Instead of generating answers, Study Mode asks students questions about what they know.
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | SDI Productions/E+/Getty Images
When classes resume this fall, college students will have access to yet another generative artificial intelligence tool marketed as a learning enhancement.
But instead of generating immediate answers, OpenAI’s new Study Mode for ChatGPT acts more like a tutor, firing off questions, hints, self-reflection prompts and quizzes that are tailored to the user and informed by their past chat history. While traditional large language models have raised academic integrity concerns, Study Mode is intended to provide a more active learning experience. It mimics the type of Socratic dialogue students may expect to encounter in a lecture hall and challenges them to draw on information they already know to form their own nuanced analyses of complex questions.
For example, when Inside Higher Ed asked the traditional version of ChatGPT which factors caused the United States Civil War, it immediately responded that the war had “several major causes, most of which revolved around slavery, states’ rights, and economic differences,” and gave more details about each before producing a five-paragraph essay on the topic. Asking Study Mode the same question, however, prompted it to give a brief overview before asking this question: “Would you say the war was fought because of slavery, or about something else like states’ rights or economics? There’s been debate over this, so I’d love to hear your view first. Then I’ll show you how historians analyze it today.”
Study Mode is similar to the Learning Mode that Anthropic launched for its chat bot Claude for Education back in April and the Guided Learning version of Gemini that Google unveiled Wednesday. OpenAI officials say they hope Study Mode will “support deeper learning” among college students.
While teaching and learning experts don’t believe such tools can replace the value faculty relationships and expertise offer students, Study Mode’s release highlights generative AI’s evolving possibilities—and limitations—as a teaching and learning aid. For students who choose to use it instead of asking a traditional LLM for answers, Study Mode offers an on-demand alternative to a human tutor, unbound by scheduling conflicts, payment or feedback delays.
But in an economy where generative AI’s ability to gather and regurgitate information is threatening the future of entry-level office jobs, students will need to understand what they’re trying to get out of their college coursework if they want Study Mode to deliver on its promise to foster deeper learning.
“Over all, it does represent a significant departure from how people are normally encouraged to use generative AI, given that the value proposition of this technology is largely couched in the concept of efficiency, speed and offloading things that are not as important,” said Trey Conatser, assistant provost for teaching and learning at the University of Kentucky and director of UK’s Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning. “But Study Mode actually asks us to stick with it for it to work, take some time to sit with the friction of learning and be patient with the practice and feedback.”
Critical Thinking in Age of AI
The release of Study Mode comes nearly three years after the debut of ChatGPT—and the many other large language models that have followed—set off ongoing concerns among educators that college students’ increased reliance on traditional LLMs to write papers or solve math problems may erode their critical thinking skills.
There’s not yet a consensus on if generative AI helps or hurts critical thinking, but at least two studiespublished in the last year found that adults, including college students, who use LLMs to research and learn about a subject exhibited weaker reasoning and analytical skills. And those may be the exact types of skills the roughly two-thirds who are already using generative AI tools like ChatGPT will need to make Study Mode reach its full potential.
While ChatGPT’s Study Mode is programmed to query students rather than generate answers, the users themselves also need to be prepared to push the LLM to ask deeper, more nuanced questions. At least, that was Conatser’s experience when he tested out Study Mode over the weekend and asked it to help him study for a hypothetical quiz on Romantic poets from 1780 to 1820.
First, the LLM asked him more about his education level and the focus of the quiz. He told it that he’s a college junior whose quiz will focus on historical context and specified that he wanted help studying William Wordsworth’s poem “The Prelude.”
The following conversation, which Conatser shared with Inside Higher Ed, ensued:
Study Mode: Wordsworth described “The Prelude” as “a poem on the growth of my own mind.” What exact subtitle did he eventually attach to the poem that captures this idea?
(Give it a try, and we’ll check your answer before moving on.)
Conatser: That’s not so much what I will need to answer. It will be open book, but I will be asked to provide some interpretations to historical context and literary traditions.
After some more dialogue asking Study Mode to focus on historical context, it generated the following question:
Study Mode: “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive …” Based on that word, “bliss,” what general emotion do you think he felt when he first encountered the early French Revolution—excitement, fear or apathy?
Conatser: That seems like an obvious question
Study Mode: Understood—let’s turn up the difficulty. In “The Prelude” (Book X), Wordsworth writes of “how in my heart a dreary weight / Fell, and I turned away …”—a moment that marks his break with the revolution he once celebrated.
Question (one step): Which single, headline-making event in France during 1793 does this passage point to, and why did that event feel like a betrayal of the revolution’s original ideals for many sympathetic British observers?
Although it took some prodding to get the LLM to ask the type of questions Conatser wanted to see, “I’m still in the driver’s seat with Study Mode,” he said. “That’s where students are going to need to be when they’re using it.”
Knowing when to push back against Study Mode when it’s not asking the types of questions that will help students master material will be key to helping them get the most out of its ability to foster critical thinking, Conatser said.
“If someone is going to be totally passive with Study Mode, it may not drive them to where they need to go and they’ll still need to be thinking about how they’re supposed to be studying, what kind of assessment they’re leading up to and what kinds of skills will be more important for that assessment,” he said. “If you don’t know what you don’t know, then you won’t be very effective at using these tools even if they have the types of guardrails that Study Mode has.”
And if a student isn’t motivated to use Study Mode to its full potential, they can prompt it to generate complete answers, just like a traditional LLM, according to Christian Carmody, a senior researcher at the Research Institute for Learning and Development, who also tested it out this week.
“For a current events assignment, I prompted Study Mode right away and told it, ‘Before we engage, I do not want your help with this or [to] encourage me to think through this. I do this on my own another time. I really just want the answers,’” Carmody recalled. “It did exactly that.”
The ability for students to easily manipulate Study Mode could add more pressure to colleges and universities that are facing growing skepticism from students about the value of degrees in the age of AI.
“Students should be able to think about why learning is valuable to them and why they should be able to engage with material in a way that’s challenging and force deep thinking,” he said. “Until a student has that mindset, I’m not confident that they are going to use this study and learning tool in the way it’s intended to be used.”
Credit for prior learning is one strategy colleges and states can employ to expedite adult learners’ progress toward their degrees and promote student success. Past research also shows that students who take advantage of CPL opportunities have higher employment rates and increased earnings after graduation.
But administering CPL can be a challenge, in part because of different departments’ and academic disciplines’ understanding and evaluation of prior experience.
In the most recent episode of Voices of Student Success, host Ashley Mowreader speaks with Colleen Sorensen, Utah Valley University’s director of CPL and student assessment services, about new state legislation requiring credit for prior learning opportunities for students and how her office supports instructors and learners navigating CPL.
An edited version of the podcast appears below.
Colleen Sorensen, director of credit for prior learning and student assessment services
Colleen Sorensen, Utah Valley University
Q: Can you introduce yourself, your work and your institution to our audience?
A: My name is Colleen Sorensen. I’ve been at Utah Valley University located in Orem, Utah, for about 31 years. We’re a pretty large institution; we’re actually the largest in the state of Utah. Our enrollment in fall 2024 was 46,809 students. Now, of that, about 45,000 were undergraduates, just under 1,000 were graduate students, and we actually have a pretty large number of concurrent enrollment students. About 16,000 of our students are working towards adding some college-level work while they’re still in high school, and we’re open enrollment. All of that together makes for a really interesting blend of individuals, from first-generation to returning students to nontraditional who all come together at Utah Valley.
I have the lucky pleasure of working with them in the space of credit for prior learning. I was officially made director [of CPL] in 2022; before that, I’ve been over all of testing services for the institution for about the last 25 years. So I’ve been a part of the credit for prior learning process with exam administration for challenge exams and CLEP and ACT and SAT and standardized assessments and professional licensure assessments. Now I get to work also in the space of making credit for prior learning, instead of it being just a department-run system, to taking that and scaling it and modeling it across the entire institution so that all of our academic departments have access to and support to develop credit for prior learning options.
Q: When you talk about this expansion and scaling of credit for prior learning across the institution, can you share more about how that looks and what that’s meant, in terms of where you started and now the vision moving forward?
A: When I started in this, we had a few areas that were already doing quite a bit of work in this space.
One of the things we value in the state of Utah is service, and so a lot of our students will stop out from college and go serve as missionaries across the world for 18 to 24 months.
During that time, they’re often learning a new language. Then they come back to UVU. Our language department recognized that years ago and put together a credit for prior learning process for those students to earn upwards of 16 credits of language [courses] if they can demonstrate [their skill] through a placement test and a course with a faculty member. If they pass that course, they’ll get up to 16 credits of 1000- to 2000-level language. So that’s been going on for a long time.
In 2019, there was legislation that was passed just before COVID that required all of the public higher ed institutions in the state of Utah to provide credit for prior learning options at a larger scale. So with the pandemic, that kind of put it on the back burner for a while, but in 2022 I started to pick this up as a new assignment.
At first, I met with different department chairs. I don’t know if it was just wrong timing with the pandemic, but it felt like a lot of doors closed to it at that time. But there were a few departments that were like, “Oh, I was one of those nontraditional students. I would like to see more opportunities in this space.”
And so slowly but surely, I started working with a few faculty, a few departments and started building sustainable systems of, how can we assess these students? Because each student is unique in what they bring as an adult learner. It’s not just like, “Let’s open this one program and as long as they have step one, two, three and four, they can award credit.” Each student needs to be looked at very uniquely. So I designed what I call a concierge approach to this process, where students can apply through our credit for prior learning website. We have a small team of students and part-timers and myself who are looking at what the student has provided. We’re prompting them with different things and then we’re reaching out within the academic community at UVU to look at possible matchups for credit for prior learning. So when we started, we only had a few departments that would engage with us, and now up to 75 percent of our academic departments are not just looking at but considering and awarding credit.
This year alone, we’ve awarded almost 6,000 credits to CPL over 1,500 courses. In just six months, we’ve saved students over $1.6 million in tuition. So that’s exciting to me.
Q: You bring up an interesting point with this division of responsibility between your office and then the faculty and the academic role in CPL. We want to ensure that students are actually meeting those learning outcomes and that the credits that we’re awarding them do reflect their experiences. But there can be some tension or a challenge point there when it comes to ensuring that there are these systems set up and making sure that every student is being recognized in the ways that reflect their abilities and their learning.
I wonder if you can talk about building that bridge between your office and these academic departments and how you opened up the conversation to make this a space that’s both trusting but also institutionalized.
A: What’s been really important is for me to establish [is] that I’m here to support academic departments and to ensure that the CPL policy that I’m the steward of is being met, but that the governance happens with the subject matter experts and the departments themselves.
Because the way that the school of business assesses prior learning is going to be very different than the way that dance or the botany lab assesses prior learning. I wanted to make sure that each department chair and subject matter expert understands that they’re in charge of deciding what we assess, how we assess it and when we assess it.
Some departments only look at 4000-level coursework for CPL. Others look at 1000- [and] 2000-level coursework. It’s not my job to tell them how to do that within their area. They’re the ones who know. My job is to support them with [questions such as:] Do we need to bring in a national expert in your area if the department is not feeling confident in doing this yourself? Or to bring in templates for them or trainings for them of how to assess their particular type of coursework?
That’s how I support them and then help them navigate through the whole process so that it’s not left to bureaucracy, red tape of sorts, just to support them all the way through.
Q: CPL can be a very confusing process for the student. Can you talk about how UVU seeks to support students as they navigate the process? One, in understanding that this is available to them and that you can recognize their prior learning, but also, what that process looks like and how they might feel navigating that situation.
A: Some departments have things really well established on their websites. Others do not. And so that’s why we have the CPL office and the CPL website. It’s a basic inquiry; it just asks a few questions to the student of, what are your academic goals? What do you think you might be eligible for and how much involvement do you want from us? Do they want a phone call from one of our CPL concierge support individuals, or do they just want to be sent on their way and take care of it themselves?
We really allow the student to gauge that, but we’re here to support them from inquiry all the way up until the credit is awarded. They can walk into our office, or they can contact us via the website and we’ll help them figure out any part of the process such as, do we just need to connect two individuals together? Do we have a faculty member who might be away and so their request has been sitting in a queue for longer than feels natural or normal to a college student? Or what is the natural process that the department has established?
Some departments will say that they’ll review inquiries during these windows of time and maybe the student didn’t catch that piece of information. We’ll reinforce that for the department to say, “Yes, you’re in the queue. It’s going to get reviewed during XYZ, so just hang tight and if you have any other questions, contact us again.”
We are there to support [students] all the way through. That’s the concierge aspect of it, and we found that to be really valuable, because there’s a lot of moving parts when it comes to credit for prior learning and creative solutions that we might not have thought of.
I’ll get three or four different areas together—I might get an associate dean, an adviser and two subject matter experts in a room together. I’m like, “OK, let’s look at this case. What can we do with what we know and what have we not thought of before? How do we best support the student in their academic goals while still keeping all of our academic rigor required?”
Q: I imagine you play the role of translator sometimes, too—helping the student understand what the department is asking and helping the department understand what the student wants to know—which can be a really needed role. It’s wonderful that you have yourself and your team to help draw those dots and connect the lines and make sure everybody’s working towards the same goal.
A: Yes. I’m setting up working with different departments on, “OK, if they do a challenge exam or they do a portfolio review, can they do a second [attempt]?” There are pros and cons to each, right? We want academic rigor, but also, depending on the area, it’s very contextual per level of course and program.
So for someone who’s going for a very high level of coursework [in CPL], is it a one-time [exam] or do you offer a retake, [giving them] one more time with some feedback, helping the student to be able to speak to the learning outcomes more clearly? I’ve seen departments do it both ways. Some will say, “No, they should either know it or they don’t, or they need to be in the classroom.”
The academic departments will go to their board of trustees and talk about it and have a good conversation of, “How much leeway do we want to give here?” Our policy states that you’re allowed up to one retake or not. Sometimes it works in the benefit [of the student] to have it be an all or nothing. And again, that’s very department and program specific. It’s not my job to tell them what it should or shouldn’t be; they know best.
Q: CPL can be very resource intensive, one, for the institution and the faculty or whoever is assessing the project, and sometimes there’s a fee associated for students. Can you talk about the labor, the time and the resources that go into this work and how you help coordinate that? And how is the institution investing in this work?
A: That is the hottest topic of conversation in this work. We’re a very large institution, the course load of our faculty— Adding this on top of it can feel significant in how much time it takes. This isn’t a quick grading process. To grade a portfolio, or to prepare for an oral interview or to write a challenge exam that needs to be updated on a regular basis, all of that takes faculty time.
At the moment, at our institution, there are small amounts of dollars involved that go back to the department who do the assessments and then the department decides whether they pool that money together or they pay out to their faculty. Often they’ll have a conversation among themselves of what’s the best usage of this and do a collaborative decision. Some it’s to pay the faculty; for others, it’s to help fund something that all of the faculty have agreed to.
Ideally, in our future, we would like to see more fees, smaller out of pocket, less than $100 fees, attached to credit for prior learning assessments. But we don’t have full consensus yet among all ofour leadership, and so that is still to be determined at our institution.
Q: Good luck with that conversation. It’s always fun to enter shared governance conversations, especially when we’re talking about student success and what’s gonna be best for the learner at the end of the day.
As we’re thinking about scaling and institutionalizing CPL across UVU, one thing I wanted to ask about is some of those processes that can be very easy. We’ve talked about language requirements and how students who have come from their missions—that’s a pretty set process and it’s pretty understood and simple to navigate for the student. Are there other processes that you’re looking at or working with departments to streamline how this works and what a student can expect?
A: There’s a few things that we’re doing to help this. One, we’re encouraging every department to have some real estate on their home page, on their website, of CPL options so that students can look very quickly if they’re shopping at two o’clock in the morning and don’t want to wait for a response from one of our team who tend to work more traditional hours. We want websites to be able to cater to that, as well as we want advising conversations to be able to cater to that.
We’re even asking faculty to put CPL options on their syllabi, so that if a student sits down on day one and they’re looking at this course and they’re looking at the topics, they’re looking at the learning outcomes, they’re like, “I already know this.” Wouldn’t it be great to also see, “And here’s a credit for prior learning option that you could challenge this,” that maybe they missed up until this point in advising or on the websites, or maybe they didn’t know to contact the CPL office? The syllabus is also another place of marketing as well as [traditional] marketing, which we attempt to do quite a bit of, that could help the student to recognize that there’s another option here.
Q: If you had to give advice to a peer working in a similar role at a different institution, are there any lessons you’ve learned or insights you would want to pass on in this work and the ways that you’ve been advancing this university goal?
A: Start small, but strategically. Like find a department or a faculty champion who has a clear use case, like a common industry certification or a workforce training pathway and then support them with some tools, some templates, some training. Don’t just tell them, “You got to figure this out.”
Center it on the student experience. Talk with your students, learn what they wish could have happened, because there’s so much that can be done, or that might already be being done. It’s just that this department may not understand what that department is doing.
Something that we did this year for the first time is we hosted a faculty summer institute. It’s a three-week commitment, but it’s one day of being together in person. Faculty had to apply for this, and there were four areas of focus—you needed to have a tangible asset at the end of this. One was to develop a CPL pathway. Another was to embed a credential into a program. Another was experiential learning, and the fourth was a continuing education credit process for those who have finished up and now they just want to add on.
We did offer a stipend to these individuals who were approved to come to this training. We spent the morning in education—we brought in Nan Travers, director of the Center for Leadership in Credential Learning from SUNY Empire State College, who is considered the fairy godmother of all credentialing. She was fabulous—to teach and train our faculty. Then we brought in a statewide person to discuss workforce alignment. Then we had a luncheon and we strategically placed all of the faculty into their area of focus. So seated at my table were faculty all focused on generating a credit for prior learning pathway. We had botany, biotech, psychology, computer science and business accounting. They’re all coming in from different schools within the institution.
We sat together at lunch and then we had an afternoon of working on the projects. So Nan was there, as the expert; she would come around to the tables and discuss things and answer questions. But these faculty got to interact with each other, with people outside of their standard focus, and they loved it. They said, at the end of the day, “I never get to do this. I never get to talk with faculty outside of my own area of focus.” They were passing phone numbers to each other. They were sharing their models and thinking and helping tweak each other’s.
It was such a fun, collaborative experience. And we have 11 new CPL pathways that came out of that one day, and then we gave them another three weeks to work on it. We plan to continue to do that summer after summer. We need funding from our administration to help pay the faculty to do that, but I will advocate to do that again and again. It was so successful.
Q: It’s almost like a CPL incubator, like how they have the student entrepreneurship programs, but for faculty to think about ways to be entrepreneurial in their own field.
A: Yeah and, you know, they said, “Thank you for thinking about me and my needs as the faculty member,” really taking care to be able to answer their questions and help them get over those mental blocks that they were experiencing of, “I don’t know how to address this or this or this.” We took care of all of that that day.
Q: It’s nice to just do it all in one day sometimes, too, right? It’s not an email chain. It’s not a series of meetings—like, we can all just sit in the same room and figure it out all in one go.
A: One thing we’re known for in Utah is we like soda with mix-ins. So we had a little beverage bar for them to go get drinks whenever they wanted, with a cute little mix-in to keep them energized and caffeinated all afternoon.
Q: That’s so fun. So as you’re thinking about this work, what are your goals for the upcoming year? Where do you want this program to go?
A: Yeah. There’s a couple things. One, I would like to get us from 75 percent of departments tapping into CPL to over 90 percent, for starters.
We’ve been hosting at UVU for the last three years a statewide conference. We brought in all the other USHE [Utah System of Higher Education] schools to just share best practices in credit for prior learning and ask things such as: How do we make this work? How do we track the data? How do we compare things and be more inclusive as a whole structure within the state of Utah and have less competition between schools? How do we be more collaborative in this process? So continuing to expand that conference is one thing.
I’m partnering with another school, Salt Lake Community College, starting this fall to do a once-a-month lunch and learn hourlong best practices over the phone. Covering, “Hey, what’s keeping you up at night? What are your headaches? How have you solved this?” Just allowing everyone to learn together, because we’re all pretty new, since this legislative mandate in 2019, of really bringing this into fruition. And how do we not reinvent the wheel, but just learn from each other?
Those are a few things, as well as, UVU launched a campuswide adult learner initiative in 2022, and it’s strategically housed within the provost suite. It’s focused on reimagining adult education over all. We’re focusing on student support and faculty support, as well as credit for prior learning. As I said earlier, kind of getting into the mind of the adult learner. I’d really like to see more conversation in the coming year, and my goal is to have conversations around this—could we do shorter-term classwork, or more hybrid classwork, where students are on campus? Because we find there’s great value in face-to-face, what if we’re only bringing them to campus once a week and we’re hybrid twice a week for courses? Can we offer more adult learner–friendly pedagogy? What does that look like and how can we accomplish that? So, I’d like to spend more time in that space in the coming year and really listening to students of what’s working and what’s not working.
Six months into his second term, President Donald Trump has forced changes at many of the nation’s wealthiest universities, some of which have shed hundreds of jobs amid federal funding issues and investigations.
While sector layoffs are so frequent that Inside Higher Ed has dedicated monthly coverage to rounding up such reductions, those actions are more common at small, cash-strapped colleges or state institutions reeling from budget cuts. But universities with multibillion-dollar endowments have been among those making the deepest cuts in the first half of 2025, often driven by freezes on federal funding that the Trump administration imposed with minimal notice.
Some universities have also cited the recently passed endowment tax increase as a factor in layoffs.
Altogether the layoffs show a sector bracing for a new reality where research funding can be suddenly yanked away with little to no explanation and international and graduate student enrollment, once considered a cash cow, is under threat—prompting institutions in even the highest financial stratosphere to cut costs as they navigate changing policies and a president sharply critical of the sector.
Here’s a look at how the nation’s wealthiest universities are adjusting staffing levels due to an uncertain federal policy environment, research funding issues and a flurry of legal actions from the Trump administration that have forced concessions from multiple well-resourced institutions.
Thousands Out at Johns Hopkins
The Trump administration’s cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development hit Johns Hopkins University with $800 million in canceled funding, prompting the Baltimore-based institution to shut down numerous international programs and lay off 2,222 employees earlier this year.
The 2,222 job cuts are the deepest announced at any institution this year.
The layoffs, announced in March, span more than 40 countries. Of the jobs cut, 1,975 were located internationally, while another 247 were in the U.S., with the majority in Baltimore. JHU announced at the time that another 107 employees would be furloughed.
Duke University, which has an endowment recently valued at nearly $12 billion, made some of the deepest cuts of the year so far when officials announced in July that 599 employees had accepted buyouts. Another 250 faculty members are reportedly weighing buyout offers as well.
Following the first round of buyouts, university officials said layoffs will begin this month.
Duke officials announced the buyouts before the Trump administration froze $108 million in federal grants and contracts and opened investigations into alleged racial discrimination, accusing the university of emphasizing diversity over merit in hiring, admissions and other practices.
Deep Cuts at Northwestern
Earlier this year, the Trump administration abruptly froze $790 million in research funding for Northwestern University, reportedly with no explanation. That action occurred at about the same time that the federal government opened an investigation into alleged antisemitism on campus.
Northwestern, which has an endowment valued at more than $14 billion, responded by eliminating 425 jobs last month in an effort to shave 5 percent off of its staff budget. The move was preceded by a hiring freeze and other cost-cutting measures announced earlier this year.
President Michael Schill and other administrators wrote in a message to campus that the cuts were “in response to more than just the federal research funding freeze.” They also pointed to “rapidly rising healthcare expenses, litigation, labor contracts, employee benefits, compliance requirements and a suite of federal changes” that may harm international student enrollment.
The Ax Falls at Stanford
Stanford University plans to cut 363 jobs beginning this fall as part of an effort to shave $140 million off the general funds budget due to financial issues connected to federal policy changes.
Those cuts come after the university announced a hiring freeze in February.
Stanford has the fourth-largest endowment among U.S. universities, recently valued at $37.6 billion. But despite its deep pockets, the private research university is feeling the squeeze from the Trump administration, with officials writing in a state regulatory filing that the university anticipates “reductions in federal research funding” and an increase in endowment taxes.
Additionally, the U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation into admissions practices at Stanford earlier this year, accusing the university of sidestepping a ban on affirmative action.
Nearly 180 Layoffs at Columbia
Few institutions have faced as much scrutiny from the federal government in recent years as Columbia University, which agreed to sweeping changes and yielded to demands from the Trump administration to overhaul admissions, disciplinary processes and academic programs. The university will also share admissions data and reduce the number of international students it accepts in an unprecedented agreement with the Trump administration that culminated in a $221 million settlement over allegations of antisemitism tied to pro-Palestinian campus protests.
Although the Trump administration will release some frozen research funds as a condition of the settlement, choking off federal dollars has already prompted cuts. Columbia announced in May that the university had laid off nearly 180 researchers amid its standoff with the federal government.
Columbia’s endowment was recently valued at $14.7 billion.
‘A Day of Loss’ at Boston U
Boston University announced plans last month to lay off 120 workers and eliminate another 120 vacant jobs.
Officials wrote in a letter to campus that “recent and ongoing federal actions and funding cuts are affecting our research enterprise as well as day-to-day operations” and creating “uncertainty” as BU grapples with inflation, declining graduate enrollment and other challenges.
“This is a day of loss for all of us,” officials wrote. “There is no way around this. We know our community may need time to adjust to these difficult changes. Yet, it is also a necessary step in ensuring our future.”
The University of Southern California cut 55 jobs last month, according to a state regulatory filing.
Officials announced in mid-July that layoffs were underway, though they did not specify the number of employees affected. USC also implemented a hiring freeze, halted merit-based pay raises, ended some vendor contracts and pulled back on discretionary spending and travel.
Interim president Beong-Soo Kim called the layoffs “painful” in a message to campus. He cited various financial concerns, including “significant shifts in federal support for our research, hospitals, and student financial aid” as well as potential declines in international enrollment.
“The ultimate impact of these changes is difficult to predict, but for a university of our scale, the potential annual revenue loss in federally sponsored research funding alone could be $300 million or more,” Kim wrote, adding these changes came on top of a pre-existing budget deficit.
USC’s endowment was recently valued at $8.1 billion.
Unspecified Cuts at Harvard
Harvard University, which is currently locked in a legal battle with the Trump administration over alleged antisemitism and other accusations, has also laid off employees this year. Harvard Magazine reports that multiple schools have reduced staff as a result of having federal research funds frozen.
However, Harvard has not released numbers and declined to provide an estimate to Inside Higher Ed. Union officials have said that layoffs could add up to hundreds of workers.
Harvard is the nation’s wealthiest university, with an endowment valued at nearly $52 billion.
Likely Layoffs at Brown
Following Columbia, Brown University struck a deal with the Trump administration last month, agreeing to certain changes in order to restore around $510 million in frozen research funding.
The federal government closed investigations into alleged antisemitism as part of the settlement. Brown also agreed to put $50 million over the course of a decade into workforce development in Rhode Island. Less than a week after the settlement, Brown officials announced that “some layoffs will be necessary” due to the “persisting financial impact of federal actions.”
Brown also enacted a hiring freeze in March, and nearly 350 jobs remain unfilled.
University officials wrote that they expected a $30 million hit to the 2026 fiscal year budget from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Trump’s far-reaching legislation that affected the sector in various ways, including increases to endowment taxes and limiting or eliminating some loan programs.
More than 100 colleges and universities have already signed up for Google’s new AI for Education Accelerator.
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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.”
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.
The University of Utah is cutting 81 offerings in response to state budget reductions and a new law.
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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 theselection 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.”
Your website is no longer just a digital brochure. It’s the heart of your institution’s marketing, recruitment, and student engagement efforts. For most prospective students, it’s the very first touchpoint, and their decision to inquire, apply, or move on often hinges on what they find there.
More than 90% of students visit a college or university website during their school search. That means your site must not only attract attention but deliver a seamless experience that inspires trust and action.
What does that look like? It’s a blend of smart navigation, compelling visuals, personalized content, and performance that works flawlessly across all devices. It’s also about serving many different audiences, students, parents, alumni, and staff, without sacrificing clarity or focus.
In this article, we break down the 7 best practicesfor higher education websites, with examples from institutions putting them into action. These proven strategies will help your school build a web presence that engages users and drives real results, from exploration to enrollment.
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1. Ensure a Mobile-Responsive, Mobile-First Design
Smartphones are the default browsing tool for most prospective students and their parents. If your institution’s website doesn’t offer a seamless mobile experience, you’re not just frustrating users; you’re losing them.
Why is mobile responsiveness crucial for higher education websites? Most students browse on mobile devices. A mobile-responsive site ensures readability, easy navigation, and fast loading, key for user experience and search rankings. Without it, your site could rank lower on Google and lose over half of the visitors who abandon slow or poorly displayed pages.
Mobile responsiveness means your content adjusts fluidly to any screen size, from smartphones to tablets. This isn’t a nice-to-have feature; it’s a necessity. Google now uses your site’s mobile version to determine how it ranks in search results (a process known as mobile-first indexing). If your site isn’t optimized for mobile, both your visibility and your credibility take a hit.
Use a responsive design that automatically adjusts layouts for smaller screens
Collapse navigation into a clean, mobile-friendly format
Display readable text without requiring zoom
Feature buttons and links that are easy to tap
Example:California Baptist University delivers a standout mobile experience. Its responsive design stacks content cleanly for smaller screens, while large, tappable calls-to-action make it easy for prospective students to explore programs or request information. The site balances function and aesthetics, showing that CBU understands what mobile users need and delivers it.
How can improving website speed benefit my higher education institution? Faster websites reduce bounce rates and keep users engaged longer. Prospects find what they need quickly, improving their impression of your institution. Speed also boosts SEO rankings and increases the chances of conversions like form submissions or brochure downloads.
A smooth mobile journey doesn’t just meet expectations, it sends a clear message: your institution is accessible, student-focused, and ready to meet users where they are.
2. Optimize Your Site’s Speed and Performance
Speed matters. Gen Z users expect instant access, and if your pages lag, they’ll bounce, sometimes before they’ve even seen your programs.
Beyond user frustration, slow sites impact your visibility. Google uses page speed as a ranking factor, so sluggish load times can tank your SEO and conversions.
To keep your site performing at its best, follow these key practices:
Compress images and media. Use modern formats like WebP and apply compression tools to reduce file sizes without sacrificing quality.
Minify code and enable caching. Clean up your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and use browser caching to speed up page loads for returning visitors.
Implement a Content Delivery Network (CDN). CDNs serve content from servers closest to the user, minimizing delays caused by physical distance.
Limit heavy third-party scripts. Only use plugins and scripts that are essential—too many can drag your site’s performance down.
Test regularly. Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, or Lighthouse help you spot bottlenecks like oversized images or slow server response.
Example:University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UA Little Rock): In March 2025, UA Little Rock rolled out a major website overhaul that improved both user experience and performance speed. A key move was transitioning to modern cloud hosting, which “ensures greater reliability, multiple backups, and improved site performance,” especially during peak or emergency periods. The web team also streamlined the site’s content (trimming 8,000+ pages down by 30%) and modernized the codebase, which reduces load times by eliminating bloat.
Why this matters for higher ed: Even a one-second improvement in page load time can make a measurable difference in how long users stay and what actions they take. A fast website tells students you’re efficient, professional, and respectful of their time, a small detail that leaves a big impression.
If your site is slow, it’s time to speed things up.
3. Implement Strong SEO to Boost Search Visibility
You can have the most beautifully designed website in the world, but if prospective students can’t find it, it won’t deliver results.
That’s where search engine optimization (SEO) becomes critical. Most college students rely on search engines to explore programs, compare schools, and research next steps. If your institution doesn’t appear in those search results, you risk missing out on a massive share of qualified leads.
Think about the intent behind queries like:
“Best MBA programs in Canada”
“Colleges in Toronto for computer science”
“Online diploma in healthcare administration”
If your pages don’t show up, students won’t even know to consider you.
Here’s how to strengthen your SEO strategy and stay visible throughout the student journey:
Keyword Optimization
Start with the language students use. Research long-tail keywords that reflect real queries (e.g., “online MBA in finance” or “career college digital marketing course”). Then, use those terms naturally in your:
Program page titles and H1 headers
Metadata and image alt text
Body content and subheadings
This improves your rankings and helps students quickly identify whether your offerings match their needs.
High-Quality, Student-Centric Content
Search engines prioritize helpful content. So do students. Build rich pages and blog posts that answer common questions about admissions, tuition, career outcomes, or student life. Content that educates, informs, and reassures will keep users engaged and build trust.
Gen Z doesn’t want to dig for answers. Make them easy to find, and you’ll win the click.
On-Page SEO Basics
Each page on your site should have:
A unique meta title and description featuring relevant keywords
Structured headings (H1, H2, H3…)
Descriptive image alt text for both accessibility and SEO
These basic elements are easy to overlook, but they make a real difference in how Google interprets and ranks your content.
Technical SEO and User Experience
Your site’s infrastructure plays a big role in search visibility. Prioritize:
Mobile-friendliness (as covered in Section 1)
Fast page load times
Secure browsing (HTTPS)
Logical, crawlable URLs
Fixes for broken links and outdated pages
Google rewards user-friendly experiences. So do your prospective students.
Local and International SEO
Have a physical campus? Make sure your Google Business Profile is claimed and accurate. Serving international audiences? Offer multilingual content or geo-targeted landing pages to attract global prospects.
Example: When ENSR partnered with Higher Education Marketing (HEM) in 2019, the school sought to improve its online visibility and attract more qualified leads. HEM implemented a comprehensive SEO strategy that included technical website improvements, bilingual content creation, and targeted Google Ads campaigns. These efforts significantly enhanced ENSR’s search rankings and increased high-quality inquiries from families seeking international education in Switzerland.
Why this matters: SEO isn’t a quick win; it’s a long-term strategy. But done right, it builds sustained visibility across every stage of the student journey.
A prospect might first find your blog post about how to choose a business school. Weeks later, they search for [Your University] campus life. Eventually, they return to your site to click Apply Now. SEO ensures you’re present at each step.
And since over 90% of students visit your website before applying, showing up in search isn’t just a marketing boost, it’s mission-critical.
What role does SEO play in the success of a higher education website?
SEO helps your site appear in search results when students research programs. Strong SEO brings qualified traffic, builds credibility, and ensures your programs are seen, without relying solely on paid ads.
SEO brings it all together. A fast, accessible, content-rich, and mobile-optimized site naturally ranks better. That means more visibility, more engagement, and more students taking the next step with you.
4. Make Your Content Accessible and Inclusive to All Users
Accessibility is now a fundamental expectation. Your website should serve everyone, including users with visual, auditory, motor, or cognitive disabilities.
In the U.S., more than 61 million adults live with a disability, and in Canada are more than 27 million. Globally, the number reaches into the hundreds of millions. If your website isn’t accessible, you may be shutting out prospective students, parents, or staff who are eager to connect but simply can’t.
Beyond ethics, it’s also the law. New ADA Title II regulations in the U.S. now require public colleges and universities to comply with WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards. Similarly, Canada’s AODA (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act) sets a comparable benchmark for accessibility. Failure to comply with these standards can result in lawsuits, financial penalties, loss of federal funding, and significant reputational damage.
An inclusive website is no longer optional. It’s a legal, ethical, and strategic imperative.
Best practices for accessible higher education websites:
Follow WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines. This includes alt text for images, captions or transcripts for videos, strong color contrast, and keyboard-friendly navigation.
Use semantic HTML. Headings, lists, and ARIA landmarks help users navigate with screen readers and assistive tech. Avoid flashy layouts that confuse accessibility tools.
Write descriptive link text. Replace vague links like “click here” with actionable, informative phrasing: Download the admissions brochure, for example.
Test with real users. Use accessibility checkers and consult individuals who rely on screen readers or other assistive devices; automated tools often miss real-world issues.
Why this benefits everyone: Captions aren’t just for deaf users; they help second-language learners, mobile viewers, and anyone watching a video in a noisy space. High-contrast design improves readability in bright light or on low-quality screens. And clean navigation benefits all users, whether or not they rely on assistive technology.
Accessibility makes your site better for everyone and signals your commitment to equity and inclusion.
Example:Otis College of Art and Design proves that accessible websites don’t have to be boring. Their visually bold, design-forward site includes thoughtful accessibility features, like the ability to pause animated content and high-contrast elements that enhance readability. It’s proof that inclusive design and creativity can go hand in hand.
By prioritizing accessibility from the start, your institution not only meets regulatory standards, but it also opens the door to more prospects and strengthens its reputation as a place where everyone belongs.
5. Design Intuitive Navigation and User-Friendly Interfaces
Higher education websites often contain a massive amount of information, program details, admissions requirements, campus services, student life, alumni resources, and more. Without clear navigation, this wealth of content can quickly become overwhelming.
If prospective students can’t find basic information like how to apply, what programs you offer, or where to request info, they won’t stick around. They’ll simply move on to another institution that makes things easier.
Your goal? Make exploration effortless: Navigation should be clean, logical, and centered around user needs, not internal structures or department silos. Every menu, page layout, and search function should guide visitors toward their goals with clarity and speed.
Tips for intuitive higher ed site navigation:
Use simple, student-focused labels. Stick to clear menu items like “Programs,” “Admissions,” “About Us,” and “Contact.” Avoid institutional jargon. Limit top-level menu items to avoid overload, and organize deeper pages using dropdowns or mega menus.
Design for user journeys, not just departments. Group content around tasks or audience needs. Instead of listing academic departments, consider categories like Plan, Start, Succeed, or even Explore Programs and Find Support.
Create clear user paths for different audiences. Persona-based navigation (e.g., Prospective Students, Current Students, Parents, Alumni) lets visitors self-identify and jump directly to what matters to them. This reduces cognitive load and improves time-to-information.
Make CTAs impossible to miss. Buttons like Apply Now, Request Info, and Visit Campus should be visually distinct and consistently visible across key pages.
Maintain styling and structural consistency. Don’t make users relearn how to navigate with every new section. Ensure the styling, placement, and behavior of menus remain predictable and responsive for mobile users.
Example: Eastern Iowa Community Colleges: EICC structures its top-level navigation around the student journey with three clear categories: Plan, Start, and Succeed. This not only simplifies decision-making but also shows a deep understanding of student concerns. The site also includes an “I’m most concerned about…” section: addressing common hesitations head-on, with empathy and clarity.
A user-friendly website doesn’t just look polished; it feels helpful. Smart navigation says, “We understand your needs, and we’ve made it easy to find what you’re looking for.” Higher education website design can be the difference between a visitor who bounces and one who applies.
6. Provide Engaging Content and Clear Calls-To-Action
Content is what transforms a higher ed website from a digital brochure into a dynamic recruitment tool. Prospective students don’t just want information; they want answers, inspiration, and a glimpse of what their future might look like at your institution.
They’re searching for:
Program details
Admission requirements
Tuition costs
Campus life
Career outcomes
Student experiences
Your job is to deliver that content in a way that’s clear, engaging, and actionable.
Best Practices for Content That Drives Enrollment:
Showcase your academic programs clearly. Each program should have a dedicated page that covers curriculum highlights, faculty expertise, admissions requirements, and career prospects. Schools should prioritize program-level content because it’s the first place prospects look.
Use rich media to bring your campus to life. Photos, videos, virtual tours, and infographics add emotional and visual depth that text alone can’t match. Consider a homepage hero video, a student life highlight reel, or virtual walkthroughs of your campus and classrooms.
Incorporate authentic student voices. Today’s students want real stories. Feature testimonials, student spotlights, or day-in-the-life content that reflects your community’s diversity and vibrancy. Whether it’s a video diary from a nursing student or a blog from an international applicant, authenticity builds trust.
Keep your content fresh. Outdated information erodes credibility. Make it a priority to update admissions deadlines, program details, and tuition info regularly. Maintain a blog or news section to show your campus is active, but don’t let fresh content bury essential evergreen pages like Programs or How to Apply.
Guide users with clear, strategic CTAs. Every important page should ask: What’s the next step? Then answer it with a bold, well-placed button. Whether it’s “Apply Now,” “Download a Program Brochure,” or “Book a Virtual Tour,” your CTAs should stand out visually and match the context of the page.
Example: OCAD University (Canada) redesigned its admissions website with a bold visual identity, simplified navigation, and CTAs tailored to the user journey, like “Get Portfolio Help” or “Start Your Application.” The results? Within weeks of launch, the site saw a 21% increase in visits and a 15% increase in applicants. The combination of user-first content and clear actions paid off.
Content also reinforces every other best practice:
Accessible content means adding alt text and transcripts.
SEO-optimized content means using keywords that align with search intent.
Fast-loading content means using lightweight visuals and optimized media.
When your content delivers real value and your calls-to-action guide users clearly, you don’t just inform; you inspire. And that’s what drives conversions.
7. Integrate With a CRM for Lead Management and Personalization
A well-designed website gets visitors. A strategically integrated website gets conversions.
One of the most powerful ways to level up your higher ed site is by connecting it to a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. CRMs are central hubs for capturing, organizing, and nurturing prospective students through the enrollment journey.
When your website and CRM are integrated, lead data flows automatically from inquiry forms, newsletter signups, and event registrations into a centralized system, no more manual data wrangling, missed follow-ups, or siloed information.
Why CRM Integration Matters:
Instant lead capture and time savings Every time a prospect fills out a form, to download a course brochure or RSVP to an open house, their information is logged automatically in your CRM. This eliminates the need for staff to transfer spreadsheets or copy-paste emails. The result? Less administrative busywork and fewer mistakes, giving your admissions team more time to focus on real engagement.
Faster, personalized follow-up CRM integration lets you respond in real time. Someone requests info? They get a tailored email within minutes. And your recruiters are instantly notified with the lead’s details, so they can follow up while your institution is still top of mind. Prompt follow-up, especially within 24 hours, greatly increases contact and conversion rates. A connected CRM makes that speed possible.
Personalized web experiences Advanced CRMs like HubSpot or Mautic allow you to show smart CTAs and dynamic content based on the visitor’s behavior. If someone has already attended a webinar, your site might offer “Schedule a One-on-One Consultation” instead of “Register for Info Session.” Personalization like this increases engagement and accelerates movement through the funnel.
One institution used smart CTAs to tailor messaging for return visitors. New users saw English test prep offers, while returning prospects saw “Start Your Application” prompts, resulting in higher click-through and application rates.
Full visibility into the student journey Every interaction, form fill, email open, and event attendance is tracked in the CRM. Your team gets a 360° view of each lead’s engagement, helping them tailor conversations and prioritize follow-ups. You can also track which web pages and campaigns are driving the most conversions, helping you optimize over time.
For example, CRM data may reveal that campus tour sign-ups convert at twice the rate of general inquiries. Insights like these help you double down on what works.
A seamless, consistent user experience From a student’s perspective, CRM integration reduces friction. They won’t have to fill in the same information twice. Communications feel timely and relevant. Even if a staff member changes, the CRM ensures continuity, so the conversation picks up where it left off.
Behind the scenes, your team gains confidence that every lead is being handled properly, with full history and context at their fingertips.
The tools and payoff
Higher education institutions are increasingly using education-focused CRMs like HubSpot or HEM’s Mautic CRM. These tools enable automation at every stage, from capturing leads to triggering nurture emails to customizing website CTAs.
Example: Griffith College, Ireland’s largest independent college, partnered with Higher Education Marketing (HEM) to implement HubSpot CRM for more efficient lead management and personalized student recruitment. Through a comprehensive strategy that included conversion funnel audits, CRM staff training, automated workflows, and segmented lead nurturing, HEM helped Griffith streamline communications and improve follow-up with prospective students. As a result, the college achieved a 20% year-over-year increase in registered learners for its Spring 2023 intake.
CRM integration does require some technical setup and cross-department coordination. But the payoff is immense: your website becomes a two-way communication platform, collecting insights, responding to actions, and guiding visitors toward enrollment with relevance and precision.
For institutions serious about scaling recruitment and deepening personalization, connecting your CRM to your website is no longer optional. It’s a modern best practice and a clear path to smarter, more successful digital engagement.
Build a Website That Drives Enrollment
Your website isn’t just a marketing asset; it’s your institution’s top recruiter. Every click, scroll, and form fill is a chance to move a prospective student closer to enrollment.
By applying these best practices for higher education websites, from mobile-first design and fast performance to SEO, accessibility, and CRM integration, you create more than just a polished digital presence. You build a site that informs, inspires, and converts.
In a crowded higher ed market, the schools that win are the ones that treat their website like the powerful recruitment engine it is. Make yours work harder, smarter, and more strategically, starting now.
Struggling with enrollment?
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Frequently Asked Questions
Question: Why is mobile responsiveness crucial for higher education websites? Answer: Most students browse on mobile devices. A mobile-responsive site ensures readability, easy navigation, and fast loading, key for user experience and search rankings. Without it, your site could rank lower on Google and lose over half of the visitors who abandon slow or poorly displayed pages.
Question: How can improving website speed benefit my higher education institution? Answer: Faster websites reduce bounce rates and keep users engaged longer. Prospects find what they need quickly, improving their impression of your institution. Speed also boosts SEO rankings and increases the chances of conversions like form submissions or brochure downloads.
Question: What role does SEO play in the success of a higher education website? Answer: SEO helps your site appear in search results when students research programs. Strong SEO brings qualified traffic, builds credibility, and ensures your programs are seen, without relying solely on paid ads.
The U.S. Department of Justice sued the state of Oklahoma Tuesday over a state law that allows undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates. Oklahoma is now the fourth state the DOJ has sued for having such a policy.
The state’s Republican attorney general, Gentner Drummond, swiftly sided with the federal government and filed a joint motion in support of quashing the law. He said in a statement that it’s “discriminatory and unlawful” to offer noncitizens lower in-state tuition rates “that are not made available to out-of-state Americans.”
“Today marks the end of a longstanding exploitation of Oklahoma taxpayers, who for many years have subsidized colleges and universities as they provide unlawful benefits to illegal immigrants in the form of in-state tuition,” Drummond said.
Now the state and the DOJ await a ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma.
Oklahoma’s quick support for the legal challenge is reminiscent of what happened in Texas when the DOJ sued the state in June: Within hours of the lawsuit, Texas sided with the Justice Department and a judge ruled in favor of a permanent injunction, ending in-state tuition for noncitizens. The DOJ then filed similar lawsuits against Kentucky and Minnesota, though those legal fights are still ongoing.
The lawsuits follow an executive order issued by President Donald Trump in April calling for a crackdown on so-called sanctuary cities and state laws unlawfully “favoring aliens over any groups of American citizens,” citing in-state tuition benefits for noncitizens as an example.
The beta version of the financial aid application portal was released Monday, Aug. 4.
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | SimoneN/iStock/Getty Images
The Office for Federal Student Aid made history this week, launching the test version of this year’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid earlier than ever before, Aaron Lemon-Strauss, executive director of the FAFSA program, announced in a LinkedIn post Monday.
It marks the beginning of “the next chapter in making higher ed more accessible,” he wrote.
This comes less than two years after the botched rollout of what was supposed to be a simpler FAFSA form for the 2024–25 academic year. The opening of that year’s application platform, which typically occurs in October, was delayed until the very end of the year. And even when it launched in late December 2023, it had a myriad of glitches, significantly delaying financial aid award processing for colleges and students.
For the next FAFSA cycle, the Education Department revamped its planning processing, bringing in an outsider to lead the effort. The launch of the 2025–26 FAFSA was slightly delayed, but the agency spent months testing the form before opening it up to all students. Now, for the 2026–27 FAFSA, the application is set to open on time on Oct. 1.
To meet that deadline, the department kicked off several weeks of selective beta testing this week, starting with a small number of students and families. The plan is for the beta version to become public in early September. By launching ahead of schedule, the department hopes to boost application completion rates, improve troubleshooting tools for financial aid advisers and increase overall speed of the process, Lemon-Strauss explained.
“As we celebrate this milestone, we also push forward,” he said, “building a FAFSA that truly meets the evolving needs of students, families, and schools.”
First-generation students face a host of barriers when they go to college. Terms commonly used in higher ed, like “registrar,” “provost” or “credit hours,” can be mystifying. They’re confronted with a hidden curriculum, a set of unspoken expectations for how to succeed. And they don’t always know whom to turn to for help.
But a new book, the first of three volumes on first-generation students, argues that these challenges, while important to study, offer an incomplete picture of who these students are.
The book, How First-Generation Students Navigate Higher Education Through an Embrace of their Multiple Identities (Routledge, 2025), explores in a series of essays how different identities, including class and race, affect the first-generation student experience and how these students bring unique strengths and assets to the classroom. It also offers guidance to different types of institutions about how to support first-generation students better and highlights colleges and universities that have modeled successful reforms and programs. Some of the essays are research-focused and written by scholars, while others are personal narratives authored by first-generation college graduates.
Co-editor Matt Daily, assistant vice president and dean of students at Idaho State University, spoke with Inside Higher Ed about why he’s working to change the discourse around first-generation students, alongside his co-editors, University of Portland professors SimonMary Asese Aihiokhai and Layla Garrigues. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: A theme throughout this book is the idea that too often first-generation students are studied through a deficit-focused lens that emphasizes their challenges rather than their strengths. Why was it important to you to shift that approach?
A: For a long time, when we’ve talked about first-gen, we’ve come in thinking that they need something, that they are lacking something, and I think for the last five years or so, that narrative has really shifted. It’s shifted from “What are they lacking?” to “What are they contributing?”
As we were doing a lot of research, as we were having a lot of conversations, while that’s something that we’re talking about at our respective institutions and starting to do more across the United States and beyond, it’s still something that we have to keep reminding ourselves is important—to really focus on the assets or the strengths that students bring.
And so, we thought that when we were dreaming up this project—and that’s a fun story, too, about how it came to be—we thought it really needs to be based in the strengths. And it would be so nice for practitioners, scholars, students, that they could find that the real theme and the real foundation and the real thread through it is the strengths of first-gen students, and what it is that they’re really bringing to these college campuses.
Q: What are some of the strengths and assets of first-generation students that you think are too often overlooked?
A: There’s really no one-size-fits-all for first-gen. Each first-gen student is as unique as the experience itself. I think that’s actually one trap we fall into: We really have to take each case as they come in and create that space.
In the introduction, I mention how Tara Yosso talks about her “community cultural wealth” model and cultural capital and talks about this idea of [ties to] family and culture [as] strengths. I think those are strengths that are really important. Laura Rendón also talks about—what Yosso was saying and building on it—this idea of ganas or perseverance, which is that ability to really develop inner strength and becoming self-reliant and determined to succeed.
There’s something about first-gen students where they are just so gritty. They really stick with it, and they are so inspiring. I love the way that they’re able to sort of exist in multiple worlds. I could have my college world, my peers, but also a lot of first-gen students work, so I can have that world, and then my family, and then maybe I’m from a different country. Really understanding how to exist in all those different worlds and being able to do that successfully, I think that is an incredible strength.
My biggest criticism of first-gen students is that they are too humble. They don’t think that their story is worthy enough to share. They don’t think it has worth, and I think they’re dismissive [of themselves], and that is my biggest criticism. Because for the amount of different first-gen students we have, there are an equal amount of stories that come with them. We need to encourage them to really share those and know that they have worth.
Q: Going off of that, you interspersed scholarly research with student narratives in this essay collection. Why was it important to you to include both perspectives?
A: That was really intentional. I think that the student voice gets ignored if we’re just talking about theory. If we’re going to talk about students, we need to hear their voice, right? It needs to be expressed, and we need to really have that authentic perspective. And so that was something we talked about early on in the project … especially in the last chapter, where we wanted to have students themselves or recent graduates share.
And I think that there’s equally as much value in terms of the research as to what the students are expressing, as they’re sort of in the moment, so to speak. I think [it’s important] even just coaching students that their voice matters … that you can go up and talk to senior administrators … and there’s value in that. I think that was one thing we were really hoping with this anthology was that maybe a graduate student or an undergraduate student could read that and feel inspired and go, “Oh, you know, this is something I could see myself doing,” and really get that spark, too. Gosh, if that happened, I would be over the moon.
Q: The book also emphasizes taking an intersectional approach to serving first-generation students. What does that mean to you? And what do you think we miss when we don’t factor in these students’ other identities?
A: I think that’s just so important. And I have to kind of acknowledge my own positionality. I’m a white male. And I am not first-gen. I will never understand a lot of these identities because I don’t identify that way. And so that’s something that’s been a part of my own journey. That was why it was so important with Simon, myself and Layla—we’re just a diverse collection. And then when you get to the other contributors, they do identify in a variety of different ways.
But that being said, identity is so important to the cultural richness of our college campuses. When I talk to college students, we talk about their gender identity, and sometimes that can be fluid; we talk about their racial or ethnic identity. We talk about their sexual identity, even their academic identity—meaning, what does it mean when I go from high school to college? Does that academic identity come into question when I experience different levels of success? But I think a lot of those identities we talk about, they’re visible. A lot of those identities we can see.
First-gen is not one of them. And that’s what’s interesting about being first-gen is you will never see physically if someone is first-gen. And so, it’s sort of this hidden identity. In a lot of my experiences working with first-gen students, I almost feel that I’ve outed them. When I explain to them, “Hey, I think you’re first-generation based on the information you’ve given me,” there’s a variety of different reactions, because it’s sort of a later-emerging identity. It’s not maybe one that’s discussed when a student is in elementary school, [with someone telling them],“Hey, you’re going to be a first-generation college student.” And so, I think what’s interesting is when you talk about this identity with other first-gen students, it’s one of many that intersect. But I think the timing of the intersection is so different for every first-gen student, if that makes sense.
In my previous role in Portland, when I would reach out to say, “I think you’re a first-gen student,” a lot of students would say, “No, I don’t want to be a first-gen student,” because they would think me identifying them in that way is something that’s negative. And part of that was really [making] that shift and going, “I am identifying you based on your mom and dad’s educational history or parent or guardian, and you might be first-gen—and that is so beautiful. Let’s celebrate that.”
I can be first-gen and a male or first-gen and African American male or I can be first-gen and a student athlete. What do those identities mean? Just being able to share what that identity means is so important for why a student is in college.
And I think that they forget that even as they graduate and go on to whatever’s next after college, to share that they’re first-gen is something that graduate schools, employers, what have you—they really value that.
It’s been programmed for so long that this is such a deficit. We’re working really hard at institutions to say, “Yeah, share that out—because of those qualities we talked about, this makes you a valuable part of this community.”
Q: I thought it was interesting that multiple chapters described how first-generation students can feel isolated from campus life, but also that campus life made them feel isolated from their home lives and families. How do you see the role of family and community for first-generation students’ success, and how do you think higher ed institutions can better account for that?
A: We assume that for first-gen students, when they go to college, that their families are behind it 100 percent, and that is not always the case. I think a lot of times the person that’s the most in favor of them going to college is themselves. And there’s a lot of, you know, “Why don’t you just work at the store?” The argument to convince others to go to college sometimes falls on the first-gen student, and we forget that. And so that kind of carries on through the experience, [family] going, “Why do you need to go to these programs?” or “Why do you need to go abroad?” It’s sort of having to be the explainer and the decoder for college life, and that is a lot for one student.
And so, I think that there is some push and pull with families sometimes, because the family wants to be supportive, but they don’t know how to be supportive strategically. In talking to a lot of families, I’ve coached them, saying, “Hey, you can just call your daughter or son and just say, ‘I love you. I support you doing this. I don’t know how I can strategically do that, but I want you to know I support you.’” That type of thing just goes so far.
The thing that’s also interesting, to your point about feeling isolated, we talk about programs and strategies that can really help first-gen students. But also on college campuses, the onus is on the student. You need to go do these things to be successful. And that’s not a first-gen thing, that’s a college thing. And I sort of push back on that. I think it’s on the institution to really create these spaces, to make students feel welcome, that they belong, that they matter, that they feel that they can have some sense of value in these spaces with their peers. And going back to first-gen identity, they’re not going to know who else is first-gen unless we create spaces where the students can find who else among their peer group is. And so, I think you kind of have to shift it a little bit.
They maybe feel isolated from family because we’re asking them to do a lot of things, such as engage with campus community, campus life, but sometimes that might come into conflict with what they’re being asked to do with their families, whether it’s watch my little brother or go to Grandma’s birthday party. That happened one time where a student really had to negotiate why they had to be on campus that first weekend of school for a lot of the programming [when] they were going to miss Grandma’s birthday. It really puts them in this code-switching situation where they feel isolated because they don’t feel anyone really gets what they’re going through.
Q: The book also offers a lot of concrete advice on how to better structure services and support for first-generation students and ensure they’re engaged and able to take advantage of opportunities like internships and study abroad. What do you think are some of the practical action steps you want to see higher ed leaders take away after reading this book?
A: I think high-impact practices are so important.
We talk so much about what student success means—what does it mean to have a sense of belonging, that type of thing—but I think one thing we really don’t talk a lot about is, other than the degree that the students are seeking, what is it that we really want them to take away from the college experience? What type of skills? Do we want them to think critically? Do we want them to be really engaged with the community? I think that we need to be really intentional on our college campuses about talking about what we want the students to take away, besides the degree. That can really help them in their next step. And I hope that maybe this book can talk a little bit about that. Can we really reimagine what we’re trying to do rather than just be very transactional about the degree?
I hope that they realize that it’s important to invest in this, that we need to invest in sustainable programs. Because I think a lot of times, what you have happen is different leaders or champions of first-gen work will leave institutions and then these initiatives really fizzle out. So, how can we think strategically that it’s not about the person, it’s about the program and initiatives. I think some of the things we talk about in here are almost a love letter to higher education institutions to say, “Look, this population is worth investing in, and it’s not just a one-size-fits-all, but if we can all adopt something that’s really creative and sustainable, all these students across the United States and even globally can benefit.”
