Tag: Higher

Collective Punishment, Early Decision Edition (opinion)

Tulane University’s admissions office has banned students from four high schools from applying to Tulane through early decision this fall, according to reporting from The New York Times. Though three of the schools have not been publicly identified, the one-year ban (or “suspension”) for Colorado Academy comes after a student from that school backed out of the early-decision agreement they signed when they applied to Tulane last year.

For those who aren’t card-carrying college admission geeks like I am, early decision is an application option and enrollment management strategy in which students apply earlier and promise to enroll if admitted, in exchange for receiving an earlier decision offer. The binding nature of early decision means that a student can apply to only one college through early decision.

In most cases students applying through early decision are asked, along with a parent and their school counselor, to sign an early-decision agreement attesting to their understanding of the commitment to enroll if admitted. Early decision is in no way legally binding, but colleges take the early-decision commitment seriously and are appalled and disgusted when students back out of the commitment. The one agreed-upon reason for backing out of an early-decision commitment is when an institution can’t meet a student’s financial need (as determined by the college’s financial aid formula, not what a family thinks it can pay).

I have had admission deans tell me that they would hold it against a school whose students did not follow through on the early-decision commitment, but Tulane is the first college I’ve seen publicly penalize schools. The Tulane ban raises some interesting and thorny ethical questions.

The most obvious is whether it is permissible to punish students in the Class of 2026 for offenses committed by students in the Class of 2025. Retribution may be fashionable these days, but punishing the innocent because you have no way to punish the guilty is not retribution, just wrong.

But that may be just me. The National Association for College Admission Counseling has an “Ethical Dilemmas in College Admission” page on its website that includes a hypothetical case study in which a student wants to back out of an early-decision commitment. Among the suggested advice for counselors is to caution the student and parents that withdrawing could have negative consequences for future applicants from the school. Even if that might be the case, that’s terrible advice from NACAC, making it seem like colleges punishing future applicants is acceptable and normal.

At least Tulane is being transparent with its early-decision ban for the schools. As bad as that is, there is a scenario that would be worse, if Tulane ostensibly welcomed early-decision applications from the four schools when it had no intention of admitting any of them.

The Times article didn’t provide any details about the circumstances leading up to the ban for the four schools, but Tulane’s position seems to be, as the Times paraphrased it, that the schools “failed to uphold the expectations of the early decision agreement.” Let’s examine that claim a little more closely.

What is a school’s responsibility in advising students wanting to apply early decision? As a counselor, I always advised students and parents that it was a binding commitment, not to be taken lightly. I don’t remember any of my students backing out of an early-decision commitment, but on several occasions I had students who told me on Friday they planned to apply early decision to one college and then a different college on Monday. My response was that they were not ready to apply early decision at all if their thinking was that fluid.

It’s hard for me to imagine how the schools would have failed in their responsibilities. The counselor part of the early-decision agreement states, “I have advised the student to abide by the early decision commitment outlined above.” As long as they have done that, are they responsible for policing the student’s actions? The school could withhold sending transcripts to other colleges, but in today’s litigious environment, it could face legal action from parents for doing so. I have learned that parents who are lawyers are especially skeptical of the early-decision commitment. If the student wanted to renege on early decision, I would require the student to inform the college. An applicant owes the college that courtesy. Beyond that, schools can’t be expected to enforce early decision.

There are several other issues that deserve scrutiny. One is Tulane’s claim in a statement to the Times that “A last-minute withdrawal without explanation unfairly impacts other applicants who may have missed opportunities due to the limited number of early-decision offers a university can make.” Excuse me, my BS detector is going off. Tulane has no restriction that I am aware of in the number of students it can admit through early decision, as suggested by the fact that, in recent years, it’s admitted more than 60 percent of its freshman class using early decision, and it has other opportunities to make up for any loss through early decision 2, early action and regular decision.

There is also an interesting philosophical question about the nature of the early-decision binding commitment. At what point does the binding commitment kick in? Or, more to the point, when does Tulane believe that the commitment is binding?

The common understanding across the world of college admission is that students take on the binding commitment either as soon as they sign the early-decision agreement, or at least as soon as they are accepted. Tulane’s application instructions state that early decision is binding and that students are expected to withdraw all other applications once accepted and issued a financial aid offer, but there are two other points in the same instructions that bring into question whether Tulane really believes that students are committed as soon as accepted.

The first bullet point in Tulane’s instructions for early decision defines it as an “application timeline for students whose first choice is Tulane and who are prepared to enroll soon after (italics mine) being admitted and receiving a financial aid offer.” The use of the phrase “soon after” suggests that there is a period of time after acceptance when the student is not yet committed.

In addition, Tulane expects accepted early-decision applicants to submit a $1,000 enrollment deposit by Jan. 15. Asking for a deposit is not unique to Tulane, but if the student is committed to attend Tulane as soon as they sign the early-decision agreement or upon acceptance, why require an enrollment deposit? If a student is accepted early decision but doesn’t then make the deposit, have they broken the commitment or does that commitment only kick in with the deposit? Am I the only one who sees a contradiction here? (The answer may well be yes, and it wouldn’t be the first time.)

The broader issue here has to do with early decision itself. Early decision has been around since the 1950s, and it’s controversial. The early-decision “bargain” can be argued to benefit both colleges and students, but it is far more beneficial to institutions as a way to manage enrollment. It doesn’t work well for students for whom financial aid is essential or those who come from schools without savvy college counselors who understand the early-decision game.

Tulane is the poster child for how colleges and universities use early decision to manage both enrollment and prestige. Its admit rate has declined precipitously in recent years largely through strategic use of early decision. According to its most recent Common Data Set, about 63 percent of the freshman class was admitted through early decision (that’s assuming a 100 percent yield rate for early-decision admits).

That may actually understate the impact of early decision. Another 20 percent of the class was admitted off the wait list (the CDS shows the number of students admitted off the wait list but does not break it down in terms of enrollments, but there are universities that only admit students off the wait list if they know they will enroll, almost a form of “early decision 3”).

The heavy use of early decision means that there is a huge variance in the admit rates for early decision and other admissions plans at Tulane (it also has nonbinding early action). According to the Common Data Set, the admit rate for early decision was 59 percent, compared with 11 percent for all other options. That’s not new. A 2022 Inside Higher Ed article reported that Tulane had admitted only 106 students in regular admission. In any case, the numbers suggest that not applying early decision is hugely disadvantageous at Tulane, which makes the ban even more punitive.

I am trying to be sympathetic to Tulane’s hurt feelings over being dissed by students they admitted in early decision, but I would hope the university’s admissions office will take to heart the wisdom of Gilbert and Sullivan, as well as the Ramones, and let the punishment fit the crime.

Jim Jump recently retired after 33 years as the academic dean and director of college counseling at St. Christopher’s School in Richmond, Va. He previously served as an admissions officer, philosophy instructor and women’s basketball coach at the college level and is a past president of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. He is the 2024 recipient of NACAC’s John B. Muir Excellence in Media Award.

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November 3, 2025
From talk to action: collaboration and shared services in higher education
This guest blog was kindly authored by Heidi Fraser-Krauss, Chief Executive Officer at Jisc.

The power of collaboration and shared services is now widely recognised in the higher education sector as an effective way for institutions to continue delivering outstanding student experiences, world-class teaching, and research and innovation, all against a backdrop of financial pressures. Jisc has played a leading role in driving these conversations, in partnership with UUK, KPMG and university leaders. However, it is now time to put our words into action and make collaboration the norm.

Achieving better outcomes collectively

Recent sector-wide initiatives, including the Transformation and Efficiency Taskforce commissioned by Universities UK, have explored opportunities for efficiency and innovation through shared services. Jisc contributed to practical strands of this work, focusing on collaboration utilising digital, data and technology. A UK-wide questionnaire inviting insights from the sector on which actions should be taken was distributed. More than 30 ideas were submitted, and three were explored in depth.

Shared services is the first of these three. The premise is simple: through sharing, collaboration and working together (whether by pooling knowledge, sharing risk or combining scarce skills) universities can achieve better outcomes together than they could alone.

Tools for collaboration already exist – so let’s put them to work

The sector already has examples of institutional collaboration – demonstrating the benefits of collective effort. However, not all services lend themselves well to being shared. For example, ambitious but complex projects such as a shared student record system for the sector is not an ideal place to begin.

We must also be careful not to assume that shared services are automatically more efficient simply by virtue of their being shared. Despite this, there are many that can be. Good examples of collaboration, involving sharing back-office functions (for example a joint out-of-hours IT service, or forming a consortium to strengthen research bids) already exist. In fact, both of these examples were highlighted by the then Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Peter Kyle during his speech at the recent Universities UK conference.

One of the key findings of the report, was that, although there are many shared services across the sector already, very few are used by large numbers of institutions. Many have been running for years and could achieve far greater impact if more institutions engaged with them. The lesson is clear: make better use of what already exists. An example of this is UMAL, the non-profit mutual insurer for universities and colleges across the UK.

Plenty of questions still to be answered

As collaboration gains momentum, important questions remain. Can processes be standardised? Can AI-enabled tools be developed jointly to avoid duplication, and could collaboration extend to industry and public sector partnerships, such as health? Examples like Cardiff’s Mental Health University Liaison Service and the Greater Manchester Universities Mental Health Service – both university–NHS collaborations – could be replicated elsewhere. Science Parks across the UK also show how universities and industry can work successfully together.

These are all important questions, and although we may not yet have all the answers, we shouldn’t let this get in the way of change.

What should happen now?

There are a number of practical steps we can take together in the very short term to make shared services a genuine force for positive change across higher education. For example, the creation of a central catalogue of existing shared services would raise awareness and uptake.

The sector must adopt a ‘shared services first’ mindset. Leaders should consider whether proven, collaborative solutions are already available – and use them. Where duplication exists, regional mergers or the strategic transfer of services into national bodies could strengthen sustainability and reduce wasted effort.

Government has an important role to play. Adopting the British Universities Finance Directors Group (BUFDG) proposa [CA1] ls for improving VAT treatment of cost-sharing groups could unlock further progress.

For their part, institutions sharing data on spend and contract reviews would help to provide an evidence base for smarter sector-wide decisions. In some cases, institutions should also consider mergers or broader consolidation of services across the sector, where combining resources offers long-term efficiencies and sustainability.

Supporting universities to collaborate

Collaboration isn’t idealism – it’s a rational response to cost pressures, and the means to make it happen is already in our hands. We can adopt a ‘shared services first’ approach – it just needs a firm commitment from institutional leaderships to make it happen.

At Jisc, our role remains to convene senior stakeholders, define shared negotiation objectives, and support universities to move from strategy to implementation – after all, everyone knows that actions speak louder than words.

Recommendations

To support a shift towards collaborative models, here are practical recommendations for institutions, sector networks, shared service operators and government.

Individual Institutions
- Adopt a ‘shared services first’ mindset for new requirements
  
  Evaluate existing shared services before creating an in-house service or procuring a commercial solution, prioritising long term value over short term cost savings
- Collaborate with neighbouring institutions to replicate successful models
  
  Explore regional opportunities to address shared needs and challenges where shared models have proved successful
- Reassess internal operations and consider where there are opportunities to share services
  
  Evaluate any area that could benefit from a shared service, except in student recruitment
Sector Networks and Membership Organisations

(e.g. Universities UK, BUFDG, UCISA, regional consortia)
- Increase awareness of existing shared services through a central shared service catalogue
  
  Create and promote a catalogue of shared services structured for direct contract awards or competitive tendering.
- Convene groups of institutions, to consider potential joint commitments to subscribe to existing shared services, increasing their scale
  
  Use sector networks to bring universities together for collective commitments to shared services, leveraging procurement rules that permit direct contracting with sector-owned organisations (known as the Teckal exemption) where appropriate.
Shared Service Operators

(e.g. UMAL, sector-owned IT or procurement services)
- Shared service operators should meet regularly to increase coordination
  
  Establish regular meetings between sector-owned shared services to improve collaboration and avoid duplication.
  
  Consider forming a UK Shared Services Council to unify efforts, similar to UK Universities Procurement Consortia (UKUPC).
- Regional shared services should consider merging, where online working has removed the original advantage of a regional operation
  
  Non-profit operators in the same niche should merge to avoid unnecessary competition and improve service delivery. Merging can create more efficient, focused providers.
- Individual universities operating shared services should consider transferring ownership of their shared service to other organisations, but only when natural opportunities arise
  
  Universities should transfer shared services to sector agencies when it aligns naturally, allowing focus on core missions.
Government
- Government should implement one of BUFDG’s proposed improvements to VAT Cost Sharing Groups. This would create new opportunities for shared services in areas currently considered unworkable due to an additional 20% VAT charge.
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November 3, 2025
George Williams urges VCs to ‘aim higher’ – Campus Review

Universities are ‘friendless and alone’, Western Sydney University vice-chancellor George Williams explained in his new essay, that warns of the dangers of fading social license.

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November 2, 2025
Describing a Social Trend Is Not an Endorsement

In the essay “Misogyny and ‘Hoeflation’ at the National Association of Scholars” (Oct. 28, 2025) John K. Wilson takes aim at me and Minding the Campus.

He describes me generously as an “idiot,” but an influential one in the conservative movement. He misinterprets nearly every line of my essay “College Students in a Romance Recession, Boys Blame ‘Hoeflation.’”

His central charge is that I’m a misogynist. His evidence is that I use the word “hoeflation.” Using a term coined by others to describe a social trend does not mean I endorse it. Reporting or analyzing a phenomenon is not the same as condoning it.

In my essay, I wrote,

“And, unfortunately for men, dating algorithms concentrate attention on the top 10 percent—those deemed most attractive—rendering the majority effectively unseen. This imbalance has led young men to coin the term ‘hoeflation,’ the grind of chasing women they might barely fancy, but will date just to escape loneliness. (Young American men experience loneliness at rates far exceeding those of their counterparts across other developed countries.)”

This was an observation on what is being said among some young men. The term reflects a real cultural phenomenon: Many young men feel alienated from modern dating, seeing it as transactional, unequal or algorithmically stacked against them. It expresses their view that women’s expectations have risen out of reach.

Jared Gould is managing editor of Minding the Campus.

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November 2, 2025
Professor Dame Sally Mapstone on the role of the arts and humanities in global higher education

The post Professor Dame Sally Mapstone on the role of the arts and humanities in global higher education appeared first on The PIE News.

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October 31, 2025
Higher Education Inquirer : The US Government Shutdown: “Let Them Eat Cheese”
The stock market is up. Politicians beam on cable news about “economic resilience.” But on the ground, the picture looks very different. Jobs are scarce or unstable, rents keep rising, and food insecurity is back to 1980s levels. The government shutdown has hit federal workers, SNAP recipients, and service programs for the poor and disabled. And what does Washington offer the hungry? Cheese—literally and metaphorically.

Government cheese once symbolized a broken welfare system—a processed product handed out to the desperate while politicians preached self-reliance. Today’s version is digital and disembodied: food banks filled with castoffs, online portals for benefits that don’t come, “relief” programs that require a master’s degree to navigate. People are told to be grateful while they wait in line for what little is left.

Meanwhile, the headlines celebrate record-breaking stock prices and defense contracts. Billions flow abroad to Argentina, Ukraine, and Israel—especially Israel, where U.S. aid underwrites weapons used in what many describe as genocide in Palestine. Corporate media downplay it, politicians justify it, and dissenters are told they’re unpatriotic.

In the U.S., the old cry of “personal responsibility” masks the reality of neoliberal economics—a system that privatizes profit and socializes pain. When the government shuts down, it’s the poor who feel it first. The “educated underclass”—graduates burdened by debt, adjuncts working without benefits, laid-off professionals—are just a few missed paychecks away from standing in the same line for government cheese.

Yet many Americans don’t see who the real enemy is. They turn on one another—Democrats versus Republicans, urban versus rural, native-born versus immigrant—while the architects of austerity watch from gated communities. The spectacle distracts from the structural theft: trillions transferred upward, democracy traded for debt, justice sold to the highest bidder.

“Let them eat cheese” is no longer a historical joke. It’s the bipartisan message of a political class that rewards Wall Street while abandoning Main Street. And as long as the public stays divided, hungry, and distracted, the pantry of power remains locked.

Sources
- U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). “Household Food Insecurity in the United States in 2024.”
- Gary Roth. The Educated Underclass.
- Congressional Budget Office (CBO). “Economic Effects of a Government Shutdown.”
- Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. “Wealth Inequality and Stock Market Concentration.”
- The Intercept. “How U.S. Weapons and Aid Fuel the Assault on Gaza.”
- Associated Press. “Food Banks Report Record Demand Amid Inflation.”
- Jacobin Magazine. “Neoliberalism and the Return of American Austerity.”
- Reuters. “U.S. Sends Billions in Loans and Aid to Argentina.”
- Economic Policy Institute (EPI). “Wage Stagnation and the Cost of Living Crisis.”
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October 31, 2025
21 States, D.C. Ask Court to Reverse TRIO Grant Rejections

Twenty-one state attorneys general and the AG of Washington, D.C., filed briefs in support of lawsuits challenging the cancellation of TRIO grants for programs such as Upward Bound at Montgomery County Community College.

Linda Johnson/Montgomery County Community College

Democratic attorneys general from 21 states and Washington, D.C., filed briefs this week asking a court to reverse the Trump administration’s rejection of grants supporting TRIO programs, which help disadvantaged students attend and graduate from colleges and universities.

The Council for Opportunity in Education, which advocates for TRIO programs such as Upward Bound, said about 100 grants were rejected or canceled last month after the Education Department delayed funding for thousands of grants that were slated to begin Sept. 1. Another 23 programs lost funding earlier in the year.

Those terminations deprived more than 43,600 students of services such as tutoring and financial aid help. (Trump’s fiscal year 2026 budget request would end TRIO altogether, and all but a handful of staff in the TRIO grants office were fired early in the ongoing government shutdown.)

On Sept. 30, the Council filed two lawsuits against the department and Education Secretary Linda McMahon in the U.S. District Court for D.C., alleging that the department canceled grants for complying with the General Education Provisions Act Equity Directive—a requirement at the time of the applications. One suit argues the department faulted a University of New Hampshire application for allegedly saying its program would be “identifying and recruiting students of color and non-Caucasians.”

The Council is requesting preliminary injunctions vacating the department’s denials and ordering reconsideration of the grants. The attorneys general filed amicus briefs supporting this call.

“TRIO programs serving thousands of high-school and college students have closed, many of which have operated successfully for years with track records of success,” the briefs say. “Students who relied on these programs’ guidance and academic assistance are now being turned away. The result will be fewer students going to college and fewer students graduating college, to the detriment of impacted Amici States, their residents, and their economies.”

The AGs of Nevada and Massachusetts were the briefs’ lead authors; they were joined by their counterparts in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Hawai‘i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

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October 31, 2025
Trump’s Deportation Campaign Raises FAFSA Privacy Concerns

NCAN said mixed-status families must make their own decision regarding whether they feel comfortable filling out the FAFSA.

College access organizations are raising concerns about students from mixed-status families—families with members who hold different immigration statuses—who are filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign.

“Although the Higher Education Act prohibits the use of data for any purpose other than determining and awarding federal financial assistance, [the National College Attainment Network] cannot assure mixed-status students and families that data submitted to US Department of Education (ED), as part of the FAFSA process, will continue to be protected,” NCAN, which represents college access organizations across the nation, wrote in new guidance.

The organization added that the Office of Federal Student Aid has said the Education Department won’t share information that breaks the law.

But “we understand many families’ confidence in this statement may not be as certain under the current administration,” the organization continued. The post advised families to consider whether to submit a FAFSA on a “case-by-case basis.”

The organization had previously published similar guidance before President Donald Trump even took office but updated it after the 2026–27 FAFSA opened late last month. Zenia Henderson, chief program officer for NCAN, said the organization has received a slew of questions about the security of the personal information entered into the FAFSA, and many of its member organizations are reporting that some of the families they work with are forgoing the FAFSA out of fear.

Previously, the Trump administration has sought to use personal data from other agencies to assist in its deportation efforts, including requesting state voter rolls, public housing data, tax information and records of who applied for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Federal courts have blocked some of these requests.

The Trump administration has also attacked programs and initiatives that help undocumented students themselves access higher education. The administration has demanded states stop offering in-state tuition to undocumented students and has attempted to eliminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects from deportation certain undocumented individuals who were brought to the country as children and has opened the door to higher education for this group.

Other experts and advocacy groups agreed that there is cause for concern among mixed-status families.

“Concerns are very much warranted in light of how cross-agency collaboration has been weaponized against immigrant families in recent months—including but not limited to the ostensible collusion between the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to vacate active asylum cases when parents and children are lawfully appearing in immigration court, so that they can be apprehended on the premises by immigration enforcement and placed in detention,” wrote Faisal Al-Juburi, chief external affairs officer for RAICES, a nonprofit immigrant law center in Texas, in an email to Inside Higher Ed. “There is simply no indication that the Trump administration will adhere to legal precedent.”

Will Davies, director of policy and research for Breakthrough Central Texas, a college access organization, noted in an email to Inside Higher Ed that, even though the Trump administration’s immigration attacks have been especially worrying for mixed-status families, such families have long had to make difficult decisions about when to submit personal information to the government.

He also noted that FAFSA data is protected by the Privacy Act of 1974 and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and said that, to his knowledge, no undocumented parent has ever been targeted using FAFSA data.

Cutting Off Access

For many families, the choice is not as clear-cut as simply not filling out the FAFSA. Most institutions and states calculate their financial aid offerings using the FAFSA’s formula and require students to fill out the FAFSA to take advantage of that aid. If mixed-status families do not complete the FAFSA, they are essentially cutting themselves off from almost all sources of assistance in paying for college.

“It has the potential to close a lot of doors in terms of accessing aid that’s needed, from last-dollar scholarships to merit-based scholarships,” Henderson said. “There are so many folks that ask for FAFSA information and that [the] application be competed in order to check eligibility, because they may not have their own systems or processes in place. FAFSA really is the default way to prove need.”

Three states—California, New York and Washington—have developed their own financial need calculation tools for individuals who want to be considered only for state and local aid. All three address privacy concerns, stating specifically that the data will not be provided to the federal government without a court order.

“The opportunity to pursue an education is highly valued, and financial aid is the only way many students can afford college or training,” the Washington Student Achievement Council wrote in a message, released days after Trump entered office, about aid applicant privacy. WSAC administers Washington’s state aid calculator.

“We sympathize deeply with anyone concerned about their privacy in applying for financial aid, and we support students and families in making decisions that best fit their educational goals and risk considerations. While WSAC cannot provide guidance on what a family should do in a specific situation, we do encourage students, families, educators, and advocates to review the following resources that may provide helpful information.”

Alison De Lucca, executive director of the Southern California College Attainment Network, told Inside Higher Ed in an email that her organization is working with several families who are uncertain if they will fill out the FAFSA this year; an estimated one in every five individuals under the age of 18 in California comes from a mixed-status family.

One SoCal CAN student opted to fill out just California’s state aid form, the California Dream Act Application, this year in order to protect her mother—even though she thought she might have benefited from federal aid.

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October 31, 2025
Valley Forge Military College Wants to Sign Compact

While seven of the nine universities originally invited to join the Trump administration’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” have formally rejected the agreement, Valley Forge Military College wants to sign on to the proposal, as first reported by Fox News.

President Donald Trump extended the invitation to all colleges after initial rejections from institutions that objected to provisions in the compact that would limit academic freedom.

The compact would require universities to suppress criticism of conservatives on campus, cap international enrollment at 15 percent, freeze tuition, overhaul admissions and hiring practices, and make various other changes in return for preferential treatment on federal research funding.

Now Valley Forge, a private two-year college in Pennsylvania, wants in on the compact.

“Participation in the Compact would provide valuable opportunities for collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement. We are particularly eager to contribute to discussions on leadership education, student resilience, and pathways from two-year programs to four-year institutions,” officials wrote to the Education Department. “These are areas in which Valley Forge has developed effective practices and measurable outcomes that could benefit peer institutions.”

Universities in the initial invitation were all research-focused, and the appeal from U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon emphasized the benefits of signing on, which would include “allowance for increased overhead payments where feasible, substantial and meaningful federal grants, and other federal partnerships.”

It is unclear how Valley Forge, which does not have a research focus, would benefit. The college is also much smaller than the first invitees, enrolling 86 students in fall 2023, according to federal data.

Valley Forge is now the third institution to publicly express interest in signing the compact since the invitation was expanded, following Grand Canyon University and New College of Florida.

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October 31, 2025
Higher Ed Tech Leaders Pursue Consolidation and Savings
NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Talk of what’s possible with AI permeated conversations this week among the 7,000 attendees at Educause, the sector’s leading education-technology conference. But amid the product demos, corporate swag and new feature launches, higher ed’s technology and data leaders expressed caution about investing in new tech.

They said that budget constraints, economic uncertainty and understaffed technology teams were forcing them to seek a clear return on investment in new tools rather than quick-fix purchases. And as tech leaders look to the coming year, they say the human side of data, cybersecurity and AI will be the focus of their work.

Educause researchers at the event announced the 2026 Educause Top 10, a list of key focus areas they compiled based on interviews with leaders, expert panel recommendations and a survey of technology leaders at 450 institutions. The results underline how uncertainty around federal funding, economic instability and political upheaval is making it hard for leaders to plan.
The 2026 Educause Top 10

Collaborative Cybersecurity

The Human Edge of AI

Data Analytics for Operational and Financial Insights

Building a Data-Centric Culture Across the Institution

Knowledge Management for Safer AI

Measure Approaches to New Technologies

Technology Literacy for the Future Workforce

From Reactive to Proactive

AI-Enabled Efficiencies and Growth

Decision-Maker Data Skills and Literacy
For example, No. 6 on the list is “Measured Approaches to New Technologies.” Leaders say they intend to “make better technology investment decisions (or choosing not to invest) through clear cost, ROI and legacy systems assessments.”

Presenting the top 10 in a cavernous ballroom in the Music City conference center, Mark McCormack, senior director of research and insights at Educause, said leaders feel pressure to make smart investments and stay on top of rapid advancements in technology. “The technology marketplace is evolving so quickly and institutions feel a pressure to keep up, but that pressure to keep up can lead to less optimal approaches to technology purchasing and implementation,” he said.

“From some of our other Educuase research we know that quick fixes and reactive purchases often lead to technical debt and poor interoperability and additional strains on our technology teams,” he added. “That’s just not sustainable, especially with our tight budgets and our capacity, so we need to make decisions based on a clear understanding of cost and value.”

No. 3 on the list, “Data Analytics for Operational and Financial Insights,” indicated technology leaders will respond to intensifying financial pressures through better data analysis. “Cuts to federal funding, enrollment trends, public skepticism about the value of a degree—so many of us are feeling that weight right now, and in this kind of environment our institutions are turning to data as a guide to help them navigate some complicated decisions,” McCormack said.

Data can also help colleges identify priority areas for investment, such as enrollment targets, compliance requirements or areas of programmatic growth, he noted. “But our data can also guide conversations about where to scale back, and we need to be able to distinguish between high-impact priorities and areas that may no longer align with the institution’s direction.”

Commenting on the top 10, Brandon Rich, director of AI enablement at the University of Notre Dame, said his institution is using AI to navigate tight budgets. “With the budget challenges we face, we see AI as a possible way to move forward and create efficiencies,” he said during a mainstage panel.

Speaking with Inside Higher Ed, Nicole Engelbert, vice president of product strategy for student systems at Oracle, said colleges are reviewing their tech ecosystems more critically. “Institutions are looking to streamline, consolidate, shop their closet, because any dollar spent on extraneous technology is a dollar that isn’t going to be spent for research, student aid, recruitment, classes, faculty—all the things that make an institution healthy and vibrant,” she said.

She expects the current political and economic climate will dissuade institutions from taking on expensive, transformational projects. “Making big changes on your payroll, on your general ledger, on your student enrollment takes huge amounts of psychic energy from a large population, and that population right now is very weary. They’re exhausted by the last year,” she said.

One silver lining of higher ed’s financial uncertainty could be a shift toward more tactical forward planning, Engelbert said. “I hope there’s this new period where we look at transformation projects or technology projects more strategically, more critically,” she said.

Collective Will, Individual Capabilities

Other priorities on the Educause top 10 look similar to those from previous years: Improved cybersecurity, better data and data governance, and harnessing the power of AI are issues that have appeared on the list for the past five years.

But Educause researchers say this year’s study shows leaders’ focus has shifted from infrastructure and platforms to the humans working with these systems. They break the list into two themes: collective will—connecting resources and knowledge across departments to “shape a shared institutionwide perspective”—and individual capabilities, or training and empowering people to realize the “net benefits” of the technologies and data on campus.

“The thing that we saw that was very different is that … even as technology is skyrocketing, changing everything we do, we as higher education need to remember our humanity and lead with that because that’s what makes us resilient,” said Crista Copp, vice president of research at Educause.

No. 1 on the list is “Collaborative Cybersecurity,” reflecting institutions’ urgency to safeguard their expanding digital borders.

“The ecosystem is becoming a lot more distributed across devices and locations. That person who’s using their device logging in to that system from, you know, a coffee shop or wherever, they’re becoming more and more important to be educated and equipped to do that safely,” McCormack told Inside Higher Ed.

“The other thing that did come up is an acknowledgment that as our tools are becoming more sophisticated … those threat actors are becoming more sophisticated as well.”

Institutional data and how it is managed will also be a priority for technology leaders in 2026, according to the list. “Data Analytics for Operational and Financial Insights” is No. 3, “Building a Data-Centric Culture Across the Institution” is No. 4, and “Decision-Maker Data Skills and Literacy” comes in at No. 10.

Copp said these issues suggest institutions will be tackling data from different angles. “It’s this triad of ‘Oh my gosh, we have all this information. And we don’t have it organized properly. We don’t know how to interpret it properly. And then we don’t know what to do with it,” she said. “I found it really interesting that … we saw three sides of the same thing.”

AI-related issues also appear three times on the list: “The Human Edge of AI” at No. 2, “Knowledge Management for Safer AI” at No. 5 and “AI-Enabled Efficiencies and Growth” at No. 9. The growing focus on improving AI across institutions also represents a shift in what’s needed in the higher education workforce.

“I think everyone, regardless if you’re in higher education or not, [is] facing workforce changes. And part of that is, who do we want to be? And we need to define [that],” she said. “No. 2 [on the list] … is the human edge of AI and it’s, ‘Although we expect you to use AI, we want you to come as a person first, because that’s what education is all about.’”
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October 31, 2025