Tag: Higher

  • Elevate Your Higher Education YouTube Channel with Proven SEO Tactics

    Elevate Your Higher Education YouTube Channel with Proven SEO Tactics

    In today’s competitive digital landscape, higher education institutions must continually evolve to reach and engage prospective students. YouTube has evolved from a video-sharing platform into a dynamic search engine where students explore campus life, academic programs, and authentic student experiences. That’s why developing and optimizing a higher education YouTube channel is more important than ever.

    Smart video SEO strategies can significantly improve visibility, build brand authority, and support enrollment goals for institutions. A well-crafted YouTube strategy plays a crucial role in this effort, ensuring that content reaches and resonates with prospective students.

    Why YouTube SEO matters for higher ed video marketing

    YouTube SEO goes beyond views. It positions your institution within one of the most influential search engines in the world. YouTube has become the second-largest search engine after Google, and for today’s prospective students — many of whom are digital natives — video is a primary method of discovery and research.

    Whether exploring campus life, comparing academic programs, or seeking authentic student voices, prospective learners turn to YouTube to gather insights that influence their decisions. A well-optimized higher education YouTube channel offers a range of benefits, including:

    • Builds credibility and trust by providing authentic, engaging content.
    • Expands visibility on a platform used heavily by prospective students.
    • Drives enrollment by surfacing at key moments in the decision-making journey.
    • Strengthens your digital footprint through content that aligns with search behavior.
    • Supports multi-channel strategies by integrating with websites, email, and social media.
    • Improves AI-driven search visibility as AI-powered search results increasingly prioritize video content. (Tools like YouTube’s auto-transcription and AI tagging can further enhance discoverability.)

    Optimizing your channel ensures your content appears when it matters most and positions your institution as a leader in digital engagement.

    “Video content is the future of marketing—it’s authentic, engaging, and capable of building trust with your audience faster than any other medium.”

    — Neil Patel, digital marketing expert

    Build a strong SEO foundation for your higher education YouTube channel

    Every video your institution shares is more than just content — it’s an opportunity to shape perceptions, highlight your strengths, and connect with your audience. Before diving into more advanced strategies, it’s essential to ensure that each video is built on a solid SEO foundation.

    When executed consistently, these foundational elements can make the difference between content that gets buried and content that drives meaningful engagement. Foundational elements include:

    • Accurate video transcripts: Ensure transcripts are complete and error-free. This enhances accessibility and helps search engines understand your content. Also, include captions and alt text to enhance accessibility and meet ADA standards.
    • Optimized video settings: Configure each video correctly (e.g., mark as “not for children”, assign relevant categories, add strategic tags) to improve discoverability.
    • Robust video descriptions: Use keyword-rich, detailed descriptions aligned with your academic offerings. Think like a prospective student searching for programs or campus life.
    • SEO-friendly video titles: Titles should be compelling, clear, and keyword-focused. Avoid jargon — focus on what the viewer will gain.

    Apply advanced channel strategies to stand out

    Once the foundational elements are in place, it’s time to move beyond the basics. Elevating your higher education YouTube channel requires thoughtful planning and strategic segmentation. This is especially important for institutions with diverse academic offerings and multiple audiences, such as prospective undergraduate and graduate students.

    Taking a more advanced approach can help differentiate your content, make navigation easier for users, and deliver tailored experiences that align with varied student needs. To elevate your channel’s performance and support segmented marketing goals:

    • Create dedicated channels: Maintaining separate channels for different audiences (like graduate versus undergrad) allows for more targeted messaging and cleaner audience segmentation.
    • Use playlists strategically: Group videos by topic or series and apply consistent naming conventions. This improves navigation, boosts engagement, and supports channel SEO.
    • Optimize thumbnails and preview content: High-quality thumbnails and concise preview text boost click-through rates, especially on mobile devices.

    Ready for a Smarter Way Forward?

    Higher ed is hard — but you don’t have to figure it out alone. We can help you transform challenges into opportunities.

    Enhance viewer engagement

    Even if your department isn’t directly producing every video, there’s still an opportunity to influence engagement and performance. By implementing a few proven tactics, institutions can increase viewer interaction and strengthen their presence on YouTube.

    These strategies work in tandem with foundational SEO practices to extend the reach and impact of your video content:

    Include clear calls-to-action (CTAs): Ask viewers to like, comment, subscribe, or visit your website. These actions signal relevance to YouTube’s algorithm.

    Leverage end screens and cards: Use these to direct viewers to related content, encouraging longer sessions and deeper engagement.

    Maintain consistent branding: Ensure videos reflect your institution’s visual identity and messaging tone to reinforce brand equity.

    Integrate video into your broader strategy

    YouTube content shouldn’t exist in a silo. When part of a cohesive higher ed video marketing approach, your higher education YouTube channel becomes a versatile asset that supports communication and engagement across platforms.

    To truly maximize its value, it must be woven into your institution’s broader marketing and communication ecosystem. When aligned with your website, email campaigns, and social media channels, your YouTube strategy reinforces key messages and creates a cohesive experience for prospective students.

    YouTube videos can be a powerful asset across multiple marketing channels:

    • Website integration: Embed program overviews, testimonials, and campus tours to enrich landing pages and drive engagement.
    • Email campaigns: Incorporate personalized video content into outreach and drip campaigns to boost open and click-through rates.
    • Social media amplification: Repurpose YouTube content into short clips for Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn to reach broader audiences.
    • Virtual events and webinars: Leverage recorded content as follow-up resources or promotional teasers.
    • Advertising and paid media: Use high-performing videos in YouTube ads or across PPC campaigns to increase reach and ROI.

    Stay agile and stay ahead

    YouTube SEO isn’t a one-time effort — it’s a continuous process. Use YouTube Studio to track key performance metrics such as watch time, engagement, and search impressions. These insights help guide your strategy and identify opportunities to improve content.

    Monitor analytics regularly, refresh metadata, and adapt to changing viewer behaviors. Institutions that stay agile will be better positioned to engage digital-native audiences.

    Take your higher ed video marketing to the next level

    YouTube remains a powerful tool to build institutional visibility and connect with prospective students. At Collegis Education, our expansive marketing services are backed by deep expertise in higher ed SEO, digital strategy, and content performance. Whether you’re refining your current efforts or starting fresh, a smart, scalable strategy can turn your YouTube channel into a powerful tool for student engagement.

    Let’s connect and start building a smarter strategy today.

    Innovation Starts Here

    Higher ed is evolving — don’t get left behind. Explore how Collegis can help your institution thrive.

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  • The Society for Research into Higher Education in 1975

    The Society for Research into Higher Education in 1975

    by Rob Cuthbert

    Only yesterday

    I’ve been walking these streets so long: in the SRHE Blog a series of posts is chronicling, decade by decade, the progress of SRHE since its foundation 60 years ago in 1965. As always, our memories are supported by some music of the times, however bad it might have been[1].

    Is this the real life?

    Some parts of the world, like some parts of higher education, were drawing breath after momentous years. The oil crisis of 1973-74 sent economic shocks around the world. In 1975 the Vietnam war finally ended, and the USA also saw the conviction of President Richard Nixon’s most senior staff John Mitchell, Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, found guilty of the Watergate cover-up. Those were the days when the Washington Post nailed its colours to the mast rather than not choosing sides, and in the days when the judicial system and the fourth estate could still expose and unseat corrupt behaviour at the highest levels. Washington Post editor Katharine Graham supported her journalists Woodward and Bernstein against huge establishment pressure, as Tammy Wynette sangStand by your man. How times change.

    Higher education in the UK had seen a flurry of new universities in the 1960s: Aston, Brunel, Bath, Bradford, City, Dundee, Heriot-Watt, Loughborough, Salford, Stirling, Surrey, the New University of Ulster, and perhaps most significant of all, the Open University. All the new UK universities were created before 1970; there were no more in the period to 1975, but the late 60s and early 1970s saw the even more significant creation of the polytechnics, following the influential 1966 White Paper A Plan for Polytechnics and Other Colleges. The Times Higher Education Supplement, established in 1971 under editor Brian Macarthur, had immediately become the definitive trade paper for HE with an outstanding journalistic team including Peter (now Lord) Hennessy, David Hencke and (now Sir) Peter Scott (an SRHE Fellow), later to become the THES editor and then VC at Kingston. THES coverage of the polytechnic expansion in the 1970s was dominated by North East London Polytechnic (NELP, now the University of East London), with its management team of George Brosan and Eric Robinson. They were using a blueprint created in their tenure at Enfield College, and fully developed in Robinson’s influential book, The New Polytechnics – the People’s Universities. NELP became “a byword for innovation”, as Tyrrell Burgess’s obituary of George Brosan said, developing an astonishing 80 new undergraduate programmes validated by the Council for National Academic Awards, created like SRHE in 1965. Burgess himself had been central to NELP’s radical school for independent study and founded the journal, Higher Education Review, working with its long-time editor John Pratt (an SRHE Fellow), later the definitive chronicler of The Polytechnic Experiment. In Sheffield one of the best of the polytechnic directors, the Reverend Canon Dr George Tolley, was overseeing the expansion of Sheffield Polytechnic as it merged with two colleges of education to become Sheffield City Polytechnic.

    As in so many parts of the world the HE system was increasingly diverse and rapidly expanding. In Australia nine universities had been established between 1964 and 1975: Deakin, Flinders, Griffith, James Cook, La Trobe, Macquarie, Murdoch, Newcastle, and Wollongong. The Australian government had taken on full responsibility for HE funding as Breen (Monash) explained, and had even abolished university fees in 1974, which Mangan’s (Queensland) later review regarded as not necessarily a good thing. How times change.

    In the USA the University of California model established under president Clark Kerr in the 1960s dominated strategic thinking about HE. Berkeley’s Martin Trow had already written The British Academics with AH Halsey (Oxford) and was about to become the Director of the Centre for Studies of Higher Education at Berkeley, where his elite-mass-universal model of how HE systems developed would hold sway for decades.

    In the UK two new laws, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Equal Pay Act 1970, came into force on 29 December, aiming to end unequal pay of men and women in the workplace. In the USA the Higher Education Act 1972 with its Title IX had been a hugely influential piece of legislation which prohibited sex discrimination in educational institutions receiving federal aid. How times change. Steve Harley’s 1975 lyrics would work now with President Trump: You’ve done it all, you’ve broken every code.

    You ain’t seen nothing yet

    Some things began in 1975 which would become significant later. In HE, institutions that had mostly been around for years or even centuries but started in a new form included Buckinghamshire College of Higher Education (later Buckinghamshire New University), Nene College of Higher Education (University of Northampton), Bath Spa University College, Roehampton, and Dublin City University. Control of Glasgow College of Technology (Glasgow Caledonian University) transferred from Glasgow Corporation to the newly formed Strathclyde Regional Council. Nigeria had its own flurry of new universities in Calabar, Jos, Maiduguri and Port Harcourt.

    Everyone knew that “you’re gonna need a bigger higher education system” as the blockbuster hit Jaws was released. 1975 was the year when Ernő Rubik applied for a patent for his invention the Magic Cube, Microsoft was founded as a partnership between Bill Gates and Paul Allen, and Margaret Thatcher defeated Edward Heath to become leader of the Conservative Party. Bruce Springsteen was already ‘The Boss’ when Liz Truss was Born to run on 26 July; she would later briefly become a THES journalist and briefly Shadow Minister for Higher Education, before ultimately the job briefly as boss. 1970s terrorism saw a bomb explode in the Paris offices of Springer publishers: the March 6 Group (connected to the Red Army Faction) demanded amnesty for the Baader-Meinhof Group.

    Higher education approaching a period of consolidation

    Guy Neave, then perhaps the leading continental European academic in research into HE, later characterised 1975-1985 as a period of consolidation. In the UK the government was planning for (reduced) expansion and Labour HE minister Reg Prentice was still quoting the 1963 Robbins Report in Parliament: “The planning figure of 640,000 full-time and sandwich course students in Great Britain in 1981 which I announced in November is estimated to make courses of higher education available for all those who are qualified by ability and attainment to pursue them and who wish to do so. It allows for the number of home students under 21 entering higher education in Great Britain, expressed as a proportion of the population aged 18, to rise from 14% in 1973 to 17% in 1981. … the reductions in forecast higher education expenditure in the recent Public Expenditure White Paper are almost entirely attributable to the lower estimate of prospective student demand.” Government projections of student numbers were always wrong, as Maurice Kogan (Brunel) might have helped to explain – I thought by now you’d realise. 1975 was the year when Kogan, a former senior civil servant in the Department of Education and Science, published his hugely influential Educational Policy-making: A Study of Interest Groups and Parliament.

    In the US the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, founded ten years earlier under Clark Kerr, was in full pomp and published Demand and Supply in United States Higher Education. Two giants of sociology, Seymour Martin Lipset and David Riesman, wrote essays on ‘Education and Politics at Harvard’. How times change.

    Research into higher education

    Academics were much in evidence in novels; 1975 saw Malcolm Bradbury’s The History Man, David Lodge’s Changing Places, and Colin Dexter‘s first Inspector Morse novel Last Bus to Woodstock, and higher education was becoming established as a field of study. Dressel and Mayhew’s 1974 US-focused book reviewed by Kellams (Virginia) in the Journal of Higher Education, and published by the then-ubiquitous HE publishers Jossey-Bass in San Francisco saw ‘the emergence of a profession’. Nevertheless much research into HE was still appearing in mainstream education rather than HE journals, even in the USA. Tinto (Columbia) reported his synthesis of research on ‘dropout’ (as it was called then) in HE in the Review of Educational Research, and DI Chambers wrote about a major debate in China about higher education policy in an article in Comparative Education.

    Michael Shattock’s history of the SRHE in its earlier years pulled no punches about the limited achievements and reach of the Society:

    “By 1973, when the university system was in crisis with the collapse of the quinquennial funding system, it was clear that the Society was significantly failing to meet the ambitious targets it had started out with: it held annual conferences but attendance at 100 to 120 ensured that any surplus was low. It had successfully launched the valuable Research into Higher Education Abstracts but its … monographs, … while influential among specialists did not command a wide readership. The Society appeared to be at a crossroads as to its future: so far it had succeeded in expanding its membership, both corporate and individual, but this could easily be reversed if it failed to generate sufficient activity to retain it. Early in 1973 the Governing Council agreed to hold a special meeting … and commissioned a paper from Leo Evans, one of its members, and Harriet Greenaway, the Society’s Administrator … The “Discussion Paper on the Objectives of  the Society” … quoted the aims set out in the Articles of Association “to promote and encourage research in higher education and related fields” and argued that the Society’s objectives needed to be broadened.  … The implied thrust of the paper was that the Society had become too narrow in its research interests and that it should be more willing to address issues related to the development of the higher education system.”

    In the end the objectives were expanded to include concern for the development of the HE sector, but the Society’s direction was not wholly settled, according to Shattock. Moreover: “Both in 1973-74 and 1974-75 there was great concern about the Society’s continued financial viability, and in 1976 the Society moved its premises out of London to the University of Surrey where it was offered favourable terms.” (Someone Saved My Life Tonight). In 1976 Lewis Elton of Surrey, one of SRHE’s founders, would become Chair of the Society when the incumbent Roy Niblett suffered ill health. It was the same year that the principal inspiration for the foundation of SRHE (as Shattock put it), Nicholas Malleson, died at only 52. SRHE’s finances were soon back on an even keel but It would be more than 25 years before they achieved long-term stability.

    Rob Cuthbert is editor of SRHE News and the SRHE Blog, Emeritus Professor of Higher Education Management, University of the West of England and Joint Managing Partner, Practical Academics. Email [email protected]. Twitter/X @RobCuthbert.

    [1] The top selling single of 1975 was Bye Bye Baby by the Bay City Rollers, and the Eurovision Song Contest was won by Ding-a-Dong. The album charts were dominated by greatest hit albums from Elton John, Tom Jones, The Stylistics, Perry Como, Engelbert Humperdinck and Jim Reeves. I rest my case. As always, there were some exceptions.

    Author: SRHE News Blog

    An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

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  • Preserving the Federal Data Trump Is Trying to Purge

    Preserving the Federal Data Trump Is Trying to Purge

    Within days of taking office, the Trump administration began purging federal demographic data—on a wide range of topics, including public health, education and climate—from government websites to comply with the president’s bans on “gender ideology” and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

    Over the past five months, more than 3,000 taxpayer-funded data sets—many congressionally mandated—collected by federal agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Center for Education Statistics, and the Census Bureau, have been caught in the cross fire.

    One of the first data sets to disappear was the White House Council on Environmental Quality’s Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, an interactive map of U.S. Census tracts “marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution,” according to a description written under a previous administration.

    It’s the type of detailed, comprehensive data academics rely on to write theses, dissertations, articles and books that often help to inform public policy. And without access to it and reams of other data sets, researchers in the United States and beyond won’t have the information they need to identify social, economic and technological trends and forge potential solutions.

    “Removing this data is removing a big piece of knowledge from humanity,” said Cathy Richards, a civic science fellow and data inclusion specialist at the Open Environmental Data Project, which aims to strengthen the role of data in environmental and climate governance. “A lot of science is about innovating on what people did before. New scientists work with data they may have never seen before, but they’re using the knowledge that came before them to create something better. I don’t think we fully understand the impact [that] deleting 50 years of knowledge will have on science in the future.”

    That’s why she and scores of other concerned academic librarians, researchers and data whizzes are collaborating—many of them as unpaid volunteers—to preserve as much of that data as they can on nongovernment websites. Some of the groups involved include OEDP, the Data Rescue Project, Safeguarding Research and Culture, the Internet Archive, the End of Term Archive, and the Data.gov Archive, which is run by the Harvard Law School Library.

    For Richards at OEDP, data-preservation efforts started right after Trump won the election in November.

    She and her colleagues remembered how Trump, a climate change denier, had removed some—mostly environmental—data in 2017, and they wanted to get a head start on preserving any data that could become a target during his second term. OEDP, which launched in 2020 in response to the first Trump administration’s environmental policies, which prioritized fossil fuel extraction, compiled a list of about 200 potentially vulnerable federal data sets researchers said would be critical to continuing their work. They spent the last two months of 2024 and the first weeks of 2025 collecting and downloading as many data sets as they could ahead of Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, which they then transferred to stable, independent and publicly accessible webpages.

    “That took time,” Richards said, noting that not every data set and its accompanying metadata was easy to replicate. “Each varied significantly. Some required scraping. In one case I had to manually download 400 files, clicking each one every few minutes.”

    While they made a lot of headway, OEDP’s small team wasn’t able to preserve all of the data sets on their list by late January. And once Trump took office, the research community’s fears that the president would start scrubbing federal data were quickly realized.

    “Data started to go down very quickly,” at a much larger scale compared to 2017, Richards said, with anything that mentioned race, gender or the LGBTQ+ community, among other keywords, becoming a target. “We started getting emails from people saying these websites were no longer working, panicking because they needed it to finish their thesis.”

    As of this month, OEDP has completed archiving about 100 data sets, including the CDC’s Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System, the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, and the White House’s Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool. As it works to complete dozens more, it’s also in communication with the other data-preservation efforts to make sure the work isn’t duplicated and that researchers and the general public can maintain access to as much data as possible.

    ‘Disrupted Trust’

    Prior to Trump’s inauguration, 307,851 data sets were available on Data.gov. One month later, the number had dipped to 304,621. In addition to data-rescue efforts, the winnowing prompted outcry from the research community.

    “As scientists who rely on these data to understand the causes and consequences of population change for individuals and communities, but also as taxpayers who have supported the collection, dissemination, and storage of these data, we are deeply concerned,” read a joint statement that the Population Association of America and the Association of Population Centers published in early February. “Removing data indiscriminately, even temporarily, from secure portals maintained by federal agencies undermines trust in the nation’s statistical and scientific research agencies and puts the integrity of these data at risk.”

    Federal judges have since ordered the government to restore many of the deleted data sets—as of Sunday, Data.gov said there are 311,609 data sets available—and the Trump administration has complied, albeit reluctantly. For instance, the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index, which since 2007 has tracked communities that may need support before, during or after natural disasters, came back online in February. But it now has a warning label from the Trump administration, which claims that the information does “not reflect biological reality” and the government therefore “rejects it.”

    Richards, of OEDP, remains skeptical about the return of some of the data, speculating that the government may alter it to better fit its ideological narratives before restoring it. Thus, capturing the data before it gets taken down in the first place is “important for us to have that baseline proof that this is how things were on Jan. 18 and 19,” she said.

    Lynda Kellum, a longtime academic data librarian who is helping to run the Data Rescue Project—which has already finished archiving some 1,000 federal data sets with the help of hundreds of volunteers—said she’s also “a little bit pessimistic” about the future of data collection. That’s not only because the Trump administration has fired thousands of federal workers who carry out that data collection, canceled billions in research contracts and removed reams of public data; it’s also because the Department of Government Efficiency has accessed protected personal data contained within some of those data sets.

    “How do we actually talk to people about what’s protected and what those protections are for the data the government is collecting? DOGE has disrupted that trust,” she said. “For example, someone sent us a message asking us why they should participate in the American Community Survey when they weren’t sure what was going to happen with their (confidential, legally protected) data … There are still those protections in place, but there’s skepticism about whether those protections will hold because of what has happened in the past five months.”

    Some legal protections are already eroding. On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration in determining that DOGE should have—for now—access to information collected by the Social Security Administration, including Social Security numbers, medical and mental health records, and family court information. (The case is now headed to a federal appeals court in Virginia that will decide on its merits.)

    Henrik Schönemann, a digital history and humanities expert at Humboldt University of Berlin, who helps run the Safeguarding History and Culture initiative, which has also archived high volumes of federal data since January, said efforts to rescue federal data collections are vital to the global research community. “Even if the United States falls out of it, we are still here and we still need this data,” he said. And if and when this political moment passes, “hopefully having this data can help [the United States] rebuild.”

    While Schönemann thinks it’s an “illusion” that independent federal data-preservation efforts can effectively counter the United States’ slide into autocracy, he believes it’s better than nothing.

    “It’s building communities and showing people they can do something about it,” he said. “And maybe this empowerment could lead them to feeling empowered in other areas and give people hope.”

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  • NIH Staff Lambaste Agency Head for Censorship of Science

    NIH Staff Lambaste Agency Head for Censorship of Science

    More than 300 NIH employees criticized their director, Jay Bhattacharya, in the letter published Monday.

    Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

    Hundreds of staff at the National Institutes of Health are publicly condemning the agency’s actions in recent months, including firing thousands of workers and canceling research grants for projects that don’t align with the Trump administration’s ideologies. 

    In a letter sent Monday morning to Jay Bhattacharya, the Trump-appointed NIH director who gained notoriety for his criticism of the NIH’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 300 employees from across the agency called on him to deliver on his promise to embrace dissent, which he has called “the very essence of science.”

    “We are compelled to speak up when our leadership prioritizes political momentum over human safety and faithful stewardship of public resources,” states the letter, titled the Bethesda Declaration (Bethesda, Md., is the location of the NIH’s main campus) and modeled after Bhattacharya’s own Great Barrington Declaration, which condemned the NIH in 2020 for ignoring his calls to mostly cease pandemic-related precautions.

    “This censorship is incompatible with academic freedom, which should not be applied selectively based on political ideology.”

    In addition to accusing Bhattacharya of politicizing research, the letter published Monday also criticized the agency for “undermining” peer review, unilaterally capping indirect costs and firing NIH staff. 

    Bhattacharya is scheduled to appear before the Senate appropriations subcommittee today to discuss Trump’s proposal to cut $18 billion or about 40 percent from the NIH’s budget.

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  • Colleges Support Student Financial Literacy Education

    Colleges Support Student Financial Literacy Education

    Students often consider the return on investment of their degree when deciding whether and where to enroll in college, but not every student receives financial education from their institution on how to turn a college education into a life-sustaining career. A 2022 survey by Inside Higher Ed found that 67 percent of students are not sure if their college or university offers personal financial education; an additional 9 percent said no programs or classes are offered regarding financial literacy.

    To rectify that, colleges and universities are implementing programs that promote students’ money management skills, increase their awareness of financial planning and help them understand the debts they may acquire while in school.

    What’s the need: Student debt has skyrocketed over the past 20 years, with 42.7 million student borrowers holding nearly $1.7 trillion in federal loans. The average student who takes out loans to attend a public university borrows $31,960 to attain a bachelor’s degree, and over half of graduates use federal loans at some point. Loan debt can limit students’ earnings after college and hinder their socioeconomic advancement.

    Even while students are in college, financial challenges can impact their persistence and outcomes. A 2024 survey by Trellis Research found that 71 percent of students experienced financial trouble while enrolled, and nearly half said their current financial situation made it difficult to concentrate on schoolwork.

    A lack of financial education can also exacerbate equity concerns. An April 2025 report from Education Northwest found that only 25 percent of students were able to answer three financial questions correctly, with students from low-income families and those younger than 21 even less likely to answer correctly. Similarly, Black, American Indian or Alaska Native, Hispanic or Latino, and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander students were less likely to answer financial literacy questions correctly.

    Inside Higher Ed highlights six institutions that have introduced innovative programs to combat financial illiteracy.

    1. Florida State University: Unconquered by Debt

    Housed within the university’s Gus. A Stavros Center for Advancement of Free Enterprise and Economic Education, FSU’s Unconquered by Debt program enhances student financial literacy to ensure graduates leave with the ability to advance their socioeconomic standing.

    The program walks students through crucial areas of financial planning including selecting a career, establishing healthy spending habits, investing, managing credit, ensuring assets and planning for retirement.

    Students can attend workshops on campus and enjoy free food and drinks while they learn more about money management and how to plan for their futures beyond college.

    The center recently hired an assistant director as part of a program expansion funded by the Office of the Provost.

    1. University of Miami: Money Management

    In 2019, the University of Miami created the Money Management Program to help build students’ short- and long-term financial well-being. The program has proven so successful in increasing student persistence that it has also received external grant funding, a university spokesperson said.

    Through workshops called Money Talks, the program addresses budgeting, credit and credit cards, loans, and debt repayment, as well as saving and investing. Students can also participate in half-day personal finance workshops on Saturdays throughout the academic year. The university hires peer coaches to provide confidential one-on-one coaching, to help prepare students for future careers in the finance world as well as bridge knowledge gaps for those who may need support.

    During the 2022–23 academic year, the university hosted over 240 Money Management events for more than 2,500 attendees, according to the spokesperson.

    1. East Carolina University: Financial Wellness Hub

    The Financial Wellness Hub at East Carolina University offers regular workshops on how to mitigate financial challenges while enrolled and helps students understand credit reports, debt management and student loan repayment strategies. The Hub caters services to various seasonal holidays, hosting a “Falling in Love With Credit” workshop for Valentine’s Day and “Spooky Credit Scores” for Halloween, as well as a budgeting workshop for gift giving during the winter holiday season.

    The Hub relies on relationship building and partnerships across the university to generate an audience for programs, director Kevin Sutton told Inside Higher Ed. Services are also available to alumni and staff, who in turn can better advise students or elect to contribute financially to the program’s budget.

    1. Penn State: Sokolov-Miller Family Financial and Life Skills Center

    Penn State established a center dedicated to managing financial wellness in college and beyond, which offers one-on-one coaching and workshops. In addition, the center provides students with access to a course on Canvas called MoneyCounts, which gives them a self-paced opportunity to engage in 28 modules on financial wellness.

    Other resources include live webinars, offered on the first and third Tuesday of each month at noon, which are recorded for those who can’t make it synchronously, and a free bookshelf stocked with financial wellness books— topics range from simple money skills to insurance—that is supported by Barnes & Noble.

    1. Babson College: The Babson Financial Literacy Project

    In addition to supporting current students, the BFLP is a nonprofit organization the ensures all community members can receive quality financial education. The program was developed by faculty at Babson and coaches lead online and in-person workshops, as well as train staff to deliver content on their own.

    Between its launch in fall 2018 and March of this year, the program has supported 418 workshops with 17,189 participants, according to the program webpage.

    In addition, participants can engage with various student organizations on campus to learn more about the world of finance, including the Babson Finance Association, Babson Scholars of Finance and Women in Finance.

    1. Western Washington University: Financial Wellness Badges

    At WWU, students can engage with the Merriman Financial Literacy program through workshops, online courses delivered via iGrad, peer mentorship and digital badging.

    Students can earn badges in such areas as financial mindfulness, investment, savings and credit, as well as budgeting and spending.

    To earn the financial mindfulness starter badge, for example, students must complete a financial wellness checkup and a money meditation on iGrad, then write a financial wellness journal entry. Each badge has three levels, from foundations to expert, building on students’ knowledge and signaling deep understanding of the topic.

    If your student success program has a unique feature or twist, we’d like to know about it. Click here to submit.

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  • Court Approves Final Settlement Allowing Revenue Sharing Between Higher Ed Institutions and College Athletes – CUPA-HR

    Court Approves Final Settlement Allowing Revenue Sharing Between Higher Ed Institutions and College Athletes – CUPA-HR

    by CUPA-HR | June 9, 2025

    On June 6, a federal judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California approved a settlement in House v. NCAA, which will allow higher education institutions to share revenue with student-athletes directly.

    The settlement creates a 10-year revenue-sharing model that will allow the athletic departments of the higher education institutions in the Power Five conferences (the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12, and SEC) and any other Division I institutions that opt in to distribute approximately $20.5 million in name, image, and likeness (NIL) revenue during the 2025-2026 season. The revenue-sharing cap will increase annually and be calculated as 22.5% of the Power Five schools’ average athletic revenue. The settlement also includes an enforcement arm to penalize institutions that exceed the $20.5 million cap, which will be overseen by a new regulatory body, the College Sports Commission. Institutions can start to share revenue beginning on July 1, 2025.

    Additionally, the settlement requires the NCAA and Power Five conferences to pay approximately $2.8 billion in damages to Division I athletes who were barred from signing NIL deals. This covers athletes dating back to 2016. It also replaces scholarship limits with roster limits.

    The settlement does not change college athletes’ ability to enter into NIL contracts with third parties, but under the settlement, all outside NIL deals valued at greater than $600 will have to go through a clearinghouse for approval. The clearinghouse will determine if the revenue is for a valid business purpose and if it reflects fair market value.

    Prior to this settlement, college athletes could only earn NIL revenue through partnerships with outside parties, such as companies or donor groups. The original case, House v. NCAA, was brought by two former college athletes in June 2020. They challenged the NCAA’s then-policy that prohibited athletes from earning NIL compensation. The case was consolidated with Carter v. NCAA and Hubbard v. NCAA, two similar cases. None of the cases ever made it to trial. Instead, in an effort to avoid higher damages, the NCAA and Power Five conferences agreed to a settlement in May 2024, and the court granted preliminary approval in October 2024.

    As NCAA President Charlie Baker explained in a letter, the settlement “opens a pathway to begin stabilizing college sports. This new framework that enables schools to provide direct financial benefits to student-athletes and establishes clear and specific rules to regulate third-party NIL agreements marks a huge step forward for college sports.”

    CUPA-HR will keep members apprised of updates related to this settlement and the future of student-athletics.

     



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  • What Higher Ed Marketers Can Learn from the Meltwater Summit 2025

    What Higher Ed Marketers Can Learn from the Meltwater Summit 2025

    In an era where higher education faces unprecedented challenges and opportunities, the recent Meltwater Summit offered crucial insights for leaders navigating a rapidly changing landscape. This gathering of creative minds, brand leaders and technology experts explored the critical intersection of compelling storytelling, branding and the power of artificial intelligence. Explore strategic takeaways poised to reshape how institutions connect with prospective students, build brand equity and harness AI to drive creative processes.  

    Creativity Flows with You 

    Reese Witherspoon set the tone with an honest reflection on the nature of creativity: it’s constantly flowing but rarely on a set schedule. The challenge isn’t finding ideas—it’s cultivating the environment and carving out dedicated time for them to flourish. The solution? Clear, consistent and intentional communication. Whether you’re bridging teams or brainstorming with collaborators, creating space for dialogue is what truly transforms good ideas into great ones. At EducationDynamics, we aren’t just completing tasks; we are constantly collaborating with each of our partners to ensure we produce the best content possible. Our solutions span creative services, brand strategy, awareness marketing and more—turning inspiration into action and strategy into results. 

    AI: A Teammate, Not a Replacement 

    AI emerged as a powerful ally throughout Meltwater Summit sessions, particularly when leveraged for the content creation process. One standout tactic shared was the “sandwich approach” to content creation, a straightforward framework for combining human creativity with AI support: 

    1. Draft with Intent: Begin by outlining your core message or ideas. This first layer is where your expertise and objectives take shape, setting the foundation for compelling content.  
    2. Expand with AI: Use AI tools to build upon your draft—generating copy variations, enhancing clarity or exploring new angles you may not have considered.  
    3. Refine with Purpose: Continue to refine and rework AI-enhanced content through your own lens. Strengthen the structure, sharpen the voice and align it with your audience and brand tone. Great content takes more than one pass; it’s built through deliberate iteration.  

    The takeaway was clear—AI isn’t here to replace your creativity. It should be used to to amplify it. When used intentionally, it becomes a partner in the process, helping ideas take shape faster than before. 

     At EducationDynamics, we embrace AI as a collaborative tool that helps streamline ideation and improve efficiency. It should be a jump-off point, not a final destination, supporting the creative process without replacing the human insight that drives it. 

    Prompt Writing with AI

    AI can be an amazing content marketing tool, especially when used to generate fresh ideas, streamline workflows, and tailor messaging for specific audiences. In order to achieve these goals using AI, effective prompt writing is also a critical asset.  

    While a typical Google search might consist of just a few words, an effective AI prompt can span hundreds. The more detail you provide, the better your results will be. Don’t hesitate to ask AI to evaluate or improve your original prompt; collaboration is your asset when using AI. Treat an AI assistant as a teammate. Work with it, and understand it is there to work the foundation, not complete it.  

    Important Tip: Protect your data. Avoid sharing sensitive information with public AI tools, and use secure, private systems that align with your institution’s compliance and governance policies. 

    Smarter Workflows with AI

    AI isn’t just for writing. It can streamline your entire workflow. From summarizing analytics and setting alerts for media mentions to helping coordinate across teams, AI is becoming an indispensable partner in day-to-day operations.

    The takeaway: AI won’t take your job—but it might take over the tasks that are holding you back from your best work.

    Content That Captures and Connects 

    Creative content marketing has the power to elevate your institution’s voice and drive meaningful engagement across platforms. Today’s most effective content does more than inform; it creates an emotional connection. That means capturing content that feels real, engaging and multi-layered. Even one filming session can yield a wealth of valuable content. In each filming session, aim to produce the following: 

    • A core message or question 
    • Authentic behind-the-scenes footage 

    At EducationDynamics, our creative services span the full content spectrum—including Organic Social strategies designed to help institutions tell their stories in ways that resonate and inspire, reaching students right at their fingertips.  

    Strategic Content Planning

    For university marketing leaders and content marketing managers alike, every piece of content should align with your larger content calendar and overarching brand goals. Don’t post just to fill the gap. Each piece should serve one (or more) of three purposes:

    • Educate: Deliver useful and relevant information. 
    • Engage: Spark genuine conversation and connection. 
    • Encourage: Motivate your audience to act, advocate, or explore further

    In higher education, for example, students crave content that both informs and resonates emotionally. Whether highlighting everyday moments or preparing for crisis communication, a plan—and a designated point of contact—ensures you can respond quickly and effectively.  

    Always ask: How does this content deepen connections, build school pride or inform?   You’re not just telling a story—you’re shaping your institution’s impact.  

    Build With Intention

    From AI integration to authentic content creation, one message echoed throughout this year’s Meltwater Summit: success in today’s digital world means being intentional.  

    The institutions that thrive are the ones building with purpose, thoughtfully engaging audiences and effectively leveraging technology. They listen, adapt and invest in strategies that meet the Modern Learner where they are, contributing to overall brand health and engagement.  

    Purposeful creation begins with understanding your community, amplifying their voices and delivering value through every interaction. As a higher education marketing agency, we empower institutions to transform attention into enrollment and inspire students to become advocates.  

    Your institution has the foundation: vision, community and purpose. With the right tools and the right partner, you can turn that foundation into measurable growth that aligns with your goals. If you are ready to grow with intention and engage on a deeper level, EducationDynamics is here to support you.  

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  • What Higher Ed Marketers Can Learn from the Meltwater Summit 2025

    What Higher Ed Marketers Can Learn from the Meltwater Summit 2025

    As higher education navigates rapid change, the Meltwater Summit, held in New York City in May, was a gathering of creative minds, brand leaders and technology experts. The Summit made one thing clear: compelling storytelling, intentional branding and the thoughtful use of artificial intelligence are interconnected forces that shape lasting reputations. Institutions that invest in purposeful content and strategic technology integration are best positioned to lead with both credibility and measurable impact, connecting brand reputation and revenue growth as part of a unified strategy.

    Meltwater is a leading platform in media intelligence, powering reputation management, press monitoring and social listening. At EducationDynamics, we use Meltwater to uncover trends, track brand perception and guide strategies across channels for our partners.

    This year, I had the opportunity to attend the Meltwater Summit—a two-day event designed for marketing and communications professionals focusing on how data and creativity shape brand strategy. In my role as Senior Social & Visual Strategist at EducationDynamics, I was especially tuned into the evolving role of social media.

    The conversations throughout the Summit reaffirmed the importance of developing content strategies that are cohesive, intentional and fully aligned with broader brand goals. Explore the key takeaways we gathered from the event and how they can benefit higher education marketers.

    Reese Witherspoon set the tone with a powerful opening session, delivering honest reflection on the nature of creativity. Creativity is constantly flowing but rarely on a set schedule. The challenge isn’t finding ideas—it is cultivating the environment and carving out dedicated time for them to flourish. The solution? Clear, consistent and intentional communication. Whether you’re bridging teams or brainstorming with collaborators, creating space for dialogue is what truly transforms good ideas into great ones.

    What we learned about the creative process is clear: creativity is not merely a component but a foundational pillar of your university’s reputation. When internal teams collaborate, align and ideate together, they build a cohesive and authentic brand that shapes how your institution is seen from the outside.

    Moreover, it is important to recognize that your organic social efforts, website content, press releases and all other communications are not isolated channels. They form an interconnected ecosystem. Each piece of content plays a role within a broader narrative of your institution’s reputation. Thinking holistically about how every element comes together and ensures that your university’s story is consistent and impactful at every touchpoint.

    For university marketing leaders and content managers, content should do more than fill space—it should move the needle. Every asset should align with your broader strategy, reinforce your institution’s brand and serve at least one of the following purposes:  

    • Educate: Share timely, valuable information your audience can trust. 
    • Engage: Spark genuine conversation and connection. 
    • Encourage: Motivate your audience to act, advocate, or explore further.

    Today’s Modern Learners seek content that not only informs but also resonates with their experiences and aspirations. Whether showcasing everyday moments or navigating a crisis, having a clear plan—and a designated point of contact—ensures your team can respond with timely, thoughtful responses.  

    As you develop your content, ask yourself: Does this content deepen connection, build school pride or inform? Does it strengthen our institution’s reputation? If it does not accomplish any of this, you are just creating noise. 

    Success in today’s digital landscape demands intentionality. It is not just about telling stories—it is about using every piece of content strategically to shape perception, deepen engagement and build a brand that endures.  

    To build a brand that endures, every content piece should be seen as an opportunity to reinforce your institution’s voice and values. Strategic content creation, especially through organic social, plays a vital role in shaping how your audience connects with and trusts your brand. 

    When aligned intentionally, organic social media is a powerful channel that strengthens brand affinity while complementing awareness and digital marketing efforts across multiple channels. Creative content marketing, particularly in video, continues to grow in importance as a relevant medium for establishing reputation. Today’s audiences prefer content that feels authentic and emotionally resonant. To capture that depth, institutions should plan how content will be used across multiple channels. For example, to get the most out of every filming session, aim to capture: 

    • A core message or question 
    • Authentic behind-the-scenes footage 
    • Action shots 
    • Introductory context 
    • Relatable soundbites

    These assets do more than fill channels. They bring your strategy to life across multiple touchpoints in a format that is both attention-grabbing and engaging. When your content reflects lived experiences and community voices, it fosters trust and connection. In today’s crowded digital space, trust is a vital currency that drives reputation and results.

    No conference in 2025 is complete without discussions of AI.  Throughout the Summit, AI was highlighted as a powerful ally, particularly when leveraged within the content creation process.  One key tactic shared was the “sandwich approach,” a straightforward framework for combining human creativity with AI support:  

    1. Draft with Intent: Outline your core message and ideas based on your expertise.
    2. Expand with AI: Use AI tools to generate variations, improve clarity or explore new angles.
    3. Refine with Purpose: Edit and polish AI-enhanced content to match your brand voice and audience.

    Strong results also depend on clear, detailed prompts. Providing AI with context like tone, audience and format helps produce relevant output. Beyond content creation, AI can streamline workflows, freeing marketers to focus on strategy and adding creative touches.

    At EducationDynamics, we view AI as a collaborative tool that boosts efficiency and creativity. It serves as a jump-off point, not the final destination, supporting the work driven by our team’s vision.

    Meltwater reinforced that when AI is thoughtfully integrated into the creative process, it does not replace your unique insight. Instead, it amplifies it, freeing your team to focus on the meaningful and strategic work that shapes your institution’s brand.

    If one message stood out at this year’s Meltwater Summit, it was that creativity and strategic content creation are essential to building a compelling strong and enduring reputation.

    The institutions best positioned to thrive are those that engage their audiences intentionally, invest in the right technologies and meet the Modern Learner where they are.

    Purposeful creation begins with understanding your community, amplifying their voices and delivering value through every interaction. As a higher education marketing agency, we empower institutions to transform attention into enrollment and inspire students to become advocates.

    Your institution already has the foundation: vision, community and purpose. With the right tools and the right partner, you can turn that foundation into measurable growth that aligns with your goals. If you are ready to grow with intention and engage on a deeper level, EducationDynamics is here to support you.

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  • Department of Education Discontinues IPEDS Training

    Department of Education Discontinues IPEDS Training

    This is the latest of a series of contract cuts for the Institute of Education Sciences.

    Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call Inc./Getty Images

    The Trump administration terminated a key contract to train college officials on how to report data to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, a move that could further hamper the Education Department’s data infrastructure.

    Used to track trends in higher education enrollment, completion, financial aid usage and other institutional characteristics, IPEDS survey data has long been critical to higher education research. But in order to access and utilize the data, institutions need to know how to properly complete the survey and researchers need to know how to navigate the database.

    That’s where the Association of Institutional Research and its IPEDS training programs came in—or at least they used to.

    In a social media post Thursday, AIR’s executive director, Christine Keller, announced that the organization’s subcontract with IPEDS and the National Center for Education Statistics would not be renewed for the upcoming academic year. This means that updated self-paced courses and video tutorials on how to report and use data, as well as in-person workshops on topics like how to set data-informed benchmarks and improvement plans for an institution, will no longer be available.

    “When you’ve done meaningful work with committed partners for more than two decades, it’s difficult to acknowledge that it’s coming to an end,” Keller wrote. “While this chapter is closing, AIR’s commitment to supporting data-informed decision-making remains strong. We are actively exploring ways to continue offering select IPEDS training under the AIR brand to meet the needs of our community.”

    But while AIR intends to continue similar training models, Keller was sure to clarify that any future coaching will come at a cost. Past resources were subsidized by the contract and therefore available for free.

    The end of this subcontract will not, however, terminate other components  of the IPEDS contract managed through RTI International—such as aiding in data collection, maintaining the IPEDS website and managing the help desk. (This paragraph has been corrected to reflect that RTI International contract for IPEDS.)

    An Education Department spokesperson wrote in an email that the decision reflected its commitment to supporting “useful and relevant research” while “respecting the American taxpayer’s wallet.”

    “Multiple federal contractors were collecting 50 percent or more in overhead costs, which is neither sustainable nor reasonable,” the spokesperson said. “We believe in the value of training users to make best use of federally funded databases. Thus, we are in [the] process of reexamining how that training might be more efficiently and effectively delivered in the future.”

    College staff members and policy experts who focus on using institutional data to improve student outcomes, however, say the discontinuation of free AIR training programs will be devastating.

    Henry Zheng, vice provost for institutional effectiveness and planning at Carnegie Mellon University, wrote on LinkedIn that this abrupt ending was “sobering” and that he is “pray[ing] that this program will continue on another day.”

    Wesley Whistle, a project director on student success and affordability at New America, a left-leaning think tank, also took to LinkedIn to comment on the news, saying, “These trainings are vital for institutional researchers as they fulfill their reporting obligations.”

    And this is not the first blow for IPEDS and NCES under the Trump administration. In February, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency announced that it had canceled nearly $900 million in contracts across the statistics center and its larger parent agency, the Institute of Education Sciences.

    At the time, a DOGE official said 89 IES contracts were canceled, while other organizations put the total at closer to 170. (Previous Inside Higher Ed reporting has shown that the data being published by DOGE regarding the scope and effect of its cuts is likely inaccurate.)

    Additionally, the department fired more than 80 percent of IES’s 120 employees. The Education Department said in recent budget documents that it is planning to reimagine “a more efficient, effective, and useful IES to improve support for evidence-based accountability, data-driven decision making, and education research for use in the classroom.”

    Collectively, IPEDS, NCES and IES serve as the Education Department’s research and development arm, funding research on how to improve equity in education access and outcomes in the future as well as providing data on how students in K–12 and college fare in programs. So to discontinue the services that bolstered college staff members’ professional development could hurt their ability to report congressionally mandated statistics accurately, higher ed experts say.

    In the end, some fear that losing the training could lead to less data-informed decision-making.

    “We need to collect data both at the national level and at the institutional level. Without measuring the problem, we risk pretending it doesn’t exist,” wrote James Orlick, director of grant writing and innovation for inclusive excellence at the University of Louisville. “The belief that ‘if you don’t measure it, it isn’t a problem’ reinforces inaction and won’t solve the systemic issues we face.”

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  • U Michigan Used Undercover Agents to Surveil Protesters

    U Michigan Used Undercover Agents to Surveil Protesters

    The University of Michigan hired dozens of private investigators to go undercover on campus and surveil pro-Palestinian student protesters, The Guardian reported Friday. 

    Some of the investigators, who work for a Detroit-based security firm, were caught on camera trailing, recording and harassing students; one reportedly drove a car at one student, who had to jump out of the way.

    “It’s so insane that they have spent millions of dollars to hire some goons to follow campus activists around,” one student who’d been followed by agents told The Guardian. “It’s just such a waste of money and time.”

    The agents have been gathering evidence against students for some time at the behest of the university; Michigan state prosecutors used evidence from their investigations to charge and jail student protesters in May 2024, according to The Guardian. The state attorney general dropped those charges two weeks ago. In April, police raided the homes of five pro-Palestinian student activists in Ann Arbor for alleged “acts of vandalism.”

    A spokesperson for the university did not deny hiring the investigators in responses to The Guardian’s questions and defended “security measures” as essential to “maintaining a safe and secure campus environment.”

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