First in Leadership Series by Barry Ryan, PhD, JD August 11, 2025
It is hard to think of a time when higher education was swimming in a pool filled with a greater number of shark-like threats than at present.
Some of these were predictable (in hindsight), some not so much. Let’s set aside blame, however, on either an institutional level or on a more global basis. The vital thing now is for genuine leaders to help chart courses that will lead higher education, not just to mere survival, but to new and meaningful purposes that will benefit this generation and the next.
When situations are “normal,” we may be tempted to imagine that we need leadership that can keep the legacy intact, turn the crank, not rock the boat. But normal no longer exists, does it?
I remember a senior university leader, who admonished me, as I began a new presidency: “everything’s going great—just don’t mess it up” (using slightly more colorful language). One year later, seismic changes in higher ed created an unexpected crisis and necessitated major changes in the institution. Almost everything that had contributed to its prior success turned, overnight, into a liability.
There is, of course, more than one crisis in which higher ed is being buffeted. The sheer number of colleges and universities that have ceased to exist at all, or have been merged to various extents with others, or are currently teetering on the brink, appears in news stories almost every day. The root causes are legion and often woven together: financial shortfalls, a shrinking number of students, reductions in state and federal support, the disappearance of many international students, families, and prospective students increasingly unable to justify the cost of a degree, the “value” of which is seriously questioned. The list goes on.
Of the three large “types” of higher education in the United States—public (state) colleges and universities, private not-for-profit colleges and universities, and for-profit entities—the vast majority are struggling in meaningful ways.
If you find yourself in a leadership role in this age of crisis, what are some key things you can do to keep becoming a better leader and more effectively serve your institution and your colleagues? Here are three suggestions that you may find helpful.
First, don’t panic.
And even if you do feel panic welling up inside you, do your best to keep it from becoming obvious. Phil Slott, who was involved in the Dry Idea marketing campaign in the 1980s, seems to have coined a relevant phrase: “Never let them see you sweat.” It just stresses you out more and does little to inspire confidence in those who are looking to you for leadership.
Once you’ve steadied yourself, the next critical realization is that leadership in crisis cannot be solitary work.
Second, remember every day, you can’t do this alone.
A 19th-century lawyer by the name of Abe Lincoln is credited with the adage: “A person who represents himself in court has a fool for a client.” That rings true for any leader who tries to do everything and assumes they have sufficient knowledge (or wisdom or experience or insight) to solve every problem on their own. No one does—no matter how experienced.
So where do you turn for help? The answer is two-fold: internally and externally. You need to draw on both circles and find confidential, experienced, and reliable counsel.
Choose very carefully with whom you share the issues internally. Depending on the nature of the problem you’re trying to address, success might well be thwarted if there is a lapse of absolute confidentiality. At the starting point of the process, you need to be able to rely on one other person, or perhaps a very small circle, with which you will be able to expand bit by bit as the timeline moves along.
There are difficult audiences and stakeholders in the life of an academic institution, and ultimately, all must be included in the process of working through a crisis. The sequencing of sharing information and inviting input, though, must be very carefully structured. If you’re a president, oftentimes the first person you seek is a senior member of the administration—a provost, vice president, or someone in a similar position. At times, it could be the chair of the board or a wise and thoughtful alum. But whoever the person(s) may be, the timing of sharing the situation and seeking input for solutions is everything.
It’s very important not to neglect external assistance as well. It is all but impossible to generate a sufficient perspective on a crisis from only one (your) vantage point, or even from that of your small, trustworthy group. You’re very likely not the first institution to face these problems, and consulting with trusted external leaders can provide not only perspective but also ideas you may not have thought of on your own.
Some of these leaders may be in academic institutions, but not necessarily. It is always helpful to have relationships with leaders in other professional fields as well, who may be particularly helpful in providing fresh perspectives and ideas. For example, in my own experience, I’ve found such people in leadership of non-profit organizations or boards, key corporate positions, government at various levels, and experienced friends with whom I served long ago, and could provide input on both my institution’s situation and also my own strengths and weaknesses. In addition, external folks don’t have the same emotional investment as someone internal, so the chances of a more neutral observation point are increased significantly.
There is a temptation—and often a prudent one—to seek external input from lawyers. There are, of course, a fair number of attorneys and firms with expertise in higher education, which can be a plus. Higher education is a very specialized field, and, frankly, most lawyers have a huge knowledge deficit in terms of the operational realities of a college or university. Their tendency is to think, “Well, I know higher ed—after all, I went to college and law school” (or maybe even taught a course or two). Beware the well-intentioned lawyer who does not have directly relevant practice experience.
This, of course, does not at all preclude seeking competent legal advice for certain aspects of the problems you may be facing. For example, most institutions have or will need counsel in employment matters. Even if not the center of your challenge, these issues will likely arise as part of the need for a solution to your challenges. If it appears you will have to make difficult financial decisions that might impact faculty or staff, you should seek excellent employment counsel much sooner rather than later. With students, Title IX requirements, for example, may dictate the need for specialized counsel, as might certain types of accreditation issues.
Third, leadership is not “one size fits all.”
Every leader has different abilities and personalities. Even though many institutions experience similar types of crises, the circumstances of each call for a bespoke solution.
However, some very important leadership characteristics can increase the probability of success in these situations. In part two, we’ll examine these and how to cultivate them.
Dr. Barry Ryan invested the first half of his career in higher education in teaching and the second half in administration. During that same timeframe, he pursued a parallel career in law and legal education. He served as the Supreme Court Fellow in the chambers of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and is a member of numerous federal and state bars. He has been appointed as the president of five universities and provost and chief of staff at three others. Among the institutions he served have been state, private non-profit, and private for-profit universities. Included in his academic experience were two terms as a Commissioner of the regional accreditor WASC (WSCUC).
He has been appointed as the president of five universities and provost and chief of staff at three others. Among the institutions he served have been state, private non-profit, and private for-profit universities. Included in his academic experience were two terms as a Commissioner of the regional accreditor WASC (WSCUC). Dr. Ryan has led institutions through mergers, acquisitions, and affiliations that have preserved academic quality, expanded access, and strengthened long-term viability. His leadership has been marked by transparency, shared governance, and a commitment to stakeholder engagement at every stage of these processes.
He earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and his Dipl.GB in international business from the University of Oxford.
Edu Alliance Journal provides expert commentary and practical insights on U.S. and international higher education, focusing on innovation, policy, and institutional growth. Published by Edu Alliance, a consulting firm with offices in the United States and the United Arab Emirates, the Journal reflects the organization’s mission to help colleges, universities, and educational organizations achieve sustainable success through strategic partnerships, market intelligence, and program development.
As a higher education professional with a background in writing and rhetoric, I frame my work in career and professional development in terms of communication, such as helping trainees translate their skills to the language of employers, convey complex research to audiences beyond their fields and forge professional selves through the written and digital texts they produce. By training, I often think about how texts produce effects on readers and the design choices writers make to engage those audiences.
At a time when higher education faces great adversity, I find myself reflecting on the value of writing about career and professional development work in a venue such as “Carpe Careers”: Why write about graduate and postdoc career and professional development? How does this writing translate the impact of our work to different audiences? In this piece, I outline what we do when we write about graduate and postdoc career and professional development and why we should keep writing about this work.
Writing to Empower Graduate and Postdoctoral Scholars
As career and professional development leaders, we sometimes feel frustrated that the impact of our work seems limited to one institution or program. For example, we might be the office of one at our institution and concerned about the scalability of advising appointments or low attendance at workshops. Writing about best practices for career and professional development can expand the reach of our advice to online audiences worldwide.
These essential topics continue to be necessary and relevant to new generations of graduate and postdoctoral readers because they make visible the hidden curriculum of academia and the world of work. Our work gives learners the tools to navigate these spaces with confidence, supplementing the efforts of mentors, coaches and instructional workshops. Likewise, when we write about professional development, we attend to the holistic flourishing of graduate and postdoctoral scholars by centering topics such as mental well-being on the job search, coping with the culture shock of career transitions or the power of rest. We not only give learners practical advice for the next steps in their careers but also cultivate virtual community and belonging for graduate and postdoctoral trainees facing common challenges and pursuing similar goals.
Writing to Support Fellow Practitioners
When we write about career and professional development, we put our own spin on old chestnut topics by drawing on our backgrounds, identities and experiences. For example, this recent piece reframes professional networking as a form of evidence-gathering and scientific research, leveraging the authors’ training in science. Putting our own spins on standard topics of career transitions and exploration can help us create a distinct personal professional brand as practitioners: How have we synthesized our own stories and the wisdom of others to support current graduate and postdoc trainees? What do we want to be known for as graduate and postdoc career development leaders?
Beyond enriching individual professional identities, when we write about graduate and postdoc career and professional development, we also reflect on how our work with graduate and postdoctoral trainees is changing and identify opportunities for innovation, from the pros and cons of using generative AI tools for career-related activities to advice for supporting international job seekers. We likewise showcase innovative approaches to implementing career and professional development for graduate and postdoctoral learners, such as how to tailor experiential learning, alumni mentoring and badging programs to these populations.
By reflecting on our practice and how we have adapted to challenges, this writing becomes a form of professional development for us, as it enriches the dynamic fields of graduate and postdoc career and professional development and extends our conversations from professional organizations and conferences to wider, virtual communities of practitioners. For instance, recent “Carpe Careers” pieces have highlighted administrative postdoc and “meta” postdoc roles as entry points to career development and related academic administrative work, defining new positions through the perspectives of those who hold these inaugural roles and shaping the futures of work in our fields. When we address practitioners as an audience, writing about career and professional development creates a virtual community of practice where we highlight emerging trends and offer support for one another’s professional growth.
Writing to Engage Stakeholders
Writing for fellow graduate and postdoc career practitioners elevates our work and sets the stage to convey its value to stakeholders, such as faculty and senior administrators whose support is crucial for campus career and professional development initiatives. The external recognition from a piece in a venue such as “Carpe Careers” can lead to greater internal recognition for our programs and offices. For example, when I wrote a “Carpe Careers” post on professional thank-you notes for Thanksgiving week 2024, a University of Pittsburgh newswire service highlighted it in a newsletter, and a vice provost invited me to present on writing thank-yous at a faculty retreat.
Beyond our campuses, when we write about graduate and postdoctoral career development, we communicate the value of our efforts to stakeholders outside higher education, such as employers, policymakers and the public. As Celia Whitchurch observed, graduate and postdoc career and professional development work occupies a third space in higher education amid academic, student affairs and administrative functions, so it is often overlooked and less understood than more conventional academic or student life initiatives.
Writing about our work situates it—and by extension the experiences of graduate and postdoctoral scholars—in the wider ecosystems of higher education and the workforce. This writing can educate stakeholders who are less familiar with the work of career and professional development, highlighting our contributions to graduate and postdoctoral learners’ success, and thereby helping us advocate for greater visibility and resources. When we write about graduate and postdoc career and professional development, we underscore the value of our work and its impacts on trainees, higher education and the wider society.
Writing for and as Change
Writing about graduate and postdoc career and professional development positions us as change agents, championing trainees’ holistic success and envisioning what our field could be. In this writing, we hold space for courageous conversations in difficult times, such as supporting learners through recent disruptions, reflecting on activism as a form of professional development and highlighting the entrepreneurial potential of our trainees amid economic uncertainty. Whether we address learners, fellow practitioners or broader stakeholders, when we write about career and professional development, we let ourselves dream about our careers and those of trainees, not only advocating for change but also modeling what change looks like through our advice, our programmatic innovations and our support for the broader enterprise of higher education.
In short, writing about graduate and postdoc career and professional development is an affirmation of advanced degrees, higher education and the work of practitioners who support these learners’ long-term professional flourishing. This writing can be rewarding, as it scales up the impact of our advice, enriches professional communities and elevates the profile of career and professional development work. It can be bold, as it envisions and embodies positive change in our areas of practice. For “Carpe Careers” readers who are writers, why do you write about graduate and postdoc career and professional development? For “Carpe” readers who are considering writing about their work, when will you start?
Katie Homar is the assistant director of the Office of Academic Career Development, Health Sciences, at the University of Pittsburgh. She is a member of the Graduate Career Consortium—an organization providing an international voice for graduate-level career and professional development leaders.
Each May, hundreds of thousands of high school students from across the United States take the Advanced Placement exam for English Literature and Composition. Each June, hundreds of high school and college English instructors gather for a week to score them. The three-hour exam consists of two parts: a multiple-choice section and a section with three essays (analyses of poetry and fiction and a literary argument essay).
This year, for the third time, I was one of the essay graders. What follows are my unvarnished thoughts from the week, presented anonymously—because I might want to get invited back to grade again.
Day 1
My plane to Salt Lake City is delayed, so I arrive at my hotel well after midnight. My assigned roommate is fast asleep. We have the option of staying in a single room, but only if we pay half.
The alarm goes off at 7. My roommate and I introduce ourselves as he exits the shower. He is ready to go well before me. He’s a first-timer.
I head over to the convention center. At 8 a.m. sharp, hundreds of us gather in a large auditorium for orientation. The chief reader—a professor at a Baptist college—seems a genial enough person. He goes over the week’s game plan via PowerPoint (“read every essay like it’s your first”), makes sundry bureaucratic announcements and introduces the other managers (“assistant readers,” “table leaders,” etc.). Peals of applause burst out frequently, lending the proceedings a summer camp air. To cap things off, the chief reader puts up photos of his dog.
The reading room—the size of an airplane hangar, with cement floors and high ceilings hung with banks of fluorescent lights—is divided into four or five sections of probably around 100 people each. Each section is enclosed by black curtains supported by metal rods. Readers are grouped eight to a table, each with a laptop.
I admit I’m not in the most chipper mood after the short night’s sleep. The enthusiastic vibe can’t help, either. I grab a cup of free coffee (very low quality), take my seat and introduce myself to the woman seated next to me, a high school teacher from Texas. Then our peppy table leader comes over. “Hi, yeah, sorry, would you mind putting your coffee on the floor? We’re trying to be careful with the laptops.” I sigh and glance around to see other tables with coffee cups and bottles on them. I put my cup on the floor. We spend much of the first day training—watching videos, practicing on sample essays, tuning our brains to AP standards.
Day 2
As I sit in the reading room, time crawls; with no windows it could be 3 in the morning for all I know. The novelty has worn off and the grind has set in. Is this what a real job is like? I improvise a routine to manage the boredom: Along with the scheduled 15-minute breaks in the morning and afternoon, every 30 or 40 minutes I get up to walk around, check my phone, stare into space.
The other readers seem to be mostly high school teachers. They seem well adapted to the AP regimen, and to regimentation. Many wear T-shirts with pro-literacy or pro-reading themes. I’d estimate that about two-thirds of the scorers are women. That fits with the service-heavy load female professors typically shoulder at most universities.
We are served three free meals a day, buffet-style, all you can eat. There’s a strange symmetry with our daily work—all the exams you can score from a never-ending supply. As my waistline expands, I feel my brain shrinking. The buffet lines are staffed by an army of food service workers, mostly Hispanic or Asian, who bring out metal trays and various tureens from mysterious kitchens for our breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as the coffee and snacks for our scheduled breaks. The working class works for us, the petit bourgeois, as we help classify the next generation as either part of the future lower middle or upper middle class.
As we filter back into the reading room after lunch, the chief reader addresses us over a PA system, thanking us for returning on time, reminding us to score carefully, regaling us with a choice quote or two.
Day 3
I breakfast with my roommate and a few of his reading-table mates. He really is the nicest person. They invite me to karaoke later. A few drinks would be nice, though I can’t fathom singing after this kind of work.
I read (or scan, actually) more than 100 essays per day. On average, one or two offer something insightful or fluent. The rest either scrape by, or don’t. Many in fact are aborted on takeoff—a sentence or two, maybe a phrase, sometimes nothing at all. Probably 10 to 15 percent are these kind of no-show efforts. It makes me wonder why these students take this test. Do they get extra class credit for merely showing up? To quote from a favorite Scorsese movie, “Qui bono?”
I continually hear the crinkling of candy and other snacks—provided free by AP, and replenished daily—being unwrapped. This is in addition to the free, all-you-can-eat meals and snacks during breaks.
The assistant reader hovers around the tables in our section like a wary exam proctor, watching us for who knows what. This afternoon, the third day of the reading, the computers go down. With nothing to do, I pull out my phone and start reading an article on the author of a literary selection our exams are based on. My friendly table leader comes over. “Let’s please put away our phones.” I scoff and return to reading the article. A few minutes later the assistant reader sidles up to me. “Please put away your phone.” Before I can reply she has moved away.
The silent whistle finally blows at 5. We stream out of the reading room and down the long corridors of the convention center like mill workers at the end of the day shift. We enter the dining hall or drift outside into the sunny and warm late afternoon. I head straight to the hotel fitness center, the stress of the day evaporating with each set, recharging for another day, just like my Motorola plugged into the hotel room nightstand.
Later that evening my roommate returns to our room (“karaoke was great!”) and asks me if I want to go tomorrow night. I beg off again (I plead achoraphobia—fear of public singing).
Day 4
Salt Lake City—capital of the Beehive State. At lunch I skip the dining hall and make a beeline outside to get some much-needed air and sun. I make my way to Temple Square, the Mormon Vatican. Groups of tourists mix in with groups of name-tagged believers. The temple itself is swaddled in scaffolding. I watch the giant cranes convey building materials to men 10 stories up. A plaque on the Brigham Young Monument records the names of the original 1847 Mormon pioneers. One of them is my great-great-great-great-grandfather.
Of course, working as an AP exam reader is entirely voluntary. I need extra money this year to pay off some taxes. Scorers make $30 an hour. With overtime—we get paid time and a half on days six and seven—I’ll make about $2,000, before taxes.
After the 5 o’clock whistle, I go back to the hotel room and blast rock music from the TV so I can feel something (The Strokes’ “Room on Fire” and Greta Van Fleet’s “From the Fires”). The day’s strain melts away.
Day 5
Every few days we are tested to make sure we are scoring “accurately.” “Calibration” involves scoring a set of six sample exams—and if you score them as an “expert” reader would, you pass. If you don’t, you get sent to remediation. A few members of my table seem genuinely worried. When I arrive to our table this morning (I am always the last to arrive) my neighbor, the high school teacher from Texas, greets me with some tension in her voice: “We’re calibrating today!” I score my set like I don’t give a damn, and pass. One of my table mates disappears for a couple hours.
In the afternoon the chief reader makes his most serious announcement—apparently someone has been posting photos of the reading on social media, which is a big no-no. AP has to preserve the “integrity” of its tests, of course. Its Lloyd’s of London–type image is key to that integrity, it seems.
Most essays are painfully incoherent, ungrammatical. Many, as previously mentioned, are incomplete.
Still we read them, one after another—we scorers are the English teachers of the future, in the wet dreams of the likes of Elon Musk. All of us readers are in our field because we love reading—and here we are, scanning endless variations on a single passage from a single novel, our love being milked to a slow death, dairy cows once impregnated with passion now tightly corralled into an assembly line and hooked up to machines.
Like the character Thomas Bradshaw in the brief excerpt the AP essays are based on (from the novel The Bradshaw Variations by Rachel Cusk), most of the essays leave us wanting. We will never see the wife for whom Thomas is waiting in the kitchen; we will never experience their reunion, or the development of their relationship. Like Thomas, we marinate in limbo. Like the static but frantic figures on Keats’s Grecian urn, we chase, we desire, but never consummate.
Day 6
The other members of my table pass around a greeting card for everyone to sign for our table leader. They also take up cash donations for a gift. I sign the card.
The computer servers crash and scoring comes to a halt. I have a feeling of relief, like for extra recess or a snow day.
Day 7
Over the course of the week, I’ve given a perfect score to just a handful of exams. Is this how we’re educating the best and brightest, these college students of the near future? Are the vaunted humanities—assailed for years from without—rotting from within? I get a few exams in which the student does not offer an essay, but instead a rant about the meaninglessness of the AP exam itself. These could be mere excuses, but the voices that emerge from these exams are funny, searching, thoughtful.
“Look beneath the façade of affable confidence and seamless well-adjustment that today’s elite students have learned to project, and what you often find are toxic levels of fear, anxiety and depression, of emptiness and aimlessness and isolation,” William Deresiewicz wrote in Excellent Sheep. “We all know about the stressed-out, overpressured high school student; why do we assume that things get better once she gets to college?”
The author is a professor of English at a regional public university in the eastern United States.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order in April promising to “elevate the value and impact” of the country’s historically Black colleges and universities—in part by selecting an executive director for the White House Initiative on HBCUs and a President’s Board of Advisors on HBCUs.
But four months later, eight months into his second term, these roles remain unfilled.
Some HBCU advocates say months-long waits are business as usual for these positions, and they remain confident in Trump’s support for HBCUs. Others worry that HBCUs lack their most direct line of communication to the White House at a time of rapid-fire higher ed policy changes.
Since the 1980s, the executive director of the HBCUs initiative, established by President Jimmy Carter, has been responsible for advocating for HBCUs’ federal policy interests. The President’s Board of Advisors offers guidance to government officials about how to better support and strengthen these institutions.
Appointees serve as HBCUs’ “in-house advocates,” said Ivory A. Toldson, a professor of counseling psychology at Howard University and editor in chief of The Journal of Negro Education. He served as deputy director of the White House Initiative on HBCUs from 2013 to 2015 and as executive director from 2015 to 2016 under former president Barack Obama. The director and board have historically sought out federal funding and partnership opportunities for these institutions and “made sure that executive-level priorities were shaped in a way that understood the needs of HBCUs.”
Toldson said there are likely to be “missed opportunities” for HBCUs during the limbo period before an executive director is chosen. He said it’s easy for federal agencies, like the National Science Foundation or the National Institutes of Health, to overlook smaller HBCUs for grants when no one is there to champion them.
“By them not having representation within the federal government, it becomes difficult for them to advocate effectively for their needs,” he said.
Robert Palmer, chair of the education department at Howard, said he worries HBCUs don’t have their “earpiece” to the Trump administration at a time when policy shifts, such as upcoming changes to the student loan program, will affect HBCU students.
The unfilled roles are “quite concerning,” Palmer said. “It almost makes you wonder, is it a priority for him? Because that’s what it signals—that it’s not a priority.”
Mixed Views
Other HBCU advocates don’t see a problem. Lodriguez Murray, vice president of public policy and government affairs at the United Negro College Fund, which represents private HBCUs, said he isn’t troubled by the wait because organizations like his have still been able to have “high-power and high-level discussions” with the White House and Department of Education.
“We’ve been able to get every concern addressed. We’ve been able to get every email returned. We’ve been able to get every meeting request handled,” he said. “The house is not burning down for us. And I have seen no lack of continuity and engagement on our issues at the highest levels.”
He said it’s more meaningful to him that Trump issued an executive order reaffirming the White House Initiative on HBCUs within his first 100 days and fully funded HBCUs in his proposed budget. He’d also rather the administration take its time to pick “the right individuals” to fill these roles.
“There have been many individuals who have had the role of executive director of the White House initiative on HBCUs [who] have fallen below what the expectations are of this community,” Murray said. “And so, if the White House is attempting to find the right person to meet a moment and to meet expectations, that’s fine with me.”
Trump’s pick for executive director during his first term, speaker and consultant Johnathan Holifield, was met with mixed reactions by HBCU supporters because of his lack of prior experience with these institutions. Former president Obama also received criticism for some of his executive director choices, including multiple interim appointments between permanent directors.
Murray said he’s hoping for someone “with the president’s confidence” who can help bring Trump’s plans to support HBCUs to fruition and who can simultaneously “speak truth to power and express to the president the concerns of HBCUs.”
For Toldson, “institutional knowledge of HBCUs” and an “apolitical” approach will be critical to a new executive director’s success to avoid HBCUs getting mired in the anti-DEI crusade besieging other higher ed institutions.
“Regardless of who’s in office, we need representation, and I think that the right representation would be able to balance the needs of the HBCU community with the broader direction of the government,” Toldson said.
Mounting Anticipation
Harry Williams, president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which represents public HBCUs, said the amount of time it takes for presidents to fill these roles has varied historically. HBCUs have often waited months for these appointments, so the current timeline isn’t out of the ordinary, he said. Former president Joe Biden didn’t officially name an executive director until February 2022, a little over a year after his inauguration.
Still, a long wait “creates uncertainty, and it creates anxiety,” Williams said.
“We’ve gotten good information that this is something that will happen, but the timing of it has always been the challenge,” he added. TMCF is reassuring campuses that the administration plans to fill these positions, “but we don’t know exactly when.”
David K. Wilson, president of Morgan State University, said he and other HBCU presidents are eager to get started on making the promises in Trump’s executive order a reality. They were glad to see the order call on federal agencies, businesses and foundations to partner with and invest more in HBCUs.
Wilson said he hopes to see these positions filled soon “so that we can begin to express directly to the White House what some of the opportunities are for continued investment in these institutions.”
“All of them will return unbelievable dividends to the nation,” he added.
Wilson noted that Howard University recently regained Research-1 status, the coveted Carnegie Foundation classification for universities with very high research activity. Other HBCUs, including Morgan State, are poised to follow in the coming years. He wants to see appointees in place who can help maintain that momentum.
“We can’t wait to see now what this next era of HBCU investments under the Trump administration will look like,” he said. “We were on a roll, and now the question is, can we roll faster?”
July was marked by steep cuts at some of the nation’s wealthiest institutions while fewer small, cash-strapped colleges made significant workforce reductions.
While some of the nation’s wealthiest universities—institutions with multibillion-dollar endowments—laid off hundreds of employees last month due to federal research funding issues, an uncertain political landscape and rising costs, those cuts were an anomaly. Colleges outside the top financial stratosphere, contending with issues such as declining enrollment, shrinking state support and other challenges, didn’t cut as deep compared to the megawealthy.
Inside Higher Ed recently covered how the Trump administration is driving cuts at wealthy institutions. Now here’s a look at other layoffs and program cuts announced in July as both large, well-resourced institutions and smaller colleges with less capital contend with challenging headwinds for the sector.
Temple University
Grappling with a budget deficit that was projected as high as $60 million, Temple laid off 50 employees and eliminated more than 100 vacancies in July, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
The 50 layoffs equal less than 1 percent of Temple’s total workforce, according to the university.
Altogether Temple eliminated “190 positions across the university, with the vast majority of these coming through attrition, retirement or elimination of vacant positions,” President John Fry wrote in a message to campus last month. Fry added that those reductions narrowed the projected budget gap from $60 million to $27 million, cutting Temple’s structural deficit by more than half.
Michigan State University
The wealthiest institution represented here, with an endowment valued at more than $4.4 billion, the public university in Lansing cut nearly 100 jobs last month, The Detroit Free Press reported.
Officials announced 94 employees in MSU’s extension division were being laid off due to a loss of federal grant funding. The cuts come as a result of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program–Education program being discontinued this fall, which provided a $10 million grant. Layoffs will affect employees across the state.
Additional jobs cuts also loom at Michigan State, where officials recently announced cost-cutting plans, citing the need to trim its budget by about 9 percent over the course of the next two years.
University of Florida
One of the wealthiest institutions on this list with an endowment of more than $2 billion, UF eliminated 75 jobs last month, largely through attrition and closing vacant roles, WCJB reported.
A university spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed the cuts were part of a 5 percent reduction in administrative expenses, which amounted to $20 million in cost savings for UF. In addition to the 75 jobs eliminated, UF closed its Office of Sustainability, reportedly cutting another three jobs.
UF is also shutting down its Health Science Center Police Service Technician program at the end of the year, which officials said will affect 15 positions, though seven are currently vacant.
Barnard College
The private women’s college affiliated with Columbia University, but with a separate and much smaller endowment, cut 77 jobs last month as part of a restructuring effort announced July 31.
Barnard president Laura Ann Rosenbury wrote in a message to campus that the cuts were a “painful moment” but the “strategic realignment” reflected “evolving operational needs.” She added that no faculty positions or instructional services personnel were included in the cuts.
Founded in 1889, Barnard had an endowment valued at $503 million in fiscal year 2024 and has dealt with rising debt in recent years.
University officials are working to shrink SOU’s budget from $71 million to a more manageable $60 million. In the short term that means finding $5 million in savings for the 2025–26 fiscal year.
The budget cuts will play out over three years and eliminate an estimated 65 jobs through a mix of voluntary retirements, leaving some positions vacant and cutting about 20 positions. SOU also plans to cut 15 majors and 11 minors, shrinking its academic portfolio as it restructures.
SOU president Rick Bailey is also taking a voluntary 20 percent pay cut amid budget issues.
Meredith College
Cost-cutting measures prompted layoffs at the private women’s college in North Carolina, with 6 percent of the workforce—roughly 25 employees—affected, local TV station ABC 11 reported.
None of Meredith’s full-time faculty members were laid off, according to ABC 11.
“These strategic budget reductions were necessary and proactive steps in preserving Meredith’s long-term financial strength and helping it grow and thrive for the future,” college officials wrote in a statement to media outlets detailing the reason for the layoffs. “When making budget adjustments, Meredith leaders focused on protecting programs and services essential to fulfilling its mission. These difficult decisions were made for the good of the College as a whole.”
Sullivan University
The private Kentucky university is cutting 21 jobs, seven of which are vacant, closing two educational sites and selling its only residence hall, The Louisville Courier Journal reported.
The changes come at a rocky time for the university, which was declared the worst company in the city to work for by LEO Weekly, another local news outlet, based on feedback on Glassdoor, a website used for job searches and employer reviews. Sullivan officials subsequently began offering a 1 percent 401(k) match, which officials told the Courier Journal was already planned.
Sullivan also parted ways with President Tim Swenson, who abruptly resigned last week. The university had placed Swenson on administrative leave just a few days prior. Officials wrote, in an email obtained by the newspaper, that he was placed on leave “to allow time for a review of internal matters and to ensure the process is handled fairly and without disruption.” Sullivan officials did not specify the reason for his departure in a message to employees.
Kalamazoo College
The small, private liberal arts college in Michigan laid off 11 staff members due to financial pressures, to enrollment challenges and “an inflationary environment,” MLive reported.
“This difficult decision was not made lightly, and it is part of a broader effort to ensure the long-term financial stability and sustainability of the institution,” officials said in a statement.
Xavier University
A challenging enrollment picture is driving layoffs at the private Catholic university, where officials are also cutting salaries and making other changes, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
Though the full number of layoffs is unclear, a university spokesperson told the newspaper that the cuts include two jobs in Xavier’s executive cabinet as well as some temporary faculty and staff. University officials noted that no full-time faculty members have been part of the cuts.
Xavier will also maintain restrictions on nonessential travel.
In 2021, I piloted a city-wide mentoring programme for global majority ethnic staff working in London universities.
It was born from the bilateral North London Leadership Programme between London Metropolitan University and City St George’s, University of London. Four years later the Global Majority Mentoring Programme is flourishing – but world events show us that we need interventions like these as much as we ever did.
The Global Majority Mentoring Programme is London Higher’s flagship commitment to championing equality, diversity and inclusion across the capital. It is a cross-institutional scheme that aims to improve career progression for global majority ethnic staff; give mentees a senior mentor from a different institution, outside their institutional hierarchy; and build professional networks across the capital to foster pan-London collaboration. Over 300 participants from 20 institutions have engaged with the scheme, with representation from small specialist institutions, large multi-faculty universities, and everything in between.
London remains the most ethnically diverse region in the UK. Ten of London’s 32 boroughs (plus the City of London) have a majority non-white population. Newham is London’s most diverse borough, with a population that is 69.2 per cent non-white. In the boroughs of Brent, Redbridge, Harrow and Tower Hamlets, the figure is also above 60 per cent.
You could also call the capital a microcosm of the wider HE sector. London has the largest concentration of diverse higher education providers in the country. A citywide initiative here has a real opportunity to effect meaningful and visible change. Our universities are proudly outward-looking and global, from research links to equitable international partnerships, yet they are also firmly rooted in place and contributors to local growth, regeneration and prosperity. However, lasting change doesn’t happen overnight; London’s higher education sector was not, and still is not, truly representative of the city it serves.
Mentoring individuals from global majority ethnic backgrounds aligns with London-wide policy aims and ambitions: there’s a clear evidence base to support this. Along with the London Anchor Institutions’ Network, we’re striving to meet the clear priorities that have been set out for London’s post-pandemic recovery and regeneration, addressing systemic issues of social and economic unfairness. The London Growth Plan and upcoming Inclusive Talent Strategy encapsulate these priorities.
Growing the pipeline
We are all acutely aware of the wider narrative around EDI. The second Trump administration’s efforts in the US show us what can happen when a populist government takes up “anti-woke” as a cause. There may be disagreement about the form that EDI work should take and some people may fundamentally disagree with the legitimacy of EDI work as part of a public service agenda.
However, in a sector in which there is a visible lack of diversity – in all its forms – that worsens, the further upstream in the talent pipeline you go, we need to continue to work to understand the practical and cultural barriers to leadership and drive to overcome them, learning together as we go. A theme that has consistently emerged throughout the programme is gaining a better knowledge of HE, and its systemic complexities and barriers.
Mentoring programmes like ours create space and connections to make sense of personal experience and explore shared challenges. Participants report feeling a greater sense of empowerment and increased confidence. And tangible impacts on mentees include promotions, collaborations across universities, joint research bids, and even funded PhDs happening as a result of their participation in the scheme.
Future-proofing
Career progression and leadership opportunities were identified as key issues from the outset, so it seems appropriate that the programme is supported by Minerva, an executive search and recruitment firm specialising in education. As headhunters responsible for significant appointments, Minerva is in a position of influence to shape the composition of senior university leadership and their boards.
The programme ensures that a diverse talent pool is in the Minerva team’s line of sight, and can understand more about the challenges global majority colleagues face in moving up the ladder. Minerva also runs yearly masterclass for participants to demystify the executive search process – providing insights into a world that is largely unknown to many of them. This includes a breakdown of recruitment, explanations of things such as the “informal coffee” interview stage, tips on negotiating, conveying a personal brand and profile raising.
We also tailored a leadership development programme alongside the University of Westminster and Blue Whistle Learning that has been taken up internationally, in countries like the Philippines and South Africa.
It is my hope that the initiatives like this are viewed not as political footballs or shiny nice-to-haves, but for what they are – interventions based on robust evidence that meet local and sectoral needs and broaden opportunities for collaboration.
Higher education, especially in London, does not exist in a bubble. It is critical that universities continue to position themselves as integral to driving wider policy change in service of society. A more diverse sector does not mean a watered-down one – it means one that is informed by more voices and perspectives, and therefore better equipped to succeed in tackling the challenges laid out before it.
This article is one of four exploring London Higher’s Global Majority Mentoring Programme – you can find the others here.
The Global Majority Mentoring Programme, delivered by London Higher, aims to support career progression for Black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) staff by providing tailored mentoring relationships and learning opportunities for academics and professional services staff.
I joined the programme as a mentee in 2023–24 while seeking support during my time as head of two merged divisions in the School of Law and Social Sciences. For me, mentoring is an exchange of knowledge and experience, and I was looking for a woman of colour in a leadership role outside my own institution with whom I could turn to for advice on navigating the unique challenges I was facing in confidence.
The programme was recommended to me by a colleague who recognised that, as the only non-white member of the school leadership team, I faced specific challenges which, although acknowledged by the rest of the team, could only be supported to a limited extent given that the remainder of the team were white. They understood that someone with lived experience of both race and gender might be better placed to offer the kind of support I needed. I was matched with someone in an Associate Dean role who I met with regularly for three months. She validated my experiences especially when I was second guessing myself, she also offered me guidance and advice on navigating career progression and insights on HE headhunters.
In addition to the mentoring, I also took part in the two-day Learning Leaders Workshop, delivered in partnership with the mentoring programme and the University of Westminster. I approached the workshop ambivalently while hoping it would offer more than the surface-level training I had experienced in the past. Previous programmes had often been underwhelming, failing to meet expectations and lacking depth. One in particular was overcrowded, with more than twenty participants, which made it difficult to engage in the kind of deep thinking that individual and collective inquiry needs.
Surface pressure
Reflecting on these past experiences, I began to question the broader purpose and structure of leadership development in higher education. Despite good intentions, many leadership development initiatives in higher education appear to remain disconnected from the structural changes reshaping the sector. And it is not always clear why line managers support staff participation in these programmes when, in practice, there appears to be limited opportunities to apply or build on the learning.
This concern feels especially pressing now, as the sector undergoes significant transformation, with widespread voluntary redundancies affecting many institutions across the UK. I fear that higher education is losing emerging talent at an alarming rate. While the current focus is largely on financial viability, we may be overlooking a more profound long-term issue, the need to reimagine what leadership in higher education looks like. The urgency of building a future-focused leadership pipeline is growing, particularly as ongoing threats to equity, diversity and inclusion continue to challenge the sector’s values and resilience.
Amid this context of uncertainty, where many of us are increasingly time-poor and juggling demanding workloads, I hoped the Learning Leaders workshop would offer a more meaningful and impactful experience. Taking time out of our busy schedules for training must feel worthwhile, rather than merely another tick-box exercise to meet 360 performance management targets. To my surprise, several aspects of the workshop turned out to be both unusual and thought-provoking.
Leadership through lived experience
Notably, there were just six of us in the room, all women, all from the global majority. Throughout the two days, I found myself reflecting on this. Why is it that I so often see more women than men who feel the need to be “trained up” for leadership? This prompted broader questions about gender, expectations and who is seen as ‘ready’ for leadership roles in our institutions. Women lead in many areas of life, particularly those of us who are parents or and carers. We are skilled problem-solvers, strong networkers, and we manage complex responsibilities every day.
In my role as Head of Division, I noticed a recurring frustration among female academics who felt that the emotional labour involved in providing pastoral care to students often went unrecognised. There was a shared sense that this responsibility frequently fell to them, with both students and male colleagues appearing to expect them to take it on. Yet we rarely describe care and pastoral work as leadership.
The programme was not a traditional form of training in any sense. Instead, it offered a series of facilitated sessions that created space for us to reflect, share, and learn from one another’s experiences. Together, we explored how we each learn which was presented in four quadrants – body, heart, mind, and spirit – and how to make the most of this intel within a team setting. This deeper understanding uncovered the strengths within our own leadership styles and helped us consider how best to apply them in our professional contexts. We took time to reflect on how leadership is defined and, more importantly, where it is learned and practised.
Leadership, we came to understand, is not something taught in a conventional way but rather something that evolves through lived experience. It happens in both personal and professional settings, though we might not always recognise it as leadership in a formal or professionalised sense. The workshop took a holistic approach and illustrated how knowledge can emerge through embodied learning, incorporating philosophical inquiry to uncover deeper insights into our individual and collective strengths. This is when it occurred to me, for the first time, that developing leadership practice is best done in communities of practice.
By the end of the two days, we weren’t “trained” by the facilitator in any traditional sense. Instead, the leadership wisdom we uncovered emerged from within our own group, the Super Six, which is what we have come to be known as and was brought to light through Keith’s expert and highly unconventional facilitation, which gently led us to that shared discovery.
Many paths to leadership
In hindsight, the Learning Leaders workshop gave me the space to actively explore the “what next” and “how next” of leadership. A series of thoughtful one-to-one conversations with one of the Super Six proved particularly impactful. Their questions led me to reflect deeply on new possibilities for academic leadership, including working as a freelance scholar, moving to a different institution, or stepping outside the sector altogether. I have always held a personal principle not to remain in one institution for more than ten years, out of concern for becoming institutionalised and limiting my professional growth. After several thoughtful conversations with my Dean, I came to the difficult but right decision to leave at the end of 2024.
Since then, I have had the privilege of working with several universities and organisations from teaching, advising, researching and collaborating on projects – all of which have been intellectually energising and impactful. There is no one way to lead, and the Learning Leaders workshop reminded me that there are many paths to leadership, each shaped by context, values and personal experience.
If there is any advice that I could offer to emerging leaders from global majority backgrounds, it would be to identify a sponsor with decision making power within the institution, a mentor outside of the university for confidential developmental advice and identify role models across different sectors and who do leadership well so you can begin building your own community of practice.
This article is one of four exploring London Higher’s Global Majority Mentoring Programme – you can find the others here.
This HEPI Blog post was kindly authored by Huw Morris, Honorary Professor of Tertiary Education, IoE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society and Richard Watermeyer, Professor of Education, University of Bristol.
Introduction
It is a year since the Labour Government was elected with a commitment to produce a post-16 skills and higher education White Paper by Summer 2025. In this article, we look at how changes in the UK’s economy and politics since July 2024 have altered what is likely to be in this policy statement and what might happen despite it.
What has happened over the last twelve months?
Last September, the Minister of State for Skills, Jacqui Smith, drew attention to the enormous economic challenges and tough choices facing the Government, but stressed the administration’s commitment to a mission-led approach to create a new era of opportunity and economic growth within a fairer society for everyone. Two months later the Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, wrote to vice chancellors outlining the Government’s expectation that universities will:
expand access and improve outcomes for disadvantaged students;
make a stronger contribution to economic growth;
play a greater civic role in local communities;
raise teaching standards; and
deliver sustained efficiency and reform.
There were also subsequent calls for more effective higher education leadership, strong governance and a new business model for the sector. To support these changes, ministers provided an increase in the undergraduate home tuition fee of £285/year and an uplift to the maximum maintenance loan support of £414. For those concerned with institutional finances, this uplift in income was more than matched by higher costs due to increases in employers’ national insurance contributions, reductions in foundation year fees, withdrawal of level 7 apprenticeship funding and reduced capital allocations, among other things. To deal with these changes, most universities have sought to increase their international student recruitment and classroom-based home undergraduate students, as well as higher margin postgraduate provision. For some of the institutions denied these opportunities because of their market position the alternative has been to expand their franchise operations and transnational education and/or to reduce costs. As figure 1 illustrates, these changes in funding and activity have produced some significant changes in forecasts for the money flowing to colleges, independent training providers and universities.
Figure 1: Funding and Orientation Matrix
Looking at the balance between areas of activity which enhance prestige and those that support widening participation, when combined with those that are funded publicly or privately, reveals some big changes. The increase in undergraduate home student tuition fees has not been enough to stem the decline of overall funding from foundation years, postgraduate courses and research grants. The balance in government funding has shifted from these areas of activity towards schools, further education and apprenticeship provision. Meanwhile, although funding from private sources for international students taught in the UK and for transnational education overseas has expanded, UKRI funding for individual institutions has declined due to increases in the number of grant applications from a wider range of institutions and a larger number of researchers leading to a halving of the success rate compounded by changes to the treatment of what was and is now again EU research funding.
Meanwhile, the impact of universities and colleges on local communities has been a tale in two parts. The annual Higher Education / Business Community Interaction survey reveals small increases in business start-ups and spinouts as well as partnerships with small firms, but measures of the impact on local economies is more difficult to demonstrate. These issues are less pronounced with apprenticeship providers and further education colleges where local community engagements are key to engaging adult part-time learners.
The Government has fared poorly in opinion polls over the last twelve months due to concern about the cost of living, immigration and the state of public services. This has prompted challenges from the political right and left. This is not confined to questions about tax, immigration and public spending, it has also extended to concerns about the role of universities and support for other forms of post-16 education. Across the voting population, recent private opinion polling has revealed that just over half of the electorate are questioning, sceptical or openly hostile to the role of universities in their communities. University research as an area of activity is poorly understood and where there is an appreciation of this activity, it is not automatically seen as meeting real-world needs. Meanwhile, among the leadership of many major civic and corporate organisations, universities are seen as profit-driven and not working in the public interest. In short, there is a lack of an emotional and relational connection between universities, local communities and national leaders.
It has been argued that university leaders need to respond to these adverse public perceptions by stating the virtues of higher education and research more clearly and advocating for universities more often. Pursuing this approach, it is argued, will open the door to greater trust, less regulation and improved funding. More recently, it has been argued that public opinion has changed to such an extent since the Covid pandemic that this approach will not work and there is now a need, quoting Robbie Burns, for university staff “to see ourselves as others see us”, before considering how best to respond. The priorities of these others are likely to become more visible over the summer months as they question the evidence of university contribution and those who champion the current arrangements in the wake of this year’s home and international student recruitment rounds.
The Autumn party conference season begins with the Liberal Democrats in Bournemouth (20 to 23 September), Labour in Liverpool (27 to 1 October), the Green Party in Bournemouth (3 to 5 October) and the Conservatives in Manchester (5 to 8 October). In today’s world of multi-party politics and jostling to define the public policy agenda, it is also important to note that the Reform Party conference will take place in Birmingham (5 to 6 September). Meanwhile, “Your Party”, the new left-wing party led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, has not given a formal indication of its plans for an inaugural conference, but it seems likely that there will be events in early Autumn..
The conference season is normally a time when parties outline what is planned or hoped for in the future. Governments are not supposed to announce new initiatives outside of the House of Commons, and although they occasionally do, they are rebuked by the Speaker of the House of Commons, as the Secretary of State for Education and Chancellor of the Exchequer have found out in recent months. This year is likely to be more difficult than usual as pressures on the public purse raise questions about tax changes in the Autumn budget and raise the spectre of changes to expenditure plans to meet the Government’s spending rules and to provide for defence, health and welfare commitments.
Any post-16 education announcements are likely to be especially difficult because of the competition with other parties. The Reform party has promised to eliminate interest on student loans and to extend loan repayment periods (a graduate tax in all but name), as well as removing student loans for medical and STEM students and writing off the loans of long-serving NHS workers. There are also proposals to invest more in apprenticeships and technical education with an increase in publicly funded training courses.
Similar proposals were made by the Green Party in their 2024 General election manifesto with commitments echoing the 2019 Labour Party manifesto to scrap tuition fees, restore maintenance grants and increase investment in skills and lifelong learning. Meanwhile, for completeness, the Liberal Democrats pledged to improve financial support for disadvantaged students by reintroducing maintenance grants, in part modelled on the arrangements introduced by the Liberal Democrat minister, Kirsty Williams, while she oversaw higher education for the Welsh Government (2016-2021). These promises of increased spending on student maintenance are likely to be attractive to many young voters and particularly newly enfranchised 16–18-year-olds. These promises can also be made by parties that believe they are unlikely to find themselves in government in 2026. The problem for university leaders and staff with these proposals is that while they will help students, they won’t help institutions to pay their bills, except perhaps for students’ halls of residence.
What could possibly go wrong?
Increased strain on university finances and growing pressure on the public purse, combined with demands for improved student maintenance funding, create a difficult context if anything unexpected goes wrong with the income and expenditure of individual institutions. These challenges have been added to by the publication of nine major Government strategy and policy papers with implications for post-16 education and training.
The five missions that the Government was elected to pursue have been added to by a plan for the NHS, an Immigration White Paper, five critical technologies, six milestones, seven chapters in the Get Britain Working white paper, the eight priority sectors in the industrial strategy white paper, the nine regions identified in the national infrastructure plan and 10 priority skills sectors identified by Skills England. All of these plans have local dimensions that are being developed with the 12 established Mayoral Strategic Authorities and 12 new regional bodies outlined in plans for devolution to 44 English regions which will combine with 38 Local Skills and Improvement Plans (LSIPs). The complexity associated with these arrangements means that there will, in practice, have to be some simplification.
It is reassuring to see this energy and commitment to change, but it is also a cause of concern that it is not clear how the various plans and governance arrangements will join up within Whitehall and across the regions. This may not be a problem in the largest city regions of Greater Manchester, Liverpool, London, North East, West Midlands and West Yorkshire. However, it is likely to be more of an issue in the less developed Mayoral regions of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, the East Midlands, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, Tees Valle and West of England, not to mention the other 22 yet to be reorganised regions of the UK covering 50% of the population.
The challenges of developing joined-up plans are likely to become problems if the reputational and financial risks being experienced by cash-strapped colleges, independent training providers and universities materialise. Among universities 43% are currently forecasting a deficit and the most recent published figures for further education colleges in 2022/3 revealed a figure of 37%. As recent experience with the University of Dundee has illustrated, the short-term direct costs can exceed £100m, and the longer-term indirect costs are even greater. These additional costs are likely to be substantial as national regulators, regional officials and local providers wrestle with the challenge of developing the capacity, capability and courage needed to align provision with employer demand as well as student interest.
With low economic growth, high inflation and challenges to reductions in government expenditure and without additional funding for student maintenance and living expenses, it is difficult to see how universities will widen participation for students from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Without more funding for courses in the areas of skill shortage that underpin the eight industrial sectors and the requirements of the NHS and National Infrastructure Plan, it is difficult to see how local skills needs will be met and the improvements in productivity and economic growth achieved. Teaching quality might be maintained by a lower-paid and increasingly casualised workforce, but will the efficiency and effectiveness of institutions improve without support for the local coordination and rationalisation of activity?
What might be in the Post-16 and Higher Education White Paper?
Now that the anticipated publication of the Post-16 and Higher Education White Paper has been delayed until the Autumn it seems likely that it will be timed to coincide with the Budget in November. This Indian Summer schedule is needed to gain some certainty about the future funding position and associated changes to tax and spending decisions. So, what might be in the White paper? At present the following five strands of activity seem most likely.
Widening participation and progression
Proposals for the development of regional education and skills pathways to support the introduction of the credit and modular funding arrangements that will be needed with the Lifelong Learning Entitlement in January 2027. Proposals for consultation on how institutions could be required to introduce bursary and scholarship arrangements if they fail to meet regionally agreed targets for widening participation and progression.
International students
Proposals for consultation on how the 6% international student levy will be used to pay for the upskilling of domestic learners, rebalancing of funding towards institutions that have not recruited international students and underwriting of the costs of structural adjustments.
Local Skills and Productivity
Outline of how Local Skills Improvement Plans will be developed by Skills England to ensure that Mayoral Strategic Authorities and other regional bodies have tools to influence education provision to respond to the 10 skills priorities and 5 critical technologies while meeting the needs of local employers and communities. This might include local independent careers, advice and guidance arrangements of the sort developed in Greater Manchester.
Quality and Standards
Announcement of the provisional findings from an internal review of the standards and regulations applied by the Office for Students including tightened controls over franchise and transnational education arrangements.
Efficiency, effectiveness and exit
Changes to Competition and Market Authority guidance on regional institutional cooperation. The introduction of an insolvency and regime for higher education institutions to parallel arrangements for further education colleges and independent apprenticeship providers. This to include formal mechanisms for restructuring loans or similar transitional finance arrangements.
What is currently missing from these arrangements is a multi-year agreement on fees and funding or a plan for supporting English regions that are not part of the current plans for devolution. All major post-16 White papers in the past have included an explicit or tacit exchange of support for the UK economy locally and nationally with an agreement on longer-term funding and finance. To achieve this realistically in the future will require guidance on how regional and institutional leadership and governance will be aligned with national plans. The UK’s devolved governments and a few established Mayoral Strategic Authorities have mechanisms to bring colleges and universities together to discuss their plans and the opportunities for alignment. In many instances these arrangements span more than one MSA or its equivalent. Most of the other regions lack these arrangements and will need support to develop local officials, senior managers and governing bodies. Most importantly what should these groupings do if one or more institutions in their patch fail?
There is little appetite among the UK’s political parties and government departments for an independent review of higher education because of concern about the time this would take and the loss of control it would entail. However, the risks associated with current economic constraints and political polarisation pose substantial risks for local communities and regional economies in general and for the students and staff in individual institutions in particular. The summer months provide a useful time to reflect on these challenges and to consider how genuinely transformational change can be led and managed within city regions and rural combined authorities. For universities, further education providers and independent training providers and their representatives, this should involve more than improving their public affairs and relations and should consider how local and regional forms of organisation can be developed.
Arthur Laffer, the Reagan-era economist best known for the “Laffer Curve,” appeared recently at a Young America’s Foundation (YAF) event, still making the same tired claims that have shaped decades of economic inequality, deregulation, and magical thinking. The event, broadcast on C-SPAN, was marketed as a fresh take on conservative economics. What it delivered instead was a rerun of discredited supply-side talking points—punctuated by jokes that fell embarrassingly flat.
Laffer claimed that Donald Trump’s tariffs were a strategy to bring about more free trade in the future—a baffling contradiction to anyone who understands trade policy or the basics of coercive economic diplomacy. The idea that protectionism is a roundabout route to free markets would be laughable if it weren’t so destructive. But Laffer, like many libertarians, thrives on contradiction. The audience—young, mostly white, mostly male—nodded along as if it all made sense.
He also defended increased U.S. military spending, invoking Ronald Reagan’s 1980s arms buildup. What he didn’t mention: Reagan was in the early stages of dementia during his presidency, and his military strategy deepened the national debt, even as Laffer’s beloved tax cuts starved the government of revenue. That context never surfaced, of course.
Laffer’s appearance was followed by Linda McMahon, former WWE executive and Small Business Administration head under Trump. The tag team pairing reinforced the spectacle of right-wing economic theater disguised as intellectual discourse.
YAF, a competitor to Turning Point USA, presents itself as the more polished brand of conservative youth organizing. It’s backed by deep pockets and institutional support, but its message remains the same: glorify the market, demonize government, and elevate charisma over critical thinking. Its speakers are well-coached in rhetorical sparring, skilled in sophistry, and eager to exploit the inexperience of their college-aged audience.
Laffer fits that mold perfectly. He’s less a thought leader than a relic of failed policy, propped up by a movement that rewards ideological loyalty over intellectual honesty. His ideas can’t really be called “theories” anymore—empirical evidence has repeatedly debunked them. But among libertarians and the far right, evidence is optional, and repetition is persuasive.
Young America’s Foundation is adept at drawing youth into a worldview of individualism that rarely benefits individuals. It relies on the passion and ignorance of its followers, asking them to embrace contradictions: that tariffs bring freedom, that debt from war is freedom, that cutting taxes magically increases revenue. It’s a faith-based economics, and Laffer remains its high priest.
In the end, the only thing more stale than the Laffer Curve is the attempt to keep it alive.
Sources:
C-SPAN: Art Laffer speech at YAF
Reagan’s Alzheimer’s revelations: The New York Times
Critiques of supply-side economics: Brookings, Economic Policy Institute
The federal government has frozen $584 million in grants and contracts at UCLA.
The Trump administration is ratcheting up pressure on the University of California, Los Angeles, and seeking a $1 billion settlement, following concessions from other institutions, CNN reported.
University of California president James B. Milliken said in a statement Friday that “a payment of this scale would completely devastate our country’s greatest public university system as well as inflict great harm on our students and all Californians.”
Demands for a settlement come as the federal government has accused UCLA of violating civil rights law by allegedly failing to protect students from antisemitism as pro-Palestinian protests surged on campus last spring. The National Science Foundation and other agencies have since suspended $584 million in federal research funding, according to UCLA chancellor Julio Frenk. TheNew York Timesreported that the administration also wants UCLA to put $172 million in a fund for victims of civil rights violations.
UC system officials announced Wednesday they would negotiate with the federal government in the hope of reaching a “voluntary resolution agreement” over the charges.
“Our immediate goal is to see the $584 million in suspended and at-risk federal funding restored to the university as soon as possible,” Milliken wrote in a Wednesday statement, adding that cuts to federal research funding “do nothing to address antisemitism.”
UCLA was one of several institutions whose executives were hauled before Congress over the last two years to address pro-Palestinian encampments and alleged antisemitism and harassment tied to such protests.
Should UCLA reach a settlement with the Trump administration, it would be the first public university to do so but the third institution to strike a deal with the federal government over the course of several weeks. Last month, Columbia University reached an unprecedented settlement with the Trump administration, agreeing to changes to admissions and academic programs and paying $221 million to close investigations into alleged antisemitism and restore some frozen research funding. The deal will be overseen by a third-party resolution monitor.
Brown University also struck a deal with the federal government in July that did not include a payout to the Trump administration, but officials did agree to provide admissions data to the federal government and bar transgender athletes from competing, among other concessions.
Federal officials didn’t respond to a request for comment Friday.
