Funds from the sale of the campus will pay off a portion of MCNY’s $67.4 million outstanding debt.
Cash-strapped Metropolitan College of New York is planning to sell its Manhattan campus to the City University of New York for $40 million, a regulatory filing first reported by Bloomberg shows.
The two institutions signed a letter of intent on Monday, according to the regulatory filing, which notes that proceeds will be used to pay off a portion of MCNY’s $67.4 million outstanding debt.
MCNY agreed to sell the site last year as part of a forbearance agreement with bondholders.
Metropolitan College of New York has struggled to keep up with debt in recent years and failed to maintain the agreed-upon ratio of liquid assets, according to a regulatory filing from July. The small college enrolled fewer than 500 students, according to the latest state data, and posted a deficit of more than $7 million in fiscal year 2023, publicly available financial data shows.
CUNY is purchasing 101,542 square feet across three floors in the shared building, which officials told Bloomberg they intend to use as a temporary site for the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing amid ongoing construction projects. The sale will require approval from bondholders as well as Metropolitan College’s accreditor, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
Lake-Sumter State College named GOP lawmaker John R. Temple as its president Thursday, making him the latest politician to helm a state institution, the Orlando Business Journal reported.
Temple, an ally of Republican governor Ron DeSantis, breaks with many of his fellow politicians who have become college presidents in that he does have administrative experience in higher education. Temple was hired as the college’s associate vice president for workforce in 2023. Previously he was a teacher and administrator in K–12 schools.
Other recent political hires include former lieutenant governor Jeanette Nuñez at Florida International University, lobbyist and DeSantis ally Marva Johnson at Florida A&M University, and former education commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. in an interim role at the University of West Florida.
Multiple others have been hired across the state college system. A recent analysis by Inside Higher Ed found at least a dozen executive hires with ties to the Republican Party or DeSantis since 2022. Multiple others donated thousands of dollars to GOP candidates and causes.
Another state institution, North Florida College, is also considering a political candidate for its next president. Mike Prendergast, former Citrus County sheriff and chief of staff for Rick Scott, the Republican governor–turned–U.S. senator, is one of several finalists for the North Florida job.
The University of Florida also hired an interim president last week, tapping for the job Donald Landry, a former Columbia University Medical School administrator with ties to conservative academic organizations. Landry was hired after the Florida Board of Governors rejected former University of Michigan president Santa Ono for the UF job for his past support of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which he sought to distance himself from amid his candidacy.
Students learn just as much from who we are as educators as they do from what we teach. While content is important, the way faculty members carry themselves, how they communicate, lead, and treat others, can leave an even deeper impact on students’ personal and professional growth. This article explains that educators who use servant leadership principles create trust, empathy, and ethical development in students, ultimately supporting both academic success and long-term character building of students.
Throughout this article, I will explain why servant leadership is especially relevant in higher education today. While using a student-centered philosophy is very beneficial, adopting a servant leadership approach offers an extension of that philosophy. This is not just about teaching content effectively. It is about modeling values like integrity, empathy, and thoughtful decision making in ways students can absorb and carry with them beyond the classroom. In this paper, I will provide research and real-world examples. I will present practical strategies faculty members where they know their students are walking away a better individual, professionally and personally. I will also discuss how faculty members themselves benefit from adopting a servant leadership model, finding stronger connections with students and a deeper sense of purpose in their work.
Modeling Values in the Classroom
One of the clearest ways servant leadership shows up in higher education is through the modeling of values that students can see and experience in everyday interactions. As Rabin and Smith say, “students learn as much from who we are as what we teach” (p. 2, 2013). This speaks to the purpose of servant leadership in higher education. In the context of the classroom, faculty who embody servant leadership not only communicate course content but also demonstrate values such as compassion and care through their actions.
This leadership approach directly supports student-centered teaching by emphasizing the importance of understanding students’ backgrounds, life circumstances, and unique learning needs. In the research article, Rabin and Smith explain that “to care for students, a teacher needs to know her students well enough to understand their unique motivations and needs” (p. 4). This describes a strong part of servant leadership, placing the needs of others before one’s own and creating relationships built on trust and mutual respect.
When higher education faculty take on the role of servant leaders, they transform learning environments. They challenge the authority-driven classroom stereotype and replace it with a relational one, where students are empowered, respected, and mentored not only academically, but as people. These professors serve as living examples of the kind of leaders we hope our students become.
How Faculty Benefit from Servant Leadership
While much attention is given to how servant leadership benefits students, its impact on faculty is equally as important. Faculty are the heart of teaching and service in higher education, and adopting a servant leadership mindset can enhance the purpose they find in their work.
Stronger relationships and classroom dynamics. Faculty who adopts servant leadership approaches often develop more meaningful relationships with students, which fosters better classroom engagement and cooperation. As Rabin and Smith explain, “teachers who practice an ethic of care consider developing relationships to be artfully complex and at the same time critical to a learning environment” (p. 8, 2013). When professors create spaces where trust and respect are mutual, the classroom becomes a place of safety and comfortability, benefiting both teaching and learning.
Personal fulfillment and emotional connection. The emotional toll of teaching is often overlooked, but faculty who embrace servant leadership experience a deeper sense of purpose in their work. Faculty gain more than content delivery; they gain the joy of watching students thrive and knowing their role made a difference.
Increased satisfaction and retention. Research shows that workplace satisfaction among educators increases when they feel seen and supported. Rabin and Smith talked about that a reflection of heart is critical for both effective teaching and faculty well-being (2013). When institutions encourage servant leadership, they cultivate a better faculty morale, higher job satisfaction, and stronger loyalty to the institution.
Practical Ways Faculty Can Begin Tomorrow
The foundation of servant leadership is intention. Faculty can begin modeling servant leadership in simple ways that foster stronger connections with students, healthier learning environments, and personal fulfillment. Below are three realistic strategies faculty can begin using tomorrow:
1. Practice Intentional Listening
Great teachers listen more than they talk, creating space for students to feel seen and heard. In the classroom, this might look like pausing before responding to student comments, asking follow-up questions that show curiosity, or creating reflection activities that allow the quieter voices to contribute. Being fully present communicates respect and care. Students are more likely to engage, ask questions, and trust the instructor when they feel heard. Faculty often gain feedback into student needs, boosting classroom culture and reducing conflict.
2. Respond with Empathy and Flexibility
Rather than assuming conflict or disrespect, servant leaders seek to understand the reasoning behind student behavior. For example, if a student misses a deadline, a professor might ask about circumstances before being close minded. This also could be seen as staying real with your students, making sure they know you make mistakes as well. Implementing this will make students feel respected and supported. Faculty reduce unnecessary conflict and model emotional intelligence, an essential skill for students to learn.
3. Empower Students with Real Responsibilities
Servant leadership isn’t about doing everything for others, it’s about helping others grow. Faculty can give students meaningful tasks like leading part of a class discussion, mentoring peers, or giving feedback about the course. Offering students that autonomy in the course will result in better trust and relationships. Students will build confidence and ownership over their learning.
Servant leadership in higher education is more than a philosophy, it’s a daily practice that transforms both student outcomes and faculty experiences. When educators lead with care, humility, and a commitment to student growth, they foster an environment where students thrive academically, emotionally, and ethically. By integrating servant leadership principles such as intentional listening, empathetic responses, and student empowerment, professors can cultivate vibrant, respectful, and collaborative learning environments. In doing so, they don’t just teach content, they develop whole people.
Carlee Norris was born and raised in Kansas and has always had a deep love for learning. Her appreciation for strong faculty leadership has shaped her perspective on education and student development. While earning her MBA at Kansas State University, Carlee authored an article exploring how students feel most empowered and how servant leadership can be used to effectively guide and support them. She is passionate about creating spaces where students feel encouraged, understood, and equipped to thrive.
Students learn just as much from who we are as educators as they do from what we teach. While content is important, the way faculty members carry themselves, how they communicate, lead, and treat others, can leave an even deeper impact on students’ personal and professional growth. This article explains that educators who use servant leadership principles create trust, empathy, and ethical development in students, ultimately supporting both academic success and long-term character building of students.
Throughout this article, I will explain why servant leadership is especially relevant in higher education today. While using a student-centered philosophy is very beneficial, adopting a servant leadership approach offers an extension of that philosophy. This is not just about teaching content effectively. It is about modeling values like integrity, empathy, and thoughtful decision making in ways students can absorb and carry with them beyond the classroom. In this paper, I will provide research and real-world examples. I will present practical strategies faculty members where they know their students are walking away a better individual, professionally and personally. I will also discuss how faculty members themselves benefit from adopting a servant leadership model, finding stronger connections with students and a deeper sense of purpose in their work.
Modeling Values in the Classroom
One of the clearest ways servant leadership shows up in higher education is through the modeling of values that students can see and experience in everyday interactions. As Rabin and Smith say, “students learn as much from who we are as what we teach” (p. 2, 2013). This speaks to the purpose of servant leadership in higher education. In the context of the classroom, faculty who embody servant leadership not only communicate course content but also demonstrate values such as compassion and care through their actions.
This leadership approach directly supports student-centered teaching by emphasizing the importance of understanding students’ backgrounds, life circumstances, and unique learning needs. In the research article, Rabin and Smith explain that “to care for students, a teacher needs to know her students well enough to understand their unique motivations and needs” (p. 4). This describes a strong part of servant leadership, placing the needs of others before one’s own and creating relationships built on trust and mutual respect.
When higher education faculty take on the role of servant leaders, they transform learning environments. They challenge the authority-driven classroom stereotype and replace it with a relational one, where students are empowered, respected, and mentored not only academically, but as people. These professors serve as living examples of the kind of leaders we hope our students become.
How Faculty Benefit from Servant Leadership
While much attention is given to how servant leadership benefits students, its impact on faculty is equally as important. Faculty are the heart of teaching and service in higher education, and adopting a servant leadership mindset can enhance the purpose they find in their work.
Stronger relationships and classroom dynamics. Faculty who adopts servant leadership approaches often develop more meaningful relationships with students, which fosters better classroom engagement and cooperation. As Rabin and Smith explain, “teachers who practice an ethic of care consider developing relationships to be artfully complex and at the same time critical to a learning environment” (p. 8, 2013). When professors create spaces where trust and respect are mutual, the classroom becomes a place of safety and comfortability, benefiting both teaching and learning.
Personal fulfillment and emotional connection. The emotional toll of teaching is often overlooked, but faculty who embrace servant leadership experience a deeper sense of purpose in their work. Faculty gain more than content delivery; they gain the joy of watching students thrive and knowing their role made a difference.
Increased satisfaction and retention. Research shows that workplace satisfaction among educators increases when they feel seen and supported. Rabin and Smith talked about that a reflection of heart is critical for both effective teaching and faculty well-being (2013). When institutions encourage servant leadership, they cultivate a better faculty morale, higher job satisfaction, and stronger loyalty to the institution.
Practical Ways Faculty Can Begin Tomorrow
The foundation of servant leadership is intention. Faculty can begin modeling servant leadership in simple ways that foster stronger connections with students, healthier learning environments, and personal fulfillment. Below are three realistic strategies faculty can begin using tomorrow:
1. Practice Intentional Listening
Great teachers listen more than they talk, creating space for students to feel seen and heard. In the classroom, this might look like pausing before responding to student comments, asking follow-up questions that show curiosity, or creating reflection activities that allow the quieter voices to contribute. Being fully present communicates respect and care. Students are more likely to engage, ask questions, and trust the instructor when they feel heard. Faculty often gain feedback into student needs, boosting classroom culture and reducing conflict.
2. Respond with Empathy and Flexibility
Rather than assuming conflict or disrespect, servant leaders seek to understand the reasoning behind student behavior. For example, if a student misses a deadline, a professor might ask about circumstances before being close minded. This also could be seen as staying real with your students, making sure they know you make mistakes as well. Implementing this will make students feel respected and supported. Faculty reduce unnecessary conflict and model emotional intelligence, an essential skill for students to learn.
3. Empower Students with Real Responsibilities
Servant leadership isn’t about doing everything for others, it’s about helping others grow. Faculty can give students meaningful tasks like leading part of a class discussion, mentoring peers, or giving feedback about the course. Offering students that autonomy in the course will result in better trust and relationships. Students will build confidence and ownership over their learning.
Servant leadership in higher education is more than a philosophy, it’s a daily practice that transforms both student outcomes and faculty experiences. When educators lead with care, humility, and a commitment to student growth, they foster an environment where students thrive academically, emotionally, and ethically. By integrating servant leadership principles such as intentional listening, empathetic responses, and student empowerment, professors can cultivate vibrant, respectful, and collaborative learning environments. In doing so, they don’t just teach content, they develop whole people.
Carlee Norris was born and raised in Kansas and has always had a deep love for learning. Her appreciation for strong faculty leadership has shaped her perspective on education and student development. While earning her MBA at Kansas State University, Carlee authored an article exploring how students feel most empowered and how servant leadership can be used to effectively guide and support them. She is passionate about creating spaces where students feel encouraged, understood, and equipped to thrive.
A recent Lumina–Gallup poll offers a rare piece of good news: public confidence in higher education has ticked up from a recent low of 36% to 43%. While the rebound is modest, it breaks a years-long narrative of decline, and it’s worth asking: What is driving renewed trust?
Drs. Julie Posselt and Adrianna Kezar Respondents pointed to three factors: quality of education, opportunities for graduates, and innovation. In other words, the public is telling us that when we deliver tangible value—educational excellence, new opportunities, and forward-looking ideas—trust grows.
The teams in our centers work with community colleges, school districts, nonprofits, businesses, government agencies, state higher education systems, and national associations. Though we love theory work as much as the next professors, we know theory’s greatest power is realized when tested and applied in the real world, in partnership with the communities we serve.
Take the USC College Advising Corps. Through partnerships with public high schools across Los Angeles County, we place nearly 40 trained college advisers per year, most of them recent college graduates from across Southern California, into underresourced high schools. The result has been to support 10,000 high school seniors annually, with more than 88,000 first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented students helped since the program began more than a decade ago. This is the kind of scale, innovation, and equity-driven practice that the public recognizes and values.
Our work to date and going forward will be defined as much by our approach. We partner with communities, connecting research directly to policy and practice to innovate on the systems that shape student access and success, from high school through graduate education and into the workforce. This work often means capacity building, institutional improvement, and student-centered design—not in theory alone, but in practice, in partnership, and at scale.
Look around and you’ll find many more examples of people and organizations who inspire not just through individual excellence but also by deepening wells of mutual support and mutual investment. There are longstanding national examples such as Campus Compact, which brought together college presidents across the country to sign a declaration and create an organization focused on civic engagement; they have sponsored collaborative responses to crises and offer faculty development. That kind of solidarity is not typical, but to our minds it is increasingly valuable.
Benjamin Franklin warned at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, “We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”His words are as relevant to higher education today as it was to the Continental Congress. Our sector’s future depends on resisting the pull toward isolation and polarization, and instead modeling connection, mutual support, and shared purpose.
In a year certain to bring challenges, higher education must lead not from the top of the ivory tower, but from within networks of trust we build with the communities around us—of professionals and publics. For us, merging our centers is just one example of the belief that we are stronger together—intellectually, financially, and in service of the public good. We welcome connecting with you through your stories and examples of the same.
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Drs. Julie Posselt and Adrianna Kezar are Co-Directors of the Pullias Center for Higher Education at University of Southern California.
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This year has already brought big challenges to the higher education sector, from major shifts in federal policy to massive cuts in government research funding.
As college leaders gear up for the 2025-26 academic year, they’re staring down even more change ahead.
The U.S. Department of Education is undertaking massive regulatory changes, the Trump administration is ramping up investigations into colleges, and Republican lawmakers are continuing their crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion.
Below, we’re rounding up six trends we’re keeping tabs on.
Trump and Republicans usher in a new era of financial retrenchment
Last year, colleges slashed spending on staff, faculty, programs and more in response to difficult enrollment realities and rising costs. The budget pressures have only intensified for many in the higher education world since President Donald Trump took office in January.
The Trump administration has targeted about $3.3 billion in grant funding for termination at public and private universities nationwide — about $206 per student — according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress.
In addition to contractions in research spending, institutions are juggling myriad changes to federal policy by Trump and congressional Republicans that could have significant effects on institutional budget planning. This includes a more fraught environment for international students, cuts to federal student lending and a higher endowment tax, to name just a few.
The Trump administration’s legal and financial warfare against Harvard University has grabbed an outsized share of headlines, and arguably for good reason. Harvard is the richest and oldest college in the U.S. If the administration succeeds in a multi-agency, omnidirectional attack on the institution, where does that leave the rest of the nation’s colleges?
Facing this question, some institutions have already made deals with the Trump administration as they attempt to maintain their federal funding and stay out of legal battles. Others are reported or confirmed to be in negotiations with the federal government. And many colleges are facing a difficult balancing act between mission and compliance.
In its attacks on colleges, the Trump administration has introduced novel and aggressive readings of civil rights laws and U.S. Supreme Court cases, as well as threatened vast sums of funding for colleges it considers out of compliance with federal statute.
For instance, the Education Department deemed the University of Pennsylvania in violation of civil rights law for prior policies allowing transgender women to play on sports teams aligning with their gender identity. Penn became one of the first colleges to strike a deal with the administration rather than risk the sort of multi-agency attack — complete with prolonged litigation — being deployed against Harvard.
Meanwhile, federal agencies suspended nearly $600 million in funding from the University of California, Los Angeles over allegations that it violated civil rights law because it didn’t do enough to respond to a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on its campus in spring 2024. Police cleared the encampment at the university’s request after less than a week.
Among other legal risks under Trump, policies meant to support transgender students or diversity programs can now potentially prompt prosecution of a college under the False Claims Act, a federal law dealing with fraud in government contracting. That’s according to a May message from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche introducing the Civil Rights Fraud Initiative that specifically listed colleges as potential False Claims Act targets.
New regulations coming down the pike
The Education Department has its work cut out for it over the next year. That’s because the agency must craft regulations to carry out the higher education-related provisions of the sweeping domestic policy bill passed by Republican lawmakers this summer.
They include phasing out Grad PLUS loans, which allow graduate and professional students to borrow up to the cost of their college attendance. The legislation also caps lifetime borrowing limits at $100,000 for most graduate students and $200,000 for those pursuing professional degrees, and it will consolidate a handful of repayment plans into just two options. And it opens up Pell Grants to programs as short as eight weeks.
Colleges will also face new regulations.
Under the legislation, their programs will lose federal student loan eligibility if they can’t prove their students get an earnings boost. For undergraduate programs, that means showing that at least half their graduates earn more than workers with only a high school diploma in their state.
The Education Department is devising the new regulations through a process called negotiated rulemaking. Under this process, the agency convenes representatives who will be impacted by the regulations — such as colleges, student loan borrowers and state officials — to hash out policy details.
If they agree on language, the Education Department is largely bound to adopt their rules as written for its regulatory proposal. If they don’t, however, the agency is free to come up with its own regulations.
The Education Department kicked off the process earlier this month and will hold meetings with negotiated rulemaking committees through January.
A shifting landscape for federal research funding
Legal battles over threatened federal research funding are likely to heat up in the months ahead.
Under the Trump administration, at least four major federal agencies have announced plans to cap reimbursement for indirect research costs — which support expenses like laboratory and facilities maintenance — at 15% for colleges. Many major research universities have negotiated rates hovering around 50% to 60%, meaning these policies threaten vast sums of their federal research funding.
So far, courts have blocked or paused each of the caps. The Trump administration has appealed three of the rulings, and one case is still playing out in federal district court.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court recently dealt a major blow to research universities by pausing a lower court order that would have restored $783 million in cut funding from the National Institutes of Health under the agency’s anti-DEI policy. While the high court preserved the ruling against the anti-DEI directives, it said the plaintiffs would have to pursue their claims to restore the cut grant funding in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which hears monetary claims against the federal government.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell, who has led a coalition of states suing over the NIH cuts, indicated in a statement that the fight was not over.
“Even if accountability is delayed, we won’t stop fighting to protect this funding, our residents, and our rule of law,” Campbell said.
The battle over in-state tuition for undocumented students
At least 25 states and Washington, D.C., started the year with policies allowing eligible undocumented students to pay in-state rates at some or all of their public colleges. But since Trump began his second term, Republicans and his administration have prioritized reducing undocumented students’ access to higher education.
Florida first spurred the shift during a January special legislative session, repealing a law that made certain undocumented students eligible for in-state tuition rates at its public colleges.
Then, following an executive order from Trump, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Texas in June over its decades-old law — the first of its kind in the country — making undocumented students eligible for in-state tuition if they meet certain residency criteria and other requirements.
Despite the attack on the state statute, officials within Texas’ attorney general’s office quickly sided with the DOJ and filed a joint motion with the Trump administration to end the policy. A federal judge overseeing the case struck down the law only hours after the DOJ first filed its lawsuit.
Texas’ cooperation gave the Trump administration an early win and an example to cite as precedent as it moved on to target less amenable states.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has since filed lawsuits in rapid succession against Minnesota, Oklahoma and Kentucky over their in-state tuition policies for undocumented students. Like Texas, Oklahoma leaders partnered with the DOJ and filed a joint motion to end its policy. The request has not yet been approved by a federal judge.
Bondi argued in multiple, nearly identical statements that in-state tuition rates for undocumented students illegally provide benefits not offered to all U.S. citizens. One higher education attorney has argued that the Texas policy has the same requirements for participation for U.S. citizens and undocumented residents.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and other groups have sought to intervene in the state’s case and asked a federal court to set aside the order declaring Texas’ in-state tuition policy unconstitutional. The same federal judge that struck down the law ruled against them earlier this month, though the groups have already appealed.
Enforcement of new DEI restrictions
For years, conservatives have led coordinated efforts to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in higher education. The campaign only grew following Trump’s return to office and his administration’s push to crack down on diversity initiatives.
To comply with new federal directives and state laws, colleges have sprinted to cut programs, cancel events, restructure student services and reassign or lay off DEI-focused employees. In Ohio and Kentucky — two of the most recent states to enact DEI bans at public colleges — some higher education leaders read the writing on the wall and began cutting DEI work prior to the new laws’ passage.
Colleges are now being increasingly singled out for alleged violations of DEI bans. One method is through secretly recorded and heavily edited videos of employees. The videos, shared online and via conservative media outlets, appear to depict college officials talking about how to avoid DEI restrictions.
The dean of students at the University of North Carolina Asheville is “no longer employed” there after one such recording went viral, according to a university official. And in the same state, Western Carolina University announced it would close its Office of Intercultural Affairs, following a widely-shared video of a former employee who suggested DEI work be embedded across campus.
Two of Iowa’s three public universities — the University of Iowa and Iowa State University — are under state scrutiny after similar videos surfaced of their staff. The state attorney general is investigating the incidents at the University of Iowa at the behest of Iowa’s governor.
Two University of Iowa employees have been put on leave, with the Republican chair of the Legislature’s House higher education committee calling for them to be fired. Iowa State University told local media outlets that a video showing one of its administrators discussing DEI work appeared to be filmed a year prior to its release and featured a former employee who had not worked there since 2024.
GOP lawmakers from conservative-led states have also been calling on the Trump administration to investigate colleges over their DEI efforts.
In Texas, a Republican state representative requested the Trump administration to investigate Texas A&M University over allegations the institution “engaged in DEI courses and discriminatory ‘targeted recruiting’ practices.”
Two states over, a congressional representative from Tennessee similarly called for a federal investigation into Belmont University, alleging the private Christian college’s restructuring of its DEI office was “an intentional effort to deceive federal authorities and continue promoting discriminatory programming under a new name.”
Some colleges — particularly public ones in conservative states — are cracking down on behavior that could draw lawmaker attention.
Tarrant County College, in Texas, fired two administrators over the inclusion of DEI content in a mandatory training video, according to The Collegian, the institution’s student newspaper.
The community college also disciplined two employees over DEI-related offensives — one for conducting a workshop on “Microaggressions & Mental Health” and the other for gifting women co-workers a bouquet of flowers with a “Happy International Women’s Day” card.
I’ll admit a pet peeve when writers set out two extreme views, attributed vaguely to others, and then position themselves in the squishy middle as the embodiment of the golden mean. It seems too easy and feeds the cultural myth that the center is always correct.
So, at the risk of annoying myself, I’ve been frustrated with the discourse recently around whether students’ choice of majors matters. It both does and doesn’t, though that may be more obvious from a community college perspective than from other places.
“Comprehensive” community colleges, such as my own, are called that because they embrace both a transfer mission (“junior college”) and a vocational mission (“trade school”). The meaning of a major can be very different across that divide.
For example, students who major in nursing have the inside track at becoming nurses in a way that students who major in, say, English don’t. Welding is a specific skill. HVAC repair is a skill set aimed squarely at certain kinds of jobs. In each case, the goal is a program—sometimes a degree, sometimes a diploma or certificate—that can lead a student directly into employment that pays a living wage. In some cases, such as nursing, it’s fairly normal to go on to higher degrees; in others, such as welding, it’s less common. Either way, though, the content of what’s taught is necessary to get into the field.
In many transfer-focused programs, the opposite is true. A student with the eventual goal of, say, law school can take all sorts of liberal arts classes here, then transfer and take even more. Even if they want to stop at the bachelor’s level, the first two years of many bachelor’s programs in liberal arts fields are as much about breadth as about depth. Distribution requirements are called what they’re called because the courses are distributed across the curriculum.
At the level of a community college, you might not be able to distinguish the future English major from the future poli sci major by looking at their transcripts. They’ll take basic writing, some humanities, some social science, some math, some science and a few electives. And many receiving institutions prefer that students don’t take too many classes in their intended major in the first two years. Whether that’s because of a concern for student well-roundedness or an economic concern among departments about giving away too many credits is another question.
Of course, sometimes the boundary gets murky. Fields like social work straddle the divide between vocational and transfer, since the field often requires a bachelor’s degree. Similarly, a field like criminal justice can be understood as police training, but it also branches into criminology and sociology. And business, a perennially popular major, often leads to transfer despite defining itself as being all about the market.
The high-minded defense of the view that majors don’t matter is that student interest is actually much more important than choice of major. I agree strongly with that. I’d much rather see a student who loves literature study that than force herself to slog through an HVAC program, hating every moment of it. The recent travails of computer science graduates in the job market should remind us that there are no guaranteed occupations. Students who love what they study, or who just can’t stop thinking about it, get the most out of it. And after a few years, most adults with degrees are working in fields unrelated to their degrees anyway. To me, that’s a strong argument for the more evergreen skills of communication, analysis, synthesis, research and teamwork: No matter what the next hot technology is, people who have those skills are much more likely to thrive than people who don’t. A candidate’s tech skill may get them the first job, but their soft skills—not a fan of the term—get them promoted.
I want our students to be able to support themselves in the world that actually exists. I also want them to be able to support themselves in the world that will exist 20 years from now. Technological trends can be hard to get right. Remember when MOOCs were going to change everything? Or the Segway? In my more optimistic moments, I like to think that bridging the divide between the liberal arts and the vocational fields is one of the best things community colleges can do. Even if that feels squishy and centrist.
It’s college rankings season again, a time of congratulations, criticism and, occasionally, corrections for institutions and the organizations that rate them.
Typically U.S. News & World Report, the giant of the college rankings world, unranks some institutions months after its results are published over data discrepancies that are usually the result of honest mistakes. But in rare instances, erroneous data issues aren’t mistakes but outright fraud. And when that happens, it can result in soul-searching and, ideally, redemption for those involved.
That’s what happened at Temple University, which was rocked by a rankings scandal in 2018, when it became clear that Moshe Porat, the dean of Temple’s Richard J. Fox School of Business and Management, had knowingly provided false data to U.S. News for years in a successful effort to climb the rankings. Temple’s online master of business administration soared to No. 1—until the scheme was exposed. U.S. News temporarily unranked the program, the U.S. Department of Education hit Temple with a $700,000 fine and Porat was convicted of fraud.
Since then, Temple has worked hard to restore its reputation. In the aftermath of the scandal, officials imposed universitywide changes to how it handles facts and figures, establishing a Data Verification Unit within the Ethics and Compliance Office. Now any data produced by the university goes through a phalanx of dedicated fact-checkers, whether it’s for a rankings evaluation or an admissions brochure.
A Culture Shift
Temple’s Data Verification Unit was introduced in 2019 amid the fallout of the rankings scandal.
At first, it gave rise to “friction points,” as university officials were required to go through new processes to verify data before it was disseminated, said Susan Smith, Temple’s chief compliance officer. But now she believes the unit has won the trust of colleagues on campus who have bought in to more rigorous fact-checking measures.
“It’s been an incredibly positive thing for Temple and I think for data integrity over all,” Smith said.
Initially, Temple partnered with an outside law firm to verify data and lay the groundwork for the unit. Now that is all handled in-house by a small team that works across the university.
While Smith said “the vast majority of mistakes” she sees “are innocent,” her team is there “to act as a sort of backstop” and to “verify that the data is accurate, that there’s integrity in the data.”
The Data Verification Unit also provides training on best practices for data use and dissemination.
University officials believe placing the Data Verification Unit under the centralized Office of Compliance and Ethics—which reports directly to Temple’s Board of Trustees—is unique. And some say the process has created a bit of a culture shift as they run numbers by the unit.
Temple spokesperson Stephen Orbanek, who joined the university after the rankings scandal, said running news releases by the Data Verification Unit represented a “total change” from the way he was accustomed to operating. And while it can sometimes slow down the release of certain data points or responses to media requests, he said he’s been able to give reporters more robust data.
He also noted times when Temple has had to pull back on marketing claims and use “less impressive” statistics after the Data Verification Unit flagged issues with materials. As an example, he cited a fact sheet put out by the university in which officials wanted to refer to Temple as a top producer of Fulbright scholars. But the Data Verification Unit insisted that a caveat was needed: The statistic pertained only to the 2022–23 academic year.
Ultimately, Orbanek sees the Data Verification Unit as a boon for a more transparent campus culture.
“The culture has just kind of shifted, and you get on board,” Orbanek said.
Other Rankings Scandals
Other universities have been less forthcoming about fixing their own data issues.
In 2022, a professor called out his employer, Columbia University, for submitting inaccurate data to U.S. News, which responded by unranking the institution for a short time. Following the scandal and accusations of fraud by some critics, Columbia announced the university would no longer submit data to U.S. News. Officials argued that the rankings have outsize influence on prospective students but don’t adequately measure institutional quality.
Yet Columbia still publishes large swaths of data, such as its Common Data Set. Asked how the university has acted to verify data in the aftermath of the rankings scandal, a spokesperson wrote by email that data is “reviewed by a well-established, independent advisory firm to ensure reporting accuracy” but did not respond to a request for more details on the verification processes.
The University of Southern California also navigated a rankings scandal in 2022. USC provided faulty data to U.S. News for its Rossier School of Education, omitting certain metrics, which helped it rise in the rankings, according to a third-party report that largely blamed a former dean.
U.S. News temporarily unranked Rossier; graduate students sued the university, accusing officials of falsely advertising rankings based on fraudulent data. That legal battle is ongoing, and earlier this year a judge ruled that the case can proceed as a class action suit.
Officials did not respond to a request from Inside Higher Ed for comment on whether or how USC has changed the way it verifies data for use in rankings or for other purposes.
U.S. News also did not respond to specific questions about if or how it verifies that information submitted by institutions to be used for ranking purposes is accurate. A spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed, “U.S. News believes that data transparency and internal accountability practices by educational institutions are good for those institutions and good for consumers.”
Jeff Stein was the first male president of Mary Baldwin University since 1976.
Liz Albro Photography/iStock/Getty Images
Mary Baldwin University president Jeff Stein resigned Tuesday after two years in the role, The News Leader reported. Fall classes at the formerly all-women private university in Staunton, Va., started Monday.
A university spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed that Stein resigned for personal reasons, and the university has not shared any other information about his departure.
Stein was the first male president at Mary Baldwin since 1976 and assumed the role in 2023 after former president Pamela Fox retired. The university’s Board of Trustees appointed Todd Telemeco, who was the vice president and dean of Mary Baldwin’s Murphy Deming College of Health Sciences, as Stein’s permanent replacement.
“We thank Dr. Stein and his wife, Chrissy, for their two years of service to the University, and we wish them the best in their future endeavors. We are especially grateful for Dr. Stein’s ability to reinvigorate the connection between the University and our alumni,” board co-chairs Eloise Chandler and Constance Dierickx wrote in a statement. “This renewed energy in alumni relations has also contributed to significantly higher alumni giving rates.”
Prior to becoming president at Mary Baldwin, Stein served as vice president for strategic initiatives and partnerships and an associate professor of English at Elon University in North Carolina.
In recent decades, the extra money that graduates earn has been touted as a good reason to attend university. But that has recently come under scrutiny with evidence suggesting the graduate premium has fallen.
And now two separate papers have found that another supposed benefit of higher education—increased lifetime happiness—is also not quite as straightforward as thought.
A new study, which analyzed data from 36 countries, reveals that both higher education graduates and the rest of the population experience a steady increase in well-being as a country’s social and economic prosperity gradually improves.
However, the well-being gains associated with higher education were found to “level off” when a country becomes more economically developed.
Therefore, the paper argues that graduates in countries with lower GDP per capita experience greater relative gains in terms of economic security, social mobility, higher social status and life satisfaction—leading to a higher sense of well-being.
In contrast, the “happiness advantage” of a university degree in countries with a higher GDP per capita is less pronounced.
The paper suggests that stress and dissatisfaction can be caused by rising expectations, increased competition and a “relentless emphasis on achievement,” particularly among highly educated individuals.
“Highly educated individuals in more prosperous countries are generally much happier than their counterparts in less prosperous countries, although they may be less happy than less educated individuals within their own country,” writes author Samitha Udayanga, a doctoral candidate at the University of Bremen.
A separate study published in June found that the level of happiness associated with completing college has quadrupled since the mid-1970s.
The study of over 35,000 people in the U.S. showed that higher education has shifted over this time from contributing to happiness through occupations to improving wages.
The “happiness return” of higher education increased over the 45 years of the study and remains higher than the happiness linked to not studying for a degree.
But the researchers discovered it “nosedived” in 2021–22 during the COVID-19 pandemic. And satisfaction linked to postgraduate degrees has stalled since the 2000s.
“University graduates in contemporary America have a certain chance of gaining monetary rewards [by] bypassing occupations, resulting in a relatively higher probability of feeling happy,” they said. “Meanwhile, the same mechanism rarely operates for advanced degree holders, whose happiness largely depends on their occupational attainment.”
The paper concludes that the overall happiness premium for higher education at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level may “vanish once their economic rewards become less pronounced.”
