Tag: Higher

DHS Offers to “Simplify” Harvard Lawsuit

The Trump administration has extended an offer to Harvard University to “simplify” an ongoing legal battle by pulling back on threats made in a May 22 letter from U.S. Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem to revoke the institution’s ability to host international students.

At the time, Noem wrote in a letter to Harvard officials that DHS was stripping its Student Exchange and Visitor Program certification due to an alleged “failure to adhere to the law.” Harvard responded with a lawsuit, and a judge quickly granted a temporary restraining order to block the federal government from stripping Harvard’s SEVP certification, which would have likely resulted in a loss of international students and dealt the university a severe financial blow. (Harvard also sued the Trump administration over frozen federal research funding in April.)

Harvard argued in its May lawsuit that the revocation was “a blatant violation of the First Amendment” and due process and a retaliatory move by the federal government after the university rejected demands to control its governance, curriculum and the “ideology” of faculty and students. The move, according to the lawsuit, could potentially “erase a quarter of Harvard’s student body” and would harm students who had already been admitted to the university.

Now, in a Wednesday court filing, government attorneys have agreed “that the May 22 letter will not be used to revoke Harvard’s SEVP certification or Exchange Visitor Program designation.” They called the proposal “an attempt to jointly simplify the case.”

DHS officials wrote in the filing that they are “open to counterproposals and a meet and confer.” However, they wrote that Harvard “did not accept.”

Harvard declined to comment and DHS did not respond to an inquiry from Inside Higher Ed.

As Harvard and the federal government battle over international students in court, the Trump administration has found other ways to ratchet up pressure on the nation’s wealthiest university. Last month the U.S. Department of State announced it was opening an investigation into Harvard’s eligibility to participate in the Exchange Visitor program, which is overseen by the State Department and grants J-1 visas for visiting scholars, researchers and postdocs. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote that the probe will ensure programs don’t “run contrary to our nation’s interests.”

There have been recent reports—and denials—that Harvard is nearing a settlement with the Trump administration, which, in addition to attempting to cut off its flow of international students, has leveled a litany of claims against the university, including vague allegations of unlawful action and accusations of antisemitism. The Trump administration has demanded sweeping changes at Harvard, which the university has largely rebuffed thus far.

Congressional Democrats have threatened to investigate if Harvard agrees to a settlement.

If Harvard settles, it would be the third Ivy League university to strike a deal with the federal government since mid-July. Columbia University was the first, agreeing to a seemingly unprecedented settlement, which closed investigations into allegations of antisemitism and restored some frozen research funding in exchange for changes to admissions, academic programs and other concessions that will be overseen by a third-party resolution monitor. Columbia agreed to pay $221 million as part of the settlement.

Brown University also reached an agreement in late July to settle investigations into alleged antisemitism and restore about $510 million in frozen federal research funds. Brown agreed to spend $50 million on state workforce development efforts, provide admissions data to the federal government and bar transgender athletes from competing, among other stipulations.

Outside the Ivy League, the University of California system announced earlier this week that it intends to negotiate with the federal government over $584 million in suspended federal funding amid Department of Justice investigations into alleged antisemitism. UC officials said the system is seeking a “voluntary resolution agreement” with the Trump administration to restore funding.

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August 8, 2025
X’s Altmetric Hegemony Ceding to Bluesky

The end of the “hegemony” of X as the most used social media platform by researchers has been strongly shaped by political and geographic factors, as well as Elon Musk’s intervention into U.S. politics, according to a new study.

Since Musk rebranded Twitter to X, many within higher education—including some universities themselves—have decided to leave the platform, particularly since the billionaire threw his support behind Donald Trump in the 2024 U.S. election.

Researchers from Arizona State University and the University of Granada examined almost 15,000 publications from multidisciplinary and Library and Information Science journals between January 2024 and March 2025.

Across the whole period, Bluesky had a much smaller presence compared with X in terms of engaged users—those who comment on papers.

However, the paper found a “notable increase” in Bluesky accounts mentioning papers published in multidisciplinary journals in November 2024, which the paper said was likely influenced by political and platform change.

“We observe a clear surge in mentions beginning in September 2024 and continuing into early 2025, particularly around the United States presidential election and subsequent political events.”

The shift in users and increasing diversification between the two platforms, particularly from late 2024 onward, coincided with “major U.S. political events in which Elon Musk has actively intervened.”

After successfully helping Trump win the battle for the White House, Musk was appointed head of the Department of Government Efficiency—an organization that slashed federal contracts and found few friends within the scientific community.

The study says the results reveal a scholarly landscape where conversations are no longer concentrated on a single platform, but are now “genuinely distributed between X and Bluesky.”

“This reflects that the response to platform changes is not only field-dependent, but also strongly shaped by political-geographical factors.”

The study comes after a recent analysis by Andy Tattersall, an information specialist at the Sheffield Centre of Health and Related Research, found a third of U.K. universities have now quit X. While the number of active accounts on Bluesky has risen, however, many institutions are still not posting regularly.

Altmetric, which collates mentions of publications from news sources, blogs and social media, has been tracking Bluesky, which was originally created by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, since October 2024.

A previous study revealed that Bluesky hosted more posts linked to work published in 2025 for the first time in March—declaring, “The days of X’s dominance are over.”

The new paper reached a similar conclusion, adding, “What is clear is that the Altmetric hegemony of X may have come to an end, as for the first time there is a clear alternative in Bluesky, which even matches user engagement in ways that would have seemed unthinkable until recently.

“Only time will tell how effective and lasting this platform shift truly is.”

It says further research was needed to learn why Bluesky has succeeded where other alternatives—such as Threads or Mastodon—did not.

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August 8, 2025
With Reform UK on the rise, what impact would their higher education policy have?
This HEPI guest blog was kindly authored by Fred Jacques, a Year 12 student who recently completed a week of work experience at HEPI.

(Have you completed the HEPI survey? If not, time is running out! It will only take a few minutes and will help inform our future output. You can access the survey here.)

With Reform UK gaining significant ground in recent elections and opinion polls, the prospect of a future Reform government is now plausible. The party discusses education very little, instead focusing on their big, vote-winning issues such as opposing immigration and net zero. But what are Reform’s plans for higher education and what impact would these have? Their 2024 manifesto is lacking in detail, but it outlines a handful of proposals that suggest the direction a Reform government might take. They promised to:
- bar international student dependents
- make universities provide two-year undergraduate courses
- cut funding for universities that undermine free speech; and
- scrap interest on student loans.
Scrapping tuition fees for STEM degrees

Additionally, in an interview with ITV following the release of the manifesto, Nigel Farage stated that he would abolish tuition fees for STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) degrees while maintaining them for all other courses. Although this policy was not included in the 2024 manifesto, it did appear in Farage’s 2015 UKIP manifesto, suggesting it is a long-standing idea of his and therefore one that could be implemented if Reform were to win power.

While this proposal is intended to attract more students into these fields, it may not be effective. In his HEPI report, Peter Mandler argues that the current increase in the uptake of STEM degrees (the ‘swing to science’) is due to numerous factors: demographic and cultural changes, perceptions of future job prospects and subject choice at A level primarily. Government policy is less influential than these factors. Therefore, given that the swing to science is happening of its own accord because of high student demand, this policy is not even necessary, especially considering the enormous cost. If Reform do want to accelerate this trend, though, then removing the barrier of poor A level results by improving attainment in secondary schools may be more effective than targeting STEM at degree level.

Despite its possible shortcomings in attracting more students to STEM courses, the policy could still accelerate the decline in the popularity of arts and humanities degrees. While those with arts or humanities A levels are unlikely (and probably unable) to switch to a completely different field purely for financial reasons, the disparity in fee structure may discourage them from pursuing a university degree altogether. This appears to be Farage’s intention: he suggests that arts and humanities degrees are not worthwhile and ’[students would] have been better off learning trades and skills’. If this aspect of the policy is successful, then it would negatively impact students, institutions and the country. Humanities degrees are incredibly valuable: they help students develop transferable skills like communication and critical thinking that are needed in any workplace and they are a pathway into careers in law, business, or media. And without humanities degrees, who will teach Reform’s ‘patriotic’ curriculum in primary and secondary schools? The arts, meanwhile, are also valuable to the economy and positively impact culture and society.

Overall, while efforts to increase the number of students pursuing STEM degrees are commendable, this should not come at the expense of arts and humanities students. Higher education institutions should work with Reform to ensure that the contributions of these subjects are properly recognised and supported by the party, should they win power.

Two-year undergraduate courses

Reform’s policy of expanding two-year undergraduate courses to all universities across the UK would be beneficial to higher education, provided they do not replace the typical three-year degrees. These accelerated degrees are already offered by universities like Buckingham and Northumbria and have many benefits, such as allowing students to enter into work sooner and reducing the amount of debt they incur. Furthermore, students on accelerated courses are generally more focused and motivated and the more intensive nature of the courses prepares students for the workplace. These degrees are well suited to subjects like law or business and could therefore act as an alternative to some arts and humanities students who feel discouraged by Reform’s tuition fee policy.

But although these courses are a good idea in theory, there is little evidence to suggest that there is a high demand for them. Slightly older students entering higher education for the first time and wanting to progress into the workplace faster may find these courses appealing, but most typical 18-year-old undergraduates prefer the more flexible three or four-year courses. Perhaps this is due to a lack of awareness, which Reform could work to correct, but as it stands, it is unrealistic for them to expect all universities to provide these accelerated programmes, given the low demand.

Conclusion

This blog has not covered the entirety of Reform’s higher education policy, and some proposals, such as cutting funding for universities that undermine free speech, raise challenges of their own. Nonetheless, the policies discussed here do show some promise: expanding the availability of two-year undergraduate courses and encouraging more people into STEM degrees could be beneficial to the country. However, the apparent lack of regard for arts and humanities degrees is concerning and the effectiveness of the tuition fee policy is debatable, as is the achievability of the accelerated degree policy.

Perhaps the greatest flaw with Reform’s education policy, and wider policy platform, is the achievability. The party’s plans to scrap tuition fees on STEM degrees and encourage all universities to provide two-year undergraduate programmes will all come at a massive cost to the government and institutions. Reform’s policy of barring international student dependents (presumably beyond current restrictions) will also worsen the issue, as this could lead to lower numbers of international students, meaning that universities’ incomes are significantly reduced. Reform need a way to fund their policies, but according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Reform’s proposed savings did not add up in 2024, and they remain vague today.

With this unrealistic funding, it is debatable whether these policies would be implemented, even if Reform do win power. And with the unpredictability of modern politics, who knows if they will even get to that stage. Regardless, universities have the opportunity to work with this emerging party to challenge and shape their policy proposals to produce the best outcomes for students and the nation as a whole.
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August 8, 2025
Trump Orders Colleges to Supply Data on Race in Admissions

President Donald Trump issued an executive action Thursday directing colleges to prove they are not considering race in admissions.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

President Donald Trump issued an executive action Thursday afternoon mandating colleges and universities submit data to verify that they are not unlawfully considering race in admissions decisions.

The order also requires the Department of Education to update the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System to make its data more legible to students and parents and to “increase accuracy checks for data submitted by institutions through IPEDS,” penalizing them for late, incomplete or inaccurate data.

Opponents of race-conscious admissions have hailed the mandate as a victory for transparency in college admissions, but others in the sector have criticized its vague language and question who at the department is left to collect and analyze the data.

“American students and taxpayers deserve confidence in the fairness and integrity of our Nation’s institutions of higher education, including confidence that they are recruiting and training capable future doctors, engineers, scientists, and other critical workers vital to the next generations of American prosperity,” the order reads. “Race-based admissions practices are not only unfair, but also threaten our national security and well-being.”

It’s now up to the secretary of education, Linda McMahon, to determine what new admissions data institutions will be required to report. The administration’s demands of Columbia and Brown Universities in their negotiations to reinstate federal funding could indicate what the requirements will be. In its agreement with Brown, the government ordered the university to submit annual data “showing applicants, admitted students, and enrolled students broken down by race, color, grade point average, and performance on standardized tests.” Colleges will be expected to submit their admissions data for the 2025–26 academic year, according to the order.

What resources are in place to enforce the new requirements remains to be seen. Earlier this year the administration razed the staff at the Department of Education who historically collected and analyzed institutional data. Only three staff members remain in the National Center for Education Statistics, which operates IPEDS.

‘It’s Not Just as Easy as Collecting Data’

Since taking office, the Trump administration has launched a crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education, often using the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against race-conscious admissions as a weapon in the attacks.

Students for Fair Admissions, the anti–affirmative action advocacy group that was the plaintiff in the 2023 cases, called the action a “landmark step” toward transparency and accountability for students, parents and taxpayers.

“For too long, American colleges and universities have hidden behind opaque admissions practices that often rely on racial preferences to shape their incoming classes,” Edward Blum, SFFA president and longtime opponent of race-conscious admissions, said in a press release.

But college-equity advocates sounded the alarm, arguing that the order—which also claims that colleges have been using diversity and other “overt and hidden racial proxies” to continue race-conscious admissions post-SFFA—aims to intimidate colleges into recruiting fewer students of color.

“I will say something that my members in the higher education community cannot say. What the Trump administration is really saying is that you will be punished if you do not admit enough white students to your institution,” Angel B. Pérez, CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, told Inside Higher Ed.

Like many of Trump’s other orders targeting DEI, that mandate relies on unclear terms and instructions. It does not define “racial proxies”—although a memo by the Department of Justice released last week provides examples—nor does it outline what data would prove an institution is or is not considering race in its admissions process.

In an interview with Inside Higher Ed, Paul Schroeder, the executive director of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, questioned the government’s capacity to carry out the president’s order.

“Without NCES, who’s going to actually look at this data? Who’s going to understand this data? Are we going to have uniform reporting or is it going to be just a mess coming in from all these different colleges?” Schroeder said.

“It’s not just as easy as collecting data. It’s not just asking a couple questions about the race and ethnicity of those who were admitted versus those who applied. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of hours. It’s not going to be fast.”

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August 7, 2025
Higher Education Needs to Prioritize for Impact
Last month, a few of our Collegis leaders attended the Google Public Sector Leaders Connect summit in Chicago. This event brought together technology, education, and government leaders to address one major question: How can public institutions unlock the true value of AI?

Institutions are grappling with a fast-changing AI landscape

The summit served up plenty of insight, data, and dialogue about the promises and pitfalls of artificial intelligence in higher ed. One stat that hit home: 80% of students think universities are falling short when it comes to integrating AI.

That’s not just a tech gap, it’s a relevance gap. Today’s students are living in an AI-powered world, and if institutions can’t keep pace, they risk losing credibility and connection.

They are also failing to prepare students for a new job market, where AI is “attacking” entry-level jobs that their graduates would previously fill. With many entry-level jobs being fulfilled by AI, what are schools doing to help their graduates get the skills they need to thrive in this new world?

Fragmented priorities are holding higher ed back

As we listened to leaders at the summit and reflected on our partner conversations, it became clear that the challenges institutions face go beyond AI adoption.

Other concerns surfaced as well:
- 71% of institutions say their top priority is attracting and retaining students.
- 56% are worried about data security threats like phishing, ransomware, and breaches.
- 42% cite operational pressures as a major barrier, from business model constraints to process inefficiencies.
On their own, these numbers signal urgency. But together, they reveal something deeper:

Institutions aren’t just overwhelmed by change, they’re unsure where to focus and where to invest.

Competing priorities and limited resources make it hard to know what matters most. These three statistics may look unrelated, but they are all very much related and impact each other. Operational pressure can heighten data security risks, which can trigger breaches that erode student trust and enrollment. Those same pressures often stem from — and lead to — inefficient processes that hurt the student experience and, ultimately, retention.

Throughout the day, multiple speakers kept reinforcing the importance of “prioritizing for impact.” Because while AI offers enormous potential, the technology itself won’t drive transformation — leadership will.

It’s not about adopting more tech — it’s about focusing on impact

Now this struck a chord with me, especially given how we approach partner onboarding at Collegis. Even during early conversations with potential partners, our first question is always the same: “What are you trying to impact?”

It’s a simple question, but the answers we hear are very telling, and can drastically vary depending on who at the institution is answering. What I like about this question is that it helps focus the conversation on a desired end result, providing an immediate opportunity to pressure test strategies, tactics, and competing priorities.

Is this getting you closer to, or further away from, your desired impact? If the latter, perhaps it’s time to consider reallocating resources and budget to what gets you toward the finish line faster.

How to prioritize for impact in higher ed

Take the AI example. Instead of asking, “What AI tools should we adopt?” instead ask, “Where can AI meaningfully move the needle for our institution AND our students?” That shift from solution-first to strategy-first is everything.

Here are a few guideposts we recommend:
1. Start with your outcomes. Whether it’s student success, operational efficiency, or enrollment growth, define what success looks like before introducing any new technology.
2. Connect C-suite ambition with frontline reality. Consider forgoing a top-down approach that prioritizes selling to leadership. To enable real change, your strategies must reflect on-the-ground needs. Build from the bottom up and bring the insight and intel back to your cabinet leaders to help inform prioritization conversations.
3. Break down the silos. So many institutions are decentralized and highly matrixed, which means that critical data, digital infrastructure, and internal departments are often disconnected. Aligning them is essential to enable AI to operate at scale. Consider cloud platforms like Connected Core®, which extract, clean, and connect data across systems, applications, and third-party tools. This enables actionable institutional intelligence across the student lifecycle.
4. Build AI literacy, institution-wide. Google shared that only 14% of campuses have adopted AI literacy as a learning outcome. That’s a missed opportunity to empower both staff and students to engage with AI responsibly and effectively.
5. Don’t go it alone. With 62% of institutions lacking the internal expertise to fully leverage AI, choosing the right partner matters. Not someone just trying to sell you tech, but to help you translate it into impact. This is the talent component of Collegis Education’s data, tech, and talent approach. It does you no good to own a plane if you don’t have a pilot, crew, and maintenance team. When you align your data, tech, and talent, you’ve enabled impact, and sustainable impact at that.
The Google event confirmed what we see every day: Higher ed has a prioritization problem. Leaders have been sold more tech tools than they can use; what they truly need is help implementing them for impact.

A smarter path forward for institutional leaders

Institutional leaders know their schools better than anyone and have a clear vision of where they need to go to thrive. Building a strategic plan focused on the areas that will drive the greatest impact to that vision is the next critical step. A great way to start is by finding a partner who understands that progress isn’t about doing more, it’s about doing what matters.

Prioritize for impact. We’ll help you make it happen.

Innovation Starts Here

Higher ed is evolving — don’t get left behind. Explore how Collegis can help your institution thrive.
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August 7, 2025
Building Skills to Lead | Diverse: Issues In Higher Education

Building on a career with impact, Chartarra Joyner continues to embody a sense of purpose to become an even stronger leader in academia.

Chartarra JoynerJoyner is assistant vice chancellor, budget and planning, at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NC A&T). She oversees the administration, analysis and strategic management of the university’s $470 million budget. As head of the budget and planning team, she is responsible for compliance and fiscal integrity while managing the comprehensive budget and reporting process.

Having attended Fisk University as an undergraduate, where she studied accounting, Joyner appreciates working at a Historically Black College and University but admits that a career in academia happened unexpectedly. After graduating from college, she spent more than a decade working in fi nancial services. Her last position before NC A&T was as a senior business analyst clinical services at HCA Healthcare, noting that her diverse background enables her to bring a unique lens to higher education.

“In my positions, I led cross-functional teams, cost reduction strategies and other process improvement initiatives,” she says. “All this combined experience helps me. I started out in accounting, but most of my roles then progressed, and I found a love for operational excellence and process-improvement initiatives.”

When her family moved to Greensboro, North Carolina, she planned to be a stay-at home mother but realized that was not where her strengths lie. Twelve years ago, she took on a contract assignment at NC A&T, which evolved into a full-time position. While the industry was different, she saw the move as a natural progression. Joyner has been in her current position since 2016. Because NC A&T is a large employer in Greensboro, her work has had a positive impact on the local economy.

“I was able to apply my skills and experience in financial strategies,” Joyner says. “I wanted to help assist with the educational access for students as well as equity for those students. NC A&T has a lot of fi rst-generation college students. This is what brought me and made me stay in academia. It’s been fulfilling to see the student success stories that resulted from the strategic
financial leadership decisions made here at the university.”

NC A&T initiated a “bring your child to work” program, and her three children have all experienced the campus and seen her busy at work. Then, as part of their coursework in school, there were assignments where they described what she does.

“Children’s natural curiosity, they just ask questions,” she quips. Joyner is a third generation college graduate—stretching back to her grandmother
(also an HBCU graduate)—and her second oldest son is fourth generation, having graduated from NC A&T. While higher education is the norm in her family, she thrives in an environment where first-gen students are able to flourish. She says that in her current role, she is able to mentor students and other professionals and contribute to the larger mission of the university.

“I value thought leadership,” she says. “There’s a lot of collaboration in academia and there is continuous learning, which aligns with my personal mission and my core values. It also gives me the opportunity to make an impact through student support and developing our future global leaders. [At NC A&T] we have over 14,000 students that we have an impact on every day who are future global leaders.

“I found a place where I can lead strategically and contribute to the larger mission of the university and the global community,” she adds. “What is meaningful to me is having an impact on the students to ensure that the students have the resources and support needed. [We’re] helping to produce engineers, doctors, lawyers and other professions… and the cooperative extension programs we do with the community and the research.”

With the goal of becoming a chief business officer (CBO), Joyner applied for the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) Fellows Program and was recently selected to take part in the highly competitive immersive leadership development program. The NACUBO program will help her refine her leadership skills and deepen her ability to communicate complex financial information. This includes aligning resources with institutional goals, developing flexible budget models and exploring diversified revenue streams. Due to current university priorities, she has postponed her participation until next year.

As part of her work at NC A&T, Joyner has chaired and participated in strategic committees and spearheaded initiatives in staff development, operational efficiency and implementation of best practices to support long-term financial planning and institutional effectiveness.

She describes her career trajectory as building a diverse portfolio that has helped her grow and lead at the executive level.

“I want to create a path for other people, drive innovation while effectively managing resources of the institution,” Joyner says with confidence. “I also hope to contribute to national conversations on equity, sustainability and operational excellence for higher education. Ultimately, my goal is to make a lasting impact.”

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August 7, 2025
Google to Spend $1B on AI Training in Higher Ed

More than 100 colleges and universities have already signed up for Google’s new AI for Education Accelerator.

Phiwath Jittamas/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Google’s parent company announced Wednesday that it’s planning to spend $1 billion over the next three years to help colleges teach and train students about artificial intelligence.

Google is joining other AI companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, in investing in AI training in higher education. All three companies have rolled out new tools aimed at supporting “deeper learning” among students and made their AI platforms available to certain students for free.

As of Wednesday, Google is making its AI Pro plan available for free to any student who is 18 years or older and lives in the United States or in Brazil, Indonesia, Japan or South Korea. That plan includes Google’s more advanced chat bot Gemini 2.5 Pro.

The $1 billion will go to “AI literacy programs, research funding and cloud computing resources,” according to the announcement. The company also is offering free AI training to every college student as part of its new Google AI for Education Accelerator. More than 100 public colleges have signed on already, the company said.

“Today’s students are the first true generation of ‘AI natives,’” Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote. “They’ll use these models in ways none of us can predict, whether it’s learning things in new ways or creating new types of jobs we haven’t imagined yet. It’s still early days and there will be important questions ahead. That’s why we’re working with institutions across higher education to ensure student success.”

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August 7, 2025
Most Parents Still Want Their Kids to Go to College

Forty percent of parents prefer their child attend a four-year college after high school.

Despite public skepticism about the value of a college degree, the majority of parents still want their kids to pursue more education after high school, according to a report from Gallup and the Lumina Foundation published today.

During the first two weeks of June, researchers surveyed more than 2,000 adults—including 554 parents of children under 18—about what they thought their own children or the children in their lives should do after high school. Though there was some variation depending on political party affiliation and level of educational attainment, three-quarters of parents over all say they want their children to continue their education.

“Even in this moment of skepticism around higher ed, the pull of college is still powerful for families,” Courtney Brown, Lumina’s vice president of impact and planning, told Inside Higher Ed. “The distinction is between their critiques of the system and their personal aspirations. They see there are some cracks in the system—that it’s not always affordable—and they want to make sure that if they’re going to pay for college that their child is going to see a return on investment.”

Parents had a clear preference for the type of institution their child should attend, with 40 percent of respondents indicating that their first choice would be a four-year university.

That aligns with robust data on the ROI of different degree types showing that people with bachelor’s degrees have far higher lifetime earnings and are half as likely to be unemployed than their peers with only a high school diploma.

However, not every family is convinced that a four-year degree is the best option for their child.

Another 19 percent of the parents surveyed by Gallup and Lumina said they’d prefer a two-year college and 16 percent a job training or certification program. Just 24 percent said they’d prefer their child forgo higher education altogether after high school and instead take a gap year (13 percent) join the military (5 percent) or immediately join the workforce (6 percent).

Differences in party affiliation also shaped which type of institution parents believe their kids should attend after high school. More than half (53 percent) of Democratic parents said they’d prefer their child go to a four-year college, while just a quarter of Republicans said the same; 21 percent of Republican parents said they’d prefer their child enroll at a two-year college after high school, and 22 percent said they’d prefer a job training or certificate program.

“Across the board, everyone believes you need more education after high school. But what we’re seeing now is Republicans wanting a quicker payoff for their education, and often a certification or a two-year degree leads directly to a job where they’re using those skills,” Brown said. “But that can be shortsighted when a job ends and a [worker] needs to get upskilled or reskilled.”

A four-year college education was also the preferred choice for parents with and without a college degree, though there was a considerable gap. While 58 percent of college graduates said a four-year program was their top choice for their child, only 30 percent of non–college graduates said the same.

“Parents still see that a four-year degree is the dream. It’s the degree that opens the most opportunity to getting paid more,” Brown said. “People that have gone to college see that it has paid off, whereas people who haven’t had that opportunity may feel closed out from and are uncertain that it’s going to lead to the money and jobs they’re looking for.”

The survey also asked adults without a child under 18 the same questions about what they would want a child they know—such as a nephew, niece, grandchild or family friend—to pursue after high school.

Similar to the parents surveyed, 32 percent of nonparents said they’d like to see the young people in their lives pursue a four-year degree, while 23 percent favored a two-year program and another 23 percent favored job training or a certificate program.

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August 7, 2025
U of Utah Plans to Ax 81 Offerings, Citing New State Law

The University of Utah is cutting 81 offerings in response to state budget reductions and a new law.

Aaron M. Sprecher/Getty Images

The University of Utah plans to eliminate 81 academic programs and minors—a step that administrators attribute to a new state law that called for “strategic reinvestment” after lawmakers slashed funding to public colleges and universities.

The Republican-controlled Utah Legislature passed House Bill 265 this spring. Lawmakers cut 10 percent of institutions’ state-funded instructional budgets, but the law said they could earn back the money by cutting programs and positions and instead funding “strategic reinvestment.” Institutions’ reinvestment plans must be based on enrollment, completion rates, job placement, wages, program-level costs and local and statewide workforce demands.

Other Utah universities detailed their planned cuts in the spring, but this is the first glimpse at how the state’s flagship will respond to the new law.

The planned cuts at the University of Utah include Ph.D.s in chemical physics, physiology, experimental pathology and in theater; master’s degrees in ballet, modern dance, marketing, audiology and applied mechanics; bachelor’s degrees in chemistry teaching, Russian teaching and German teaching; certificates in public administration, veterans’ studies and computational bioimaging; various minors; and more.

Richard Preiss, president of the university’s Academic Senate, said his body’s Executive Committee reviewed the list of programs. He said that, except for one that the committee persuaded the administration to remove from the list, none had graduated more than one student in the past eight years, according to the university’s data. But a university spokesperson said that “some had zero or one, but some had up to a dozen students. Our threshold to identify inactive or low-enrollment courses was 15.”

Preiss said that while the selection process was accelerated, faculty had enough time to give meaningful input.

“These were relatively easy cuts to make and they were relatively painless,” Preiss said. “I anticipate that more painful ones are on the horizon.”

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August 7, 2025
UC Will “Dialogue” With Feds Over Civil Rights Investigation

The UC system says it will “engage in dialogue with the federal administration” over grant cuts.

Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

The University of California system announced Wednesday that it would negotiate with the federal government. The response comes a day after the Department of Justice’s deadline for the institution to express its interest in finding a “voluntary resolution agreement” to the agency’s investigation into antisemitism on the University of California, Los Angeles, campus.

On the line is—according to a UC estimate—$584 million in funding that at least three different federal agencies announced they were suspending in the week between the DOJ’s July 29 letter to system officials and its Aug. 5 deadline for them to respond.

If the UC system comes to a resolution with the Trump administration, UCLA would become the first public university to openly make a deal with the federal government to restore grant funding. In the past month, Columbia and Brown Universities have agreed to collectively pay hundreds of millions of dollars to get their funding back.

In the two-paragraph statement, UC system president James B. Milliken said, “Our immediate goal is to see the $584 million in suspended and at-risk federal funding restored to the university as soon as possible,” but he argued that the “cuts do nothing to address antisemitism.”

“The extensive work that UCLA and the entire University of California have taken to combat antisemitism has apparently been ignored,” he said. “The announced cuts would be a death knell for innovative work that saves lives, grows our economy, and fortifies our national security. It is in our country’s best interest that funding be restored.”

The DOJ’s July 29 letter to the system said its months-long investigations, which remain ongoing, have so far found that UCLA violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in its response to a protest encampment on its campus in the spring of 2024.

In a press release about the letter, Attorney General Pam Bondi said, “DOJ will force UCLA to pay a heavy price for putting Jewish Americans at risk and continue our ongoing investigations into other campuses in the UC system.” The agency said in the letter that it is prepared to sue by Sept. 2 “unless there is reasonable certainty that we can reach an agreement.”

But the Trump administration still hasn’t made clear what exactly it wants UCLA to do. Unlike with Columbia and Harvard, the federal government hasn’t listed its overarching demands. And the administration doesn’t appear to only be interested in addressing last year’s encampment at UCLA.

In their own letters to UCLA last week, the National Science Foundation and the Energy Department announced funding suspensions, citing UCLA’s failure “to promote a research environment free of antisemitism and bias” and saying it “endangers women by allowing men in women’s sports and private women-only spaces.” Both agencies also accused UCLA of considering race in admissions.

The Health and Human Services agency, which includes the National Institutes of Health, didn’t provide Inside Higher Ed with NIH’s grant suspension letter, and an HHS spokesperson declined to comment Wednesday. A DOJ spokesperson also declined to comment, and the White House didn’t respond to a request for comment. UC system spokespeople didn’t provide interviews or answer written questions.

UCLA chancellor Julio Frenk said in a separate statement that the institution is doing everything it can “to protect the interests of faculty, students and staff—and to defend our values and principles.”

“We will continue to hold town halls, convene office hours and share information with you, particularly those who are in the most directly affected areas,” Frenk told his employees. “This includes departments that rely on funding from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and Department of Energy.”

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August 7, 2025