A long time ago, in a European country far, far away, the notion was stirring that learning might get you somewhere in life. (This was already known in other parts of the world, as my posts on Taxila, Nalanda, Fez and Al-Azhar show.) One place in which there were plenty of learned men from who to learn was Bologna, and it is to there that we travel today.
This is the eleventh century (that is, years beginning with 10xx CE) and Bologna was a centre for the study of law, because it was itself the centre of some controversy. Having been part of the Carolingian empire, it seems that the city – and others like it – were wanting more autonomy. (After all, there were some alps between them and Aachen, so out-of-sight, out-of-mind, I guess.) But it was also in the buffer zone between the papacy and the Holy Roman Emperor. So they needed to grow lawyers to try to keep disputes in courts and not on battlefields.
Students travelled to Bologna to study under these men, in what were private arrangements (that is, not under forms established by the state). Now, at that time, Bologna’s laws included collective punishment for crimes committed by foreigners (that is, if a foreigner committed a crime, all of those in Bologna from that nationality were liable for punishment.) Students – to protect themselves – formed collectives, known as nations; and these nations then became the groups who hired professors to teach.
The students were definitely in charge, policing teachers’ attendance and punctuality in delivering lectures and requiring of teachers an oath to obey the students. Eventually the nations grouped together still further, forming what was known as a studium. From this position of strength they were able to negotiate collectively with the city itself, and collective punishment was dropped.
It seems, by the way, that the studium was established in 1088; this is the date now mostly used for the establishment of the university, although charters and so forth didn’t come until later. And after the studium had been established, the teachers also sought to rebalance the power, and formed collegia doctorum, or doctors’ committees in each subject area. This enabled them to assert the right to set examination fees and to determine the criteria for admission to a degree. The different elements of a university were beginning to come into place.
Now, I’m not a historian, and I’m definitely not a historian of the Holy Roman Empire, so to be honest the to-ing and fro-ing at this point gets a bit much for me. There were contests – some bloody, some wordy – between the papacy and the empire; sometimes one was on top, sometimes the other; the city states in the north of Italy grew in strength and autonomy; there were changes in leaders, plots and all sorts. Guelphs and Ghibellines, that sort of thing. Suffice to say that the University of Bologna was ultimately a beneficiary, gaining the emperor’s protection, and a charter (1158). And so the de facto university became one de jure.
In 1219 the Pope – Honarius III – muscled in, insisting that the archdeacon of Bologna was the only office empowered to award the licentia docendi, or permission to teach. By 1278 the city of Bologna became part of the papal states – no longer under the Holy Roman Emperor – and in 1291 the licentia docendi of Bologna was ruled as being valid anywhere. At this time only law graduates could get a licentia docendi; as a few years later arts graduates could also gain the license to teach.
Also at this time, the students of the other faculties – rhetoric, notary, medicine and philosophy – set up their own university in the city. No conditions of registration for them!
In the following century there was yet more strife, and the politics impacted upon Bologna. This is the period when there was a Pope in Avignon and an Anti-Pope in Rome. To cement power, the Pope sent a legate who ruled in Bologna, and ruled despotically. Ownership of the city changed hands several times, but the influence of the university continued: teachers were often selected for fulfilling government and religious office. And in 1381 the city took action against the studium. Four Reformers of the Studium were to be elected each year, who would agree the contracts with teachers; the curricula and the subjects to be taught, and who would appoint the Punctator, the person in charge of ensuring the proper functioning of the university. The university had very much become a civic creature. And, for those so minded, there are some splendid role titles to consider resurrecting.
Bologna was changing. As new forms of government were enacted in the late 1300s, the city became more self-confident, and also more insular. University teachers were put on the public payroll, and with a very few exceptions only Bolognese citizens could teach at the university. This led over time, inevitably, to a decline in the quality of the teaching and education at Bologna.
One feature of the University Bologna at this stage which, to modern minds seems very odd, is that it didn’t have central premises. Teaching took place in private houses or rented halls – a throwback to the days of students hiring professors. This changed in the mid-16th century, as part of the more general rebuilding of the centre of Bologna. But is also enabled greater control over the university by the city authorities.
Over the next couple of centuries the university was also drawn into the counter-reformation, with scholars leaving the university, and more timid academic appointments being made (Galileo Galilei passed over for the professorship of astronomy, for instance.)
In the 1600’s, the university went further into a decline. Professorships salaries increased, and they became even more seen as a sinecure for local noble families. It is suggested by the University’s own history that at one point there were four professors for each student. But not many of them were any good. As the university ossified, and teaching stagnated in line with the doctrinal positions of a very conservative church, a few students sought to change things. The Academy of the Restless was established – a private club for discussion. In time this became part of the Academy of Sciences of the institute of Bologna: intellectual life was thriving, despite the university!
Fast forward to the late 1700s, and revolution was in the air. Failed, in Bologna, but alive in France. In 1796 French troops entered Bologna, overthrowing the existing government. Reform of the university and its curriculum followed, as well as a move to new buildings. Italy was having a turbulent century, but as the modern state gradually coalesced, the University adopted more and more modern practices, with new faculties covering more branches of knowledge.
The University was ingloriously fascist led during Mussolini’s reign; and the later twentieth century was also marked by disputes and unrest. But it was also a time for intellectual ferment and reinvention. In 1988, at its 900th anniversary celebrations, hundreds of university presidents, vice-chancellors and rectors from around the world signed the Magna Charta Universitatum; and the process of harmonization of European university qualifications is named the Bologna process in part after the university.
This is an inadequate telling of the university’s story, but it isn’t, I think, fundamentally wrong. The University’s website has much detail, and probably reads better in Italian.
And a positive note: despite its being overwhelmingly male for most of its history, the university hasn’t been entirely so. In 1237 Bettisia Gozzadini graduated in law from the university, and in 1239 was appointed lecturer. And in 1732 Laura Bassi became the first woman to be awarded a doctorate in science, and only the second to be awarded a PhD.
One final thing to say: matriculation at Bologna looks a lot more fun than enrolment at most UK universities is today. A basket of hats! A lion! Minerva! No wonder they’re all queuing nicely.
The card was sent ‘Alla Gentil Signorina Lina Mattia, via S Stefano 36, Bologna” in the most wonderful copperplate. It was sent in the days before split-back cards so there’s no message, or anything to indicate who it is from. If I can read the postmark correctly, it was posted on 28 September 1899. Here’s a jigsaw of the card – hope you enjoy it.
The radio program/podcast Marketplace hosted me as a guest last week to speak to the question. You can listen to it* or read my notes below, or both. I have one reflection at the end of this post building on one interview question.
One caveat or clarification before I get hate mail: the focus of the show was entirely on higher education’s economics. We didn’t discuss the non-financial functions of post-secondary schooling because that’s not what the show (called “Marketplace”) is about, nor did we talk about justifying academic study for reasons of personal development, family formation, the public good, etc. The conversation was devoted strictly to the economic proposition.
The hosts, Kimberly Adams and Reema Khrais, began by asking if higher ed still made financial sense. Yes, I answered, for a good number of people – but not everyone. Much depends on your degree and your institution’s reputation. And I hammered home the problem of some college but no degree. The hosts asked if that value proposition was declining. My response: the perception of that value is dropping. Here I emphasized the reality, and the specter, of student debt, along with anxieties about AI and politics. Then I added my hypothesis that the “college for all” consensus is breaking up.
Next the hosts asked me what changing (declining) attitudes about higher education mean for campuses. I responded by outlining the many problems, centered around the financial pressures many schools are under. I noted Trump’s damages then cited my peak higher education model. Marketplace asked me to explain the appeal of alternatives to college (the skilled trades, certificates, boot camps, etc), which I did, and then we turned to automation, which I broke up into AI vs robotics, before noting gender differences.
Back to college for all: which narrative succeeds it? I didn’t have a good, single answer right away. We touched on a resurgence of vocational technology, then I sang the praises of liberal education. We also talked about the changing value of different degrees – is the BA the new high school diploma? Is a master’s degree still a good idea? I cited the move to reduce degree demands from certain fields, as well as the decline of the humanities, the crisis of computer science, and the growing importance of allied health.
After my part ended, Adams and Khrais pondered the role of higher education as a culture war battlefield. Different populations might respond in varied ways – perhaps adults are more into the culture war issues, and maybe women (already the majority of students) are at greater risk of automation.
So what follows the end of college for all?
If the American consensus that K-12 should prepare every student for college breaks down, if we no longer have a rough agreement that the more post-secondary experience people get, the better, the next phase seems to be… mixed. Perhaps we’re entering an intermediary phase before a new settlement becomes clear.
One component seems to be a resurgence in the skilled trades, requiring either apprenticeship, a short community college course of study, or on the job training. Demand is still solid, at least until robotics become reliable and cost-effective in these fields, which doesn’t seem to be happening in at least the short term. This needs preparation in K-12, and we’re already seeing the most prominent voices calling for a return to secondary school trades training. There’s a retro dimension to this which might appeal to older folks. (I’ve experienced this in conversations with Boomers and my fellow Gen Xers, as people reminisce about shop class and home ec.)
A second piece of the puzzle would be businesses and the public sector expanding their education functions. There is already an ecosystem of corporate campuses, online training, chief learning officers, and more; that could simply grow as employers seek to wean employees away from college.
A third might be a greater focus on skills across the board. Employers demand certain skills to a higher degree of clarity, perhaps including measurements for soft skills. K-12 schools better articulate student skill achievement, possibly through microcredentials and/or expanded (portfolio) certification. Higher education expands its use of prior learning assessment for adult learners and transfer students, while also following or paralleling K-12 in more clearly identifying skills within the curriculum and through outcomes.
A fourth would be greater politicization of higher education. If America pulls back from college for all, college for some arrives and the question of who gets to go to campus becomes a culture war battlefield. Already a solid majority of students are women, so we might expect gender politics to intensify, with Republicans and men’s rights activists increasingly calling on male teenagers to skip college while young women view university as an even more appropriate stage of their lives. Academics might buck 2025’s trends and more clearly proclaim the progressive aims they see postsecondary education fulfilling, joined by progressive politicians and cultural figures. Popular culture might echo this, with movies/TV shows/songs/bestsellers depicting the academy as either a grim ideological factory turning students into fiery liberals or as a safe place for the flowering of justice and identity.
Connecting these elements makes me recall and imagine stories. I can envision two teenagers, male and female, talking through their expectations of college. One sees it as mandatory “pink collar” preparation while the other dreads it for that reason. The former was tracked into academic classes while the latter appreciated maker space time and field trips to work sites. Or we might follow a young man as he enters woodworking and succeeds in that field for years, feeling himself supported in his masculinity and also avoiding student debt, until he decides to return to school after health problems limit his professional abilities. Perhaps one business sets up a campus and an apprenticeship system which it codes politically, such as claiming a focus on merit and not DEI, on manly virtues and traditional culture. In contrast another firm does the same but without any political coding, instead carefully anchoring everything in measured and certified skill development.
Over all of these options looms the specter of AI, and here the picture is more muddy. Do “pink collar” jobs persist as alternatives to the experience of chatbots, or do we automate those functions? Does post-secondary education become mandatory for jobs handling AIs, which I’ve been calling “AI wranglers”? If automation depresses the labor force, do we come to see college as a gamble on scoring a rare, well paying job?
I’ll stop here. My thanks to Marketplace for the kind interview on a vital topic.
*My audio quality isn’t the best because I fumbled the recording. Sigh.
The recent decision by the American Council on Education and the Carnegie Foundation to simplify the classification of research universities may have been well meaning, but it represents a serious misstep with consequential results.
By reducing a comprehensive system of research metrics down to just two—in order to gain coveted R-1 status, an institution must now spend $50 million annually on research and award 70 research doctorates per year—ACE has fundamentally changed what it means to be a top-tier research institution. The shift away from more holistically evaluating research activity risks distorting public understanding and perception of university excellence while incentivizing behavior that undermines long-term research creativity and innovation.
To most effectively appreciate the importance of this change, it is helpful to trace the history of the Carnegie classification system. Initially conceived in 1973 by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, the system was intended as a tool to support research and policymaking by categorizing U.S. colleges and universities according to their missions and output.
Over the decades, the classification system has become a trusted compendium for the public, media and higher education community. Designations such as “R-1” (which historically stood for “Doctoral University—Very High Research Activity”) and “R-2” (“Doctoral University—High Research Activity”) gained prominence, indicating robust levels of scholarly productivity, research funding, doctoral education and infrastructure.
The methodology used for the 2021 classifications (the most recent until this year) involved a suite of indicators that aimed to quantify research excellence, with partial normalization for institutional size. These included total research expenditures in science and engineering, research expenditures in non–science and engineering fields, science and engineering research personnel size (postdoctoral appointees and other nonfaculty Ph.D. researchers), and the number of doctoral degrees awarded annually in humanities, social sciences, STEM fields and other fields like business and education.
A principal components analysis then allowed for the creation of indices representing both total and per-capita research activity, enabling close and equitable comparisons across different institutions. This methodology was, in many ways, one of the most comprehensive and encompassing frameworks to date, providing a statistical assessment of American research universities founded on publicly available data.
For the 2025 classifications, however, the landscape changed. With ACE’s leadership, the Carnegie Foundation developed a new framework that substantially simplifies the standards for achieving flagship research status. The revised criteria focus on just the two metrics mentioned above: Institutions must spend at least $50 million annually on research activities and award at least 70 research doctorates per year. Institutions qualifying on both criteria are R-1; those that fail to qualify but spend at least $5 million on research activities and award at least 20 research doctorates are R-2. These terms now stand for very high and high “spending and doctoral production,” respectively, and not the previously used very high and high “research activity.”
This change may appear technical, but it removes numerous subtle measures of academic involvement and output and represents a profound shift in values. Under the previous activity-based framework, institutions were rewarded for building a diverse research ecosystem across a range of disciplines. Now, the metric has been reduced to total money spent and degrees awarded—inputs and outputs that do not necessarily equate to research excellence.
Moreover, this move opens the door for institutions to “teach to the test.” Rather than pursuing organic growth in their research missions, universities may instead make tactical investments to reach the magic numbers needed for R-1 status. This situation is a textbook case of Goodhart’s law: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”
By selecting just two metrics to assess national standing, the classification system invites institutions to game the criteria, boosting research spending and degree output not necessarily through improved research performance but administrative and accounting shifts. This oversimplification of a complex and holistic evaluation tool can have unintended consequences, such as distorting institutional priorities and stifling the motivation to invest in long-term, mission-driven scholarship.
Unfortunately, proof of this phenomenon is already visible. A cursory search of the internet will reveal multiple universities that have recently announced their elevation to R-1 status: More than 40 new institutions gained R-1 status under the revised criteria. While many have made commendable progress, it’s worth noting that their elevation to “elite” research status occurred not as a result of a significant shift in scholarly output, but because they met the two quantitative benchmarks.
The concern is not that these institutions shouldn’t be proud of their growth—it’s that the public will now assume parity between these universities and others whose research footprints are significantly deeper, broader and more globally impactful. ACE has effectively redefined what it means to be an “R-1” institution without clearly communicating that this designation no longer reflects the same type of achievement it once did.
To prevent confusion and preserve the integrity of the classification system, ACE and the Carnegie Foundation should consider rebranding the new categories to reflect their true nature. Rather than continuing to use the historically meaningful “R-1” and “R-2” terms, a more accurate labeling system might be RS-1 and RS-2, signifying “research spending.” This small change would clarify for stakeholders that these categories are now based largely on spending thresholds, not a holistic measure of research activity.
Whereas simplification may make the classifications more politically appealing and easier to administer, it does so at the cost of such vital ingredients as analytical comprehensiveness, contextual responsiveness and evaluative accuracy. To appropriately recognize and support genuine centers of research excellence, it is imperative to adopt a multidimensional evaluative framework—one that ideally encompasses not only research expenditures and doctoral degree program productivity, but also incorporates measures of scholarly impact, the quality of research publications, the development of research infrastructure and the extent of faculty engagement in research activities.
Also, to balance the structural advantages of larger institutions, appropriate normalization factors—such as costs per faculty member, publications per capita and doctoral degrees per research-active department—must be factored in. The 2021 classification model better reflected such a comprehensive and equitable approach, in contrast to the more reductive orientation observed in the 2025 iteration.
In order to preserve the integrity of American research universities as engines of discovery and innovation, their evaluation should be grounded in objective scholarly metrics that meaningfully reflect institutional excellence in research. Given the multifaceted nature of research excellence, our classification systems should be equally nuanced and comprehensive.
G. Dale Wesson is the dean and director of land-grant programs at Florida A&M University’s College of Agriculture and Food Science. He holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Michigan State University, an M.S. in chemical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and a B.S. in chemical engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology.
Over 820,000 undergraduates are connected to the U.S. military, including those who are actively serving or enlisted in the National Guard, former service members and spouses, or dependents of military service members.
The University of Texas at San Antonio, located in Military City USA, serves over 5,000 military-affiliated students, including veterans, service members and their families, in a region that has the largest concentration of military bases in the country.
In the most recent episode of Voices of Student Success, host Ashley Mowreader speaks with Michael Logan, UTSA’s senior director for veteran and military affairs and a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, about supporting military-affiliated students through their transition into higher ed and the role of community in student veteran retention.
An edited version of the podcast appears below.
Q: Can you set the playing field for people who might not be familiar with San Antonio and the region and how that impacts your military-affiliated students?
Michael Logan, senior director for veteran and military affairs.
University of Texas San Antonio
A: It’s interesting, because the branding of the city, or the trademark, is Military City USA, and that’s not hyperbole when you consider not just the active-duty components that are here, but how many veterans retire to this area.
It’s not just the folks that are here because [the Department of Defense] is making them be here, but it’s a destination. In the county alone, there are about 100,000 veterans. If you expand into the Alamo area, Council of Governments region, it gets up to about 250,000 veterans. So you have to think, it’s not just the veterans, it’s the veterans’ spouses, all the dependents, all the family members. And so the number is probably three times that that we’re actually serving.
Q: That’s crazy, just the sheer number of people. I wonder if you can tie into this population of military-affiliated students at the university. Obviously you have veterans and then those, like you mentioned, family members, dependents. But then there’s also students who are currently engaged in the military.
A: You’ll notice if you look at our website, we lean away from using “veteran” in our terminology even in our center for military-affiliated students, and that’s intentional. Because we have so many different military-connected students that are not specifically in that veteran category. We do have a lot of National Guard and military reserve members; we do have a lot of activity duty. In fact, the family members probably outnumber the veterans and active duty two to one.
So for us, it was very important that the entire military-connected population understood that we were here to support everybody and not just that narrow swath of just those who had previously worn the uniform.
Q:When we are thinking about those students who are associated more directly with military service, so student veterans, ROTC or currently enlisted, can you talk a little bit about some of those challenges or opportunities when military-affiliated learners engage with higher education and how they look different from maybe your traditional learner on campus?
A: That’s a very good question, and I learn something every day, too. Even as someone who did time on active duty, I wasn’t doing those things simultaneously.
But what’s very interesting to me is having to articulate to folks who are not vets or not military-connected that military is a culture. So when we’re talking about validating everybody’s experiences in the classroom and making sure that we’re digging into the full richness and depth of experiences to really give everyone the best possible collegiate experience, we can’t discount military service as a separate and distinct culture.
I think what has happened previously is that there was concern where maybe a student was reframing things they were learning in their military context, and the instructor might have been thinking, “Well, you’re not getting it. I’m trying to get you to think this certain way, but you keep defaulting it back to your military context.” And then that leads to a conversation that I’ll eventually have with the instructor that talks about, “Well, the reason why this is happening is because categorically and demonstrably military service is a culture.”
I actually did research on that back in 2019, and again in 2024, we did a quantitative study. I did it with some student veterans who were graduate students here at the university, where we were able to empirically demonstrate that veteran itself is a culture.
You are all your intersectional identities, but once you’ve served and once you’ve had that military service experience, you experience all of those pieces of yourself through the lens of that military service. And so of course, when you’re teaching somebody something, when they contextualize it, it’s going to be through the lens that they see everything else, including their own identity.
Q: I’m the daughter of two veterans, and it’s funny, I remember being in high school, and the word “squad” was really trendy with young people at that time, and my mom was like, “Squad? That’s a military term. Like, what do you mean, your squad? Like, your squadron? What’s happening?” Even in the daily words that we use, there’s this affiliation that’s always going to come back to people.
So when we talk about supporting students that are military affiliated on campus, can you walk us through some of the programs and offerings that you all have?
A: There’s many, and some of them are more focused on traditional academic outcomes; we’ve got resources specific for individual tutoring.
We recognize that we have a very large relative population of veterans using what’s called veteran readiness and employment, which means they’re disabled veterans. We have over 430 of those on our campus, so we have more just from that group than most campuses have veterans. So we’re very intentional about providing services that are, first of all, diverse enough to cover all the different conditions, visible and invisible, that might be barriers to success academically.
The activities that I’m most proud of are the ones that are more impactful and [contribute] directly toward sense of belonging and community building. Because I think if you don’t have a strong sense of belonging, and you don’t have a visible and established community, then you’re not going to get true engagement. You’re just going to get a veteran or a family member that shows up, goes to the class, absorbs the information, goes home, but they’re not really engaging with their peers on campus, or campus culture. They’re not getting the other 50 percent of why you go to college, which is to develop social capital and be exposed to ideas that are new and different than your own.
Some of the programs that we’ve put together on that front are something we call Coffee With Vets, which is a very informal mixer that we do every second Wednesday of the month. When I say Coffee With Vets, you’ll notice I didn’t say with student vets, right? Because it’s for the entire veteran community. We have over 200 employees that wore the uniform as well, and it’s not uncommon to see students, employees, people from the community, stakeholders, that use that event as an opportunity to just be seen and get to know people.
I think what we’re guilty of, myself included, is that a veteran might look at a resource and think, “I don’t need that today, so it’s not relevant to me,” and then when they do need it, then there’s this issue with trust: “I’m only going to engage with something I trust.” And so Coffee With Vets is an opportunity for someone like me to maybe engage with VA [U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs] staff. And even though I may not need what they’re doing right now, I may need it in six months or a year, and I’m going to remember that person that I commiserated with over a bacon-covered doughnut and some Black Rifle coffee. I’m much more willing to engage in whatever that support is.
That’s just one example. And the reason why we do that, the reason why we emphasize community building and building that trust is because when you look at some of the barriers to completion and matriculation, a lot of them are vets putting something off or not engaging with something. So if we can minimize hesitation and maximize trust, then we can get those vets to fully utilize the wraparound services that we provide and ultimately be successful, not just in school, but beyond school, because they’re only here for a little while. And what we’re trying to do is set them up for success in the future.
Q: I’m so glad that you mentioned that role of helping students see that resources might be useful later on. Because one of the common barriers that we hear from student veterans is that the military is so structured and that there’s so much told to them about what your next step is and where you’re going to go and what your job is, that when you come to higher ed, you really have to find a sense of self-advocacy and start finding things on your own that might just be unfamiliar or different.
I love that you all provide a space for students to explore but also be connected with people who think like they do and understand that it might be a totally different culture change to have somebody like you have to ask for help sometimes.
A: The two things you bring up are advocacy and what I like to call cultural considerations. I don’t like to say cultural competency, because that implies incompetency. It’s not incompetency, it’s just cultivated.
Advocacy is a big thing. There’s a significant amount of my time spent doing that, sometimes at the request of veterans, sometimes not. Sometimes it’s because I need to help the veteran figure out how to learn to live in the world that they’re in now. But it’s not uncommon for me to have a veteran reach out and say, “I want to have this conversation with an instructor, but I don’t know how to do it without coming across as just super aggressive or knife handing or using the F-word as a comma,” which sometimes they’re still in the habit of doing. But they’re self-aware, right? So they’re coming in, they’re asking, “I don’t want the message to get lost in how I’m delivering it. So please help me.” And we’ll do that.
But the other side of that is also the self-advocacy piece, which I’m glad you mentioned, too, because there’s just, like you said, when you’re on active duty, there’s somebody who’s responsible for you. As you mentioned, you’ve got a squad leader, you’ve got a battle buddy, you’ve got somebody, even when you check into a base, somebody walks you around and shows you everything. And that’s just not the case in higher ed.
You may not know what Student Disability Services is. You may not know that if you have a 50 percent or higher [disability] rating, you get free [ADA] surface parking. So here you are paying for it. Or testing accommodations—just all these different things that vets are leaving on the table, and it’s hurting them in some form or fashion, because they’re not able to maximize their potential.
It’s a weird tightrope where we’re trying to figure out, “How do we give them all this information, but in a way where it’s not like sipping water from a fire hose or this is going to be information dumped five minutes later?” We have to be very, very intentional about parceling out that information.
We kind of do it in layers. First, here’s who we are, then if you have an interest in these things categorically, and then it eventually it gets into the into the weeds of things. But that’s actually been very successful for us.
As a matter of fact, we asked some of our vets, “Hey, what do you wish you would have known the first day, now that you’re here towards the end, what do you wish you would have known?” And they actually put together a booklet that has everything that they all said: “Here’s what would have been super helpful on day one to know.” So now that’s turned into something that our student vets maintain.
My transition off of active duty was—I’m going to date myself here—over 20 years ago, probably over 25 years ago. My experiences and my needs are very, very different than a service member becoming a veteran in the year 2025. So it’s very important that we maintain that close connection with these subsequent cohorts of veterans that are showing up on our campus and giving them the agency to drive—“Here’s the information we need, so hey, please provide it.”
That requires a lot of psychological safety on behalf of my staff, because you get that thought about, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But at the same time, something that was relevant two years ago may not be relevant to the folks that are getting out in a very different environment.
Q: You touched on this a little bit earlier, but I think just having that staff that has military experience or military affiliation as well can be really helpful. And like you said, translating to higher education, but also understanding, like, even if it’s not right now, what service members might need, but having a little bit of empathy for that circumstance and what they might be transitioning through.
A: I agree with that 100 percent. All of the staff members that I have today in summer of ’25 I had in fall of 2018, every single one of them. I haven’t lost anybody through COVID—if you’re in Texas, Snowvid—or the great resignation.
I think that is a very clear indicator of the orientation of my staff. We’re all military connected, either veterans or family members themselves, and they’re here because the work that we do here is what fills our cup.
As a matter of fact, we have a purpose statement that is taped up everywhere, and it’s derived from an old story about President Kennedy visiting NASA. He sees a janitor, and he asks the janitor, “Hey, what do you do here?” And the janitor says, “I’m helping put someone on the moon.”
We’ve adapted that, and if you were to walk into UTSA Center for Military Affiliated Students and you see somebody shredding paper or filing or helping a student all across the range of things we could be doing, and you ask them, “Hey, what are you doing here?” The answer is going to be “I’m trying to provide a level of support for students that I wish I would have had for myself.”
Q: I wanted to talk a little bit about careers, because military students often come in with lots of life and career experience, but often enter higher education as a pivot or as an exploration of doing something else. I wonder if you can talk about navigating that space and understanding where higher education is a bridge for military-affiliated students.
A: That’s a tricky one in that you’re right, some of them come in and that pivot sometimes is intentional. If you look at our chief information officer [Kendra Ketchum], who was a Navy corpsman, and then postmilitary pivoted into, she’s our CIO.
But I think what’s very important when trying to help a service member navigate what they’re going to do with their higher education experience is you have to ask almost the five whys. If you’re familiar with Lean, you know what the five whys are. If you have a toddler, you know what five whys are.
But if you ask a vet, “Hey, why are you here?” The first answer you’re probably going to get is, “Because you’re supposed to use the GI Bill.” That’s what you’re told. You leave active duty, you go to college, you use the GI Bill.
“So what do you want to get out of it?”
“I wanted to get a degree and get a good job.”
But really, what it comes back to is trying to get them to be reflective on who it is you want to be, rather than what it is you want to do. What we uncover is that most veterans are looking for two things: to continue serving and community.
So once we figure out what that piece is for them, it’s a lot easier to guide them through the process and not just tell them all, “Here’s the major you should take, or which classes or which instructor,” but actually provide opportunities for academic inquiry.
I mentioned earlier that we did research for sense of belonging and identity. It started years ago when a veteran came to me, and she was frustrated because she had this great idea for doing a study to create a rubric based on positive psychology to figure out what motivates a veteran, what makes them tick, what fills their cup. Because she wanted to focus on that, not on the deficit discourse: What’s wrong with you and how do we address your problem today?
She had gone to different places and couldn’t get any traction because nobody was studying that; that wasn’t a topic that anyone was researching. And I said, “Well, I’m not a psychologist, but I’ll do everything I can to help you.”
Fast-forward to the end of that story: She did the study, and then she got accepted to two national conferences to talk about it, and she graduated with her master’s in social work and has returned to our university as an internship coordinator to start our first-ever veteran case management program. We’re going to pilot it under her watch. She invented the rubric.
That’s one example and I can give you many more. But again, it’s very nontraditional. We’re not just talking about advising students, we’re talking about providing opportunities for students to develop and cultivate their inquiry so they don’t lose that through the college process and then end up being something other than what they intended when they graduate.
Q: Regarding sense of belonging, I think it’s natural for student veterans to fall in step with each other. But then there’s also the wider campus community and finding that sense of belonging just on campus as well. I wonder if you can talk about those two avenues, one connecting like-minded, military-affiliated students, and the other encouraging them to get out, explore and see what else the campus has to offer?
A: That’s an excellent point, and it is a strange kind of rut that we fall into where we want to gravitate towards what we know. We show up on a campus and everything’s weird, and people are different, and so we’re looking for other people that are like us, and that’s kind of missing the point.
What I do to try and encourage engagement outside of just vets hanging out with vets is I will encourage vets to cultivate the thing that they want to keep doing, which is continue serving, but expand that vision beyond vets.
For example, our local Student Veteran Association chapter, they were doing a lot of programming that was vet-focused, vet-centric. And I said, “You know who doesn’t have a lot of support on this campus is military family members, like the kids in the center for military families. So maybe we connect with them and we look for a broader opportunity to support where there’s a gap.”
We had vets that would ask me, “How come I’m having trouble getting nonvets to see the value in us, or not look at us sideways or appreciate our presence in the classroom?” And I said, “Well, why don’t we look at service projects that benefit them, and not necessarily just y’all?”
So a group of vets got together, and they came up with this great idea to provide golf cart shuttle service for folks with mobility issues. It was the vet group that was like, “All right, we’re going to write the grant, we’re going to get the golf cart, we’re going to drive it, but it’s going to be available to anyone who’s got any kind of mobility issue.” They didn’t even say disability, just mobility. It could be a sprained ankle.
And it’s a service that they were going to leverage their capital. Because vets can go and they can ask for these things and get these donations, but [they] make it available to the entire campus population and that lines up exactly with their values. They enlisted to serve, and they served folks. This was kind of a microcosm of that.
It’s great to see how, when they’re thinking it through and they’re ideating, all of a sudden, that light bulb goes off, and it makes sense that we don’t have to circle the wagons because we’re in a strange environment. What we need to do is do what we’ve always been doing and leverage everything that we bring to the table to lift everyone else around us.
Q: You’re a veteran and a veteran in this space in higher education. For those who might be unfamiliar with working with military-affiliated students or looking to do more on their campus to support these students, what’s a point or two you would give for someone who wants to do better?
A: First and foremost, I think that there might be a misconception out there that vets maybe see themselves as apart from or maybe even above [others]. You hear about Billy Madison syndrome: “I’m older and I know more things.”
While that might be true for some vets, vets are typically not looking for differential treatment—especially in the classroom or among their peers or from instructors or even from staff; they’re just looking for their experiences to be as validated as anybody else’s. So it’s very important that we’re aware that there are some things we can do and say that will be received as microaggressions. The issue is, when a vet experiences a microaggression, they don’t get aggressive. I think some people think, “Oh, man, they’re about to snap and lose their minds,” and that’s not what they’re going to do. What the vet’s gonna do is absolutely shut down, and they will disengage, and you will have lost any opportunity going forward to regain their trust and to have them feel a part of the community.
So first and foremost, just if one could shift their mindset and understand veteran [experiences] is a culture, and think of it as any other culture you support on campus. No. 1, that’s going to help you as the nonvet to really inform your perspective.
Then second of all is listen and don’t be prescriptive. And that applies not just for nonvets, but for people like me as well. Like I mentioned, my [military] experience was a long time ago versus what people are experiencing now. And as much as I’m tempted all the time to say, “I know what you’re going to need, I know what’s going to happen to you in six months and in two years, and the stages of going from active duty to civilian and the wall you’re going to hit. I know all these things are coming, so I’m going to set all these things up, and I’m gonna expect you to do them.” Every vet is sitting there saying, “Oh, that’s not me. You don’t know me.” And I know, because I was that guy that did the same thing.
It’s important to kind of push down my own impulses and stay very, very actively engaged and just constantly ask, “What is it you need? What is it I can do to support you?” By doing that, you’re building that trust, so that when those other [challenges] inevitably do happen, you don’t have to go find them and save them from it. They’re going to come to you and ask you, “Hey, can you help me through it?”
That’s the difference between, I think, being effective and going through the motions, is when they’re asking for it and they want to engage with it. But those are the two biggest things. Vets aren’t all that different. They’re just actually, weirdly, looking to be part of the crowd.
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The Education Department said it would aim to launch this year’s FAFSA on Oct. 1, the traditional deadline, for the first time since 2022.
Richard Stephen/iStock/Getty Images Plus
The Department of Education plans to launch this year’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid on Oct. 1, the agency announced Monday.
It would be the first time since 2022 that the form is released by the traditional deadline date, after a major overhaul and technical issues pushed back the 2023–24 launch to January and the 2024–25 launch to late November.
The department will also repeat a new beta-testing period that was piloted last fall. Officials plan to gradually roll out the FAFSA to a limited number of school districts and college-access organizations starting in August and will begin sending test Institutional Student Information Records to colleges at the same time.
They’re also introducing a simplified process for inviting contributors to the form, a step that frustrated many families over the past two years and stymied completion of the new FAFSA. Instead of requiring a unique Contributor ID code, this year students can invite a parent or guardian to contribute to the form by entering their email, and contributors don’t have to be registered on StudentAid.gov beforehand.
In today’s higher education landscape, the idea that future students will need more academic support is far from a catchphrase—it reflects a profound shift in both student needs and faculty responsibilities.
Over the past few decades, the demands on faculty have surged due to an increasing number of accommodation requests and the diverse challenges that students bring from their varied high school experiences and personal lives. Consequently, educators are now expected to deliver a more personalized and differentiated education than ever before.
As the student population becomes increasingly diverse and faces new external pressures, traditional support models are proving inadequate. We must move beyond reactive accommodations and embrace a comprehensive, tailored and proactive system of academic support. This transformation is essential for empowering both students and educators to thrive in an increasingly complex academic environment.
Expanding Accommodation Needs
One of the most noticeable changes in today’s academy is the sharp increase in the number of students requiring accommodations. As many as a quarter of my students have a registered disability, and the accommodations that I am required to provide have changed in significant ways post-pandemic.
Previously, universal design principles were seen as adequate to ensure accessibility for all. Courses were retrofitted with extended deadlines, recorded lectures and online resources, providing a common platform without isolating individual needs.
However, today’s reality demands a more nuanced and tailored approach. Accommodations now often involve significant modifications—such as flexible attendance policies, alternative assessment formats and even exemptions from standard class participation—that alter the very nature of the educational experience.
These changes necessitate careful planning and ongoing communication between faculty, students and disability services to create a learning environment where every student can succeed. It also requires more training, resources and support for faculty and students—which hasn’t taken place.
The Legacy of Uneven Educational Backgrounds
Another key challenge arises from the uneven educational experiences that many students received in high school. Over the past several decades, the disparity in academic preparation has widened significantly. As a result, students now enter college with a much broader range of skills, background knowledge and even vocabulary than in previous generations.
For some, high school provided a strong foundation, equipping them with the critical thinking skills and subject mastery necessary for the rigors of higher education. These students are well prepared to dive into complex course material and participate actively in academic discussions.
In contrast, others come from educational environments where resources were limited or where the curriculum was less challenging. These students frequently struggle to meet the high standards expected at the collegiate level, finding themselves overwhelmed by the pace and depth of instruction.
This variation in preparation places an additional burden on faculty, who must continuously adapt their teaching strategies to meet the needs of an unevenly prepared student body. In many classes, instructors face the daunting task of simultaneously engaging students who excel academically while also providing targeted support for those who are less prepared.
This often means developing multiple instructional approaches, creating supplementary materials and offering additional feedback and tutoring sessions. Faculty must work diligently to ensure that every student has the opportunity to succeed, balancing the needs of advanced learners with those who require more foundational support.
The challenge of uneven educational backgrounds underscores the critical need for a more flexible and individualized approach to teaching. Institutions must recognize this disparity and invest in innovative teaching methods, robust academic support services and ongoing faculty development. Only through such concerted efforts can educators ensure that all students, regardless of their starting point, are given the tools they need to thrive in college and beyond.
Increasing Demands on Students’ Time
Today’s students confront unprecedented pressures on their time. The demands of balancing work, extracurricular activities and family responsibilities have become an everyday reality, leaving many with significantly less time to devote to their studies. This predicament is not merely an inconvenience—it directly affects students’ academic performance and well-being.
One of the most critical challenges is that these competing demands can hinder students’ ability to engage fully with challenging course material. I expect my students to tackle lengthy, demanding texts that demand deep concentration and sustained effort. When students are pressed for time, they often resort to skimming or incomplete reading, which can lead to gaps in understanding and ultimately a shortfall in academic achievement.
This phenomenon not only compromises the quality of their learning but also contributes to a broader pattern of stress and burnout. The cumulative effects of these pressures can have long-lasting impacts on both academic performance and overall mental health.
Given these realities, it is incumbent upon faculty to recognize the multiple challenges faced by today’s students. Traditional teaching methods and rigid assessment schedules may no longer be effective or equitable. Instead, educators must explore flexible teaching methods and alternative assessment strategies that allow students to manage their time more effectively.
For example, integrating online discussion or tutoring sessions, offering modular coursework and incorporating a mix of formative assessments can provide students with the flexibility they need to engage with the material at their own pace. Such approaches not only accommodate the varied schedules of modern students but also help maintain academic integrity by ensuring that learning outcomes are met without forcing students to sacrifice quality for convenience.
Adapting teaching strategies to reflect the realities of modern student life is not just a matter of convenience—it is a necessity for fostering academic success and reducing stress. By creating more flexible, responsive learning environments, faculty can help students overcome the challenges of time management and ensure that they have the resources needed to thrive both academically and personally.
This rethinking of academic support is essential in an environment where the well-being of students must remain at the heart of the educational experience.
Cultural and Socioeconomic Diversity
Higher education’s student body is more diverse than ever, encompassing a wide range of cultural, linguistic and socioeconomic backgrounds. This diversity enriches the academic environment, infusing classrooms with a wealth of perspectives and experiences. However, it also brings significant challenges, particularly when it comes to addressing varied perspectives on identity, language and values.
In today’s classrooms, educators are tasked not only with delivering academic content but also with navigating a complex array of social sensitivities and assertive demands for cultural responsiveness.
One emerging trend is that many students have become increasingly sensitive about their peers’ feelings. They are cautious about expressing opinions that might inadvertently harm or offend, reflecting a heightened awareness of diversity and the impact of language on identity. They worry about appearing stupid or out of touch. This sensitivity, while rooted in a genuine desire for inclusivity, can lead to self-censorship in discussions and a reluctance to engage in the robust debates that have long been a hallmark of academic inquiry.
In contrast, another segment of the student population is more assertive and less deferential than in the past. These students actively demand that the curriculum reflects their interests and addresses the realities of their lives. They expect academic content to be culturally responsive—incorporating diverse voices and challenging traditional perspectives. This shift in attitude is not merely about political correctness; it is about ensuring that the educational experience is relevant and reflective of the complex, diverse, globalized world in which they live.
To meet these evolving needs, courses must be designed with a keen awareness of these differences. Faculty must create learning environments that are both safe and intellectually challenging, where discussions are inclusive yet rigorous and where students feel empowered to express themselves without fear of causing unintended harm.
This requires a deliberate shift in curriculum design and pedagogical approaches. Educators must become facilitators of cultural dialogue, employing strategies such as structured debates, reflective exercises and collaborative projects that allow students to explore multiple perspectives. In doing so, instructors not only address academic objectives but also help students develop the critical communication skills needed to advocate for themselves and engage in meaningful discourse.
Moreover, institutions must invest in professional development for faculty, ensuring that they are well equipped to navigate these complexities. Workshops on culturally responsive teaching and conflict resolution can provide valuable tools for managing sensitive discussions and balancing diverse viewpoints. By integrating these practices into everyday teaching, universities can foster a dynamic academic community that respects individual differences while promoting shared learning.
The challenges posed by a more sensitive yet assertive student body underscore the need for a broader rethinking of the educational experience. True academic support must be proactive and individualized—transcending one-size-fits-all accommodations to embrace a model that is responsive to the unique needs and cultural contexts of each student. This holistic approach not only enhances academic performance but also enriches the overall learning environment, creating a space where every student can thrive.
Rethinking Course Design
In the past, courses were often structured around a standardized curriculum intended to serve a homogeneous student body. Universal design for learning provided a foundation for making courses accessible, yet it was designed as a one-size-fits-all solution. Today, however, students enter higher education with vastly different backgrounds, learning styles and personal challenges. These differences demand a more nuanced approach. Faculty must now consider how to build courses that not only accommodate diverse needs but actively build on each student’s unique strengths.
This involves reimagining traditional assignments and assessments to allow for multiple avenues of expression—whether through essays, presentations, projects or creative multimedia formats—ensuring that mastery of the subject matter is measured in ways that align with individual capabilities.
Faculty as Facilitators of Inclusive Learning
To implement these changes effectively, educators must transition from being mere transmitters of information to becoming facilitators of a dynamic, inclusive learning environment. This shift requires faculty to develop new skills and adopt innovative teaching strategies that go beyond conventional lectures.
For instance, incorporating collaborative learning methods, peer mentoring and structured feedback sessions can help create a classroom culture where students feel empowered to engage with the material and with one another. Such methods not only support individual learning journeys but also foster a sense of community and shared responsibility for academic success.
Beyond Reactive Disability Accommodations
One of the most glaring weaknesses in current disability policies at many colleges, including mine, is their failure to equip students with the practical skills and resources necessary for long-term academic success.
While accommodations—such as extended deadlines, modified attendance requirements or alternative assessment methods—are undoubtedly important, they often function as a one-way street. Disability centers, overwhelmed by demand and constrained by limited resources, focus primarily on implementing reactive measures rather than providing proactive, skill-building support.
This approach leaves many students without the essential tools they need to navigate the rigors of higher education independently. For instance, while accommodations may allow a student to attend class remotely or receive extra time on exams, they rarely come with training in self-advocacy. Students who struggle to articulate their needs or negotiate further modifications remain at a disadvantage, potentially compromising their academic performance.
Similarly, critical skills such as effective study techniques, note taking and time management are often overlooked. Without guidance in these areas, students may continue to face obstacles that hinder their ability to fully engage with course material and meet academic expectations.
The result is a support system that, while well intentioned, treats accommodations as the end point rather than the beginning of a broader educational strategy. True academic support should empower students to develop self-reliance and resilience, ensuring that they are not merely recipients of modified policies but active participants in their own learning journeys.
This requires a fundamental shift from a model that simply reacts to student needs toward one that proactively builds the skills necessary for lifelong success.
In order to address this critical shortfall, institutions must invest in comprehensive support programs that extend beyond traditional accommodations. Workshops on self-advocacy, time management and effective study habits should be integrated into the academic framework.
Moreover, disability centers need to establish stronger partnerships with academic departments to create a seamless support network that bridges the gap between accommodations and skill development. Only by adopting a holistic approach can colleges ensure that students with disabilities are not just surviving within the academic system, but truly thriving.
The Need for Ongoing Professional Development
One of the biggest challenges is that most faculty members were neither expected to learn nor trained in these inclusive teaching practices. The rapidly evolving educational landscape demands continuous professional development. Institutions must invest in workshops, seminars and training programs that equip faculty with the latest strategies in inclusive pedagogy and collaborative teaching.
By learning to use new digital tools and adapting to flexible teaching methods, educators can better address the wide range of learner needs. Ongoing training is crucial for fostering an environment where faculty feel supported and empowered to experiment with innovative teaching practices without compromising academic rigor.
Faculty members face mounting pressure to adapt to new teaching methodologies, technological advancements and evolving accommodation practices. While universities routinely mandate training on issues like conflicts of interest, Title VI and IX compliance and technology risks, support in the core areas of pedagogy and assessment remains minimal. To address this gap, institutions must invest in comprehensive, ongoing in-service training for faculty. This training should cover inclusive teaching practices, innovative assessment strategies and the effective integration of digital tools into the classroom.
Moreover, faculty should have continuous access to expert guidance and peer support. Dedicated centers for teaching excellence or mentoring programs need to offer real-time assistance, enabling instructors to navigate challenges as they arise. By fostering a culture of professional development and collaboration, universities can empower educators to experiment with new approaches and refine their methods over time—ensuring that teaching remains both rigorous and responsive to the diverse needs of modern students.
A Call for a Comprehensive Reimagining
The current model of academic support—with its patchwork of reactive accommodations and sporadic training sessions—is no longer sufficient to address the evolving challenges facing both faculty and students. The demands of modern higher education have shifted dramatically, requiring more than temporary fixes; they demand a radical reimagining of the educational experience that is individualized, personalized and differentiated to meet the unique needs of every member of the academic community.
At the heart of this transformation lies a fundamental shift in institutional priorities. Universities must reallocate resources toward continuous professional development for educators and establish robust support systems for students. This means creating structured, ongoing training programs that equip faculty with the latest inclusive teaching strategies and digital tools, enabling them to adapt their methods to the diverse learning styles and backgrounds of today’s students.
Such an investment not only enhances academic performance but also cultivates the critical skills and self-advocacy that are essential for lifelong success.
Moreover, we must move beyond the reactive, one-size-fits-all accommodations that have characterized the past. Instead, academic support should be integrated into every aspect of teaching and learning, forming the backbone of a dynamic and responsive educational ecosystem.
For example, early intervention strategies, such as formative assessments and iterative feedback, ensure that learning gaps are addressed before they widen and personalized learning plans can be developed to build on each student’s unique strengths.
The benefits of such a comprehensive approach are twofold. First, it supports academic success by creating an inclusive learning environment that is adaptable to the individual needs of each student. Second, it alleviates the burden on faculty, who currently face the daunting task of juggling research, administrative duties and the increasing diversity of student needs.
By establishing a framework of proactive support, institutions can empower both educators and learners to thrive in a challenging, rapidly shifting academic landscape.
As higher education continues to evolve, so too must our strategies for academic support. The traditional model of reactive accommodations and ad hoc training is no longer adequate in the face of growing student diversity, uneven preparation and heightened external pressures on students’ time.
Only by embracing a comprehensive, proactive and flexible approach can we ensure that every student—and every educator—is equipped to navigate the complexities of modern academic life.
This reimagined support system will not only boost academic performance but also enrich the overall educational experience, fostering a vibrant, inclusive and resilient community that is prepared to meet the challenges of the future.
In an era of tightening institutional finances and overburdened faculty, the shift toward a more individualized approach to education may seem like an overwhelming challenge. However, this shift is not optional—it is both a legal requirement and an essential strategy for improving student retention, graduation rates and postgraduation outcomes.
As student populations become increasingly diverse and face complex external pressures, campuses must prioritize academic and faculty support to create a learning environment where every student can thrive.
The Legal Mandate for Individualized Support
Legislation such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act mandate that institutions provide equal access to education for all students. These legal frameworks require not only reactive accommodations but also proactive, individualized support that anticipates and addresses the diverse needs of the student body.
In practice, this means that colleges and universities must design courses, develop teaching methods and implement support systems that are flexible and tailored to individual learning styles. Ignoring this mandate not only risks legal repercussions but also undermines the institution’s commitment to inclusivity and equal opportunity.
Enhancing Academic Success and Student Outcomes
In addition, the current challenges faced by students—ranging from increased accommodation needs and uneven educational backgrounds to intense time pressures and cultural diversity—demand more than a one-size-fits-all solution.
When students receive personalized academic support, retention and graduation rates improve significantly. Tailored support enables students to engage deeply with course material, develop critical skills and ultimately achieve better postgraduation outcomes. By creating a comprehensive support system, institutions can help bridge the gap between diverse student needs and the rigorous demands of higher education, ensuring that every student has the opportunity to succeed.
The Burden on Faculty and the Need to Rethink Institutional Priorities
For faculty, the shift to an individualized educational model requires a significant rethinking of traditional teaching methods.
Instructors must balance the needs of advanced learners with those requiring additional support, all while managing other academic responsibilities such as research and grant writing. This challenge is compounded by the lack of sufficient training and resources currently available to help educators implement inclusive teaching practices. Institutions must respond by reallocating resources and prioritizing continuous professional development.
Only by providing faculty with the necessary tools and support can universities foster a dynamic, responsive learning environment that benefits both teachers and students.
The move toward a more individualized, personalized and differentiated approach to education is no longer a luxury—it is a legal and institutional imperative. As student needs evolve in a rapidly changing world, institutions must reframe academic support as a core element of the educational experience.
By prioritizing continuous faculty training, investing in robust support systems and rethinking course design, colleges and universities can enhance academic performance, improve student retention and graduation rates and ensure better outcomes after graduation.
There is no way around this transformation: If we are to equip every student and educator to thrive in an increasingly complex academic environment, the shift to a comprehensive, proactive and flexible support model must become the cornerstone of higher education.
Steven Mintz is professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin and recipient of the AAC&U’s 2025 President’s Award for Outstanding Contributions to Liberal Education.
An estimated 57 percent of college students cannot complete their degree on time because their institution does not offer required courses during days and times—or in a format, such as online—that meet their needs, according to data from Ad Astra.
A recently published study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that female students are more likely than their male peers to be shut out of a college course, which can have long-term implications for their success and outcomes.
The findings point to the role course shutouts can play in students’ major and career choices, with those unable to enroll in science, engineering, math or technology courses in their first term less likely to attempt a STEM course at any point during college.
The background: A common way for colleges to navigate budget cuts is to reduce course offerings or academic majors. But that can increase the number of students who are unable to enroll in, or find themselves shut out of, courses they want to take. Students at community colleges in particular are less likely to remain enrolled if they face a shutout, choosing instead to take zero credits that term or to transfer.
Federal funding cuts by the Trump administration have ramped up some institutions’ existing budget woes, requiring them to reduce program offerings. Some groups have advocated for minimizing costs via course sharing, which allows students to meet requirements and earn credits for their home institution while enrolling in a shared online course.
Methodology: The research, authored by faculty from Purdue and Brigham Young Universities, analyzed registration processes at Purdue in fall 2018, when first-year students were enrolled using a batch algorithm. Researchers considered a student shut out of a course in their first year if their primary request was not met or the student enrolled in a different, secondary course instead.
The data: Among the 7,646 first-year students studied, only 49 percent received their preferred schedule, meaning 51 percent were shut out from at least one of their top six requested courses. Eight percent of shutouts made it into their course eventually, according to the report.
Of the 241 courses that were oversubscribed, required English and communications courses were most likely to shut students out; the other overbooked courses represented a variety of subject areas.
The effects of a student not taking a preferred course in the first term were seen throughout their academic career. First-year students who were initially shut out from a course were 35 percentage points less likely to complete the course while enrolled and 25 percentage points less likely to ever enroll in a course in the same subject.
While a student’s first-term GPA was not impacted by the shutout, by senior year, students had a GPA two hundredths of a point lower compared to their peers who enrolled in their preferred classes. The study also found that each course shutout led to a 3 percent decrease in the probability of a student graduating within four years, which is economically meaningful but statistically insignificant.
Registration barriers also made it less likely that students would choose STEM majors, which researchers theorize could be due to a lack of substitution options to meet major prerequisites. Each shutout a student faced in a STEM course decreased the probability that a student majored in STEM by 20 percent.
The impact was especially striking for female students. For each course a female student was unable to enroll in during her first year, her first-semester credits dropped by 0.4, cumulative GPA by 0.05 and the probability of her majoring in a STEM field by 2.9 percentage points. The long-term effects extended into life after college: A shutout female student’s probability of graduating within four years dropped 7.5 percent and had an expected cost of approximately $1,500 in forgone wages and $800 in tuition and housing costs.
“In contrast, for male students, shutouts do not have a significant effect on credits earned, cumulative GPA, choosing a STEM major or on-time graduation,” researchers wrote.
Male students who didn’t get into their top-choice courses first semester were more likely to switch to a major in the business school and have a higher starting salary as well. “At this university, men are 19 percent more likely than women to major in business and this entire gender gap can be explained by course shutouts,” researchers wrote.
Researchers therefore believe finding ways to reduce course shutouts, particularly in STEM courses, can improve outcomes for women and others to widen the path to high-return majors.
Do you have an academic intervention that might help others improve student success? Tell us about it.
How much harder are university courses than school? Do you have to be naturally gifted to excel at university? For example, can you do well in scientific or mathematical degrees through just hard work, or is there more to it? Do some courses require complex skills that you may not have from school, such as high levels of intricate practical skills for medicine or engineering, which you may not have needed for your GCSE or A-Level exams?
How are lectures or seminars different to typical school lessons? How are you taught at university? How much of the learning process is taking notes, doing activities, researching, and so on? What is the environment like? For example, what are the class sizes like?
How are you assessed at university? Most assessments at school nowadays are done in an exam at the end of the course. How different is the process at a university? For example, how much of it is exams, and how much is marked work throughout the course? Does this vary with the course?
How do I pick the right course? Some people know exactly which career path they want to take, and this can be quite an easy decision for them, but many have no idea. What factors are the most important when picking a university and subject to study? Does a university’s prestige always correspond to its value to a student?
How do different courses vary from each other? Many seem to believe that some courses are easier or require less work than others, or some are much more enjoyable. Is this the case? How do contact hours with your professors differ from course to course?
What are the advantages of different types of degrees? How do hands-on qualifications such as apprenticeships compare to standard degrees? What are the benefits of part-time degrees or ‘sandwich’ courses?
What is life at a university like? What are the pros and cons of living in student accommodation? How much space and freedom do you have? Is it easy to get distracted from your studies when living amongst all your friends? What are the most important factors when choosing accommodation?
What is the work-life balance at university like? I would assume that university courses require a lot more effort than GCSEs or A-Levels. Is that always true? How much more (or less) time do you spend studying than at school? Do you have to sacrifice a social life to get good grades? Can you easily get burnt out at university? Does this vary with the course?
Are campus or non-campus universities better? What are the advantages of each? Are they better for different types of people, or the different courses that they take? Are there noticeably different atmospheres between them? For example, do you get a better sense of community at a campus university, or do you grow more independent at a non-campus university?
Is studying abroad a good idea? Most people stay in their home country to study. Is looking at universities in other countries a good idea, especially when doing a course such as languages? What are the advantages of studying abroad? Are single years abroad or exchanges a better alternative to this?
* To declare an interest, Ben Hillman is the son of Nick Hillman, HEPI’s Director.
Yale’s Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning is a pioneering organization in the development of the integrated CTL. Founded in 2014, Poorvu integrates faculty development, educational technology, digital learning and many other instruction-related services within a high-performing organization. When I learned about Poorvu’s search for a new associate director within the Teaching Development and Initiatives team, I knew I wanted to learn more. Julie McGurk, Yale’s director of teaching development and initiatives, who is leading the search at Poorvu, generously agreed to answer my questions about the role.
If you are recruiting for a role at the intersection of learning, technology and organizational change, please reach out.
Q: What is the university’s mandate behind this role? How does it help align with and advance the university’s strategic priorities?
A: There isn’t a mandate per se, but given the advancement of data science, machine learning and quantitative methods across disciplinary fields, the Poorvu Center is looking for someone from a quantitative field. We understand the unique challenges of teaching students quantitative literacy skills, including the social and emotional histories with quantitative fields that students bring to the classroom.
Yale’s emphasis on rigorous teaching, which requires students to quickly dive into disciplinary skills, has motivated us to structure our team across disciplinary domains. This structure allows us to have conversations grounded in the language and culture of the fields, as well as how students experience the discipline. This also allows us to form deeper relationships with faculty, graduate students and postdocs in those related fields at Yale, since someone from the humanities or social sciences will most often work with our team members focused on those disciplines.
While this search will require expertise in quantitative fields, our ideal candidate will also have a good understanding of teaching in other fields to introduce practices that might not be as common but are potentially useful in quantitative fields. We facilitate a lot of interdisciplinary discussions of pedagogy in our day-to-day work.
Q: Where does the role sit within the university structure? How will the person in this role engage with other units and leaders across campus?
A: The Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning is under the provost’s office, under the leadership of the associate provost for academic initiatives and executive director of the Poorvu Center, Jenny Frederick. Our team works with instructors and future instructors across the entire university, including the 13 professional schools, focusing on supporting effective teaching practices at Yale and the development of graduate students, postdocs and others who are often preparing to teach elsewhere. We work closely with the other teams at the Poorvu Center, who support undergraduate learning and writing, graduate writing, educational technology, program assessment, and online teaching. We also work closely with departments, schools and other offices across campus, such as Student Accessibility Services, Yale wellness resources, the Center for Language Study, Yale libraries and collections, among many others.
Q: What would success look like in one year? Three years? Beyond?
A: Success in the first year is mainly about getting to know Yale, the Poorvu Center and our team and forming foundational connections around these various groups. Success in three years looks like having deeper connections across the university, particularly within quantitative fields and a strong portfolio of work on programs, services and initiatives. Beyond three years, I would expect the person in this role to contribute to the strategic vision and leadership of the Poorvu Center and the team in a way that aligns with their own career goals.
Q: What kinds of future roles would someone who took this position be prepared for?
Someone in this position would be well prepared to take on leadership roles in teaching centers and other university groups that facilitate professional development or cultural change.
