Tag: Higher

Education Dept. Hears From Public About Higher Ed Overhaul
The Education Department’s yearlong effort to roll out the sweeping higher ed changes signed into law last month kicked off Thursday with a four-hour hearing that highlighted the many tweaks college administrators and others want to see.

The law, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, capped federal student loans, created new loan-repayment plans, extended the Pell Grant to include short-term workforce programs and instituted a new measure to hold institutions accountable. Now, the department is planning to propose and issue new regulations that spell out how those various changes will work.

On nearly all fronts, college administrators, policy experts and students argued that lawmakers left significant gaps in the legislation, and they want a say in how Trump administration officials fill them in. For instance, the legislation doesn’t explain what data will be collected for either workforce Pell or the accountability measure or who will have to take on that task. Some speakers raised concerns about how new reporting requirements could increase administrative burdens for colleges.

But Nicholas Kent, the department’s newly confirmed under secretary, said at the start of the meeting that he looks forward to clarifying all the details during the lengthy process known as negotiated rule making.

“Simply put, the current approach to paying for college is unsustainable for both borrowers and for taxpayers,” Kent said. “President Trump has laid out a bold vision, one that aims to disrupt a broken system and return accountability, affordability and quality to postsecondary education that includes reducing the cost of higher education, aligning program offerings with employer needs [and] embracing innovative education models … Today’s public hearing marks a key milestone in our accelerated timeline to implement this sweeping legislative reform.”

Neither Kent nor other department officials said what specific changes and clarifications are on the table.

What Is Negotiated Rule Making?

Negotiated rule making, or “neg-reg,” started in the early 1990s. It entails using an advisory committee to consider and discuss issues with the goal of reaching consensus in developing a proposed rule. Consensus means unanimous agreement among the committee members, unless the group agrees on a different definition. The department must undertake negotiated rule making for any rule related to federal student aid.

Determining the details of the regulations and policy changes will be left up to two committees of higher education leaders, policy experts and industry representatives that will review and negotiate over the department’s proposals during a series of meetings throughout the fall and into the new year. The first committee is scheduled to begin discussions in September.

In the meantime, here are three key issues Thursday’s speakers said they hope to see addressed by both the advising panels and department officials before the legislation starts taking effect in July 2026.

Who’s Making the Decisions?

Before the public hearing, some higher ed lobbyists and advocates raised concerns about who would be included on the advisory committees. Multiple constituent groups argued they weren’t properly represented on the committees.

For instance, neither committee includes a representative from the financial aid community, despite the fact that college financial aid administrators will play a key role in implementing the legislation on campuses.

Multiple groups, including the American Council on Education, drew attention to the absence, but Melanie Storey, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, voiced the most concern.

Financial aid professionals will “interpret, communicate and operationalize the intricate details of this wide-ranging bill for millions of students and families. To exclude their practical, technical experience from the negotiation table risks developing rules that are difficult to administer, creating unintended negative consequences,” she said. “We have heard the perspective that representatives from each college sector can speak to the needs of their institutions. However, their role is to advocate for the broad interests of that sector. That is fundamentally different from representing the profession responsible for the … mechanics of aid delivery.

A department official who moderated the hearing, responded, “We expect we will have financial aid administrators at the table,” as the department has in the past, but he did not clarify how that would be done. (This paragraph has been corrected.)

Other speakers called for better representation of civil rights advocates, apprenticeship program leaders and minority-serving institutions, but none of those requests were directly addressed by government officials.

What Qualifies as a Professional Program?

Speakers also raised questions about how the new caps to student loans would work and whom they would affect.
How to Make a Policy, Neg-Reg Edition

As part of negotiated rule making, the Education Department must:

~~Put out a public notice about intent to form a committee and hold a public hearing~~

~~Publish notice inviting nominations for negotiators~~

~~Hold a public hearing~~

Pick the negotiators

Hold negotiated rule-making sessions

Write the proposed regulations

Publish those regulations for public comment, which lasts at least 30 days

Read and respond to the comments; revise the regulations as needed

Publish the final rule. Rules need to be published by Nov. 1 in order to take effect July 1 of the following year, but the department can implement rules early.
Congress’s Big Beautiful Bill caps loans for professional degrees at $200,000 and limits loans for graduate programs to half of that. But lawmakers didn’t specify which degree programs fall in which category. Determining how to sort programs will likely be a key point of debate for the rule-making committee, the comments showed.

Certain programs, like law and medical school, will almost certainly be considered professional programs, but other programs, like master’s degrees in nursing, education or social work, are not guaranteed. Knowing this, a variety of academic association representatives, workforce advocates and college administrators made their case throughout the hearing for why their own discipline should be a professional program.

Matt Hooper, vice president of communications for the Council on Social Work Education, said to not include certain programs in the professional bucket would mean ignoring their critical nature as a public service.

Social work graduates “pursue careers in health care, children and family services, criminal justice, public policy, government, and more,” he said. “An M.S.W. provides full professional preparation, similar to a J.D. in law or an M.D. in medicine, and we think it should be categorized in the same respect.”

A handful of speakers went so far as to argue that certain bachelor’s programs, like aviation or aeronautical science, that are often paired with certification from the Federal Aviation Administration should be grouped into the professional category, as they come at a cost and time commitment similar to graduate school.

If those programs don’t get the benefit of a higher loan cap, multiple airline advocates said, America could see a steep shortage of pilots within the next two decades.

“Over the next 15 years, nearly half of our nation’s airline pilots will retire due to mandatory age limits,” said Sharon DeVivo, president of Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology. “The current training pipeline is not equipped to meet that demand, putting at risk the transportation infrastructure, especially the economic health of small and rural communities that depend on reliable air service.”

Training to become a pilot can cost $80,000 to $100,000 more than a traditional bachelor’s degree, added Carlos Zendejas, vice president of flight operations at the regional airline Horizon Air. So to hold these students to the same loan limit as other undergraduates would deter prospective pilots from pursuing a high-return-on-investment career.

“The need to stabilize the pilot pipeline is real,” he said. “The One Big Beautiful Bill gives the department the ability to fix this.”

Should Gainful Go?

Since the inauguration, Trump officials in all sectors of the federal government have been vocal about combating fraud, waste and abuse. But higher education experts are concerned that one measure in the reconciliation bill could do the opposite.

The new accountability tool it introduced uses a new earnings test to evaluate colleges’ eligibility for federal student loans. But it does not apply to certificate programs, which some policy and data analysts say are more likely to provide a poor return on investment.

According to a recent report from the Postsecondary Education and Economics Research Center at American University, only 1 percent of college programs at the associate level and higher will fail the new earnings test, but about 19 percent of certificate programs would do so.

Representatives from American as well as New America, Third Way and the Century Foundation, all progressive think tanks, sounded the alarm on the matter at Thursday’s hearing. As a solution, they encouraged the administration to keep an existing accountability policy in place that applies to certificate programs and for-profit institutions. That metric, known as the gainful-employment rule, is not codified in law.

“A recent publication from the Senate health committee’s chairman, Bill Cassidy, confirms it was not lawmakers’ intent to exempt such programs from any accountability,” said Clare McCann, the PEER Center’s managing director of policy and operations. “So to carry out that intent, the department should maintain a strong gainful-employment program regulation for those programs that should include maintaining the debt-to-earnings tests under the gainful-employment rules, which are an important check on institutions offering unaffordable degrees.”
Source link
August 8, 2025
Families Spending More on College

Families reportedly spent an average of $30,837 for college last year.

Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Getty Images | Rawpixel

Families are spending about 9 percent more on college compared to last year, according to a recently released survey from Sallie Mae and Ipsos.

The results of the survey, released earlier this week, are part of the annual “How America Pays for College” report. Ipsos surveyed about 1,000 undergraduate students and the same number of parents of undergrads from April 8 to May 8. The online survey delved into a range of topics from how they were paying for college to their views on the federal student loan program.

On average, families spent $30,837 on college, which is similar to pre-pandemic spending—in the 2019–20 academic year, families spent $30,017 on average. In line with previous years, families are typically using their own money to pay for college, with income and savings adding up to 48 percent of the pie, and scholarships and grants accounted for a 27 percent slice.

But 40 percent of the families surveyed didn’t seek scholarships to help pay for college because they either didn’t know about the available opportunities or didn’t think they could win one. About three-quarters of respondents who received a scholarship credited that aid with making college possible.

Similar to other recent surveys, while a majority of families see college as worth the money, cost is still a key factor. About 79 percent reported that they eliminated at least one institution based on the price tag. Still, about 47 percent of respondents said they ended up paying less than the sticker price. That number is higher for families with students at private four-year universities. About 54 percent said they paid less compared to 45 percent of respondents at public four-year institutions.

Source link

August 8, 2025
Trump Political Appointees in Charge of Grant Decisions
The NIH is one of several agencies where a political appointee will have to sign off on grant awards.

Wesley Lapointe/The Washington Post via Getty Images
President Donald Trump is now requiring grant-making agencies to appoint senior officials who will review new funding opportunity announcements and grants to ensure that “they are consistent with agency priorities and the national interest,” according to an executive order issued Thursday. And until those political appointees are in place, agencies won’t be able to make announcements about new funding opportunities.

The changes are aimed at both improving the process of federal grant making and “ending offensive waste of tax dollars,” according to the order, which detailed multiple perceived issues with how grant-making bodies operate.

The Trump administration said some of those offenses have included agencies granting funding for the development of “transgender-sexual-education” programs and “free services to illegal immigrants” that it claims worsened the “border crisis.” The order also claimed that the government has “paid insufficient attention” to the efficacy of research projects—noting instances of data falsification—and that a “substantial portion” of grants that fund university-led research “goes not to scientific project applicants or groundbreaking research, but to university facilities and administrative costs,” which are commonly referred to as indirect costs.

It’s the latest move by the Trump administration to take control of federally funded research supported by agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy. Since taking office in January, those and other agencies have terminated thousands of grants that no longer align with their priorities, including projects focused on vaccine hesitancy, combating misinformation, LGBTQ+ health and promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.

Federal judges have since ruled some of those terminations unlawful. Despite those rulings, Thursday’s executive order forbids new funding for some of the same research topics the administration has already targeted.

It instructs the new political appointees of grant-making agencies to “use their independent judgment” when deciding which projects get funded so long as they “demonstrably advance the president’s policy priorities.”

Those priorities include not awarding grants to “fund, promote, encourage, subsidize, or facilitate” the following:
“Racial preferences or other forms of racial discrimination by the grant recipient, including activities where race or intentional proxies for race will be used as a selection criterion for employment or program participation;

“Denial by the grant recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic;

“Illegal immigration; or

“Any other initiatives that compromise public safety or promote anti-American values.”
The order also instructs senior appointees to give preference to applications from institutions with lower indirect cost rates. (Numerous agencies have also moved to cap indirect research cost rates for universities at 15 percent, but federal courts have blocked those efforts for now.)
Source link
August 8, 2025
Teaching About Class in a Post-DEI Era (opinion)
When I taught about social class in my Intimacy, Marriages and Families course this past semester, I began with reflection and a sticky note, not with a lecture or statistics.

This wasn’t the first time I used sticky-note prompts in class. Earlier in the semester, I introduced a similar activity during our unit on race, ethnicity and immigration. That experience inspired me: It showed how a simple sentence starter could help students unpack the emotional weight of identity, belonging and difference. It also helped me refine how to frame and facilitate the conversation in a more impactful way.

So when we arrived at the unit on families and social class, I returned to the sticky notes—this time with more complexity of prompts. And what followed was one of the most meaningful moments of the semester.

The Sticky Note Activity: A Gentle Way Into a Hard Topic

I gave students a set of sentence starters and asked them to complete them anonymously on a sticky note. After writing, they placed their notes on the walls, windows, doors and whiteboard—spreading them out wide enough so everyone could read at the same time. Then students walked silently around the room, taking in what their classmates had shared. After the walk, I invited each student to share one or two statements that resonated with them.

Here are some of the prompts:
- “I didn’t realize how class shaped me until …”
- “One thing my family couldn’t afford growing up was …”
- “I noticed others had more when …”
- “I felt lucky to have _______ when others didn’t.”
- “At school, I learned to stay quiet about …”
- “An opportunity I almost missed because of money was …”
- “I was taught to always …”
These prompts are simple but emotionally rich. They allow students to enter the topic from their own lived experience—before theory, before data, before the academic discourse.

The range of responses students shared was both personal and eye-opening. To the prompt “I didn’t realize how class shaped me until …,” one student reflected on “seeing how much my mother worked just to provide a roof over our heads.” In response to “An opportunity I almost missed because of money was …,” students listed things such as education, rent, bills, Air Jordan shoes, going to college and even a football trip—while one noted simply, “Nothing,” suggesting a contrasting perspective. When asked “I was taught to always …,” many shared values shaped by scarcity and resilience: “be grateful and humble,” “earn money for life by myself after high school” or “bite my tongue to maintain peace.” Responses to “One thing my family couldn’t afford growing up was …” included extracurricular activities, having their own rooms, brand-new items, frequent family time and vacations.

Furthermore, students noticed class differences with reflections such as “I had to wait for things my friends got in a blink of an eye.” Others shared the silence they learned to carry, responding to “At school, I learned to stay quiet about …” with reflections on their home situations, financial aid or how much their parents made. Some added the inverse: “I learned to stay quiet about other kids’ struggles.”

A prompt asking students for one moment that made them aware of inequality yielded responses such as “having to work in high school while others went out,” “facing racial discrimination at a young age” and “realizing some classmates couldn’t afford meals.” Finally, to the prompt “I realized not everyone had _______ like I did,” students shared privileges they had come to recognize: “the options to choose,” “the ability to study abroad” or “having parents, food, shelter and protection.” Together, these reflections painted a vivid and humanizing picture of the many ways class difference shapes lived experience—often invisibly.

After the gallery walk, the room felt palpably different—softer, more thoughtful. While the reflections I’m about to share were originally expressed during a similar activity in our earlier unit on race, ethnicity and immigration, I chose to include them here because they speak to the same core theme. Several students had shared that the activity helped them “see how diverse people in the class are—the values, backgrounds” and one added, “It helped humanize people.”

This activity then helped me transition smoothly to my key take-home message for students. After the sticky note reflections and class discussion, I prompted them to pause and consider this:

“Not everyone grows up with the same set of tools. Some of us had parents who could advocate for us, who knew how to navigate systems—others had to figure it all out on their own. Some kids are encouraged to raise their voices; others are expected to stay in line. We’re often told that success is about effort—but what if the race isn’t the same for everyone?”

I then connected some of the sticky-note reflections back to this statement—helping students draw the line between their lived experiences and structural patterns.

Why It Matters More Than Ever

In a political climate in which diversity, equity and inclusion efforts are being rolled back, educators may hesitate to bring up inequality in their classrooms. But this is precisely when it matters most.

Class disparities are getting wider. Students are balancing coursework while managing food insecurity, housing challenges or caregiving responsibilities. Others arrive with generational wealth, college prep resources and family support networks. If we don’t name these disparities, we risk reinforcing them through silence.

Teaching about social class isn’t about shame or blame—it’s about giving students the tools to understand their place in the world and the systems that shape it.

Tips for Teaching Social Class

There are several strategies educators can use to teach social class in a way that is welcoming and engaging. First, start with stories, not stats—students already live within systems of inequality, so grounding the conversation in their lived experiences builds emotional buy-in before introducing abstract concepts. One effective way to do this is to use low-stakes writing prompts, such as the sticky-note activity, which encourages honest reflection while creating a safe, low-pressure environment.

It’s also important to create space for silent voices; not all students are comfortable speaking aloud, so alternatives like gallery walks or anonymous digital boards help everyone to feel comfortable participating. After reflection, connect students’ lived experiences with research by introducing concepts such as cultural capital and texts like Unequal Childhoods (University of California Press, second edition, 2011) by Annette Lareau, which explores how social class influences parenting styles and shapes children’s life chances.

Closing the Loop

At the end of the unit, I asked students, what can we do?

I introduced them to the concept of social capital, after earlier discussions on cultural and human capital. I introduced the article “What the Privileged Poor Can Teach Us” by Anthony Abraham Jack, which shows how first-generation and low-income students can build academic support networks—particularly by building relationships with professors.

Before that, I shared Rita Pierson’s TED Talk “Every Kid Needs a Champion,” a moving reminder that in education, relationships can change lives. Her story exemplifies how connection itself becomes a form of capital, especially for those who grow up without material advantage.

This pairing helped students see how they could move from understanding class inequality to navigating it—and even challenging it—with critical thinking, empathy and advocacy.

Teaching about inequality is not partisan—it’s fundamental to education. If we want to graduate students who are not only career-ready but human-ready—who understand structural inequality and social responsibility—then we must create space for conversations about class.

Sothy Eng is an associate professor of human development and family science at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. He received the 2024 Board of Regents Medal for Excellence in Teaching and is currently contributing to Psychology Today (previously to HuffPost). His work focuses on social capital, family dynamics, parenting and relationship-based education.
Source link
August 8, 2025
Equity Gaps in Academic Advising

Recently published research has found equity gaps in the impact of academic advising support on various student groups. While students from racial minorities are more likely to meet with an adviser compared to their white peers, they’re less likely to see improvements in their GPA or graduate on time.

The research points to a need for improved advising processes, not just in increasing access to and knowledge of academic advising, but in developing holistic student support programs, said lead author Hua-Yu Sebastian Cherng, vice dean for research and equity at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development.

The background: Academic advising is a critical part of student retention and progression, but not every student receives the support. A 2023 survey by Tyton Partners found one-third of student respondents were not aware of academic advising on campus, despite 98 percent of college employees saying the resource was available to their students.

Similarly, a spring 2023 survey by Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse found, when asked what types of assistance students had received during academic advising, 8 percent of students said they had received no assistance since starting college. Additionally, 5 percent of respondents said they had never met with an academic adviser. Twenty-three percent of respondents said they have to set up meetings with an academic adviser if they’d like to meet, and 10 percent of all respondents said it was difficult to get an appointment with their academic adviser.

The study: Hua-Yu’s study evaluated data from a large public research institution (total enrollment of 80,000) between 2017 and 2021, considering students’ grades, graduation rates, demographics and the number of appointments made with advisers.

To ensure relevant comparisons, researchers matched students in the same school or academic program because advising requirements and processes varied by school, Hua-Yu said.

Across the university, nonwhite and international student groups met with advisers more frequently than white domestic students, disrupting commonly held notions about who is aware of and using services on college campuses, Hua-Yu said.

But the impact of advising was not affected by the frequency of appointments. Rather, despite meeting with advisers less frequently than minoritized students, white students were more likely to have higher GPAs compared to their white peers who didn’t meet with an adviser. White students’ frequency of meeting with an adviser also correlated with their graduation rates, the only racial or ethnic group that saw benefits in this way.

“This is really damning evidence that advising is not doing what it’s supposed to be doing,” Hua-Yu said.

Even among students with undeclared majors, where this institution felt it had a gold standard of advising supports and resources, data showed similar patterns: White students had better outcomes after meeting with advisers, despite their nonwhite peers having more meetings.

Continuing-generation students were more likely to see benefits from advising appointments, compared to their first-generation peers, and low-income students who met with an adviser had slightly higher graduation rates compared to their higher-income classmates.

The why: Hua-Yu theorizes that institutional messaging encouraging students to take advantage of advising could have been effective, resulting in more students having appointments with their advisers. But if marginalized students have complex concerns or are looking for advice on which path to choose, they are more likely to walk away from appointments without all the information they need or feeling like they don’t belong.

A 2024 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab found 75 percent of students said they had at least some trust in academic advisers on campus; 20 percent said they didn’t have much trust in them.

First-generation students were 7 percent less likely to meet with an adviser and less likely to graduate, compared to their continuing generation peers, the IHE survey found.

According to Hua-Yu, continuing-generation students are less likely to seek advice on changing their major when talking to staff, compared to their first-generation peers, because they have other support systems that can offer that insight. Instead, they’re using advising appointments to address logistical and bureaucratic impediments to reaching their goals, he noted.

Building better: The findings, Hua-Yu emphasized, do not fault advisers but rather underline concerns with academic advising structures and staffing issues at colleges and universities across the country. A 2024 report by Tyton Partners found high caseloads and adviser burnout and turnover are some of the top challenges for the field.

Advisers have caseloads as high as 400 students, which can limit their ability to engage with students intentionally and address their concerns at a deeper level, Hua-Yu said. Instead, leaders at institutions should recognize that quality advising can make a substantial difference in student outcomes and, in turn, advocate for resources and support to improve advising experiences.

Hua-Yu called for more training for advisers on how to work with students in a specific program of study, as well as with a variety of student identities. Academic advisers cannot become social workers or mental health professionals, but improving how advisers are onboarded and supported can make substantial differences, Hua-Yu said.

Advisers can also be given a set of questions to encourage more meaningful relationships with students during advising appointments, such as asking about students’ lives, their goals and their support systems.

What’s next: Using the same data set, Hua-Yu and his team plan to investigate the use of flags or kudos within the advising system to see how early intervention could affect student success.

The researchers are also exploring the role of gender on advising supports; initial results show white male students are less likely to engage in advising compared to other student groups.

Incidentally, the data set covers a period of remote instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic, so Hua-Yu and his team are exploring shocks to advising processes and supports after spring 2020. So far, researchers noted there were more advising meetings taking place, just remotely, and these advising appointment levels remained higher than pre-pandemic.

Seeking stories from campus leaders, faculty members and staff for our Student Success focus. Share here.

Source link

August 8, 2025
Reducing Transfer Admissions Time to Decision

In an era when learners move fluidly across institutions, credentials, work-based learning and military education, the path to a degree is rarely linear. One area of the transfer process where improvement is both possible and measurable is the time it takes to render an admissions decision.

Timely decisions support learners’ ability to register, engage in advising and complete financial aid processes. Faster admissions decisions can help institutions better align with the needs and expectations of today’s mobile learners.

This is the opportunity the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, in collaboration with the National Association of Higher Education Systems, is advancing with its new National Learning Mobility Challenge: Improving Transfer Time to Decision.

A Call to Action

While institutions have made significant progress in modernizing admissions operations and technology over the past decade, continued refinement is needed to align those improvements with learner-centered goals.

AACRAO’s recent report, “A Blueprint Toward a Learner-Centered Credit Mobility Ecosystem,” notes that “the core challenges for credit mobility are not primarily a lack of technology but rather structural and operational issues.” Manual processes persist even when electronic systems are available. Institutional fragmentation, policy complexity and data gaps create barriers that disproportionately affect mobile learners.

One improvement institutions can pursue today is tracking and improving the time it takes to render an admissions decision for transfer applicants. The assumption that they’ll wait belies the urgent, real-world demands faced by transfer students, many of whom are older, working, supporting families or juggling multiple institutions and life transitions. Delays in admission cut off timely access to advising, registration and financial aid packaging.

These are not administrative delays; they are missed opportunities for learner-centered service delivery.

The Challenge is not a competition. Instead, it is a national call for action, experimentation and transparency. Participants commit to measuring their own time to decision, identifying internal or systemic friction points and piloting solutions to reduce them. AACRAO will provide visibility, collaborate with NASH for technical support and showcase progress at the Assembly, its newly reimagined national convening on learning mobility.

Why Admissions Decision Speed Matters

In many cases, transfer students apply with urgency. They may be returning after a stop-out, seeking a more affordable or supportive environment, or adapting to major life changes. These students are often older, working, supporting families or managing housing and food insecurity. For them, extended decision timelines may limit access to advising, course registration and timely financial planning. Without an offer of admission, students cannot register, access advising, complete financial aid steps or make informed decisions about their futures.

Measuring and improving time-to-decision is one way institutions can demonstrate responsiveness. Institutions that prioritize transparency and timeliness in their transfer admissions process send a clear signal to the transfer community: you are welcome and we are ready.

Building on the Work of Learning Mobility

This Challenge builds on years of work by AACRAO to advance learning mobility—a learner-centered framework that recognizes the full range of educational experiences.

In a previous “Beyond Transfer” article, we emphasized that many failures of reform are failures of implementation. Too often, institutions adopt promising ideas—articulation agreements, credit frameworks, technology platforms—without addressing the operational bottlenecks that slow them down or dilute their impact. The admissions decision for transfer learners is one area where aligning process improvement with institutional values can yield measurable progress.

As the stewards of institutional systems, AACRAO members sit at the intersection of policy, technology, compliance and student support. They know how long decisions take. They know where the bottlenecks are. And they are well positioned to lead the change.

A Challenge Worth Taking Up

Addressing transfer admissions timelines is not a silver bullet. But it is a concrete, measurable starting point—one that institutions can act on today. And it may be one of the fastest ways to demonstrate that higher education is not only listening to learners but responding with urgency and care.

Learn more and express interest in joining the Challenge here.

Source link

August 8, 2025
Madison College, Brandeis, Murray State

Susan A. Andrzejewski left her role as dean of California State University Channel Islands’ Martin V. Smith School of Business and Economics to be interim president on Aug. 4.

Jennifer Berne assumed the role of president at Madison College in Wisconsin on July 1. Previously, Berne was provost at Oakland Community College in Michigan.

Jim Burkee has been selected to lead Saint Leo University in Florida. He is stepping down as the president of Avila University in Missouri and will start in his new position on Sept. 1.

Frederick Bonato was named the 22nd president of Manhattan University on July 16 after serving as interim since September 2024.

Selena Grace is the new president and CEO of the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. She previously served as executive vice president of NWCCU.

Andy Jett, currently the executive vice president and chief innovation officer at Avila University, will take up the post of interim president at the Kansas City, Mo., institution on Sept. 1.

Arthur Levine was named president of Brandeis University on July 21 after serving as interim president for nine months. Levine previously served as president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and as president of Teachers College at Columbia University.

Ron K. Patterson, the previous president of Chadron State College in Nebraska, assumed the role of president of Murray State University in Kentucky on July 1.

Christina Royal was named interim president of Connecticut State Community College. She previously served as president of Holyoke Community College and was selected as a 2024–2025 Judith Block McLaughlin President-in-Residence in the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her term started on Aug. 1 and will end on June 30, 2026.

Alan Smith became Gadsden State Community College’s permanent president on Aug. 1 after serving as interim for two months. Smith has held various positions at the Alabama college, including adjunct instructor, dean of workforce development and most recently vice president of capital projects, community relations and workforce development.

Susan D. Stuebner began her duties as interim president of Simpson College in Iowa on July 28. Stuebner most recently served as president and professor of business and social sciences at Colby-Sawyer College in New London, N.H., for eight years.

Sinda K. Vanderpool has been named the 10th president of the University of St. Thomas–Houston. She is also the first female president in the institution’s 77-year history. Most recently, Vanderpool served as president and vice chancellor of St. Mary’s University in Alberta, Canada.

Source link

August 8, 2025
With Reform UK on the rise, what impact would their higher education policy have?
This HEPI guest blog was kindly authored by Fred Jacques, a Year 12 student who recently completed a week of work experience at HEPI.

(Have you completed the HEPI survey? If not, time is running out! It will only take a few minutes and will help inform our future output. You can access the survey here.)

With Reform UK gaining significant ground in recent elections and opinion polls, the prospect of a future Reform government is now plausible. The party discusses education very little, instead focusing on their big, vote-winning issues such as opposing immigration and net zero. But what are Reform’s plans for higher education and what impact would these have? Their 2024 manifesto is lacking in detail, but it outlines a handful of proposals that suggest the direction a Reform government might take. They promised to:
- bar international student dependents
- make universities provide two-year undergraduate courses
- cut funding for universities that undermine free speech; and
- scrap interest on student loans.
Scrapping tuition fees for STEM degrees

Additionally, in an interview with ITV following the release of the manifesto, Nigel Farage stated that he would abolish tuition fees for STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) degrees while maintaining them for all other courses. Although this policy was not included in the 2024 manifesto, it did appear in Farage’s 2015 UKIP manifesto, suggesting it is a long-standing idea of his and therefore one that could be implemented if Reform were to win power.

While this proposal is intended to attract more students into these fields, it may not be effective. In his HEPI report, Peter Mandler argues that the current increase in the uptake of STEM degrees (the ‘swing to science’) is due to numerous factors: demographic and cultural changes, perceptions of future job prospects and subject choice at A level primarily. Government policy is less influential than these factors. Therefore, given that the swing to science is happening of its own accord because of high student demand, this policy is not even necessary, especially considering the enormous cost. If Reform do want to accelerate this trend, though, then removing the barrier of poor A level results by improving attainment in secondary schools may be more effective than targeting STEM at degree level.

Despite its possible shortcomings in attracting more students to STEM courses, the policy could still accelerate the decline in the popularity of arts and humanities degrees. While those with arts or humanities A levels are unlikely (and probably unable) to switch to a completely different field purely for financial reasons, the disparity in fee structure may discourage them from pursuing a university degree altogether. This appears to be Farage’s intention: he suggests that arts and humanities degrees are not worthwhile and ’[students would] have been better off learning trades and skills’. If this aspect of the policy is successful, then it would negatively impact students, institutions and the country. Humanities degrees are incredibly valuable: they help students develop transferable skills like communication and critical thinking that are needed in any workplace and they are a pathway into careers in law, business, or media. And without humanities degrees, who will teach Reform’s ‘patriotic’ curriculum in primary and secondary schools? The arts, meanwhile, are also valuable to the economy and positively impact culture and society.

Overall, while efforts to increase the number of students pursuing STEM degrees are commendable, this should not come at the expense of arts and humanities students. Higher education institutions should work with Reform to ensure that the contributions of these subjects are properly recognised and supported by the party, should they win power.

Two-year undergraduate courses

Reform’s policy of expanding two-year undergraduate courses to all universities across the UK would be beneficial to higher education, provided they do not replace the typical three-year degrees. These accelerated degrees are already offered by universities like Buckingham and Northumbria and have many benefits, such as allowing students to enter into work sooner and reducing the amount of debt they incur. Furthermore, students on accelerated courses are generally more focused and motivated and the more intensive nature of the courses prepares students for the workplace. These degrees are well suited to subjects like law or business and could therefore act as an alternative to some arts and humanities students who feel discouraged by Reform’s tuition fee policy.

But although these courses are a good idea in theory, there is little evidence to suggest that there is a high demand for them. Slightly older students entering higher education for the first time and wanting to progress into the workplace faster may find these courses appealing, but most typical 18-year-old undergraduates prefer the more flexible three or four-year courses. Perhaps this is due to a lack of awareness, which Reform could work to correct, but as it stands, it is unrealistic for them to expect all universities to provide these accelerated programmes, given the low demand.

Conclusion

This blog has not covered the entirety of Reform’s higher education policy, and some proposals, such as cutting funding for universities that undermine free speech, raise challenges of their own. Nonetheless, the policies discussed here do show some promise: expanding the availability of two-year undergraduate courses and encouraging more people into STEM degrees could be beneficial to the country. However, the apparent lack of regard for arts and humanities degrees is concerning and the effectiveness of the tuition fee policy is debatable, as is the achievability of the accelerated degree policy.

Perhaps the greatest flaw with Reform’s education policy, and wider policy platform, is the achievability. The party’s plans to scrap tuition fees on STEM degrees and encourage all universities to provide two-year undergraduate programmes will all come at a massive cost to the government and institutions. Reform’s policy of barring international student dependents (presumably beyond current restrictions) will also worsen the issue, as this could lead to lower numbers of international students, meaning that universities’ incomes are significantly reduced. Reform need a way to fund their policies, but according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Reform’s proposed savings did not add up in 2024, and they remain vague today.

With this unrealistic funding, it is debatable whether these policies would be implemented, even if Reform do win power. And with the unpredictability of modern politics, who knows if they will even get to that stage. Regardless, universities have the opportunity to work with this emerging party to challenge and shape their policy proposals to produce the best outcomes for students and the nation as a whole.
Source link
August 8, 2025
Trump Orders Colleges to Supply Data on Race in Admissions

President Donald Trump issued an executive action Thursday directing colleges to prove they are not considering race in admissions.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

President Donald Trump issued an executive action Thursday afternoon mandating colleges and universities submit data to verify that they are not unlawfully considering race in admissions decisions.

The order also requires the Department of Education to update the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System to make its data more legible to students and parents and to “increase accuracy checks for data submitted by institutions through IPEDS,” penalizing them for late, incomplete or inaccurate data.

Opponents of race-conscious admissions have hailed the mandate as a victory for transparency in college admissions, but others in the sector have criticized its vague language and question who at the department is left to collect and analyze the data.

“American students and taxpayers deserve confidence in the fairness and integrity of our Nation’s institutions of higher education, including confidence that they are recruiting and training capable future doctors, engineers, scientists, and other critical workers vital to the next generations of American prosperity,” the order reads. “Race-based admissions practices are not only unfair, but also threaten our national security and well-being.”

It’s now up to the secretary of education, Linda McMahon, to determine what new admissions data institutions will be required to report. The administration’s demands of Columbia and Brown Universities in their negotiations to reinstate federal funding could indicate what the requirements will be. In its agreement with Brown, the government ordered the university to submit annual data “showing applicants, admitted students, and enrolled students broken down by race, color, grade point average, and performance on standardized tests.” Colleges will be expected to submit their admissions data for the 2025–26 academic year, according to the order.

What resources are in place to enforce the new requirements remains to be seen. Earlier this year the administration razed the staff at the Department of Education who historically collected and analyzed institutional data. Only three staff members remain in the National Center for Education Statistics, which operates IPEDS.

‘It’s Not Just as Easy as Collecting Data’

Since taking office, the Trump administration has launched a crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education, often using the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against race-conscious admissions as a weapon in the attacks.

Students for Fair Admissions, the anti–affirmative action advocacy group that was the plaintiff in the 2023 cases, called the action a “landmark step” toward transparency and accountability for students, parents and taxpayers.

“For too long, American colleges and universities have hidden behind opaque admissions practices that often rely on racial preferences to shape their incoming classes,” Edward Blum, SFFA president and longtime opponent of race-conscious admissions, said in a press release.

But college-equity advocates sounded the alarm, arguing that the order—which also claims that colleges have been using diversity and other “overt and hidden racial proxies” to continue race-conscious admissions post-SFFA—aims to intimidate colleges into recruiting fewer students of color.

“I will say something that my members in the higher education community cannot say. What the Trump administration is really saying is that you will be punished if you do not admit enough white students to your institution,” Angel B. Pérez, CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, told Inside Higher Ed.

Like many of Trump’s other orders targeting DEI, that mandate relies on unclear terms and instructions. It does not define “racial proxies”—although a memo by the Department of Justice released last week provides examples—nor does it outline what data would prove an institution is or is not considering race in its admissions process.

In an interview with Inside Higher Ed, Paul Schroeder, the executive director of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, questioned the government’s capacity to carry out the president’s order.

“Without NCES, who’s going to actually look at this data? Who’s going to understand this data? Are we going to have uniform reporting or is it going to be just a mess coming in from all these different colleges?” Schroeder said.

“It’s not just as easy as collecting data. It’s not just asking a couple questions about the race and ethnicity of those who were admitted versus those who applied. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of hours. It’s not going to be fast.”

Source link

August 7, 2025
Higher Education Needs to Prioritize for Impact
Last month, a few of our Collegis leaders attended the Google Public Sector Leaders Connect summit in Chicago. This event brought together technology, education, and government leaders to address one major question: How can public institutions unlock the true value of AI?

Institutions are grappling with a fast-changing AI landscape

The summit served up plenty of insight, data, and dialogue about the promises and pitfalls of artificial intelligence in higher ed. One stat that hit home: 80% of students think universities are falling short when it comes to integrating AI.

That’s not just a tech gap, it’s a relevance gap. Today’s students are living in an AI-powered world, and if institutions can’t keep pace, they risk losing credibility and connection.

They are also failing to prepare students for a new job market, where AI is “attacking” entry-level jobs that their graduates would previously fill. With many entry-level jobs being fulfilled by AI, what are schools doing to help their graduates get the skills they need to thrive in this new world?

Fragmented priorities are holding higher ed back

As we listened to leaders at the summit and reflected on our partner conversations, it became clear that the challenges institutions face go beyond AI adoption.

Other concerns surfaced as well:
- 71% of institutions say their top priority is attracting and retaining students.
- 56% are worried about data security threats like phishing, ransomware, and breaches.
- 42% cite operational pressures as a major barrier, from business model constraints to process inefficiencies.
On their own, these numbers signal urgency. But together, they reveal something deeper:

Institutions aren’t just overwhelmed by change, they’re unsure where to focus and where to invest.

Competing priorities and limited resources make it hard to know what matters most. These three statistics may look unrelated, but they are all very much related and impact each other. Operational pressure can heighten data security risks, which can trigger breaches that erode student trust and enrollment. Those same pressures often stem from — and lead to — inefficient processes that hurt the student experience and, ultimately, retention.

Throughout the day, multiple speakers kept reinforcing the importance of “prioritizing for impact.” Because while AI offers enormous potential, the technology itself won’t drive transformation — leadership will.

It’s not about adopting more tech — it’s about focusing on impact

Now this struck a chord with me, especially given how we approach partner onboarding at Collegis. Even during early conversations with potential partners, our first question is always the same: “What are you trying to impact?”

It’s a simple question, but the answers we hear are very telling, and can drastically vary depending on who at the institution is answering. What I like about this question is that it helps focus the conversation on a desired end result, providing an immediate opportunity to pressure test strategies, tactics, and competing priorities.

Is this getting you closer to, or further away from, your desired impact? If the latter, perhaps it’s time to consider reallocating resources and budget to what gets you toward the finish line faster.

How to prioritize for impact in higher ed

Take the AI example. Instead of asking, “What AI tools should we adopt?” instead ask, “Where can AI meaningfully move the needle for our institution AND our students?” That shift from solution-first to strategy-first is everything.

Here are a few guideposts we recommend:
1. Start with your outcomes. Whether it’s student success, operational efficiency, or enrollment growth, define what success looks like before introducing any new technology.
2. Connect C-suite ambition with frontline reality. Consider forgoing a top-down approach that prioritizes selling to leadership. To enable real change, your strategies must reflect on-the-ground needs. Build from the bottom up and bring the insight and intel back to your cabinet leaders to help inform prioritization conversations.
3. Break down the silos. So many institutions are decentralized and highly matrixed, which means that critical data, digital infrastructure, and internal departments are often disconnected. Aligning them is essential to enable AI to operate at scale. Consider cloud platforms like Connected Core®, which extract, clean, and connect data across systems, applications, and third-party tools. This enables actionable institutional intelligence across the student lifecycle.
4. Build AI literacy, institution-wide. Google shared that only 14% of campuses have adopted AI literacy as a learning outcome. That’s a missed opportunity to empower both staff and students to engage with AI responsibly and effectively.
5. Don’t go it alone. With 62% of institutions lacking the internal expertise to fully leverage AI, choosing the right partner matters. Not someone just trying to sell you tech, but to help you translate it into impact. This is the talent component of Collegis Education’s data, tech, and talent approach. It does you no good to own a plane if you don’t have a pilot, crew, and maintenance team. When you align your data, tech, and talent, you’ve enabled impact, and sustainable impact at that.
The Google event confirmed what we see every day: Higher ed has a prioritization problem. Leaders have been sold more tech tools than they can use; what they truly need is help implementing them for impact.

A smarter path forward for institutional leaders

Institutional leaders know their schools better than anyone and have a clear vision of where they need to go to thrive. Building a strategic plan focused on the areas that will drive the greatest impact to that vision is the next critical step. A great way to start is by finding a partner who understands that progress isn’t about doing more, it’s about doing what matters.

Prioritize for impact. We’ll help you make it happen.

Innovation Starts Here

Higher ed is evolving — don’t get left behind. Explore how Collegis can help your institution thrive.
Source link
August 7, 2025