera del estado). También incluyó la cláusula que obligaba a los estudiantes indocumentados que accedían a la matrícula estatal a firmar una declaración jurada en la que se comprometían a solicitar la tarjeta de residencia tan pronto como pudieran.

    Van de Putte también recurrió a los grupos empresariales de Texas para insistir en los argumentos económicos a favor del proyecto de ley. Y convenció a la comunidad empresarial para que pagara los autobuses que llevarían a pastores evangélicos conservadores latinos de Dallas, San Antonio, Houston y otras zonas del estado a Austin, para que pudieran llamar a las puertas en apoyo de la legislación y rezar con los senadores republicanos y su personal.

    Después de eso, la Ley Texas Dream fue aprobada por abrumadora mayoría en el Senado estatal en mayo de 2001, y el entonces gobernador Rick Perry, republicano, la promulgó como ley al mes siguiente.

    Relacionado: El College Board cancela programa de premios para estudiantes negros y latinos de alto rendimiento 

    Sin embargo, en 2007, incluso cuando los defensores de los derechos de los inmigrantes, los grupos religiosos y las asociaciones empresariales formaron una coalición para defender a los inmigrantes contra las políticas estatales perjudiciales, la legislatura de Texas comenzó a presentar una serie de propuestas generalmente contrarias a los inmigrantes. En 2010, las encuestas sugerían que los tejanos se oponían de manera abrumadora a que los estudiantes indocumentados pagaran las tasas de matrícula estatales.

    En 2012, un nuevo grupo de políticos de derecha fue elegido para ocupar cargos públicos, muchos de ellos opuestos filosóficamente a la ley y muy críticos al respecto. La defensa de la política por parte de Perry se volvió en su contra durante las primarias presidenciales republicanas de 2012, cuando su campaña fue objeto de críticas después de que, durante un debate, dijera a los oponentes de la igualdad en las matrículas: “No creo que tengan corazón”.

    Aún así, ninguno de los muchos proyectos de ley presentados a lo largo de los años para derogar la Ley Texas Dream tuvo éxito. E incluso el gobernador Greg Abbott, un republicano partidario de la línea dura en materia de inmigración, se mostró en ocasiones ambiguo sobre la política, y su portavoz afirmó en 2013 que Abbott creía que “el objetivo” de la matrícula estatal independientemente del estatus migratorio era “noble”.

    Los observadores legislativos afirman que algunos republicanos del estado siguen apoyando la política. “Es una cuestión bipartidista. Hay republicanos que apoyan la matrícula estatal”, afirmó Luis Figueroa, director de asuntos legislativos de la organización sin fines de lucro Every Texan, dedicada a la investigación y la defensa de políticas públicas. “Pero no pueden decirlo públicamente”.

    Mientras tanto, a medida que el tema se volvía más controvertido políticamente en Texas, la Texas Dream Act acabó amplificando un debate más amplio que finalmente condujo a la creación del DACA, el programa de la era Obama que ha dado a algunos inmigrantes indocumentados acceso a protecciones contra la deportación y permisos de trabajo.

    Relacionado: Las amenazas de deportación de Trump pesan sobre los grupos que ofrecen ayuda con la FAFSA 

    Incluso antes del DACA, muchos inmigrantes trabajaban, y los que siguen sin papeles a menudo siguen haciéndolo, ya sea como contratistas independientes para empleadores que hacen la vista gorda ante su estatus migratorio o creando sus propios negocios. Un estudio de mayo de 2020 reveló que los residentes no autorizados constituyen el 8,2 % de la población activa del estado y que, por cada dólar gastado en servicios públicos para ellos, el estado de Texas recuperaba 1,21 dólares en ingresos.

    Pero sin el permiso legal inmediato para trabajar, los graduados universitarios indocumentados que se habían beneficiado de la Ley Dream de Texas se vieron limitados a pesar de sus títulos. A medida que la lucha por la equidad en las matrículas se extendía a otros estados, también lo hacía la lucha por una solución legal que apoyara a los estudiantes beneficiados.

    Cuando estos jóvenes, cariñosamente apodados “soñadores o dreamers”, pasaron a primer plano para defenderse más públicamente, su difícil situación despertó simpatía. En 2017, el mismo año en que Trump comenzó su primer mandato, las encuestas dieron un giro y mostraron que la mayoría de los tejanos apoyaba las matrículas estatales para los estudiantes indocumentados. Más recientemente, las investigaciones han indicado una y otra vez que los estadounidenses apoyan una vía para que los residentes indocumentados traídos a Estados Unidos cuando eran niños obtengan la residencia legal.

    Pero los argumentos en contra de la matrícula estatal, independientemente del estatus migratorio, también ganaron popularidad: los críticos sostenían que la política es injusta para los ciudadanos estadounidenses de otros estados que tienen que pagar tasas más altas, o que los estudiantes indocumentados están ocupando plazas en escuelas competitivas que podrían ser ocupadas por estadounidenses.

    El Departamento de Justicia se apoyó en una retórica similar en la demanda que acabó con la igualdad en las matrículas en Texas, alegando que la ley estatal queda invalidada por la legislación federal de 1996 que prohíbe a los inmigrantes indocumentados acceder a la matrícula estatal basada en la residencia. Ese argumento se ha convertido en un modelo, ya que la administración Trump ha presentado demandas para desmantelar las políticas de matrícula estatal de otros estados para los residentes indocumentados.

    En Kentucky, el fiscal general del estado, el republicano Russell Coleman, ha seguido los pasos de Texas y ha recomendado que el consejo estatal que supervisa la educación superior retire su normativa que permite el acceso a la matrícula estatal en lugar de luchar por defenderla en los tribunales.

    Al mismo tiempo, la administración Trump ha encontrado otras formas de recortar las oportunidades de educación superior para los estudiantes indocumentados, revocando una política que les había ayudado a participar en programas de formación profesional, técnica y para adultos, e investigando a las universidades por ofrecerles becas.

    Relacionado: Universidades recurren estudiantes hispanos para compensar disminución en la matrícula

    En Texas, el repentino cambio de política con respecto a las matrículas estatales está causando caos. Las dos universidades más grandes del estado, Texas A&M y la Universidad de Texas, están utilizando diferentes directrices para decidir qué estudiantes deben pagar las tasas fuera del estado.

    “Creo que las universidades son las que se encuentran en esta situación realmente difícil”, dijo Figueroa. “No son expertos en inmigración. Han recibido muy poca orientación sobre cómo interpretar el decreto de consentimiento”.

    En medio de tanta confusión, Figueroa predijo que es probable que surjan futuras demandas. Los estudiantes y organizaciones afectados ya han presentado mociones ante los tribunales para defender tardíamente la Ley Texas Dream contra el Departamento de Justicia.

    Mientras tanto, los jóvenes estudiantes se enfrentan a decisiones difíciles. Una estudiante, que pidió permanecer en el anonimato debido a su condición de inmigrante indocumentada, estaba leyendo las noticias en su teléfono antes de acostarse cuando vio un titular sobre el resultado del caso judicial del Departamento de Justicia.

    “Me eché a llorar porque, como alguien que ha luchado por salir adelante en sus estudios, ahora que estoy en la educación superior, ha sido una bendición”, dijo. “Así que lo primero que pensé fue: “¿Qué voy a hacer ahora? ¿Hacia dónde va mi futuro? ¿Los planes que tenía para mí tendrán que detenerse por completo?””.

    La joven, que vive en San Antonio desde que tenía 9 meses, se había matriculado en seis cursos para el otoño en la Universidad Texas A&M-San Antonio y no estaba segura de si abandonarlos. Sería su último semestre antes de obtener sus títulos en psicología y sociología, pero no podía imaginar pagar la matrícula fuera del estado.

    “Estoy en el limbo”, dijo, como “muchos estudiantes en este momento”.

    Comunícate con la editora Caroline Preston al 212-870-8965 o [email protected]. 

    Esta historia sobre los estudiantes indocumentados fue producida por The Hechinger Report, una organización de noticias independiente y sin fines de lucro que se centra en la desigualdad y la innovación en la educación. Suscríbase al boletín informativo del Hechinger.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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  • The resumption of student loan payments means students will need new policies — and our help

    The resumption of student loan payments means students will need new policies — and our help

    After a three-year pause prompted by the pandemic, the clock on student loan repayments suddenly started ticking again in September 2023, and forbearance ended last September. For millions of borrowers like Shauntee Russell, the resumption of payments marked a harsh return to financial reality.  

    Russell, a single mother of three from Chicago, had received $127,000 in student loan forgiveness through the SAVE program, and had experienced profound relief at having that $632 monthly payment lifted from her shoulders. SAVE exemplified both the transformative power of debt relief and the urgent need to continue this fight — but now SAVE has been suspended. 

    Such setbacks cannot be the end of our story, as I document in my forthcoming book. The resumption of loan payments, while painful, must serve as a rallying cry rather than a surrender. We stand at a critical juncture. The Supreme Court’s devastating blow to former President Biden’s initial forgiveness plan and the ongoing legal challenges to programs like SAVE have left 45 million borrowers in a state of financial limbo. The fundamental inequities of our higher education system have never been more apparent.  

    Black students graduate with nearly 50 percent more debt than their white counterparts, while women hold roughly two-thirds of all outstanding student debt — a staggering $1.5 trillion that continues to grow. These aren’t just statistics; they represent systemic barriers that prevent entire communities from achieving economic mobility. 

    Related: Interested in innovations in higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter. 

    The students I interviewed while reporting on this crisis reveal the human cost of inaction. They include Maria Sanchez, a nursing student in St. Louis who skips meals to save money and can only access textbooks through library loans.  

    Then there is Robert Carroll, who gave up his dorm room in Cleveland and now alternates between friends’ couches just to stay in school.  

    These students represent the millions who are working multiple jobs, sacrificing basic needs and seeing their dreams deferred under the weight of financial pressure. 

    Yet what strikes me most is their resilience and determination. Despite these overwhelming obstacles, these students persist, driven by the same belief that motivated civil rights leaders like Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. — that education is the pathway to economic empowerment and social justice. 

    The current political landscape, with Donald J. Trump’s return to the presidency and a Republican-controlled Congress, presents unprecedented challenges. Plans to dismantle key borrower protections and efforts to eliminate the Department of Education signal a dark period ahead for student debt relief.  

    But history teaches us that progress often comes through sustained grassroots organizing and innovative policy solutions at multiple levels of government and society. 

    State governments have an opportunity to fill the federal void through programs like Massachusetts’ Student Loan Borrower Bill of Rights and Maine’s Student Loan Repayment Tax Credit. 

    Universities must step up with institutional relief programs, as my own institution, Trinity Washington University, did when it settled $1.8 million in student balances during the pandemic. 

    The Black church, which has long understood the connection between education and liberation, continues to provide crucial support through scholarship programs. Organizations like the United Negro College Fund, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education remain vital pillars in making higher education accessible. 

    Still, individual, institutional and state efforts, while necessary, are not sufficient. We need comprehensive federal action that treats student debt as what it truly is: a civil rights issue and a moral imperative. The magnitude of the crisis — it affects Americans across every congressional district — creates unique opportunities for bipartisan coalition building. 

    Smart advocates are already reframing the narrative by replacing partisan talking points with economic arguments that resonate across ideological lines: workforce development, entrepreneurship and American competitiveness on the world stage.  

    When student debt prevents nurses from serving rural communities, teachers from working in underserved schools and young entrepreneurs from starting businesses, it becomes an economic drag that affects everyone.  

    Related: How Trump is changing higher education: The view from 4 campuses 

    The path to federal action may require creative approaches — perhaps through tax policy, regulatory changes or targeted relief for specific professions — but the political mathematics of 45 million impacted voters ultimately makes comprehensive action not just morally necessary, but politically inevitable.  

    Student debt relief is not about handouts — it’s about honoring the promise that education should be a ladder up, not an anchor weighing down entire generations; it’s about ensuring that Shauntee Russell’s relief becomes the norm, not the exception. The fight is far from over.  

    The young activists I met at the March on Washington 60th anniversary understood something profound: Their debt is not their fault, but their fight is their responsibility. They carry forward the legacy of those who came before them who believed that access to education should not depend on one’s family wealth, and that crushing debt should not be the price of pursuing knowledge. 

    The arc of history still bends toward justice — but in this era of political resistance, we must be prepared to bend it ourselves through sustained organizing, innovative policy solutions and an unwavering commitment to the principle that education is a right, not a privilege reserved for the wealthy. 

    The resumption of payments is not the end of this story. It’s the beginning of the next chapter in our fight for educational equity and economic justice. And this chapter, like those before it, will be written by the voices of the millions who refuse to let debt define their destiny. 

    Jamal Watson is a professor and associate dean of graduate studies at Trinity Washington University and an editor at Diverse Issues In Higher Education. 

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected]. 

    This story about student loan payments 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.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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  • What’s happened since Texas killed in-state tuition for undocumented students

    What’s happened since Texas killed in-state tuition for undocumented students

    SAN ANTONIO — Ximena had a plan. 

    The 18-year-old from Houston was going to start college in the fall at the University of Texas at Tyler, where she had been awarded $10,000 a year in scholarships. That, she hoped, would set her up for her dream: a Ph.D. in chemistry, followed by a career as a professor or researcher.

    “And then the change to in-state tuition happened, and that’s when I knew for sure that I had to pivot,” said Ximena, who was born in Mexico but attended schools stateside since kindergarten. (The Hechinger Report is referring to her by only her first name because she fears retaliation for her immigration status.) 

    In June, the Texas attorney general’s office and the Trump administration worked together to end the provisions in a state law that had offered thousands of undocumented students like her lower in-state tuition rates at Texas public colleges. State and federal officials successfully argued in court that the long-standing policy discriminated against U.S. citizens from other states who paid a higher rate. That rationale has now been replicated in similar lawsuits against Kentucky, Oklahoma and Minnesota — part of a broader offensive against immigrants’ access to public education. 

    At UT Tyler, in-state tuition and fees for the upcoming academic year total $9,736, compared to more than $25,000 for out-of-state students. Ximena and her family couldn’t afford the higher tuition bill, so she withdrew. Instead, she enrolled at Houston Community College, where out-of-state costs are $227 per semester hour, nearly three times the in-district rate. The school offers only basic college-level chemistry classes, so to set herself up for a doctorate or original research, Ximena will still need to find a way to pay for a four-year university down the line. 

    Her predicament is exactly what state lawmakers from both political parties had hoped to avoid when they passed the Texas Dream Act, 2001 legislation that not only opened doors to higher education for undocumented students but was also meant to bolster Texas’s economy and its workforce long-term. With that law, Texas became the first of more than two dozen states to implement in-state tuition for undocumented students, and for nearly 24 years, the landmark policy remained intact. Conservative lawmakers repeatedly proposed to repeal it, but despite years of single-party control in the state legislature, not enough Republicans embraced repeal even as recently as this spring, days before the Texas attorney general’s office and the federal Department of Justice moved to end it. 

    Now, as the fall semester approaches, immigrant students are weighing whether to disenroll from their courses or await clarity on how the consent agreement entered into by the state and DOJ affects them.

    Immigration advocates are worried that Texas colleges and universities are boxing out potential attendees who are lawfully present and still qualify for in-state tuition despite the court ruling — including recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, asylum applicants and Temporary Protected Status holders — because university personnel lack immigration expertise and haven’t been given clear guidelines on exactly who needs to pay the higher tuition rate. 

    At Austin Community College, which serves an area as large as Connecticut, members of the board of trustees are unsure how to accurately implement the ruling. As they await answers, they’ve so far decided against sending letters asking their students for sensitive information in order to determine tuition rates. 

    “This confusion will inevitably harm students because what we find is that in the absence of information and in the presence of fear and anxiety, students will opt to not continue higher education,” said Manuel Gonzalez, vice chair of the ACC board of trustees.

    A billboard promoting Austin Community College in Spanish sits on a highway that leads to Lockhart, Texas. Credit: Sergio Flores for The Hechinger Report

    Policy experts, meanwhile, warn that Texas’s workforce could suffer as talented young people, many of whom have spent their entire education in the state’s public school system, will no longer be able to afford the associate’s and bachelor’s degrees that would allow them to pursue careers that would help propel their local economies. Under the Texas Dream Act, beneficiaries were required to commit to applying for lawful permanent residence as soon as possible, giving them the opportunity to hold down jobs related to their degrees. Without resident status, it’s likely they’ll still work — just more in lower-paying, under-the-radar jobs.  

    “It’s so short-sighted in terms of the welfare of the state of Texas,” said Barbara Hines, a former law school professor who helped legislators craft the Texas Dream Act. 

    Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter featuring the most important stories in education. 

    By the turn of the century, almost two decades after undocumented children won the right to attend public school in the U.S., immigrant students and their champions remained frustrated that college remained out of reach. 

    For retired Army National Guard Maj. Gen. Rick Noriega, a Democrat who served in the Texas Legislature at the time, that reality hit close to home when he learned of a young yard worker in his district who wanted to enroll at the local community college for aviation mechanics but couldn’t afford out-of-state tuition. 

    Noriega called the school chancellor’s office, which was able to provide funding for the student to attend. But that experience led him to wonder: How many more kids in his district were running up against the same barriers to higher education? 

    So he worked with a sociologist to poll students at local high schools about the problem, which turned out to be widespread. And Noriega’s district wasn’t an outlier. In a state that has long had one of the nation’s largest unauthorized immigrant populations, politicians across the partisan divide knew affected constituents, friends or family members and wanted to help. Once Noriega decided to propose legislation, a Republican, Fred Hill, asked to serve as a joint author on the bill. 

    To proponents of the Texas Dream Act, the best argument in support of in-state tuition for undocumented students was an economic one. After the state had already invested in these students during K-12 public schooling, it made sense to continue developing them so they could eventually help meet Texas’ workforce needs. 

    “We’d spent all this money on these kids, and they’d done everything that we asked them to do — in many instances superstars and valedictorians and the like — and then they hit this wall, which was higher education that was cost prohibitive,” said Noriega. 

    The legislation easily passed the Texas House of Representatives, which was Democratic-controlled at the time, but the Republican-led Senate was less accommodating. 

    “I couldn’t even get a hearing,’” said Leticia Van de Putte, the then-state senator who sponsored the legislation in her chamber. 

    To persuade her Republican colleagues, she added several restrictions, including requiring undocumented students to live in Texas for three years before finishing high school or receiving a GED. (Three years was estimated as the average time it would take a family to pay enough in state taxes to make up the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition.) She also included the clause mandating that undocumented students who accessed in-state tuition sign an affidavit pledging to pursue green cards as soon as they were able.   

    Van de Putte also turned to Texas business groups to hammer home the economic case for the bill. And she convinced the business community to pay for buses to bring Latino evangelical conservative pastors from Dallas, San Antonio, Houston and other areas of the state to Austin, so they could knock on doors in support of the legislation and pray with Republican senators and their staff. 

    After that, the Texas Dream Act overwhelmingly passed the state Senate in May 2001, and then-Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, signed it into law the following month.

    Related: How Trump is changing higher education: The view from four campuses

    Yet by 2007, even as immigrant rights advocates, faith-based groups and business associations formed a coalition to defend immigrants against harmful state policies, the Texas legislature was starting to introduce a wave of generally anti-immigrant proposals. In 2010, polling suggested Texans overwhelmingly opposed allowing undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates. 

    By 2012, a new slew of right-wing politicians was elected to office, many philosophically opposed to the law — and loud about it. Perry’s defense of the policy had come back to haunt him during the 2012 Republican presidential primary, when his campaign was dogged by criticism after he told opponents of tuition equity during a debate, “I don’t think you have a heart.” 

    Still, none of the many bills introduced over the years to repeal the Texas Dream Act were successful. And even Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican border hawk, at times equivocated on the policy, with his spokesperson saying in 2013 that Abbott believed “the objective” of in-state tuition regardless of immigration status was “noble.”

    Legislative observers say that some Republicans in the state continue to support the policy. “It’s a bipartisan issue. There are Republicans in support of in-state tuition,” said Luis Figueroa, senior director of legislative affairs at the public policy research and advocacy nonprofit Every Texan. “They cannot publicly state it.”

    Meanwhile, as the topic became more politically charged in Texas, the Texas Dream Act ended up amplifying a larger conversation that eventually led to the creation of DACA, the Obama-era program that has given some undocumented immigrants access to deportation protections and work permits. 

    Even before DACA, many immigrants worked, and those who remain undocumented often still do, either as independent contractors for employers that turn a blind eye to their immigration status or by starting their own businesses. A study from May 2020 found that unauthorized residents make up 8.2 percent of the state’s workforce, and for every dollar spent toward public services for them, the state of Texas recouped $1.21 in revenue. 

    But without the immediate legal permission to work, undocumented college graduates who had benefited from the Texas Dream Act found themselves limited despite their degrees. As the fight for tuition equity spread to other states, so did the fight for a legal solution to support the students it benefited. 

    When these young people — affectionately dubbed Dreamers — took center stage to more publicly advocate for themselves, their plight proved sympathetic. By 2017, the same year Trump began his first term, polling had flipped to show a plurality of Texans in support of in-state tuition for undocumented students. More recently, research has indicated time and time again that Americans support a pathway to legal status for undocumented residents brought to the U.S. as children. 

    But arguments against in-state tuition regardless of immigration status also grew in popularity: Critics contended that the policy is unfair to U.S. citizens from other states who have to pay higher rates, or that undocumented students are taking spots at competitive schools that could be filled by documented Americans. 

    The DOJ leaned on similar rhetoric in the lawsuit that killed tuition equity in Texas, saying the state law is superseded by 1996 federal legislation banning undocumented immigrants from getting in-state tuition based on residency. That argument has become a template as the Trump administration has sued to dismantle other states’ in-state tuition policies for undocumented residents.

    In Kentucky, state Attorney General Russell Coleman, a Republican, has followed in Texas’ footsteps, recommending that the state council overseeing higher education withdraw its regulation allowing for access to in-state tuition instead of fighting to defend it in court. 

    At the same time, the Trump administration has found other ways to cut back on higher education opportunities for undocumented students, rescinding a policy that had helped them participate in career, technical and adult education programs and investigating universities for offering them scholarships. 

    Related: Which schools and colleges are being investigated by the Trump administration? 

    Back in Texas, the sudden policy change regarding in-state tuition is causing chaos. Even the state’s two largest universities, Texas A&M and the University of Texas, are using different guidelines to decide which students must pay out-of-state rates. 

    Clouds fill the sky behind the tower at the University of Texas. Credit: Sergio Flores for The Washington Post via Getty Images

    “Universities, I think, are the ones that are put in this really difficult position,” Figueroa said. “They are not immigration experts. They’ve received very little guidance about how to interpret the consent decree.” 

    Amid so much confusion, Figueroa predicted, future lawsuits will likely crop up. Already, affected students and organizations have filed motions in court seeking to belatedly defend the Texas Dream Act against the DOJ.

    In the meantime, young scholars are facing difficult choices. One student, who asked to remain anonymous because of her undocumented immigration status, was scrolling through the news on her phone before bed when she saw a headline about the outcome of the DOJ court case. 

    “I burst in tears because, you know, as someone who’s been fighting to get ahead in their education, right now that I’m in higher education, it’s been a complete blessing,” she said. “So the first thing that I just thought of is ‘What am I going to do now? Where is my future heading?’ The plans that I have had going for me, are they going to have to come to a complete halt?’” 

    The young woman, who has lived in San Antonio since she was 9 months old, had enrolled in six courses for the fall at Texas A&M-San Antonio and wasn’t sure whether to drop them. It would be her final semester before earning her psychology and sociology degrees, but she couldn’t fathom paying for out-of-state tuition. 

    “I’m in the unknown,” she said, like “many students in this moment.”

    Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, via Signal at CarolineP.83 or on email at [email protected].

    This story about the Texas Dream Act was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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  • A ‘Great Defection’ threatens to empty universities and colleges of top teaching talent

    A ‘Great Defection’ threatens to empty universities and colleges of top teaching talent

    Paulina Cossette spent six years getting a doctoral degree with the goal of becoming a university professor. But it wasn’t long before she gave up on that path.

    With higher education under political assault, and opportunities as well as job security diminished by enrollment declines, Cossette felt burnt out and disillusioned. So she quit her hard-won job as an assistant professor of American government at a small private college in Maryland and used the skills she’d learned to go into business for herself as a freelance copy editor.

    Now Cossette is hearing from other newly minted Ph.D.s and tenured faculty who want out — so many, she’s expanded her business to help them leave academia, as she did. 

    Seemingly relentless attacks and funding cuts since the start of Donald Trump’s second presidential term have been “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Cossette, who left higher education on the eve of the pandemic, in 2019. “I’m hearing from a lot more people that it’s too much.”

    An exodus appears to be under way of Ph.D.s and faculty generally, who are leaving academia in the face of political, financial and enrollment crises. It’s a trend federal data and other sources show began even before Trump returned to the White House. 

    On top of everything else affecting higher education, this is likely to reduce the quality of education for undergraduates, experts say. 

    Nearly 70 percent of people receiving doctorates were already leaving higher education for industry, government and other sectors, not including those without job offers or who opted to continue their studies, according to the most recent available figures from the National Science Foundation — up from fewer than 50 percent decades ago.

    As for faculty, more than a third of provosts reported higher-than-usual turnover last year, in a survey by Hanover Research and the industry publication Inside Higher Ed. That was before the turmoil of this late winter and spring. 

    Related: Interested in innovations in higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter.

    “People who can get out will get out,” said L. Maren Wood, director and CEO of the Center for Graduate Career Success, which works with doctoral and other graduate students at 69 colleges and universities to provide career help. 

    If the spree of general job-switching that followed Covid was dubbed “the Great Resignation,” Wood said, what she’s seeing now in higher education is “the Great Defection.”

    Getting a Ph.D. is a traditional pipeline to an academic career. Now some of the brightest candidates — who have spent years doing cutting-edge research in their fields to prepare for faculty jobs — are leaving higher education or signing on with universities abroad, Wood said. 

    “It’s going to affect the quality of a student’s experience if they don’t get to study with those leading minds, who are going into private industry or to other countries,” she said.

    “What’s the joke about those who can’t do, teach? You don’t want to be in a situation where the only people left in your classrooms are the ones who can’t do anything else.”

    Related: So much for saving the planet. Climate careers, and many others, evaporate for class of 2025

    Parents sending children to college in the fall should know that they’ll be taking classes “with a faculty member who is worried about his or her research funding and who doesn’t have the help of graduate student teaching assistants. And that’s really going to impact the quality of your student’s experience,” said Julia Kent, a vice president at the Council of Graduate Schools, who conducts research about Ph.D. career pathways. 

    “The quality of undergraduate education is at stake here,” Kent said.

    Even Ph.D.s who want to work in academia are being thwarted. 

    During the Great Recession and the pandemic — two recent periods when there were few available faculty jobs — doctoral candidates could continue their studies until things got better, Wood said. This time, the Trump administration’s cuts to research funding have stripped many of that option.

    “This is way worse” than those earlier crises, she said. “Doctoral students are in panic mode.”

    Related: How Trump is changing higher education: The view from 4 campuses 

    The same deep federal cuts mean doctoral candidates in science, technology, engineering, math and other fields can’t complete the research they need to be eligible for what few academic jobs do become available.

    “You’re basically knee-capping that younger generation, which undermines the intergenerational dynamism that takes place in higher education. And that trickles down into the classroom,” said Isaac Kamola, an associate professor of political science at Trinity College and head of the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom at the American Association of University Professors, or AAUP.

    Doctoral candidates early in their programs are questioning whether they should stay, said Wood. That could reduce the supply of future faculty. So will the fact that some universities have reduced the number of new Ph.D. candidates they will accept or have rescinded admission offers, citing federal budget cuts. Fewer prospective candidates are likely to apply, said Timothy Burke, a professor of history at Swarthmore College who has written about this topic.

    “Our graduating students right now are thinking differently about what it means to start a doctorate,” Burke said.

    Meanwhile, he said, “all the things that were dismaying to many faculty of long standing just feel worse. People who would have been totally content to stay put, whose prospects were good, who had good positions, who were more or less happy — now they’re thinking hard about whether there’s a future in this.”

    That means undergraduates could experience fewer available classroom professors and teaching and graduate assistants or the “only tenuous presence of faculty who are thinking hard about going somewhere else,” he said. “There are going to be programs that are going to be shut. There are going to be departments running on fumes.”

    The route to a university faculty job has always been hard. Finishing a doctoral degree takes a median of nearly six years, according to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences — nearly seven in the arts and humanities. 

    Doctoral students who manage to finish their programs have always had to fight for faculty positions, even before institutions announced cutbacks and hiring freezes. 

    Universities enroll far more doctoral candidates, to provide cheap labor as teaching and research assistants, than they will ever hire. The number of doctoral degrees awarded rose from 163,827 in 2010 to an estimated 207,000 this year, the National Center for Education Statistics says — a 26 percent increase, during a period in which the number of full-time faculty positions went up at less than half that rate. 

    Related: These federal programs help low-income students get to an through college. Trump wants to pull the funding

    With colleges and universities under stress, still more doctoral candidates now face the prospect of spending years “training for a career that isn’t actually available,” said Ashley Ruba, a Ph.D. who left higher education to work at Meta, where she builds virtual reality systems. 

    “If you told someone going to law school that they couldn’t get a job as a lawyer, I don’t think they’d do it,” said Ruba, who is also the founder of a career-coaching service for fellow Ph.D.s called After Academia.

    People already in faculty jobs appear equally on edge. More than 1 in 3 said in a recent survey that they have less academic freedom than in the past; half said they worry about online harassment. And faculty salaries have been stagnant. Pay declined for the three years starting with the pandemic, when adjusted for inflation, the AAUP reports, and has still not recovered to pre-pandemic levels. 

    People with Ph.D.s can earn more outside academia — an average of 37 percent more, one study found. Employers value skills including active learning, critical thinking, problem-solving and resilience, which is “everything you learn in a doctoral program,” Ruba said.

    The proportion of faculty considering leaving their jobs who are looking for work outside of academia has spiked. Before the pandemic, it was between 1 and 8 percent each year. Since then, it has been between 11 and 16 percent, according to R. Todd Benson, executive director and principal investigator at the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, or COACHE. The figure comes from surveys conducted at 54 major universities and colleges.

    Related: More women are landing construction jobs. Trump’s war on DEI could change that

    A Facebook group of dissatisfied academics, called The Professor Is Out, has swelled to nearly 35,000 members. It was started by Karen Kelsky, a former anthropology professor who previously helped people get jobs in academia and now coaches them on how to leave it.

    “It’s difficult to overcome the stereotype of a university professor, which is that they’re coddled, they’re overprivileged, they’re arrogant and just enjoying total job security that nobody else has,” said Kelsky, who also wrote “The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your Ph.D. Into a Job,” a second edition of which is due out this fall. 

    Today, “they are overworked. They’re grossly underpaid. They are being called the enemy. And they’re bailing on academia,” she said.

    “Every time I talk to a tenured professor, they tell me how miserable they are and how desperate they are to get out,” said Kelsky. “And there’s no way this isn’t having real-life, tangible impacts on the quality of education students are getting.”

    Contact writer Jon Marcus at 212-678-7556, [email protected] or jpm.82 on Signal.

    This story about faculty and doctoral recipients leaving academia was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter. Listen to our higher education podcast.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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  • Student veterans, advisers say VA cuts are derailing their educations

    Student veterans, advisers say VA cuts are derailing their educations

    As the spring semester got under way in January at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, a dozen military veterans waited for their GI Bill student benefit checks to show up.

    Then they waited, and waited some more, until the money finally arrived — in April.

    By that time, three had left.

    Getting GI Bill benefits from the Veterans Administration, which student veterans use to pay for their tuition, textbooks and housing, already took weeks. Since federal government staffing cuts since President Donald Trump took office, it’s been taking at least three times longer, said Jeff Deickman, assistant director for veteran and military affairs at the student veteran center on that campus.

    Deickman’s counterparts at other colleges say the VA’s paperwork often has errors, causing further delays. They say some student veterans are dropping out.

    “I can spend, on bad days, three hours on the phone with the VA,” said Deickman, himself a 20-year Army veteran and a doctoral student. “They’ll only answer questions about one student at a time, so I have to hang up and start over again.”

    Nearly 600,000 veterans received a total of about $10 billion worth of GI Bill benefits last year, according to the VA.

    The start of the new administration brought big personnel cuts to both the VA and the U.S. Department of Education, which manages some student aid for veterans. Now, advocacy groups and universities and colleges that enroll large numbers of veterans are bracing for the planned layoffs and departures of nearly 30,000 VA employees and additional cuts at the Department of Education.

    Many are also concerned about the potential for reduced scrutiny of the for-profit college sector, which critics contend has taken advantage of veterans’ tuition payments without providing the promised educational benefits.

    Related: Interested in innovations in higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter.

    Veterans who are just starting to feel the effects of federal cuts, and organizations that support them, worry things will only get worse, said Barmak Nassirian, vice president for higher education policy at the advocacy group Veterans Education Success. The nonprofit has been getting calls from students anxious about confusing information they’re receiving from federal agencies, he said, and it’s been hard to get answers from the government.

    “Part of the challenge of wrapping our arms around this is the opaqueness of the whole thing. We’re sort of feeling our way around the impact,” Nassirian said.

    “The whole process” has become a mess, said one 33-year-old Navy vet in Colorado, who used a more colorful term common in the military and asked that his name not be disclosed for fear of reprisal. “It’s making a lot of us anxious.”

    Social media lays bare that anxiety — and frustration. In posts, veterans complain about stalled benefits and mistakes.

    “I just wish I could speak to someone who could help but all of the reps seem to be unable to assist and simply tell me to reapply, which I have 4x, just for another denial,” wrote one on Reddit, about attempts to have a student loan forgiven.

    Related: How Trump is changing higher education: The view from 4 campuses

    “Complete nightmare,” another Reddit poster wrote about the same process. “Delays, errors, and employees that don’t know anything. No one knows anything right now.”

    Federal law guarantees that disabled vets’ student loans will be forgiven, for instance, but veterans with total permanent disabilities have reported that their applications for their loans to be discharged were denied. One said the Department of Education followed up with a letter saying the denial was a mistake, but the agency hasn’t explained how to correct it.

    The Education Department did not respond to an interview request. The VA declined to answer even general questions about benefit delays unless provided with the names of veterans and colleges that reported problems.

    A VA spokesman, Gary Kunich, said no one had been laid off from the agency, which in fact cut 1,000 probationary employees in January and another 1,400 workers in February, though some were temporarily reinstated by a judge. It has announced plans to lay off 30,000 more by the end of September.

    Such cuts threaten to “disrupt access to veterans’ education benefits, just as even more veterans and service members may be turning to higher education and career training,” top officials at the American Council on Education, or ACE — the nation’s largest association of colleges and universities — wrote in June.

    That’s on top of existing frustrations. Veterans already struggle to get the benefits they’ve earned, college administrators and students say.

    Related: Veterans are tangled in red tape trying to get their student loans canceled as promised

    Many colleges and even some prominent veterans’ advocacy groups didn’t want to talk about this. Student Veterans of America, one of the largest advocacy groups for veteran students, did not respond to repeated interview requests. Ten of the colleges and universities that boast large veteran enrollments — including San Diego State, Georgia State, Angelo State, Arizona State and Syracuse — also did not respond or declined to answer questions.

    Veterans and advocates are concerned that ongoing Education Department cuts will erode oversight of education institutions that take GI Bill benefits but leave veterans with little in return — primarily for-profit colleges that were found guilty of, and have been punished repeatedly for, defrauding students. In some cases, those colleges suddenly closed before students could finish their degrees, but kept their tuition while leaving them with useless credits or credentials.

    Veterans are already twice as likely as other students to attend for-profit colleges, according to the Postsecondary National Policy Institute.

    While it might take years until the effects of weakened scrutiny are fully visible, Nassirian said, it already appears that staffing cuts at the divisions within the Education Department that kept an eye on for-profit colleges have led those schools to start targeting veterans again.

    “Without a doubt it is now easier for schools that want to push the envelope to get away with it,” he said. “When you have fewer cops on the beat you’re going to see higher crime. And we’re still just a nanosecond into this new environment.”

    Veterans can lose their GI Bill benefits even when a college defrauds them.

    The risk is particularly high for low-income veterans and those from diverse backgrounds, said Lindsay Church, executive director of Minority Veterans of America. Those student veterans are less likely to have parents who have experience with higher education, Church said, making them more vulnerable to fraud.

    But the most immediate problems with staffing cuts are payment delays and paperwork errors, student veterans and their advisers said.

    At Pikes Peak State College, a community college in Colorado Springs, some veterans still hadn’t received their GI Bill benefits as the semester wound down in May, said Paul DeCecco, the college’s director of military and veteran programs. Because of trouble reaching counselors at the VA, others were never able to enroll in the first place, DeCecco said.

    “Counselors are just overwhelmed and not able to respond to students in a timely manner,” he said. “Students are missing semesters as a result.”

    Related: Behind the turmoil of federal attacks on colleges, some states are going after tenure

    In the military city of San Diego, where thousands of former and current service members go to college, student veterans at Miramar College this year waited months to hear about VA work-study contracts. Previously approved within days, those contracts allow students to get paid for veteran-related jobs while attending school, said LaChaune DuHart, the school’s director of veterans affairs and military education.

    Other veterans went weeks without textbooks because of delayed VA payments, DuHart said.

    “A lot of students can’t afford to lose those benefits,” she said, describing the “rage” many student veterans expressed over the long wait times this year. “A lot of times it’s that emotional reaction that causes these students not to come back to an institution,” she said.

    Colleges routinely see student veterans quit because of benefit delays, numerous experts and administrators said, something that has gotten worse this year. Several recounted stories of veterans without degrees choosing to look for work rather than continue their education because of frustration with the VA — even though studies show that graduating from college can dramatically increase future earnings.

    Those who stayed have faced the added stress of waiting for their benefits, or not being able to get their questions answered.

    “We always tell them to be prepared for delays,” said Phillip Morris, an associate professor of education research and leadership at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs who studies student veterans. “But if you can’t pay your rent because your benefits are not flowing the way you’re expecting them to, that’s increasing anxiety and stress that translates to the classroom.”

    Contact editor Jon Marcus at 212-678-7556 or [email protected].

    This story about student veterans was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter. Listen to our higher education podcast.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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  • Limited resources at underserved schools can keep students from getting the support they need

    Limited resources at underserved schools can keep students from getting the support they need

    As the first in my family to attend college, I felt a profound commitment to excel academically and gain admission to a top university. Growing up amid the hustle and bustle of Silicon Valley, I always envisioned a bright future ahead, with college at the forefront of my goals since elementary school.

    At my Title I elementary and middle schools, student-to-teacher ratios were even higher than those listed online. There was a lack of classroom technology and resources like history textbooks. Our two middle school counselors each managed students by the hundreds, making it nearly impossible for them to keep track of individual academic progress and educational goals. Afterward, I attended a private high school, thanks to support from my family. Our caring teachers made the effort to get to know each student, and dedicated counselors advocated for me when it mattered most.

    Yet when conversations about college came around, navigating the complex system was difficult. I had to chart my own path to success through independent research, often looking at data that was scattered and inconsistent. It hindered my ability to educate myself on college-going rates, costs, outcomes and employment prospects post-graduation.

    Related: Interested in innovations in higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter.

    Limited resources available at many underserved schools across the nation make it a more challenging environment for students to get support and excel, thus limiting their true academic potential.

    In my senior year of high school, after gaining newfound confidence while serving as a commissioner at-large in my county’s youth commission, I decided to try to challenge the status quo in higher education through the power of data and find a way to speak up for other first-generation students who find themselves interacting with systems not designed with their experiences in mind. My mentors at a regional food bank where I volunteered shaped me to lead with confidence and heart.

    When I received my admission letter from the University of California, Berkeley, I felt deeply honored to earn a place at one of the world’s leading research and teaching institutions.

    I am now an advisory board member of the recently formed California Cradle-to-Career Data System, the state’s longitudinal system that connects education and career outcomes data in one central place. I have learned firsthand that the resources available for students to gauge their potential postgraduate earnings often rely on self-submitted data or estimates, rather than on an accurate overview of college and career outcomes.

    Related: To better serve first-generation students, expand the definition

    As part of this work, I am now helping my state’s leaders develop tools like the Student Pathways dashboard, which provides insights on the higher education options available to students after high school.

    The tool provides information on a single website for everyone to access at any time. By streamlining access to this data, it allows students and the adults helping them to easily pinpoint which types of degrees or certifications are right for them, which may lead to employment opportunities where they live and which colleges or universities the students’ classmates are headed to.

    Students need access that can help them map out their futures — whether they hope to attend college, earn a certificate or enter the workforce directly after high school. Using data in the pathways tool can clarify how others have navigated to and through college and hopefully help students chart their own paths.

    As the youngest advisory board member, I have the opportunity to provide proposals and recommendations from a student’s perspective on how the system can engage with communities to make its data more accessible. Community engagement involves ensuring that Californians are aware of the data system, can understand and interpret the available data and have an opportunity to share their feedback.

    I often think about how the countless hours I spent trying to find information to help guide my goals and decision-making were both a burden and barrier to attending college. I know firsthand how the power of data can help build a successful future.

    Today, many first-generation and low-income college students do not have the opportunity to assess which pathways will yield the most fruit. I’m confident that with accessible facts and data for our decision-making, we can confidently forge the paths that will bring our dreams to life.

    Mike Nguyen is a rising junior studying business administration and science, technology, and society at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. This piece was written in collaboration with Alexis Takagi, a basic needs coordinator at Santa Clara University. Both Nguyen and Takagi are advisory board members of the California Cradle-to-Career Data System.

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].

    This story first-generation college students 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.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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  • Federal cuts to AmeriCorps could make it harder for recent graduates to find jobs

    Federal cuts to AmeriCorps could make it harder for recent graduates to find jobs

    This story about AmeriCorps jobs was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

    Lily Tegner didn’t know what she wanted to do when she graduated from Oregon State University with a chemical engineering degree five years ago. She entered the workforce at a point when unemployment briefly skyrocketed and companies were freezing hiring because of the Covid pandemic. “I didn’t have a very clear direction as far as where I was going in life,” she said. 

    Like hundreds of thousands of other young adults, Tegner kick-started her career through AmeriCorps, a federal agency that sends its members to communities across the country to tutor students, help after disasters strike and restore wildlife habitats, among other activities. She took a position at the Alaska Afterschool Network, where her job was to help find ways to expand science, technology, engineering and math access in its programs. Four years later, she’s still there — now, as a full-time employee managing the nonprofit’s AmeriCorps program. 

    “This state became my home,” Tegner said, adding that her year in AmeriCorps “completely changed the trajectory of my career.” 

    An AmeriCorps member poses with a student in one of the Alaska Afterschool Network’s funded programs. The organization lost its AmeriCorps funding last spring. Credit: Courtesy of Alaska Afterschool Network

    This spring, Alaska Afterschool Network was one of hundreds of organizations abruptly notified that its AmeriCorps funding had been terminated. Federal funding cuts forced the nonprofit to eliminate three full-time positions and cancel 19 internships scheduled for this summer. Tegner’s job is also at risk, though the organization is trying to find a way to keep her on. 

    In late April, the Trump administration slashed 41 percent of AmeriCorps’ funding, cutting about $400 million in grants and letting go of more than 32,000 members serving in hundreds of programs across the United States. In June and also this month, judges ordered the government to restore some funding, but the ruling does not reinstate all the money that was taken away. Shrinking AmeriCorps is among the many steps the Trump administration has taken to curb what he has called “waste, fraud and abuse” of federal funds. More action is expected in the months ahead. 

    Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter featuring the most important stories in education. 

    Over the years, the program former President Bill Clinton created has deployed more than a million people. On top of gutting AmeriCorps, the cuts have diminished the reach of an agency that has been a critical path to a career for recent high school and college graduates at a time when entry-level jobs can be difficult to find.

    AmeriCorps was created more than three decades ago to oversee expanded federal volunteer programs, incorporating existing projects including Volunteers in Service to America and the National Civilian Community Corps. Its members take on community service positions across the country that can last for up to two years. They receive a small living stipend, and full-time members are eligible for health insurance. At the end of their terms, members are awarded a grant that can be used to pay college tuition or student loans.

    “AmeriCorps dollars have a powerful ripple effect, for both the AmeriCorps members and the students that they serve,” said Leslie Cornfeld, founder and CEO of the National Education Equity Lab, a nonprofit that brings college courses to high-poverty schools. “In many instances, it helps them define their careers.” 

    About half of the AmeriCorps funding for the Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development was cut this spring. Credit: Courtesy of PHENND

    Federal surveys of AmeriCorps members from 2019, 2021 and 2023 show that 90 percent of members joined the national program in part to gain skills that would help them in school and work, and well over 80 percent said their experience in AmeriCorps helped further their “professional goals and endeavors.”

    The Trump administration cited fraud as part of its reason for nearly halving the AmeriCorps budget. Audits of the agency have raised questions about its financial management. 

    Related: Hundreds of thousands of students are entitled to training and help finding jobs. They don’t get it

    Peter Fleckenstein, 23, joined Aspire Afterschool in Arlington, Virginia, through AmeriCorps last year after graduating from the University of Delaware with a degree in psychology. He saw AmeriCorps as a way to build out his resume; even the entry-level positions he encountered during his job search required experience in the field. 

    In his position at the after-school program, Fleckenstein leads daily activities for a group of about two dozen fourth grade students. The experience has helped him crystallize his career aspirations: Before AmeriCorps, he was considering clinical social work or teaching. Now, he wants to become a counselor.

    “Working with the kids here is a lot of behavior management: problem solving, helping them regulate themselves,” Fleckenstein said. “Doing one-on-one work with them, building habits and routines with them — that is something that I could focus on more if I was in a counseling job.”

    Fleckenstein’s position was cut in April before he could complete his one-year term set to end in August, but Aspire Afterschool was able to raise money through donations to hire him and some of the nonprofit’s other AmeriCorps members part-time to finish out their grant year. 

    The Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development lost half of its AmeriCorps funding this past spring when the federal agency was slashed. Credit: Courtesy of PHENND

    While some members have joined Americorps after graduating, student Deja Johnson, 24, joined as a way to help pay for college. Her term at The Scholarship Academy — a nonprofit in Atlanta helping low-income high school students navigate financial aid applications — was supposed to end with a $7,400 education grant. Because the terms were cut short, members have been told they’ll get only a prorated portion of the money.

    “It’s a little bit of a shame,” said Johnson, who is using the education grant to pursue a bachelor’s degree in nonprofit leadership. 

    “That’s what a lot of us look forward to with this work that we’re doing, because we know how much of a sacrifice it can be at times. It’s that ‘pouring into our community’ — and that’s how our community pours into us,” Johnson said.

    The AmeriCorps termination letters told grantees that their programs no longer met agency priorities, but the nonprofits were not told what those priorities are. Programs with different missions, in both Democratic- and Republican-led communities, were cut.

    Sira Coulibaly, a member with the Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development’s Next Steps AmeriCorps program, packs bags of food for the Metropolitan Area Neighborhood Nutrition Alliance. Credit: Courtesy of PHENND

    The Hindman Settlement School, a nonprofit in rural Kentucky, was one victim of the cuts. The organization receives about $1 million a year from AmeriCorps for its program tutoring students with math and reading learning disabilities in more than two dozen schools. Losing that funding means drastically scaling back services, said Josh Mullins, senior director of operations at the Hindman Settlement School. He said he does not know why Hindman’s grants were terminated: The nonprofit regularly passes its audits, and its last annual report showed an average gain of seven months in reading levels among students in its dyslexia intervention program.

    A statement published in January on an AmeriCorps webpage says the agency is in the process of “conducting a full review” to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order banning diversity, equity and inclusion in federal programs. But Mullins and other AmeriCorps grantees said diversity, equity and inclusion efforts were not listed anywhere as part of their operations.

    “That’s what’s devastating,” Mullins said. “It was completely out of our control. There was nothing you could do.”

    Related: Tracking Trump: His actions to dismantle the Education Department, and more

    The administration also gutted 85 percent of the agency’s federal staff, which has caused problems even for programs that are still receiving AmeriCorps funding. 

    The federal government terminated about half of the AmeriCorps grants for the Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development. The group uses the funding to place members in local nonprofits and to help develop community partnerships in high-poverty schools. Director Hillary Kane said she’s been experiencing delays from the national AmeriCorps office in getting members approved for the programs that are still operating.

    “We need the humans in D.C. to do the stuff that they do, so we can do the stuff that we do,” Kane said. “The person we communicate with isn’t there.”

    About half of the AmeriCorps funding for the Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development was cut this spring. Credit: Courtesy of PHENND

    On June 5, a federal judge granted a temporary injunction ordering the Trump administration to restore AmeriCorps funding in states that had sued over the budget cuts. The lawsuit, which was filed by two dozen Democratic-led states in May, challenges the administration’s authority to cancel the funding without Congressional approval. But the judge’s injunction does not require the Trump administration to reinstate AmeriCorps’ federal employees, and funding is not being restored to programs in states that did not sign on to the lawsuit, including Alaska, home of the Alaska Afterschool Network, or Virginia, where Aspire Afterschool is based.

    The Hindman Settlement School in Kentucky was one organization whose funding was restored this summer because of the lawsuit. Mullins said he’s hopeful the nonprofit will continue to receive AmeriCorps funding for the upcoming grant cycle in the fall.

    For Kane, the injunction does not undo the chaos caused by the abrupt cancellation of half of her Philadelphia organization’s funding. Many terminated members that were with Kane’s organization have already moved on. 

    “It’s too late for us,” she said.

    Related: Schools push career ed classes ‘for all,’ even kids heading to college

    Programs whose grants were cut can apply again in the next grant cycle, but the president’s 2026 budget calls for shutting down AmeriCorps entirely. 

    While the debate in Washington rages, current and former volunteers mourn the potential loss of a program they said gave their lives meaning and led to employment. The avenue AmeriCorps provided for Tegner to start a career at the Alaska Afterschool Network gave her purpose in life, she said. She’s worried if the program ends, there won’t be another pathway on the same scale for young idealists who aren’t sure what they want to do with their lives.

    “It helps young people of all ages grow and try new things,” Tegner said. “That’s very much what it was for me.”

    Contact staff writer Ariel Gilreath on Signal at arielgilreath.46 or at [email protected].   

    This story about AmeriCorps jobs was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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  • Let’s remove the roadblocks to four-year STEM degrees for community college transfer students

    Let’s remove the roadblocks to four-year STEM degrees for community college transfer students

    In the nearly two years since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions, there have been repeated calls for universities to address the resulting decline in diversity by recruiting from community colleges.  

    On the surface, encouraging students to transfer from two-year colleges sounds like a terrific idea. Community colleges enroll large numbers of students who are low-income or whose parents did not attend college. Black and Latino students disproportionately start college at these institutions, whose mission for more than 50 years has been to expand access to higher education. 

    But while community colleges should be an avenue into high-value STEM degrees for students from low-income backgrounds and minoritized students, the reality is sobering: Just 2 percent of students who begin at a community college earn a STEM bachelor’s degree within six years, our recent study of transfer experiences in California found.  

    There are too many roadblocks in their way, leaving the path to STEM degrees for community college students incredibly narrow. A key barrier is the complexity of the process of transferring from a community college to a four-year institution. 

    Related: Interested in innovations in higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter. 

    Many community college students who want to transfer and major in a STEM field must contend with three major obstacles in the transfer process: 

    1. A maze of inconsistent and often opaque math requirements. We found that a student considering three or four prospective university campuses might have to take three or four different math classes just to meet a single math requirement in a given major. One campus might expect a transfer student majoring in business to take calculus, while another might ask for business calculus. Still another might strongly recommend a “calculus for life sciences” course. And sometimes an institution’s website might list different requirements than a statewide transfer site. Such inconsistencies can lengthen students’ times to degrees — especially in STEM majors, which may require five- or six-course math sequences before transfer.  

    2. Underlying math anxiety. Many students interviewed for the study told us that they had internalized negative comments from teachers, advisers and peers about their academic ability, particularly in math. This uncertainty contributed to feelings of anxiety about completing their math courses. Their predicament is especially troubling given concerns that required courses may not contribute to success in specific fields. 

    3. Course scheduling conflicts that slow students’ progress. Two required courses may meet on the same day and time, for example, or a required course could be scheduled at a time that conflicts with a student’s work schedule. In interviews, we also heard that course enrollment caps and sequential pathways in which certain courses are offered only once a year too often lengthen the time to degree for students. 

    Related: ‘Waste of time’: Community college transfers derail students 

    To help, rather than hinder, STEM students’ progress toward their college and professional goals, the transfer process needs to change significantly. First and foremost, universities need to send clear and consistent signals about what hoops community college students should be jumping through in order to transfer.  

    A student applying to three prospective campuses, for example, should not have to meet separate sets of requirements for each. 

    Community colleges and universities should also prioritize active learning strategies and proven supports to combat math anxiety. These may include providing professional learning for instructors to help them make math courses more engaging and to foster a sense of belonging. Training for counselors to advise students on requirements for STEM pathways is also important.  

    Community colleges must make their course schedules more student-centered, by offering evening and weekend courses and ensuring that courses required for specific degrees are not scheduled at overlapping times. They should also help students with unavoidable scheduling conflicts take comparable required courses at other colleges. 

    At the state level, it’s critical to adopt goals for transfer participation and completion (including STEM-specific goals) as well as comprehensive and transparent statewide agreements for math requirements by major. 

    States should also provide transfer planning tools that provide accurate and up-to-date information. For example, the AI Transfer and Articulation Infrastructure Network, led by University of California, Berkeley researchers, is using artificial intelligence technology to help institutions more efficiently identify which community college courses meet university requirements. More effective tools will increase transparency without requiring students and counselors to navigate complex and varied transfer requirements on their own. As it stands, complex, confusing and opaque math requirements limit transfer opportunities for community college students seeking STEM degrees, instead of expanding them. 

    We must untangle the transfer process, smooth pathways to high-value degrees and ensure that every student has a clear, unobstructed opportunity to pursue an education that will set them up for success. 

    Pamela Burdman is executive director of Just Equations, a California-based policy institute focused on reconceptualizing the role of math in education equity. Alexis Robin Hale is a research fellow at Just Equations and a graduate student at UCLA in Social Sciences and Comparative Education.  

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected]. 

    This story about community college transfers 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. 

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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  • Hard up for students, more colleges are offering college credit for life experience, or ‘prior learning’

    Hard up for students, more colleges are offering college credit for life experience, or ‘prior learning’

    PITTSBURGH — Stephen Wells was trained in the Air Force to work on F-16 fighter jets, including critical radar, navigation and weapons systems whose proper functioning meant life or death for pilots.

    Yet when he left the service and tried to apply that expertise toward an education at Pittsburgh’s Community College of Allegheny County, or CCAC, he was given just three credits toward a required class in physical education.

    Wells moved forward anyway, going on to get his bachelor’s and doctoral degrees. Now he’s CCAC’s provost and involved in a citywide project to help other people transform their military and work experience into academic credit.

    What’s happening in Pittsburgh is part of growing national momentum behind letting students — especially the increasing number who started but never completed a degree — cash in their life skills toward finally getting one, saving them time and money. 

    Colleges and universities have long purported to provide what’s known in higher education as credit for prior learning. But they have made the process so complex, slow and expensive that only about 1 in 10 students actually completes it. 

    Many students don’t even try, especially low-income learners who could benefit the most, according to a study by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education and the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning, or CAEL.

    “It drives me nuts” that this promise has historically proven so elusive, Wells said, in his college’s new Center for Education, Innovation & Training.

    Stephen Wells, provost at the Community College of Allegheny County in Pittsburgh. An Air Force veteran, Wells got only a handful of academic credits for his military experience. Now he’s part of an effort to expand that opportunity for other students. Credit: Nancy Andrews for The Hechinger Report

    That appears to be changing. Nearly half of institutions surveyed last year by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, or AACRAO, said they have added more ways for students to receive these credits — electricians, for example, who can apply some of their training toward academic courses in electrical engineering, and daycare workers who can use their experience to earn degrees in teaching. 

    Related: Interested in innovations in higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter.

    The reason universities and colleges are doing this is simple: Nearly 38 million working-age Americans have spent some time in college but never finished, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Getting at least some of them to come back has become essential to these higher education institutions at a time when changing demographics mean that the number of 18-year-old high school graduates is falling.

    “When higher education institutions are fat and happy, nobody looks for these things. Only when those traditional pipelines dry up do we start looking for other potential populations,” said Jeffrey Harmon, vice provost for strategic initiatives and institutional effectiveness at Thomas Edison State University in New Jersey, which has long given adult learners credit for the skills they bring.

    Being able to get credit for prior learning is a huge potential recruiting tool. Eighty-four percent of adults who are leaning toward going back to college say it would have “a strong influence” on their decision, according to research by CAEL, the Strada Education Foundation and Hanover Research. (Strada is among the funders of The Hechinger Report, which produced this story.)

    The Center for Education, Innovation & Training at the Community College of Allegheny County in Pittsburgh. The college is part of a citywide effort to give academic credit for older students’ life experiences. Credit: Nancy Andrews for The Hechinger Report

    When Melissa DiMatteo, 38, decided to get an associate degree at CCAC to go further in her job, she got six credits for her previous training in Microsoft Office and her work experience as everything from a receptionist to a supervisor. That spared her from having to take two required courses in computer information and technology and — since she’s going to school part time and taking one course per semester — saved her a year.

    “Taking those classes would have been a complete waste of my time,” DiMatteo said. “These are things that I do every day. I supervise other people and train them on how to do this work.”

    On average, students who get credit for prior learning save between $1,500 and $10,200 apiece and nearly seven months off the time it takes to earn a bachelor’s degree, the nonprofit advocacy group Higher Learning Advocates calculates. The likelihood that they will graduate is 17 percent higher, the organization finds.

    Related: The number of 18-year-olds is about to drop sharply, packing a wallop for colleges — and the economy 

    Justin Hand dropped out of college because of the cost, and became a largely self-taught information technology manager before he decided to go back and get an associate and then a bachelor’s degree so he could move up in his career.

    He got 15 credits — a full semester’s worth — through a program at the University of Memphis for which he wrote essays to prove he had already mastered software development, database management, computer networking and other skills.

    “These were all the things I do on a daily basis,” said Hand, of Memphis, who is 50 and married, with a teenage son. “And I didn’t want to have to prolong college any more than I needed to.”

    Meanwhile, employers and policymakers are pushing colleges to speed up the output of graduates with skills required in the workforce, including by giving more students credit for their prior learning. And online behemoths Western Governors University and Southern New Hampshire University, with which brick-and-mortar colleges compete, are way ahead of them in conferring credit for past experience.

    “They’ve mastered this and used it as a marketing tool,” said Kristen Vanselow, assistant vice president of innovative education and partnerships at Florida Gulf Coast University, which has expanded its awarding of credit for prior learning. “More traditional higher education institutions have been slower to adapt.”

    It’s also gotten easier to evaluate how skills that someone learns in life equate to academic courses or programs. This has traditionally required students to submit portfolios, take tests or write essays, as Hand did, and faculty to subjectively and individually assess them. 

    Related: As colleges lose enrollment, some turn to one market that’s growing: Hispanic students

    Now some institutions, states, systems and independent companies are standardizing this work or using artificial intelligence to do it. The growth of certifications from professional organizations such as Amazon Web Services and the Computing Technology Industry Association, or CompTIA, has helped, too.

    “You literally punch [an industry certification] into our database and it tells you what credit you can get,” said Philip Giarraffa, executive director of articulation and academic pathways at Miami Dade College. “When I started here, that could take anywhere from two weeks to three months.”

    Data provided by Miami Dade shows it has septupled the number of credits for prior learning awarded since 2020, from 1,197 then to 7,805 last year.

    “These are students that most likely would have looked elsewhere, whether to the [online] University of Phoenix or University of Maryland Global [Campus]” or other big competitors, Giarraffa said.

    Fifteen percent of undergraduates enrolled in higher education full time and 40 percent enrolled part time are 25 or older, federal data show — including people who delayed college to serve in the military, volunteer or do other work that could translate into academic credit. 

    “Nobody wants to sit in a class where they already have all this knowledge,” Giarraffa said. 

    At Thomas Edison, police academy graduates qualify for up to 30 credits toward associate degrees. Carpenters who have completed apprenticeships can get as many as 74 credits in subjects including math, management and safety training. Bachelor’s degrees are often a prerequisite for promotion for people in professions such as these, or who hope to start their own companies.

    Related: To fill ‘education deserts,’ more states want community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees

    The University of Memphis works with FedEx, headquartered nearby, to give employees with supervisory training academic credit they can use toward a degree in organizational leadership, helping them move up in the company.

    The University of North Carolina System last year launched its Military Equivalency System, which lets active-duty and former military service members find out almost instantly, before applying for admission, if their training could be used for academic credit. That had previously required contacting admissions offices, registrars or department chairs. 

    Among the reasons for this reform was that so many of these prospective students — and the federal education benefits they get — were ending up at out-of-state universities, the UNC System’s strategic plan notes.

    “We’re trying to change that,” said Kathie Sidner, the system’s director of workforce and partnerships. It’s not only for the sake of enrollment and revenue, Sidner said. “From a workforce standpoint, these individuals have tremendous skill sets and we want to retain them as opposed to them moving somewhere else.”

    Related: A new way to help some college students: Zero percent, no-fee loans

    California’s community colleges are also expanding their credit for prior learning programs as part of a plan to increase the proportion of the population with educations beyond high school. 

    “How many people do you know who say, ‘College isn’t for me?’ ” asked Sam Lee, senior advisor to the system’s chancellor for credit for prior learning. “It makes a huge difference when you say to them that what they’ve been doing is equivalent to college coursework already.”

    In Pittsburgh, the Regional Upskilling Alliance — of which CCAC is a part — is connecting job centers, community groups, businesses and educational institutions to create comprehensive education and employment records so more workers can get credit for skills they already have.

    That can provide a big push, “especially if you’re talking about parents who think, ‘I’ll never be able to go to school,’ ” said Sabrina Saunders Mosby, president and CEO of the nonprofit Vibrant Pittsburgh, a coalition of business and civic leaders involved in the effort. 

    Pennsylvania is facing among the nation’s most severe declines in the number of 18-year-old high school graduates. 

    “Our members are companies that need talent,” Mosby said. 

    There’s one group that has historically pushed back against awarding credit for prior learning: university and college faculty concerned it might affect enrollment in their courses or unconvinced that training provided elsewhere is of comparable quality. Institutions have worried about the loss of revenue from awarding credits for which students would otherwise have had to pay.

    That also appears to be changing, as universities leverage credit for prior learning to recruit more students and keep them enrolled for longer, resulting in more revenue — not less. 

    “That monetary factor was something of a myth,” said Beth Doyle, chief of strategy at CAEL.

    Faculty have increasingly come around, too. That’s sometimes because they like having experienced students in their classrooms, Florida Gulf Coast’s Vanselow said. 

    Related: States want adults to return to college. Many roadblocks stand in the way 

    Still, while many recognize it as a recruiting incentive, most public universities and colleges have had to be ordered to confer more credits for prior learning by legislatures or governing boards. Private, nonprofit colleges remain stubbornly less likely to give it.

    More than two-thirds charge a fee for evaluating whether other kinds of learning can be transformed into academic credit, an expense that isn’t covered by financial aid. Roughly one in 12 charge the same as it would cost to take the course for which the credits are awarded. 

    Debra Roach, vice president for workforce development at the Community College of Allegheny County in Pittsburgh. The college is working on giving academic credit to students for their military, work and other life experience. Credit: Nancy Andrews for The Hechinger Report

    Seventy percent of institutions require that students apply for admission and be accepted before learning whether credits for prior learning will be awarded. Eighty-five percent limit how many credits for prior learning a student can receive.

    There are other confounding roadblocks and seemingly self-defeating policies. CCAC runs a noncredit program to train paramedics, for example, but won’t give people who complete it credits toward its for-credit nursing degree. Many leave and go across town to a private university that will. The college is working on fixing this, said Debra Roach, its vice president of workforce development.

    It’s important to see this from the students’ point of view, said Tracy Robinson, executive director of the University of Memphis Center for Regional Economic Enrichment.

    “Credit for prior learning is a way for us to say, ‘We want you back. We value what you’ve been doing since you’ve been gone,’ ” Robinson said. “And that is a total game changer.”

    Contact writer Jon Marcus at 212-678-7556, [email protected] or jpm.82 on Signal.

    This story about credit for prior learning was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter. Listen to our higher education podcast.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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  • America’s future depends on more first-generation students from underestimated communities earning an affordable bachelor’s degree

    America’s future depends on more first-generation students from underestimated communities earning an affordable bachelor’s degree

    I recently stood before hundreds of young people in California’s Central Valley; more than 60 percent were on that day becoming the first in their family to earn a bachelor’s degree.

    Their very presence at University of California, Merced’s spring commencement ceremony disrupted a major narrative in our nation about who college is for — and the value of a degree.

    Many of these young people arrived already balancing jobs, caregiving responsibilities and family obligations. Many were Pell Grant-eligible and came from communities that are constantly underestimated and where a higher education experience is a rarity.

    These students graduated college at a critical moment in American history: a time when the value of a bachelor’s degree is being called into question, when public trust in higher education is vulnerable and when supports for first-generation college students are eroding. Yet an affordable bachelor’s degree remains the No. 1 lever for financial, professional and social mobility in this country.

    Related: Interested in innovations in higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter.

    A recent Gallup poll showed that the number of Americans who have a great deal of confidence in higher education is dwindling, with a nearly equal amount responding that they have little to none. In 2015, when Gallup first asked this question, those expressing confidence outnumbered those without by nearly six to one.

    There is no doubt that higher education must continue to evolve — to be more accessible, more relevant and more affordable — but the impact of a bachelor’s degree remains undeniable.

    And the bigger truth is this: America’s long-term strength — its economic competitiveness, its innovation pipeline, its social fabric — depends on whether we invest in the education of the young people who reflect the future of this country.

    There are many challenges for today’s workforce, from a shrinking talent pipeline to growing demands in STEM, healthcare and the public sector. These challenges can’t be solved unless we ensure that more first-generation students and those from underserved communities earn their degrees in affordable ways and leverage their strengths in ways they feel have purpose.

    Those of us in education must create conditions in which students’ talent is met with opportunity and higher education institutions demonstrate that they believe in the potential of every student who comes to their campuses to learn.

    UC Merced is a fantastic example of what this can look like. The youngest institution in the University of California system, it was recently designated a top-tier “R1” research university. At the same time, it earned a spot on Carnegie’s list of “Opportunity Colleges and Universities,” a new classification that recognizes institutions based on the success of their students and alumni. It is one of only 21 institutions in the country to be nationally ranked for both elite research and student success and is proving that excellence and equity can — and must — go hand in hand.

    In too many cases, students who make it to college campuses are asked to navigate an educational experience that wasn’t built with their lived experiences and dreams in mind. In fact, only 24 percent of first-generation college students earn a bachelor’s degree in six years, compared to nearly 59 percent of students who have a parent with a bachelor’s. This results in not just a missed opportunity for individual first-generation students — it’s a collective loss for our country.

    Related: To better serve first-generation students, expand the definition

    The graduates I spoke to in the Central Valley that day will become future engineers, climate scientists, public health leaders, artists and educators. Their bachelor’s degrees equip them with critical thinking skills, confidence and the emotional intelligence needed to lead in an increasingly complex world.

    Their future success will be an equal reflection of their education and the qualities they already possess as first-generation college graduates: persistence, focus and unwavering drive. Because of this combination, they will be the greatest contributors to the future of work in our nation.

    This is a reality I know well. As the Brooklyn-born daughter of Dominican immigrants, I never planned to go away from home to a four-year college. My father drove a taxi, and my mother worked in a factory. I was the first in my family to earn a bachelor’s degree. I attended college as part of an experimental program to get kids from neighborhoods like mine into “top” schools. When it was time for me to leave for college, my mother and I boarded a bus with five other students and their moms for a 26-hour ride to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

    Like so many first-generation college students, I carried with me the dreams and sacrifices of my family and community. I had one suitcase, a box of belongings and no idea what to expect at a place I’d never been to before. That trip — and the bachelor’s degree I earned — changed the course of my life.

    First-generation college students from underserved communities reflect the future of America. Their success is proof that the American Dream is not only alive but thriving. And right now, the stakes are national, and they are high.

    That is why we must collectively remove the obstacles to first-generation students’ individual success and our collective success as a nation. That’s the narrative that we need to keep writing — together.

    Shirley M. Collado is president emerita at Ithaca College and the president and CEO of College Track, a college completion program dedicated to democratizing potential among first-generation college students from underserved communities.

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].

    This story about first-generation students 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.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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