Tag: Higher

Financial Pressures Could Have Cascading Effects (opinion)
In April, Harvard University, despite its $53.2 billion endowment, announced plans for a $750 million bond issuance to bolster liquidity amid uncertainties over federal funding. Similarly, Brown University concluded its decade-long BrownTogether fundraising campaign, raising more than $4.4 billion, yet soon after secured a $300 million loan in the face of a structural budget deficit and the cancellation of federal grants. And in May, Columbia University announced layoffs of approximately 180 staff members after the federal government revoked $400 million in federal grants and contracts, citing the university’s handling of antisemitic harassment on campus.

Together, these actions underscore that even the nation’s most selective and well-resourced universities are vulnerable to financial strain and are recalibrating rapidly in response to shifting economic and political forces. By contrast, less well-resourced, tuition-dependent institutions often confront the same headwinds, or their downstream effects, with fewer financial options and diminished capacity to respond.

Liquidity and the Endowment Misconception

A common misconception is that universities can freely tap into their endowments to address financial shortfalls. In reality, a significant portion of endowment assets are legally restricted by external donor agreements, regulatory frameworks and board policies. According to the NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments, an average 71.1 percent of endowment funds are restricted by donor agreements alone. These funds are typically earmarked for specific purposes such as scholarships, endowed faculty positions or capital projects.

Endowments are vital to institutional operations but are not unbounded. In fiscal year 2024, colleges and universities withdrew a total of $30 billion from their endowments, representing a 6.4 percent increase over the prior year, with nearly half of that spending (48.1 percent) dedicated to student financial aid. On average, endowments funded 15.3 percent of institutional operating budgets, underscoring their importance in day-to-day fiscal planning.

At the same time, most institutions cap annual withdrawals at approximately 4.5 to 5 percent of a rolling three-year average to preserve long-term value. Exceeding these thresholds can jeopardize an endowment’s sustainability and may violate both donor restrictions and regulatory requirements. Consequently, when immediate cash needs surpass allowable draws, universities often turn to bond markets or bank loans, trading short-term liquidity for future debt obligations. According to a Forbes report, U.S. universities issued a record $11.6 billion in municipal bond debt in the first quarter of 2025 to safeguard operations amid federal funding cuts.

Fiscal and Legal Acumen: A New Leadership Imperative

In the current climate, effective university leadership requires not only academic vision but also robust financial and legal expertise. Leaders must navigate complex debt covenants, bond rating pressures and donor restrictions while transparently communicating difficult decisions to trustees, faculty, students and the public. These challenges, at least financially, arguably surpass those faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, when federal relief funds temporarily masked underlying vulnerabilities.

Rising Insolvency Risk Beyond Public Campuses

Recent announcements by private Research-1 universities suggest several well-known institutions—among them Duke and Northwestern Universities—could encounter significant fiscal strain if current federal research funding trends persist. While nonselective public research universities are often viewed as the most vulnerable to federal funding cuts, some prominent private institutions also face rising risk. High fixed costs, tuition and/or research dependency, and limited unrestricted endowment income create financial fragility as grants plateau.

Enrollment Shocks: A Cascade in Waiting

An often-overlooked but potentially destabilizing factor is the cascading effect on enrollment should elite institutions expand freshman classes and nonresearch focused graduate programs by aggressively tapping wait lists to compensate for financial shortfalls. While larger cohorts can spread overhead costs and generate additional tuition revenue, rapid expansion without strategic planning can strain housing, advising and support services, potentially degrading the student experience and affecting retention.

For example, if the top 50 universities each increase enrollment by even 5 percent, thousands of well-qualified students may shift upward, siphoning tuition dollars from regional publics, tuition-dependent privates and community colleges. For institutions already operating on thin margins, this loss of yield could prove existential.

This scenario recalls the 2008 financial crisis: a shock at the top reverberated across sectors. Here, if highly selective colleges “catch a cold,” more vulnerable campuses may suffer a deeper freeze.

Equity and Access Under Pressure

The most severe consequences are likely to impact lower-income students. Potential elimination of federal support programs like federal TRIO programs and Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, coupled with the potential cascading effects outlined above, risk widening the affordability gap. To shore up budgets, financially stressed institutions may tighten aid packages and prioritize full-pay applicants. Simultaneously, regional institutions that disproportionately serve these populations face their own budget constraints, compounding threats to access and social mobility. Conversely, other financially stressed colleges may opt to elevate unfunded tuition discount rates to unsustainable levels in order to meet enrollment targets, an action we have witnessed during less stressful periods.

Summer Melt: An Immediate Barometer

The impending summer melt period—when students who have submitted deposits ultimately decide not to enroll—may serve as a real-time stress indicator. Historically, national melt rates hover around 10 to 20 percent, but even a two- to three-percentage-point uptick for small, tuition-driven colleges can force emergency cuts. If selective universities reach deeper into their wait lists this summer, downstream institutions could experience sudden enrollment gaps as fall semesters are about to begin.

Toward Long-Term Resilience: Strategic Levers

As the financial headwinds intensify, universities must couple urgency with discipline. Ensuring alignment among institutional leaders, preserving trust and activating institutional flexibility will be key. The following strategic levers offer a practical framework for leaders aiming to build resilience without losing sight of mission.
1. Ensure board and leadership alignment: Any misalignment between governing boards and executive teams can slow decision-making and erode credibility. Clear alignment around scenario planning, liquidity thresholds and contingency triggers is paramount.
2. Embrace shared governance: Genuine engagement with faculty, staff and students in fiscal deliberations can enhance adaptability and morale. Institutions that bypass shared governance risk midcareer talent attrition, as well as diminishing instructional quality and grant productivity.
3. Rethink spending policies: Regular reassessment of endowment draw methodologies, debt covenants and liquidity lines is essential. Short-term borrowing can bridge operational gaps but should be paired with disciplined multiyear plans that include potential program realignment and other austerity measures.
4. Diversify revenue streams: Institutions must increase nontraditional tuition income, such as from online certificates, executive education and micro-credentials. Commercializing research can generate revenue, however, safeguards are necessary to prevent a slide into “University Inc.” cynicism—the sense that institutions are prioritizing profit over scholarship.
5. Strengthen financial transparency: Open dashboards tracking liquidity ratios, debt service coverage ratios and aid spending cultivate trust and temper rumor-driven resistance. Responsible transparency should extend to explaining why certain programs may face review in the name of institutional sustainability.
The Faculty and Staff Dimension

Financial pressures inevitably affect human capital. Institutions that announce austerity plans without clear road maps invite uncertainty and, ultimately, attrition among faculty and staff. Retention of human capital is crucial not only for educational quality but also for grant productivity and student success. Engaging employees in strategic trade-offs—such as phased retirement options, the cross-training of staff to handle multiple roles as part of new revenue initiatives or shared services efficiencies—can transform potential resistance into collaborative resilience. But these strategic trade-offs also impact human capital.

What About Academic Mission?

Some argue that larger entering classes could enhance diversity or increase institutional reach. Others worry that an aggressive growth mindset dilutes faculty engagement and student mentorship. Both perspectives merit consideration. Growth for growth’s sake, particularly when propelled by crisis rather than strategy, risks eroding the very qualities that make a campus distinctive.

A Crucible Moment

Higher education has weathered wars, recessions and a global pandemic, but today’s convergence of shrinking research support, demographic shifts and rising debt costs presents a challenge not witnessed in recent history. Liquidity stress is reaching even elite campuses.

The lessons from recent bond issuances, emergency loans and layoffs are clear: Action must come before distress spreads further. Institutions that act now by aligning leadership, engaging stakeholders, adjusting spending, diversifying revenue and communicating clearly will emerge stronger and more mission‑focused.

Those that delay risk letting early warning signs become full‑blown alarms.

As summer melt data arrives and fiscal year budgets close, we will soon learn whether these echoes from the Ivies were just noise—or the first tremors of something more.

Joseph E. Nyre served as president of Seton Hall University from 2019 to 2023 and of Iona University from 2011 to 2019. He is the founder and managing director of Veritas Solutions Advisors, a higher education and nonprofit consulting company.
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June 23, 2025
UK and Aus higher education compared – Campus Review

How do perceptions of artificial intelligence, online education, tertiary harmonisation, regulation and the skills agenda differ between Australia and the United Kingdom?

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June 23, 2025
Assignments for Politically Disaffected Students (opinion)

Joe Rogan is no fan of my work, obviously. The chart-topping conservative influencer famously insists that universities are “cult camps” where professors like me indoctrinate students with leftist ideas. Typically, I do not worry about my haters, but increasingly it seems that if I want to create a meaningful learning experience, I need to.

I teach first-year undergraduate humanities electives. Like most universities, ours offers large-format 200-student lectures for training in academic writing and critical theory. This would be the “indoctrination” in question, as I introduce students to canonical thinkers from Karl Marx to Sylvia Wynter. These electives are degree requirements, snaring students who might intentionally avoid liberal arts in an otherwise professional degree.

In the current political climate, many of my students come to the classroom with their minds made up based on authorities who directly undermine my scholarship and profession. Rogan is just one of many conservative anti-intellectuals who regularly attack liberal, feminist, social justice–oriented biases in university education. The result is a polarized atmosphere antithetical to learning: a tangibly mistrustful, sometimes even resentful classroom.

Although only a small handful of students typically adhere to anti-intellectual doctrine, their small group undermines my authority with risky jokes in the classroom and intense criticism in student back channels (as reported by concerned classmates). This causes undecided students to falter in their trust of my authority, while students who do not share their views nervously censor their contributions.

Ironically, my dissenting students often do not recognize that I am interested in their views. I am convinced that the way out of this explosive historic moment is through rigorous discussion in educational forums. Like any academic, this is why I teach: I love sincere inquiry, debate and critical engagement, and I was a rabble-rouser myself as a student. But the current classroom mood is less debate and more deadlock.

So, I spent this year brainstorming with my students to build creative assignments to spin resentment into passion, no matter how opposite my own, welcoming self-directed research and encouraging deeply engaged reading. I offer any one of these assignments, with the goal to bring disaffected, anxious students back to a love of learning and democratized engagement. This is a work in progress, and I welcome suggestions.

Turn Tensions Into Data: This introductory exercise eases students into an atmosphere of open collegial discussion. Surveys or anonymous polls quantify disagreements, and then we analyze the results as a class.

Example: Class Belief Inventory—anonymously poll students on hot-button questions (e.g., “Is systemic racism a major problem?”). The objective here would be to compare the class’s responses to national survey data. Potential discussion topics: Why might differences exist? What shapes our perceptions?

Hostile Influencers as Primary Sources: This in-class activity treats figures like Rogan or Jordan Peterson not as adversaries but as authors of texts to analyze, to disarm defensiveness and position students as critical investigators.

Example: “Compare/contrast an episode of [X podcast] with a peer-reviewed article on the same topic. How do their arguments differ in structure, evidence and rhetoric? Whom do you find more persuasive, and why?”

Gamifying Ideological Tensions: This class activity turns assigned readings into structured, rule-bound games where students must defend positions they don’t personally hold.

Example: Role-Play a Summit—Students are assigned roles (e.g., Jordan Peterson, bell hooks, climate scientist, TikTok influencer) and must collaborate to solve a fictional problem (e.g., redesigning a curriculum). They must cite course readings to justify their choices.

Therapy for Arguments: This fun early activity teaches students to diagnose weak arguments—whether from Rogan, a feminist theorist or you—using principles of logic.

Example: Argument Autopsy—Students dissect a viral social media post, podcast clip or course reading. Identify logical fallacies, cherry-picked evidence or unstated assumptions. Reward students for critiquing all sides.

Intellectual Sleuthing: This is a scaffolded midterm writing assignment building up to a final essay. Ask students to trace the origins of their favorite influencers’ ideas. Many anti-establishment figures borrow from (or distort) academic theories—show students how to connect the dots.

Example: Genealogy of an Idea—Pick a claim from a podcast (e.g., “universities indoctrinate students”). Research its history: When was this idea popular in mainstream news or on social media? Are there any institutes, think tanks, influencers or politicians associated with this idea? What are the stated missions and goals of those sources? Where do they get their funding? Which academics agree or disagree, and why?

Leverage “Forbidden Topics” as Case Studies: If students resent “liberal bias,” lean into it: make bias itself the subject of analysis. This might work as a discussion prompt for tutorials or think-pair-share group work.

Example: “Is This Reading Biased?”—Assign a short text students might call “woke” (e.g., feminist theory) and a countertext (e.g., Peterson’s critique of postmodernism). Have students evaluate both using a rubric: What counts as bias? Is objectivity possible? How do they define “truth”?

Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Assignments: The final essay assignment gives students agency to explore topics they care about, even if they critique my field. Clear guardrails are important here to ensure rigor.

Example: Passion Project: Students design a research question related to the course—even if it challenges the course’s assumptions. They must engage with three or more course texts and two or more outside sources, as in favorite influencers or authorities, even those who oppose course themes.

Red Team vs. Blue Team: For essays, students submit two versions: one arguing their personal view and one arguing the counterpoint. Grading is based on how well they engage evidence, not their stance.

Elisha Lim is an assistant professor of the technological humanities at York University in Toronto. They used generative AI tools to assist with the editing of this piece.

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June 20, 2025
Judge Says Harvard Can Enroll International Students for Now

A federal judge granted Harvard an injunction on Friday that temporarily blocks the Trump administration’s efforts to revoke its ability to enroll international students.

Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | greenleaf123/iStock/Getty Images | APCortizasJr/iStock/Getty Images

District Judge Allison Burroughs granted a preliminary injunction to Harvard University on Friday in its case challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to prevent the university from enrolling international students. It’s the latest development in a tit-for-tat legal battle over the ability of more than a quarter of Harvard’s students to remain enrolled.

The injunction prevents the Department of Homeland Security from stripping Harvard of its Student Exchange and Visitor Program certification until Burroughs issues a final ruling in the lawsuit. It does not address President Donald Trump’s executive proclamation from earlier this month banning the State Department from issuing visas to international students and researchers attending Harvard; a temporary restriction on that ban expired June 20.

Burroughs has not issued an injunction on the Trump administration’s second attempt to revoke Harvard’s SEVP certification, which could take effect Wednesday if she declines to take further action, as Harvard has requested.

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June 20, 2025
Judge Orders Mahmoud Khalil to Be Released

A federal judge ordered that Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate and student protest leader who was detained by ICE agents in March, be released from a detention center in Louisiana. News outlets reported that he walked out of the detention center around 6:40 Central time Friday evening.

U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz ruled on Friday that Khalil, a legal permanent resident who has not been accused of any crime, should be released on bail and that continuing to hold him was highly unusual and could constitute “unconstitutional” punishment for his political beliefs. The Trump administration had sought to keep Khalil imprisoned based on a minor alleged immigration infraction after another judge ruled earlier this month that it could not continue to hold him purely based on the State Department’s claim that his continued presence in the U.S. posed a foreign policy threat.

Khalil’s arrest made national headlines and kicked off the Trump administration’s months-long campaign of detentions, visa revocations and threats of deportation against international students.

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June 20, 2025
RAQUEL MONROE | Diverse: Issues In Higher Education

Dr. Raquel MonroeHoward University has named Raquel Monroe dean of the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts. In that role, she Monroe will oversee academic, performance, and research programming for visual arts and design, music, and theater arts at Howard. Monroe currently serves as a full professor and associate dean of graduate education and academic affairs at the University of Texas at Austin’s (UT Austin) College of Fine Arts. Monroe will begin her new role Aug. 4, 2025.

Monroe is a founding board member of the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance and a member of Propelled Animals, a multimedia, interdisciplinary arts collective. Before her work at UT Austin, she was a professor in dance and an administrator at Columbia College in Chicago.

Monroe earned bachelor’s degrees in dance and theatre and a master’s degree in communication from Arizona State University. Monroe also holds a doctorate in culture and performance from the University of California, Los Angeles.

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June 20, 2025
Removing Credit Transfer Barriers Key to Improving Higher Ed Completion Rates

Dr. Andrew J. SeligsohnHigher education in the United States has come under increasing scrutiny — but not always for the right reasons. Critics claim that colleges and universities award degrees with little economic value, limit ideological expression on campus, and operate primarily for their own financial interests, rather than as institutions of shared public value. While much in this narrative is false, it nonetheless affects the public’s attitude toward higher education and individuals’ decisions about pursuing a postsecondary degree, which may be detrimental to their economic interest.

When these critiques are made in bad faith, we should counter them with facts about the value of college attainment. It remains true for example, that a college degree is likely to yield a significant boost in earnings. Nonetheless, anyone who cares about higher education must also ask why these arguments resonate so deeply with the public. Where real frustrations are fueling legitimate skepticism, addressing those concerns can both improve higher education’s reputation and enhance its value for students, families, and society. Since the experiences that give rise to frustration and receptivity to attacks on higher education are personal experiences, it pays to drill down into the particulars to figure out what’s going on.

In that spirit, Public Agenda, in partnership with Sova and the Beyond Transfer Policy Advisory Board, set out to deepen our collective understanding of learner experiences with the credit transfer process. We knew from research on enrolled students that transfer was a source of pain for many learners. But we didn’t know how many people were affected, how much it mattered to them, and how it shaped their views of higher education more broadly. With support from ECMC Foundation, we fielded a national survey of adult Americans that interrogates transfer experience and outcomes.

Dr. Lara CouturierThe findings were striking, and they should serve as a call to action for institutions of higher education. Nearly 4 in 10 respondents reported that they had tried to transfer credit toward a college degree or credential. This included credits earned at a previous college or university, as well as credits earned from nontraditional sources. In fact, more than a third attempted to transfer credits earned from workplace training, military experience, industry certification, vocational or trade school, or other prior learning. With more households feeling the cost of inflation and needing to upskill to survive in this economy, and more higher education institutions facing enrollment declines, we should be finding ways to develop more on-ramps and clear the path to a college degree.

Unfortunately, the survey revealed that Americans who attempt to transfer encounter convoluted paths, often losing credit hours, money, and motivation along the way. One in five respondents reported having to repeat a class they had already taken because their credits didn’t transfer. Thirteen percent reported running out of financial aid as a result of having to repeat courses. And, most concerning, 16% reported that they gave up on pursuing a college degree or credential because the process of transferring was so difficult. It’s clear difficulties with transfer are not only inconveniences — they’re significant financial burdens and barriers to completion.

We also sought to understand how these direct experiences shape individuals’ broader attitudes toward higher education. We found it profoundly troubling that 74% of respondents who had tried to transfer credit agreed with the statement that two- and four-year higher education institutions care more about making money than about educating students. In fact, respondents who had tried to transfer credit were more likely to hold this jaded view than those who had attended college but had not transferred or those who had no prior experience with higher education. So while some of the current attacks on higher education may be in bad faith, it should not be surprising that they find a receptive audience among so many Americans who recall feeling personally misled.

We know, then, that credit transfer needs reform — but what exactly does that look like? Public Agenda also surveyed Americans about potential interventions, and the results are promising. First, when asked what should happen to a college with a track record of not accepting many credits for transfer, Americans felt public accountability would be more helpful than heavy-handed punitive approaches. Fifty-four percent of Democrats and 47% of Republicans agreed that institutions should have to make a plan to improve credit transfer rates. Conversely, just one-third of Republicans and Democrats thought colleges should lose their funding. But what might go into a plan for improvement? Our survey found broad support among Republicans, Democrats, and independents for a variety of policies intended to make it easier for students to transfer credits. Support is notably strong for requiring that students have free and easy access to their transcripts, credentials, and degrees; requiring institutions to create public databases with transfer information; and requiring that prospective transfer students are quickly told how many credits will be accepted.

The benefits of a better transfer process are clear and compelling. Students would face fewer obstacles to completing their degrees, leading to higher graduation rates, better individual economic outcomes, and broader prosperity. Just as importantly, higher education would rebuild trust with the public by showing that institutions are committed to serving students—not just collecting tuition dollars. And the benefits of this renewed trust extend beyond the higher education system. The perception that public institutions don’t care about ordinary Americans is a key element of the challenge our broader democracy is facing. Since the education system is a direct way many people interact with our government, restoring confidence that higher education works for all Americans can further inspire faith in public institutions.

If we ignore issues like the broken credit transfer system, skepticism about higher education will continue to fester. Worse, more students may give up on college altogether, missing out on opportunities for personal and professional growth—all of which ultimately erodes our democracy. Pushing back against misinformation isn’t the only way to defend higher education; we must acknowledge and address the real barriers students face. Credit transfer is an experience shared by many with cross-partisan support for reform—now is the time to act. Reforming the transfer process won’t solve every challenge facing higher education, but it’s a clear and necessary step toward improving the system for the good of both students and institutions themselves.

Dr. Andrew J. Seligsohn is president of Public Agenda, a national research-to-action organization. Dr. Lara Couturier is a partner at Sova, a higher ed advocacy organization.

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June 20, 2025
For Learning, Focus on the Essence and the Experiences

When I was teaching, I always thought of this time on the calendar as the “postexhale” period.

The end of the semester is a headlong sprint to the finish, which, unlike a race where you get to break the tape and coast to a stop, is more like hitting a wall and collapsing on the spot. At least that’s how it always felt to me, at least until I started ending the semester at week 13 (of 15) and using the last two weeks for wind-down and reflection on what we’d all learned.

In the immediate aftermath of the semester, particularly spring semester, I couldn’t be bothered with any thinking or planning for the next semester. The next scheduled activity, usually something I started around the first week of August, would be the specific planning for the forthcoming semester, but there is also this postexhale period where no work needs to be done, conditions that are fertile for thinking and dreaming before the planning.

The postexhale period is the spot where you’re likely to gestate your best ideas, because at least for the next month or so, you don’t have to do anything with them.

I want to plant a seed of thought for anyone who is confronting having to or wanting to make changes to their course in order to accommodate the reality of generative AI technology being in the world.

Here it is: Next semester, do less that means more.

As I’ve been traveling around talking to people about how we can (and should) adjust how we think about teaching writing, one of the persistent worries is that introducing some AI-related content or experiences around ethics or safe use or whatever requires layering something new on what’s already happening. For many instructors, it’s an uninvited and therefore unwelcome burden.

I get it. We can never cover everything to begin with. Here’s one more thing to cover.

But what if we can use this as an opportunity to rethink what learning looks like? As we move through this period where we can reflect and reconsider, we can think about how to boil the experiences in the classroom down to an essence that can be reflected in learning experiences.

Consider the learning that has proved most enduring from the full trajectory of your education and I think you’ll find that it clusters around essential, deep lessons. What has mattered are the moments where we have learned how to learn and think and act inside a particular domain. It is this learning that allows us to go forth and continue to learn eagerly, ceaselessly.

Even as a decidedly and well-documented overall mediocre student, there are numerous learning experiences (in and out of class) that I can point to as inflection points that made a significant difference in the overall trajectory of my life because they provided something essential to my journey forward.

One moment I invoke frequently is when my third-grade teacher asked us to write instructions for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then had us try to make the sandwiches following the instructions to the letter. Because I forgot to say that you should use a knife to spread the peanut butter on the bread, I ended up sticking my hand in the jar of peanut butter to fulfill my own directive. I have a picture memorializing the occasion.

That moment introduced me to the rhetorical situation and the fact that writing has a purpose and an audience—and careless writing has consequences. I’m sure I learned all kinds of other things in third grade and maybe some of them were important, but only one moment was indelible, and that’s all I needed.

In high school, excited about the subject matter for my junior-year English term paper (the New Journalism of Tom Wolfe), while being not enthused about the parameters of what I was supposed to do with that subject matter, I decided to write my term paper in the style of Tom Wolfe, earning a not-so-great grade from my teacher, but a meaningful lesson in how to keep myself interested with a task. (I wrote in more detail about this previously.)

Some reflection unearths other moments. A college nonfiction writing class had us pretending we were writing for specific publications and producing columns that could fit under the editorial banner. I chose Esquire, imagining myself a sophisticated male, I guess. We were required to understand how to write for very specific audiences with very specific aims, excellent practice for all kinds of different futures. At the end of the semester, we had a competition where we voted for the “best” columns across a number of different categories. I was a finalist in several but won zero, losing out to one specific classmate’s work every time.

In a conference with the instructor, I must’ve expressed some kind of disappointment, and he said something that stuck with me: “X’s stuff sounds like themselves writing for a publication. You sound like someone doing an imitation of someone writing for a publication.” I walked away believing that authenticity was ultimately the differentiator in connecting with readers.

I could name more moments. My first semester of grad school, my professor, Robert Olen Butler, had us do an in-class writing exercise based in sense memory (which can be found in his book From Where You Dream), and I experienced what it was like to tap into my artistic subconscious for an extended, focused period. Bob was not the most engaged of mentors, but I’m not sure I’d still be writing if I hadn’t had that experience.

When I started teaching, the indelible lessons delivered by my students came even more often, possibly because I recognized my responsibility over the work in ways I hadn’t achieved as a student.

All these moments are rooted in very specific and specifically designed experiences. These kinds of experiences are not threatened by the existence of large language models, because it was clear to me that the point of the exercise is to have the experience.

Of course, generative AI tools could be present as part of an important learning experience, but when generative AI is used by students as a substitute for the experience, the learning is obviously deformed. Injecting LLMs into our courses simply because it seems like something we have to be doing is not a great recipe for learning.

There are some, perhaps many, places where it is not and should not be welcome because it is not conducive to the experience of learning we’re trying to instantiate.

As I think about these experiences, what I learned was really contained in a crystallizing moment made possible by the earlier experience of that class, or even before that class. This is not necessarily predicated on the amount of material covered or the volume of what students are exposed to.

As you enjoy this exhale period, maybe spend some time thinking how little you could do in your course and still have students walk away with something that will be meaningful years down the road. That may be the core of your course when you come back and start thinking about it for real in a month.

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June 20, 2025
Gaza Encampments “Made University Leaders Lose Their Minds”

The war in Gaza and the adverse reaction of U.S. colleges to the pro-Palestinian movement have completely changed students’ relationship to higher education, according to the maker of a new film about last year’s protests.

A new documentary, The Encampments, follows the movement from Columbia University, where the first tents were erected in April 2024, as protests spread to hundreds of campuses worldwide, including the University of Tokyo and Copenhagen University.

Not just isolated to Ivy League institutions in the U.S., the movement spread to many traditionally Republican-dominated states as well, Michael Workman, co-director of the film, told Times Higher Education.

“These are not just places where the coastal elite are,” he said. “This movement touched and reached into the middle of America. In places like [Idaho], there were protests every day in solidarity and support.”

He hopes that the film, which he sees as a “counternarrative” to the media’s negative portrayal of the encampments, will “haunt” higher education leaders for being on the wrong side of history.

Although the conflict in Gaza continues, the student movement has had a much smaller impact this year, with many students facing severe repercussions from both their universities and the White House.

“For some reason camping out on the lawn demanding an end to a genocide made all these administrators around the world, and especially in the U.S., lose their minds,” said Workman.

He said the encampments arrived at a time of “heightened” organization and engagement among the student body. These movements are not sustainable but always “ebb and flow,” he added.

Along with demanding that universities lend their voices to Gaza, students have called on institutions to divest from companies that they believe are funding a genocide.

Workman said the “twin demands” of many of the students were to support Palestinians and to take universities, which they were paying lots of money, back to being educational institutions.

“Students have seen their educations get turned into moneymaking machines, [instead of institutions] that are primarily there to teach students,” he said.

“This has completely changed this generation’s relationship to higher education, and I think their relationship to the U.S. and U.S. foreign policy.”

He said the war in Gaza has “woken up this generation,” which is why colleges reacted with such force.

“It’s why they responded in the way that they did, because they felt they couldn’t do anything else. The cat was out of the bag,” he said.

“These students are not going to go back to thinking what Israel is doing in Gaza was justified … and they’re going to continue to grow their movement to raise awareness around what’s happening and to fight against it.”

Workman, who also teaches documentary film production at the University of San Francisco, said the response by faculty in the U.S. is “not a monolith” but that it is becoming increasingly supportive of the students.

This has been particularly evident since the detention of activist and green card–holder Mahmoud Khalil, who features in the documentary, he said. Khalil, an international student who moved to the U.S. in 2022, was arrested in March following a crackdown on student protesters by President Donald Trump’s administration.

“The more they repress the movement, in a lot of ways, the stronger it gets, because people aren’t backing down,” Workman said.

“That doesn’t mean that we have this huge moment like the encampment moment, but we’re building a sustained foundation that is continuing to grow with really committed organizers.”

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June 20, 2025
Universities Sue, Judge Blocks DOD’s Indirect Costs Cap

Johns Hopkins, Arizona State and Cornell Universities are among a coalition of 12 higher education institutions and three trade groups that filed a lawsuit against the Department of Defense on Monday over the agency’s plan to cap universities’ indirect research cost rates at 15 percent.

While DOD secretary Pete Hegseth said in a memo last month that the policy is aimed at “accountability” and rooting out “waste,” the lawsuit argues that slashing indirect costs rates “will stop critical research in its tracks, lead to layoffs and cutbacks at universities across the country, badly undermine scientific research at United States universities, and erode our nation’s enviable status as a global leader in scientific research and innovation.”

On Tuesday, a federal judge in Boston issued a temporary restraining order, prohibiting the DOD from enacting the cap. A hearing in the case is set for July 2.

The litigation filed this week is the latest legal challenge universities and their advocates have mounted against the federal government’s attempts to cap the amount of money it gives universities for the indirect costs of conducting federally funded research. The National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy have all attempted to unilaterally enact similar caps, and federal judges have blocked those efforts for now.

For decades, universities have periodically negotiated with the federal government to calculate bespoke indirect cost reimbursement rates to pay for research costs that support multiple grant-funded projects, such as facilities maintenance, specialized equipment and administrative personnel. Universities factor those rates into their institutional budgets.

For example, Johns Hopkins and the DOD currently have in place a negotiated indirect cost rate of 55 percent. In 2024 JHU received $32 million from the DOD to cover indirect costs, according to the lawsuit. If the DOD’s plan moves forward, however, the university would lose $22 million.

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June 20, 2025