Some college students struggle with body image, negatively impacting their academic performance and physical wellness.
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Food and campus dining are important elements of the college experience for many students, whether that’s grabbing a quick coffee on the way to an 8 a.m. class or sharing a meal with friends at the end of a long day. Some learners, however, experience challenges with their eating habits due to negative body image or disordered thinking about food, which can be detrimental to their physical and mental health.
Colleges and universities can create greater awareness for students and staff by supplying resources for physical health and wellness to support student well-being and thriving.
What’s the need: Students with poor body image may feel ashamed, anxious or awkward, which could result in a lack of engagement in social events or classes, or unhealthy dieting and exercise behaviors, according to a study from the University of Alabama.
Social media can increase students’ exposure to negative body images, which can damage mental and physical health. And students who experience food insecurity are more likely to report disordered eating habits.
Campus Dining and Disordered Eating
Addressing harmful eating habits can take place in the classroom or in the dining hall. Some colleges and universities, such as Northwestern University, have made strides to improve the student experience when utilizing campus food services by removing calorie counts next to food items. Read more here.
Healthy body image can also be tied to student retention and graduation. A 2023 survey by United Healthcare Services found that college students who have experienced an eating disorder are more likely to have doubts about graduating on time (81 percent), compared to their peers who didn’t report an eating disorder (19 percent).
While women are more likely to experience negative body perceptions, men also experience disordered eating. Male student athletes, in particular, experience higher rates of eating disorders than their nonathlete peers but are less likely than their female peers to receive support for disordered eating.
Campuswide interventions: Disseminating information across campus can be one way to reach students who may be unaware of offerings or unable to identify their own harmful habits.
Illinois State University hosts the Body Project, the Body Project: More Than Muscles and the Female Athlete Body Project in collaboration with Student Counseling Services, Health Promotion and Wellness, and the Department of Psychology. The Body Project, a peer-led intervention, addresses female students’ sense of body image, and More Than Muscles supports male-identified learners with a chance to consider how culture and media define the ideal male body. Similarly, the Female Athlete Body Project supports women participating in collegiate athletics and their unique challenges with body image.
Louisiana State University hosted an event, “Trash Your Insecurities,” which invited students to write down their biggest insecurity and literally throw it in a trash can. Students could then write down what they’re most proud of themselves for, helping promote a better sense of self and positive self-talk. The event helped increase awareness of eating disorders and body image concerns as well as campus resources for these challenges.
The University of Nevada, Reno, hosts a support group, Nourish and Flourish, that encourages students to bring food to an informal setting to discuss concerns. Group counseling sessions can provide a place of community and support for students struggling with disordered eating or negative body image.
Working with students: As an individual faculty or staff member, practitioners can encourage positive body image with a student by:
Encouraging them to unfollow social media accounts or influencers who trigger negative body image thoughts or feelings. Research from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, shows that engaging with positive content can improve body image over several weeks. At the same time, exposure to fitness-oriented social media posts can harm women’s self-perceptions, according to researchers from Davidson College.
When giving compliments, focusing on a student’s performance or personality, as opposed to appearances, can be helpful, according to recommendations from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Avoiding use of negative body talk or dieting in the classroom or office, which can encourage students to do the same. Sometimes people engage in negative self-talk without even realizing it, so being self-accepting and self-compassionate can promote positive change.
Encouraging students to take care of themselves through adequate sleep or regular eating. For colleges that have nutrition services, staff can refer students to experts who can provide healthy eating advice.
Do you have a wellness intervention that might help others promote student success? Tell us about it.
Those of us who have sought a faculty position at a small, private liberal arts college do so knowing that the pay may be lower than at a research institution and that student advising and committee responsibilities are likely to be greater. However, the appeal of small colleges is the close-knit academic community: You can be a part of an academic home where colleagues find deep purpose and meaning in the institution’s teaching-centered mission and enjoy the advantage of smaller classes and more direct contact with students.
Perhaps those of you reading this are at institutions that may be showing signs of fiscal stress: The buildings are in need of repair, vacant faculty and staff positions are unfilled, and institutional contributions to retirement funds have been reduced. We’ve been there. We were colleagues at the now-closed College of Saint Rose: an early-career assistant professor, a midcareer faculty member and a senior faculty member nearing retirement age, all of us professors of education and teacher educators. We juxtapose the death of the institution with how each of us experienced professional deaths and rebirths into new positions. We hope you heed our warning and find some comfort in our personal journeys.
At the beginning of the 2023–24 academic year, our small private institution, like many institutions, experienced consistently low enrollment. We’d survived two iterations of cuts to programs and faculty within the previous decade. Despite these negative signs, we approached the academic term with a “business as usual” mindset. We applied for grants, worked toward reaffirmation of accreditation and drafted new initiatives.
This all came to a halt the moment the impending closure was leaked to the press.
The announcement of closure was officially communicated at the end of the fall 2023 semester. Instead of the usual joyful conclusion to student teaching, teacher performance assessments and exams, we were drowned in a sea of sadness and stress. While sending distress signals to other institutions, asking them to accept our candidates without hesitation, some institutions were circling the carcass, making empty promises to our students. Faculty were tasked with developing teach-out plans and conducting family outreach for hundreds of students at both the graduate and undergraduate level. We felt as though we were thrust into the role of hospice workers. Our own confusion, heartache and anger had to be ignored for every trip to campus and every interaction with students.
The end was coming. It was time to get our own affairs in order.
In an emergency faculty meeting, the administration asked us not to jump ship despite limited hope and feeble lifelines. The message: The college was to remain open one more semester, and all current employees were needed to support students. Here is how each of us experienced the first and only full faculty meeting regarding the closure:
“I received the news that the college was closing when I was five months pregnant with my second child. During this life experience, you hope that people say ‘congratulations’ and ask how you’re feeling in regards to growing a human; instead, they were walking on eggshells wondering if I’d have a paycheck once I’d created another mouth to feed. As they say, there’s no right time to have a baby, but I for one hoped it was at a time with a stable job and health insurance.”
—Jennifer, early-career faculty member
“I had just submitted my tenure dossier a month before, only to find out the institution would not exist past the next semester. While waiting for my tenure letter, I navigated applications, interviews and the recent passing of a colleague. As the board delayed tenure announcements, I was trying to quickly sort through my options—should I return to K-12, work as a consultant at a private firm or relocate for another professorship? With a son in college, I could not afford to start over.”
—Julienne, midcareer faculty member
“The announcement did not come as a shock to me. I recounted the significant financial cutbacks over the years. I spent 15 years in public schools and more than 20 in higher education. I was within five years of my full benefit age for Social Security, but retirement was not on my mind. I wanted to continue my dedication to scholarly work and shaping new teachers. The pressing concern in my mind was, would I experience age bias when looking for another position?”
—Terri, senior faculty member
At the time of the closure announcement, our questions were personal, but shared common themes. Where will I find work? Will I find work for the next academic year when searches are already underway? Who will hire me with my physical, age, family, etc., limitations? Should I re-enter the PK-12 classroom?
And beyond our personal worries were questions such as, what do I know about teach-out agreements? How do we work with institutions that guarantee our students on-time graduation when the programs are so different? What do we tell our longtime PK-12 partners? How does this impact my work on an IRB-approved study with colleagues? These thoughts were all-consuming, personally and professionally.
The reality for us as faculty was that there were very few open positions in higher education, and fewer yet in our field, our specialization, or our geographic area. Each of us handled this reality differently.
“I cast a wide net applying for government work, consulting jobs, K-12 positions, as well as tenure-track professor positions. I took some temporary government contract work in the interim to boost my salary. I had seven months before I knew unemployment would kick in. I mostly interviewed for higher education positions while teaching course overloads and consulting. I could not tailor my résumé and cover letters for every posting; I simply had no time. Applying for positions was another part-time job, and I did not have the energy to reinvent myself for a post on Indeed or LinkedIn. In the end, I interviewed at several institutions, public and private. I was offered a couple of positions and decided to go with a financially stable public institution, working alongside faculty with whom I’d already bonded. There was an opportunity to grow the program. There was only one catch: I had to decide if I was willing to have a very lengthy commute or move.”
—Julienne, midcareer faculty member
“I had only been in my position as assistant professor for 18 months or so when I was effectively handed my pink slip. That meant I lacked deep-seated roots. It also meant this was the second college I’d be leaving due to financial instability. Yes, I’d come to this position after leaving my previous institution when its financial outlook was too uncertain for me to stay when planning for my family’s future. Upon hearing the news of the closure, I wasn’t casting a wide net in my job search. I was apprehensive about casting a net at all. Well-meaning people offered ideas and suggestions, colleagues in the department shared links to job postings, and the college’s HR department sent around mostly useless links to job boards and resources.”
—Jennifer, early-career faculty member
Each of us is committed to teaching despite the daily realities of the profession. The question for us was never about if we would teach, but instead where and how. We landed new positions, but they have come with new challenges.
“I was offered a position to work at a local college that had adopted one of our closing college’s programs. This was a floating door in the frozen Atlantic, a silver lining. I didn’t have the need, nor the bandwidth, to negotiate. What I’m navigating now, however, is the prospect of starting over, once again.
“My friends from grad school are talking about their tenure reviews while I’m starting my clock anew. Starting over every two years means I’ve focused on getting classes established and acclimating, while regrettably letting scholarship take a back burner. At these teaching-focused institutions, tenure requirements for publications differ, and priorities are aligned with service and teaching. I always thought I had more time.”
—Jennifer, early-career faculty member
“Advocating for yourself is difficult. During negotiations, the new institution offered to honor my newly acquired rank as associate professor, which made the decision for me. However, given that the tenure requirements were different, I still needed to apply for tenure in the near future. Although moving to a new area was not in our family’s immediate plans, we found a house. Instead of a 90-minute commute, I had a 13-minute one—the same as for my old institution.”
—Julienne, midcareer faculty member
“I had to take what I could get. No one was offering my rank. I felt committed to living in my current home, since my children attended the local high school. All of my children are adopted or in foster care; consistency is key for them. I observed my ‘equivalent’ colleagues talk about retirement, adjunct positions, major pay cuts. Throughout my career, as a female, I have always doubted my expertise and found it difficult to say, ‘I’m worth more.’ Self- advocacy has never been my strength.”
—Terri, senior faculty member
One Year Later
We are not without hope. Despite the challenges facing higher education, and teacher-preparation programs in particular, we have each been reinvigorated beyond what we could have imagined.
Jennifer found a tenure-track position at a neighboring private institution and has a beautiful new son. Her advice might speak to other early-career faculty.
“I was once told not to say yes to everything in order to protect my time and energy. This has been sound advice, and I strive for work-life balance. I have benefited, however, from saying yes to some key opportunities. Taking on leadership and collaborative opportunities, such as IRB chair or assessment coordinator, or serving on collegewide committees even when feeling like a novice, have provided personal and professional growth.”
—Jennifer, early-career faculty member
Julienne received a promotion to associate professor just prior to the closure of the former institution. She negotiated with that advanced rank and relocated to a regional public comprehensive institution.
“As new faculty in an unfamiliar area, I am once again forging new relationships with other departments, staff and local school teachers and school officials. In many ways I am starting anew. However, my diverse skill set has served me well. I have extensive experience with online teaching, curriculum design and facilitating professional development, and have kept abreast of instructional technologies. I have turned those prior leadership skills into opportunities for research and program development. I continue to grow and learn from my colleagues.”
—Julienne, midcareer faculty member
Terri was sought by a fully online public comprehensive institution for her knowledge regarding accreditation, assessment and certification. She was granted assistant professor status and is restarting both the rank and tenure process. As the most senior of the authors of this article, her perspective might give reason for hope for other senior faculty.
“As I look back, I think we all failed to recognize how deeply troubled the institution was, how we each lost a bit of our passion and how stressful the work environment was. Now, six months removed and working without those previous stressors, I feel more focused and energetic. I didn’t know that my curiosity regarding online pedagogy, assessment and accreditation might lead me to this new opportunity. Diversification, like an investment portfolio, might serve us all well in academia—especially at small liberal arts institutions.”
—Terri, senior faculty member
We all believe the actions you take now may help you find your next position. So, we provide our limited experience advice below:
Diversify your academic portfolio. Develop a secondary passion in online pedagogy, accreditation or program assessment. These diversified interests may create new possibilities in policy development, technology or research roles in state government.
Become involved in and network within professional organizations, including, for teacher educators and state and local teacher-preparation organizations. Meaningful connections are often forged within those networks. Tenure is nice, but diversified interests and a record of leadership in professional activities can go a long way.
Develop a track record demonstrating a strong work ethic and responsiveness to the learning needs of a diverse student body. Create peer-mentor programs, develop tutoring programs at local schools and help the college provide strong mentorship to students who might be underperforming. It will prove extremely beneficial for others and for you.
Help your institution become more nimble. Take a direct role in responding to societal changes with urgency; the survival of the institution depends on flexible delivery while staying true to the mission.
As the three of us adjust to our new environments, we wonder why so little research explores the realities of college closure for tenured and tenure-track faculty. We are now considering research that might delve into deeper questions.
Do faculty outside our field of teacher education experience the closure of an institution, the employment search and re-employment in similar ways?
Has the trend of college closures impacted women in higher education differently and/or disproportionally than our male counterparts?
What elements of ageism, sexism, racism, etc., are impacting job searches and negotiating processes for faculty after a closure?
Are early-career faculty more likely to experience multiple closures?
What impact might multiple closures have on one’s career and identity?
While it is an area of study filled with turmoil, we envision continuing this line of research. We believe many college faculty members might benefit from the collective wisdom of colleagues caught in the same situation. We hope to continue to provide direction and support for our colleagues who might need to find a new academic home.
Jennifer N. Suriano is an assistant professor of education at Siena College. Terri Ward is an assistant professor at Empire State University. Julienne Cuccio Slichko is an associate professor of special education at the State University of New York at Oneonta. All three previously served as faculty at the College of Saint Rose, which closed in 2024.
Armstrong led Columbia for seven tumultuous months.
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Sirin Samman/Columbia University | Anna Moneymaker and Spencer Platt/Getty Images | mirza kadic/iStock/Getty Images | Ryan Quinn/Inside Higher Ed
After stepping down as interim president of Columbia University late last month, Katrina Armstrong will take a sabbatical from Columbia’s Irving Medical Center, where she has served as chief executive officer since 2022, the institution announced Sunday in a brief statement.
Armstrong is taking a sabbatical to spend time with her family, the university noted.
Armstrong’s acquiescence to the Trump administration sparked concerns among many Columbia faculty members and others in higher education who wanted to see the university fight back. The Trump administration has not restored the frozen funds but has voiced approval of the changes.
Columbia announced the sabbatical the same day that the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news outlet, published a transcript of a deposition Armstrong gave to the Department of Health and Human Services as part of the ongoing civil rights investigation into the university.
In the transcript from the April 1 deposition, Armstrong responded multiple times that she had “no memory” of various antisemitic events alleged to have occurred at Columbia.
Armstrong also seemed fuzzy on the changes she enacted in response to Trump’s demands.
“Did you do anything as the interim president to implement these recommendations?” asked Sean Keveney, acting general counsel at the Department of Health and Human Services.
Armstrong responded that she had “stood up against all forms of harassment and discrimination, including antisemitism. While the last year is very much a blur … the administration is deeply committed to addressing antisemitism,” she said, adding that she would “need to look at specifics.”
Armstrong also expressed uncertainty about whether or not she had reviewed a letter from the General Services Administration stating that Columbia’s funding was under review, responding that she had received what “feels like dozens of letters,” some of which had multiple signatories.
“Do you remember a point in the last month when the federal government stopped funding to the University of Columbia?” a government official asked, incorrectly stating the institution’s name.
“I think I would have to understand more specifically what you’re referring to,” she responded.
Armstrong’s lack of recollection seemed to prompt frustration.
“I guess I’m just trying to understand how you have such a terrible memory of specific incidents of antisemitism when you’re clearly an intelligent doctor?” Keveney asked Armstrong at one point.
That question and a related one drew objections from Columbia’s legal counsel.
In other parts of the deposition, Keveney pressed Armstrong on whether she walked back an agreement to clamp down on masks at protests. While Armstrong enacted certain changes that would require protesters to remove their masks when asked to do so by university officials, she reportedly downplayed the notion of a ban on face coverings in a meeting with faculty members last month.
“Isn’t it true that in private with the faculty, you backed away from what you said the university was going to do?” Keveney asked, referencing a faculty meeting held on Zoom in late March.
Armstrong denied doing so, citing a public statement after that meeting that reiterated her commitment to the agreement with the Trump administration. She told the HHS attorney, “I have been and remain and have always been fully committed to the steps in that statement.” She added that those steps “are the right thing to do for Columbia” and for its students.
The deposition also revealed the challenges she faced on the job in recent months.
“It’s obviously been an incredibly difficult period for me, for the university,” Armstrong said in one of multiple responses that showed the immense pressure she was under as interim president.
Columbia’s Board of Trustees responded to Inside Higher Ed’s request for comment on the latest news about Armstrong with a statement that read, “Columbia University is firmly committed to resolving the issues raised by our federal regulators, with respect to discrimination, harassment, and antisemitism, and implementing the policy changes and commitments outlined in our March 21st letter. This testimony does not reflect the hard work undertaken by the University to combat antisemitism, harassment, and discrimination and ensure the safety and wellbeing of our community.”
Columbia’s medical school will continue under interim leadership, which has been in place since Armstrong assumed the interim presidency. Columbia also has a new interim president in place: Last month the Board of Trustees elevated fellow member and co-chair Claire Shipman to the role.
Fifteen researchers across a range disciplines from the biomedical sciences and STEM to education and political science share their experiences of losing research grants and what impact the loss of billions of dollars in federal funding will have on science, public health and education in Inside Higher Ed today.
The Trump administration told researchers Rebecca Fielding-Miller, Nicholas Metheny and Sarah Peitzmeier that trainings connected to their National Institutes of Health grant focused on the prevention of intimate partner violence against pregnant and perinatal women were “antithetical to the scientific inquiry, do nothing to expand our knowledge of living systems, provide low returns on investment, and ultimately do not enhance health, lengthen life, or reduce illness.”
“We could not disagree more,” Fielding-Miller, Metheny and Peitzmeier write. “Anyone who has cared for a child or for the person who gave birth to them knows that preventing maternal and infant death and abuse should be a nonpartisan issue. The current administration is intent on making even this issue into ‘us’ versus ‘them.’ When it comes to public health, there is no such thing.”
Meanwhile, Judith Scott-Clayton writes that the decision to cancel a Department of Education grant funding a first-of-its-kind randomized evaluation of the Federal Work-Study program—four and a half years into a six-year project—will leave policymakers “flying blind.”
“Since 1964, the FWS program has disbursed more than $95 billion in awards,” Scott-Clayton wrote. “In comparison, our grant was less than three-thousandths of 1 percent of that amount, and the amount remaining to finish our work and share our findings with the public was just a fraction of that.”
Additionally, the Trump administration has variously moved to cancel or suspend research contracts and grants at Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania and most recently Princeton University as part of punitive actions tied to investigations of campus antisemitism or, in Penn’s case, the decision to allow a trans woman to compete on the women’s swim team three years ago. The administration also briefly froze (and then unfroze) United States Department of Agriculture funds for the University of Maine system after the state’s governor engaged in a tense exchange with President Trump at the White House.
Below, 15 researchers across nine different research areas who have had their federal grants terminated since the start of the Trump administration share just a few of the thousands of stories behind these cuts.
—Elizabeth Redden, opinion editor
Preventing Intimate Partner Violence
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By Rebecca Fielding-Miller, Nicholas Metheny and Sarah Peitzmeier
Each year, more than 3,000 American women are murdered by their partners. Pregnancy and the postpartum period are high-risk periods for intimate partner violence (IPV), which is linked to negative maternal outcomes such as miscarriage, hemorrhage and postpartum depression. Perinatal IPV is also linked to worse infant health outcomes, such as preterm birth and low birth weight, and to adverse childhood experiences. This makes prevention of perinatal IPV crucial not just for the survivor but for the entire family.
Perinatal IPV and its cascade of negative outcomes are preventable—but only if we study the epidemiology and prevention of IPV as rigorously as we study hypertension or any other perinatal complication. A grant rescinded last month by the NIH would have trained a cohort of 12 early-career clinicians and researchers to learn how to study IPV as part of their ongoing research on pregnancy, birth and the postpartum period. We proposed training investigators working in diverse communities across the spectrum of America, with a commitment to including communities disproportionately impacted by IPV and maternal mortality, including Black and LGBTQ+ communities. To solve a problem with constrained resources, it is efficient to focus efforts on where the problem is most severe. While the termination letter named this targeting of training resources an “amorphous equity objective,” we call it a data-driven approach to rigorous science.
Training grants like this one help shift an entire field by giving young investigators the skills and knowledge to add a focus on IPV to their research for the next several decades. In addition to training these 12 young researchers, the grant would have also supported turning the mentorship curriculum we developed into an open-access online training for clinicians and researchers to access in perpetuity, multiplying the impact of the work to train even more investigators in the field. As with the approximately 700 other terminated NIH grants, cutting this work before our aims are realized but after significant costs have been incurred to establish the mentorship team and design the curriculum is the definition of government inefficiency and waste.
With this grant rescinded, none of the promised training will occur. Pregnant people and their babies from every community across America will continue to suffer, without the benefit of advances in the science of how we prevent these violence exposures. Our termination notice claims that the proposed trainings are “antithetical to the scientific inquiry, do nothing to expand our knowledge of living systems, provide low returns on investment, and ultimately do not enhance health, lengthen life, or reduce illness.” We could not disagree more. Anyone who has cared for a child or for the person who gave birth to them knows that preventing maternal and infant death and abuse should be a nonpartisan issue. The current administration is intent on making even this issue into “us” versus “them.” When it comes to public health, there is no such thing. American families deserve better.
Rebecca Fielding Miller is an associate professor of public health at the University of California, San Diego. Her research focuses on health disparities in infectious disease and gender-based violence.
Nicholas Metheny is an Atlanta-area scientist and registered nurse with clinical and research experience in the post-violence care of women and sexual and gender minority communities.
Sarah Peitzmeier is an assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Health who develops and tests interventions to prevent gender-based violence. She is also a practicing birth doula and victim advocate.
Is Work-Study Working?
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By Judith Scott-Clayton
On March 7, at 9:49 a.m., I received an email with “GRANT AWARD TERMINATION” in all caps in the subject line. Attached to the email was a letter, addressed to me as project director and referring to our Department of Education grant by its award number. The letter was generic, virtually identical to three other termination letters received that day at the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College, where I am affiliated. It did not mention our project title nor provide any project-specific details to explain why our project, as the email states, “is now inconsistent with, and no longer effectuates, the Department’s priorities.” A few hours later, I received a formal notification that the grant end date was that day: March 7, 2025.
The project—a collaboration with Adela Soliz of Vanderbilt University and Tom Brock of CCRC—was titled “Does Federal Work-Study Work for Students? Evidence From a Randomized Controlled Trial.” The Federal Work-Study (FWS) program was created in 1964 as part of the Economic Opportunity Act and covers up to 75 percent of the wages of college students working part-time in mostly on-campus jobs, with colleges paying the rest. In a typical year, the program provides more than $1 billion in support to more than 450,000 college students with financial need at more than 3,000 institutions all across the country. Several states also have their own similar programs.
Our study would be the first to rigorously evaluate the causal impact of the program on students’ enrollment, employment, persistence and degree completion. We were also conducting interviews, focus groups and surveys to understand how students find FWS jobs, what kinds of work they do, what resources institutions devote to running the program and how much it all costs to operate, all with the goal of ensuring the program is delivering the maximum impact for every single student that participates and for every dollar spent.
At the time of its cancellation, we were about four and a half years into a six-year project. We were right in the middle of randomizing what would be the final cohort of our study sample and fielding the final round of a student survey. This final year is especially important, because the early cohorts were heavily impacted by the pandemic. For the past three weeks, we have been scrambling to pull together any other resources we could find to preserve our options and avoid losing this final cohort of participants. We have also been scrambling to figure out how to continue to pay critical staff and doctoral students involved in the project until we can figure out the next steps.
As for the broader impact of the termination: The Federal Work-Study program itself will keep on going, at least for now; we just won’t know whether it works or not. We hypothesize that it may provide valuable work-based learning opportunities that keep students engaged and give them advantages in the labor market after college, but it’s possible that it distracts students from their studies and hurts their academic performance. We may think that it helps students to afford college, but perhaps the complexity of finding a specific job and navigating all the necessary paperwork reduces its value for the students that need help the most. The next time the program is up for debate, policymakers will be flying blind: Without actual evidence all we can do is speculate.
Since 1964, the FWS program has disbursed more than $95 billion in awards. In comparison, our grant was less than three-thousandths of 1 percent of that amount, and the amount remaining to finish our work and share our findings with the public was just a fraction of that. Our project was motivated by a desire to help policymakers ensure that every dollar invested in financial aid has the maximum possible impact for low-income students. So it is discouraging to learn, so close to the finish line, that this first-of-its-kind evaluation of a major federal program is “now inconsistent with, and no longer effectuates, the Department’s priorities.”
Judith Scott-Clayton is a professor of economics and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, in the Department of Education Policy and Social Analysis, where she directs the Economics and Education Program and teaches courses on the economics of education, labor economics and causal inference.
Democracy Research
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By Rob Blair, Jessica Gottlieb, Laura Paler and Julie Anne Weaver
We lost funding for the Democratic Erosion Consortium (DEC) as part of the federal government’s recent cancellation of foreign assistance grants. Directed by scholars at Brown University, the University of Houston and American University, DEC works to make academic research on democratic backsliding accessible to policymakers and practitioners seeking evidence-based strategies to defend democracy around the globe.
Originally launched in 2017 on a shoestring budget, DEC began as an effort to improve pedagogy on a troubling trend observable both abroad and at home: the strategic dismantling of democratic norms and institutions by elected leaders with autocratic ambitions. In 2022, in line with the U.S. government’s dual interests in democratic resilience and evidence-based policymaking, we received a grant from the State Department to expand DEC’s work.
The State Department’s investment enabled us to grow our reach beyond the classroom and into the policy arena. We drew on an expanding network of scholars to synthesize evidence on urgent questions—such as how to reduce the spread of misinformation and measure democratic decline. We also built out a novel event data set on democratic erosion and trained partners around the world to use it in their own work.
The immediate consequences are clear: several full- and part-time staff lost funding for their jobs. But the long-term damage is hard to quantify. It’s difficult to argue for the value of evidence-based policymaking in foreign aid when the entire category of foreign assistance has effectively been gutted. More than that, the partnerships we built between academics, practitioners and policymakers were yielding real-time insights and responses—a rare example of successful research-policy collaboration. That infrastructure is now gone.
And at a moment when democratic backsliding is accelerating in many parts of the world, the U.S. government is stepping away from efforts to understand and counter it. Ending this grant not only weakens the ability to monitor democratic erosion globally, it also reduces public awareness and understanding of a phenomenon that is increasingly visible in the U.S. itself.
With the federal policy audience for our work largely gone, we are refocusing our efforts on our other two core constituencies: students and academics. We continue to support instructors engaged in teaching our democratic erosion course and to improve the Democratic Erosion Event Dataset. And in response to growing concern about democratic backsliding in the U.S., we’re developing a more robust domestic data-collection effort, paired with public engagement.
Given intense partisan disagreement around what even constitutes democratic erosion, we are seeking to increase the credibility of new evidence by capturing partisan-diverse perspectives and applying our established comparative framework to U.S. events. We are hoping to continue this work, despite the loss of our federal grant, because the political reality in the U.S. and around the world tells us we need to be worried about democratic erosion now more than ever.
Rob Blair is the Arkadij Eisler Goldman Sachs Associate Professor of Political Science and International and Public Affairs at Brown University.
Jessica Gottlieb is an associate professor at the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs.
Laura Paler is an associate professor in the Department of Government in the School of Public Affairs at American University.
Julie Anne Weaver is the research director of the Democratic Erosion Consortium and a lecturer on government at Harvard University.
COVID-19 and Related Immunology Research
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By Matthew Woodruff
On March 24, 2020, I stood in a Biosafety Level 2+ facility at Emory University with six colleagues being taught best practices for working with the largely unknown pathogen, SARS-CoV-2. Other unknowns included where we would get masks (N95s were unavailable), risks of infection to our young kids at home and who would pay for the experiments needed to gain insight into the deadly new virus sweeping across the nation.
That last question was answered relatively quickly. Rapid investment by the first Trump administration’s NIH launched SeroNet, a five-year effort across 25 institutions to “expand the nation’s capacity for SARS-CoV-2 serologic testing on a population-level and advance research on the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 vaccination among diverse and vulnerable populations.” We did just that. Over the coming years, taxpayer dollars funded more than 600 peer-reviewed publications, reflecting significant advances in disease pathology, treatment strategies, disease impact in immunocompromised patients, vaccine testing and more.
Our team at Emory led projects dedicated to understanding the balance between productive and pathogenic immunity in hopes of alleviating disease. We discovered why your immune system sometimes turns on itself in the throes of severe infection, uncovered similarities between the immune responses of chronically autoimmune patients and those who were seriously ill with COVID-19, and documented continued disturbances in patients with long COVID. Importantly, we learned that these responses weren’t unique to COVID-19 and were broadly relevant to human health.
In 2022, I started my own lab founded on those concepts. We have been optimistic that the work we are doing will ultimately serve the American people in our shared desire to live longer, healthier lives.
But over the past months, that optimism has dissipated. Ham-handed targeting of “DEI” awards leaves us unable to understand how diverse human populations might respond differently to infection or develop different kinds of chronic diseases. Mistrust of the same vaccine programs that have halted the spread of measles globally has left us unable to test next-generation vaccines that might provide broad protection against emerging viral strains. And then, on March 24, it was announced that the five-year commitment that the first Trump administration made to our work would no longer be honored. Our COVID-related funding through SeroNet would be halted, effective immediately.
Our fledgling program, a few months ago extremely promising, is now on life support. My lab has invested heavily with our time and limited resources, which are now running thin, into promising new areas of clinically relevant immunology that suddenly look like financial dead ends. The decision to halt entire fields of study in what was previously highly fertile scientific space is as damaging as it is unprecedented, and our lab is left with a business model that is now fundamentally broken.
Matthew Woodruff is an assistant professor of immunology at the Emory University Lowance Center for Human Immunology. His lab studies antibody responses in the context of infection, vaccination and autoimmune disease.
Training Tomorrow’s Biomedical Workforce
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By Samantha Meenachand Ryan Poling-Skutvik
On March 21, the NIH terminated our training grant award, which supported the Enhancing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Education Diversity (ESTEEMED) program at the University of Rhode Island. The mission of URI ESTEEMED was to increase the preparation of undergraduate students—freshmen and sophomores—to conduct biomedical research, enabling them to succeed in advanced research in preparation to pursue a Ph.D. in STEM. Our ultimate goals were to provide students who were from groups underrepresented in STEM or from disadvantaged economic backgrounds with academic enrichment, research and soft skills development, and a sense of community. NIH claims that our award “no longer effectuates agency priorities” and that it involves “amorphous equity objectives, [that] are antithetical to the scientific inquiry.”
While the language in the termination email itself was derisive and political, the fallout from the loss of this award will be felt for years to come. The state of Rhode Island immediately lost $1.2 million in direct economic activity, and an important workforce development initiative will end, significantly reducing state and regional competitiveness in a growing technological field. Like many other states, Rhode Island has a pressing need for professionals trained in biotechnology, and recruiting people to Rhode Island has often proven to be challenging. This challenge is exemplified by the recent establishment of the Rhode Island Life Sciences Hub with a specific mandate to grow the biotechnology sector in the state.
By contrast, there is a large untapped pool of talent within Rhode Island, who are limited by access to education and training in large part due to the financial pressures families face. Our URI ESTEEMED program recruited talented students who likely would not have had the resources necessary to enter these careers. While NIH would like to argue that ESTEEMED was used to “support unlawful discrimination on the basis of race and other protected characteristics,” ESTEEMED trainees were selected through a rigorous and competitive application process, making these awards merit-based. Without the financial support of this program, many of our trainees would not have been able to attend URI or would not have had the opportunity to focus on research.
URI ESTEEMED in its current form will cease to exist at the end of this semester. We are still figuring out to what capacity we can continue to recruit and train students, but without NIH funds, training programs such as ESTEEMED will not be able to alleviate the many pressures these students face. The political decision to terminate this grant inflicts direct financial pain on some of the most promising students, and these effects will reverberate for years to come.
Samantha Meenach is a professor in the Department of Chemical, Biomolecular, and Materials Engineering at the University of Rhode Island.
Ryan Poling-Skutvik is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical, Biomolecular, and Materials Engineering and the Department of Physics at the University of Rhode Island.
Alzheimer’s and Dementia Research for Diverse Populations
By Jason D. Flatt
Research funding for diverse populations impacted by Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) is currently being terminated by the U.S. federal government. These terminations are attributed to the premise that the research is incompatible with agency priorities. For instance, funding for studies including older transgender individuals, as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, intersex and other LGBTQIA+ identities, has been terminated. In addition, funding decisions have been rescinded, and grants have been pulled from scientific review. The National Institutes of Health has stated, “Research programs based on gender identity are often unscientific, have little identifiable return on investment, and do nothing to enhance the health of many Americans. Many such studies ignore, rather than seriously examine, biological realities. It is the policy of NIH not to prioritize these research programs.”
To date, around 700 NIH grants have been terminated, including many important studies on HIV/AIDS, cancer, COVID-19 and ADRD. Of these, about 25 have focused on ADRD. Personally, I have lost nearly $5 million in research funding from the NIH and the Department of Defense because my ADRD research includes transgender people. My research focuses on the needs of LGBTQIA+ and non-LGBTQIA+ older adults, particularly those affected by ADRD and Parkinson’s disease, as well as their caregivers and health-care providers. Some have suggested that we remove or rephrase “forbidden” language in future grants and/or exclude transgender people from our studies, but I will not do that. It is not pro-science and will not ensure that all people benefit from our research. The current and future termination of grants and contracts will have a significant impact on the health of older Americans, slow our innovation, limit our ability to provide care and impede progress in finding a cure.
I am working to raise awareness about these terminations and find ways to either reverse the decisions or secure alternative funding for this vital research. This includes speaking with the press, informing policymakers, generating visibility on social media alongside colleagues and peers, consulting with legal experts, and engaging with community members. I am also deeply concerned about the future of early-career scientists, who are essential in leading efforts to find cures for diseases affecting our communities, especially as the baby boomer generation ages. Many of the grants that have been terminated were early-career awards for newly minted doctoral researchers and faculty, diversity supplements for doctoral students, and competitive NIH predoctoral and postdoctoral fellowships.
In light of today’s sociopolitical climate, it is more important than ever for our civic, academic and research communities to unite in advocating for inclusion, standing up for diverse groups, including LGBTQIA+ communities, and ensuring that early-career scholars and the broader aging population have opportunities for potential cures, treatments and health care.
Jason D. Flatt is an associate professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, School of Public Health, in the Department of Social and Behavioral Health.
I have spent the past year and a half as a postdoc researching the effects of Virginia’s Get a Skill, Get a Job, Get Ahead (G3) initiative, a tuition-free community college program implemented in 2021. Similar to most statewide free college programs, G3 is a last-dollar scholarship program for state residents attending one of Virginia’s 23 community colleges, though students who already receive the maximum Pell Grant and enroll full-time are eligible for an additional living stipend to support the costs of books, transit and other expenses frequently incurred while enrolled. Virginia implemented the program as a bipartisan pandemic-recovery strategy to reverse steep enrollment declines in community colleges and boost credential completion in five high-demand workforce areas: early childhood education, health care, information technology, manufacturing and skilled trades, and public safety.
Like so many other critical research projects in education, our Institute of Education Sciences funding was terminated by the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to gut the Department of Education and publicly funded research at large. The abrupt termination of the grant, which supports researchers at both the University of Pennsylvania and the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College, is a depressing way to finish out my postdoc. The project is part of a larger IES grant that established the Accelerating Recovery in Community Colleges network, a group of research teams focused on strategies to improve community college enrollment and student success. The loss of funding means canceled conference presentations and convenings; it means planned collaborations with other research teams in the network will not happen. We simply cannot accomplish all the things we set out to do without the resources provided by the grant.
The grant termination is demoralizing on multiple levels. It funded my postdoc, which has been an invaluable experience in developing my skills as an education policy researcher. While my position was nearing its end regardless, the ongoing forced austerity on public-facing research portends a future where these types of opportunities are not available to later generations of scholars. And on a less personal note, canceling education research, especially toward the end of its life cycle, is extremely wasteful and inefficient. It hinders the completion of projects that public money has already been invested in and limits dissemination efforts that help to drive the overwhelmingly positive return on investment from these types of research projects.
This is a real shame in the case of our work on G3. Our findings and planned future research on the policy hold critical implications for policymakers and institutions in Virginia and across the US. States like Arkansas, Indiana and Kentucky have similarly implemented workforce-targeted free college initiatives. And given the heightened attention from policymakers on career and technical education in recent years, it is reasonable to think more states will follow suit. Our work on G3 is in service of improving community college student outcomes so that more students have the resources and opportunities to pursue meaningful careers and life trajectories. Without any federal funding, it will only be more difficult to uncover the best ways to go about achieving these ends.
Daniel Sparks is a postdoctoral researcher in economics and education at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education.
Training Pediatric Physician-Scientists
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By Sallie Permar
The NIH made the abrupt decision last month to terminate the Pediatric Scientist Development Program (PSDP), a long-standing initiative that has trained generations of physician-scientists dedicated to advancing child health. This decision was made without an opportunity for resubmission or revision, and it appears to be linked to diversity, equity and inclusion requirements in our renewal application, components we were previously required to include and encouraged to expand by our reviewers, and that were later weaponized as justification for defunding.
For more than 40 years, the PSDP has served as a critical pipeline for training pediatric physician-scientists. Through rigorous mentorship, research training and career development, the PSDP has trained more than 270 pediatric physician-scientists, helping launch the careers of child health researchers who have made groundbreaking discoveries in areas such as childhood cancer, genetic disorders, autoimmunity and infectious diseases. At a time when pediatric research faces increasing challenges, this decision further weakens an already fragile infrastructure. It is not merely an administrative setback; it has immediate and far-reaching consequences that will be felt across academic institutions and the future of the health of children and the adults they become. Pediatric research is the highest yield of all medical research, providing lifetimes of health.
Without federal funding, our health as Americans faces several dire immediate and long-term impacts:
Loss of training opportunities and career uncertainty for pediatric researchers: The PSDP was on track to expand through deepening of our public-private institutional partnership funding model, due to increasing interest across states and pediatric specialties. We received a record high number of talented applicants this year. Now we are now forced to determine how many, if any, new trainees can be supported. Additionally, the program serves as the critical bridge between physician-scientists’ clinical training and their ability to secure independent research grants. With NIH funding cut, current trainees will face financial instability, and prospective trainees might be forced to abandon their research, and their career aspirations, altogether.
Weakening of the pediatric research pipeline: The PSDP has been a key factor in addressing the national shortage of pediatric physician-scientists. Without it, fewer pediatricians will enter research careers, exacerbating an already urgent pediatric workforce crisis at a time when children are presenting with more complex health needs.
Children’s health in jeopardy: Cutting PSDP funding halts critical research on chronic childhood diseases like genetic conditions, asthma and obesity, leaving millions of children without hope for better treatments or cures, directly reducing their chance for health and quality of life.
The PSDP’s termination is not just a loss for academic medicine, it is a direct threat to the future of pediatric research and children’s health. Pediatricians pursuing research careers already face significant challenges, including limited funding opportunities and lower salaries compared to other medical specialties. By eliminating the PSDP, the NIH has removed one of the most effective mechanisms for supporting these researchers at a critical stage in their careers.
We call on academic leaders, policymakers and child health advocates to take immediate action. The future of children’s health research depends on our ability to reverse this decision and ensure that pediatric physician-scientists continue to receive the training and support they need to advance medical discoveries for the next generation.
Sallie Permar is the Nancy C. Paduano Professor and Chair at Weill Cornell Medicine and pediatrician in chief at New York–Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
Global Development and Women’s Empowerment
By Denise L. Baer
On Monday, Jan. 27, I received an email from local project staff in Guatemala canceling that day’s key informant interview due to the “review of cooperation projects by the United States government” and the request to “suspend activities” until further notice. This was the first notice that the evaluation of the Legal Reform Fund (LRF) project that I was conducting had been paused—and, in effect, permanently canceled. After checking in with the project implementer, the American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Initiative (ABA-ROLI), I received formal notification of the pause later that same day.
LRF provided contextualized expert legal technical assistance and training to partnering government agencies, parliamentarians, judges, court staff and women entrepreneurs to improve women’s access to land, property rights and credit in Guatemala, Indonesia, Mexico and Timor-Leste. I had been working on the evaluation for about two months, with the intent to complete all initial staff interviews before the end of January and then move on to field data collection. The evaluation had been approved last December by the Department of State, with approval of the inception report coming from the department’s Office of Global Women’s Issues just a week earlier. While I’d been tracking the flurry of executive orders, I doubted that this project would violate the new “two-gender” policy—after all, it was funded through the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) Initiative created by President Trump himself during his first administration in 2019 and championed by his daughter Ivanka with great fanfare. The initiative aimed to help 50 million women in developing countries realize their economic potential by 2025; the LRF project was only one of many funded by W-GDP initially and later continued by the Biden administration.
The LRF project ended December 2024. Was it effective and efficient? Were the planned outcomes achieved? We will never know. Since I was paid by ABA-ROLI for the work conducted to date before the pause, the primary cost of this discontinuance is not to me personally, but to the American people, who funded this project. The call for this evaluation and the approval of my proposal was born of the government’s desire for efficiency and to ensure funded initiatives were going according to plan. Indeed, the Government Accountability Office had identified a less-than-robust implementation framework in many early W-GDP projects, and this evaluation was intended to provide critical evidence of whether processes had improved.
Now we will never know how strong the evidence base is for supporting women entrepreneurs through this initiative. It is profoundly stunning that not only would the Trump administration stop work midstream for so many projects, but they would also stop evaluations of project work already completed—even for programs they themselves created and supported. How does funding a project and then shutting down the work of determining how effective that project was fight waste, fraud and abuse?
Denise L. Baer is a scholar-practitioner fellow at the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University.
Two years after Arizona State University replaced all of its introductory biology labs with virtual reality labs, the university’s rising tide of STEM majors are getting better overall grades and persisting longer in their programs, according to the results of a longitudinal study released Monday.
Education-technology experts say the white paper from ASU’s EdPlus Action Lab affirms the university’s recent investment in virtual reality education and shows how virtual reality can be an effective tool to nurture complex reasoning skills in the age of generative artificial intelligence. Additionally, the research indicates that virtual learning could help narrowing historic achievement and workforce gaps in the STEM fields.
“They’re not just executing recipe-like science labs—they’re in the immersive world exploring and working through expertly designed lab assignments that connect to the VR story,” said Annie Hale, executive director at the EdPlus Action Lab and lead author of the paper. “And that’s leading to real, measurable gains in learning and persistence in STEM.”
Since fall 2022, aspiring scientists, doctors, engineers and other STEM majors at ASU have been required to pair their Bio 181 and Bio 182 lectures with a series of 15-minute virtual reality lab sessions in a 3-D intergalactic wildlife sanctuary, where dinosaur-like creatures are on the brink of extinction. Students create field scientist avatars and traverse the virtual world to collect samples and data before returning to the classroom to analyze their findings and use real-world biological principles to save the creatures.
When ASU first piloted the course in spring 2022, a randomized study of about 500 students showed virtual reality’s initial promise in alleviating the historically high attrition rates—especially for low-income, female and nonwhite students—in introductory STEM classes that have long plagued ASU and universities nationwide. Students in the virtual reality lab group were 1.7 times more likely to score between 90 percent and 100 percent on their lab assignments compared to students in the conventional lab group.
A scene from the virtual reality biology lab offered at ASU.
While those results indicated early success of the concept, some experts told Inside Higher Ed at the time that they were interested in seeing long-term outcomes before categorizing it as a “settled piece of pedagogy.”
Hale had a similar idea.
“After we saw great results from that trial, I wondered if it was just a semester effect,” she said. “Pedagogical adjustments can boost ABC rates and student satisfaction, but it doesn’t always have long-term implications.”
To answer that question, Hale and her research team developed a two-year longitudinal study that tracked more than 4,000 students’ learning outcomes in the two-course introductory biology lab sequence between fall 2022—when ASU began requiring all STEM majors to take the virtual reality biology labs—and spring 2024.
They found that students who took the virtual reality biology lab, on average, improved their final course mark by one-quarter of a grade between Bio 181 and Bio 182. Compared to students who took those two courses between 2018 and 2022—prior to the introduction of virtual reality—students in the virtual reality cohort also scored one-quarter of a letter grade higher in advanced biology courses, including general and molecular genetics.
Results of the study also showed that students who took the virtual reality lab were more likely than their peers to remain STEM majors, and that they consistently performed well on all lab assignments regardless of their high school preparation levels, income, race, ethnicity or gender.
Researchers also conducted pre- and post-class student surveys, interviews, and classroom observations to inform their findings, which revealed strong and lasting emotional investment in the high-stakes narrative of saving the creatures in the intergalactic wildlife sanctuary.
“Students come out crying because the story line is so interesting and engaging,” Hale said. “In a world where science curriculum can be boring, hard or a lot of math, the [story] motivates them when the quantitative aspects are challenging. They want to solve it because they want to know what happens next.”
‘Ability to Feel Successful’
Virtual reality has a decades-old presence in the education-technology world, but educators often deploy it tangentially, through one-time experiences that aren’t critical to passing a particular course. Although some of those efforts have yielded anecdotal and small-scale evidence that virtual reality can boost student engagement, the latest data on the technology’s incorporation into biology labs offers more robust, large-scale proof that ASU’s broader investments in virtual reality education are already paying off.
In 2020, the university partnered with the technology and entertainment company Dreamscape Immersive—a virtual reality company with ties to notable Hollywood productions, such as WarGames and Men in Black—to create Dreamscape Learn. Over the past five years, the company has developed numerous virtual reality courses for ASU and more than a dozen other K-12 and higher education institutions across numerous disciplines, including art history, chemistry and astronomy.
But ASU’s traditional introductory biology courses were among Dreamscape Learn’s first endeavors, as it aligned with the university’s push to broaden participation in STEM fields.
Numerous studies have identified such courses as some of the biggest barriers to completing a STEM degree and landing a well-paying job, especially for students who didn’t complete a rigorous biology course in high school.
In typical biology labs, “students are asked to design experiments and hypotheses, but they haven’t actually been taught the skills to do that,” said John VandenBrooks, a zoology professor and ASU’s associate dean of immersive learning, who helped design the virtual reality labs. “For students who come in with a strong background, that’s easier for them to engage with. But other students who haven’t had that same experience really struggle … They feel behind already.”
Leveling the playing field through novel problem-solving is what motivated him to ground the curriculum in a fictional universe.
“Nobody has solved the problems in the intergalactic wildlife sanctuary,” VandenBrooks said. “It gives them a foundation and the ability to feel successful early on in their higher education career and be able to continue on.”
Making ‘Meaning Out of Complexity’
But virtual reality isn’t about making these fundamental STEM courses any less rigorous, but rather teaching students transferable critical thinking skills, those involved with the courses say.
“One of the advantages of making these fictional narratives is that we can develop the story in such a way so that students have to deploy very specific skills at a very specific time to solve that problem,” VandenBrooks said. “That creates a very clear learning progression that goes across this entire curriculum and that really benefits students in their skill development versus giving them a series of labs or assignments that are related but don’t necessarily have as clear of a progression.”
And having those complex reasoning skills are what the droves of STEM majors who want to work in the medical field, for instance, will need to succeed in their careers.
“The key to being a good doctor is knowing what’s abnormal in the normal,” said VandenBrooks, who previously worked at Midwestern University, a private medical school with locations in Arizona and Illinois. “When things are easy, you can use an algorithm, but when things aren’t, you have to do all of this problem-solving. That’s the doctor you want when things are really going wrong, and that’s what we’re trying to train students for.”
Jeremy Bailenson, founding director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab at the education graduate school, who did not participate in any aspect of ASU’s study, said education research can benefit from studies with large sample sizes to affirm prior studies on virtual reality in education.
In general, immersive learning experiences “reduce barriers to people believing they can succeed in the realm of science,” he said. “If you’re someone who’s been told your whole life that you don’t fit the mold of a typical scientist—because of your income, race, gender or ethnicity—VR provides learners the agency to see themselves as scientists.”
Although the study demonstrates how that theory is already at work in ASU’s virtual reality biology labs, it may not be a feasible approach for every college and university.
According to Josh Reibel, CEO of Dreamscape Learn, implementing the virtual reality education system (which includes software fees and the one-time costs of installing an immersive classroom called a pod) costs “mid–five figures to low six figures,” depending on the size of the school and the scale of the curricular offerings.
In March 2022, The Arizona Republic reported that ASU had at that point invested $5 million in “philanthropic investment for development” to build out a virtual reality biology lab.
If an institution can afford it, virtual reality also offers a strategy for teaching students to think beyond memorization and regurgitations in the age of generative artificial intelligence.
“The more you can use AI to transmit facts, the more pressure there is on higher education to do more than just transmit facts,” Reibel said. “That helps educators see that the real problem to be solved isn’t how to populate students’ notebooks with more information, it’s how to get them to lean in to wanting to do more work.”
Chris Dede, a senior research fellow at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education and a learning technology expert, said that though the gains presented in ASU’s study are relatively “modest,” they are “significant” nonetheless.
“It’s showing that it’s reasonable to develop other things based on similar approaches,” he said. “If humans are trained simply on knowing a bunch of facts and doing well on psychometric tests, they’re going to lose to AI in the workplace, because they’re doing what AI does well rather than what people do well.”
And what people do well, he said, “is make meaning out of complexity by pulling together different things they know about the world and developing hypotheses about what’s going on in the environment, which is not something AI can do, because it doesn’t understand the world.”
When Linda McMahon was initially picked to be the secretary of education, I wrote a piece that detailed how comparing her to former secretary of education Betsy DeVos was likely inappropriate. I ended that piece by cautiously suggesting that McMahon would strongly align with elements of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and of the think tank she led, the America First Policy Institute. I also suggested that because the president is ambiguous in his attitudes toward following court orders, McMahon might feel emboldened to engage in similar behavior.
Since my previous op-ed, McMahon was confirmed as secretary of education and has since shared her vision for the Department of Education in various interviews. While her focus is primarily on K-12 education issues, for higher education she has consistently emphasized that Pell Grants and loans will remain safe—a topic I will revisit later. However, the most predictable outcome has proven accurate: McMahon’s approach aligns closely with the intentions outlined by Heritage and AFPI, as ED is targeted for closure.
One way to frame McMahon’s leadership and recent behavior as secretary is that she’s the agency’s appointed destructor (just before signing an executive order seeking the dismantlement of the department, President Trump quipped, “Hopefully she will be our last secretary of education.”) Now, ED cannot be eliminated without congressional approval. However, there are many decisions the administration can make to severely hobble the department and offices within it. Some of these decisions have already been executed.
Of the nearly 2,000 layoffs, more than 300 happened within the Federal Student Aid office—and almost immediately the Free Application for Federal Student Aid site went down for a few hours. Even with a full staff, the Biden administration had well-documented issues with keeping the FAFSA running smoothly, which led to a 9 percent decline in FAFSA submissions for first-time applicants in 2024, or about 432,000 fewer applications over all. Given the department’s reduced capabilities, I have little confidence that it can process FAFSA applications promptly.
On March 21, President Trump announced that the Small Business Administration would take over the student loan portfolio, an interesting move given that McMahon was the SBA head during Trump’s first term. No clear explanation has been provided for why the SBA should take charge of the portfolio, and no public plan for such a transfer has been released. Additionally, the SBA intends to cut its staff nearly in half, reducing its 6,500-person workforce by about 2,700 employees, while managing this titanic task.
In recent interviews, McMahon has offered no further clarification on this decision, noting that additional ED functions might also be transferred to other departments. While she proposed working with Congress to interpret the legality of these actions, she also has hinted that congressional approval may not be necessary.
In addition to concerns surrounding financial aid, we should anticipate weaker accountability measures and diminished academic research moving forward. ED’s Institute for Education Sciences has faced significant staff cuts. Although the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System remains active, providing essential data on enrollment, costs, financial aid and graduation rates, its future is uncertain. This data set is crucial for researchers at foundations and think tanks focused on accountability, as well as for academics studying outcomes in higher education. However, with the survey submission link recently down and limited staff to oversee the system, IPEDS may soon lack accuracy or even public accessibility. As other federal data sets also face potential risks, researchers may need to reconsider the standards for defining good work in this evolving landscape.
Yet, the staff cuts may have been too abrupt, as ED recently asked several dozen employees to return to fulfill statutory obligations, including responsibilities related to financial aid and loans. However, uncertainty persists regarding how the administration and Secretary McMahon interpret these obligations and the level of efficiency required for their execution.
McMahon’s influence on higher education has already extended beyond the “Sweet Chin Music” directive for ED (“Sweet Chin Music” is the finishing move of WWE legend Shawn Michaels—a super kick to the face). She seems eager to serve as a bridge for aligning higher education with conservative priorities, as demonstrated by her direct involvement with the revocation of $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University—the first test case in a broader strategy to pressure universities over allegations of campus antisemitism. Critics argue this is a pretext for advancing a conservative agenda rather than a genuine effort to protect Jewish students and employees, with similar tactics now being applied to Harvard and Princeton Universities. The administration also seems to be using a similar strategy to pressure other institutions like the University of Pennsylvania over issues related to Title IX and transgender athletes.
To regain federal funding, Columbia was given a list of demands, which included enacting a new campuswide mask ban and placing the Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department under academic receivership—actions widely criticized as federal overreach. Though Columbia has taken multiple steps to address concerns about antisemitism, including seeking the arrest of pro-Palestinian protesters for trespassing, expelling students and temporarily revoking diplomas, the administration in effect deemed these actions insufficient.
Though Columbia has largely complied with the administration’s demands, there is little indication that the withheld funds will be restored or to what degree. Regardless of readers’ personal views on the outcome, Columbia’s compliance demonstrates that institutions likely are increasingly susceptible to federal interventions. Looking ahead, I expect both Republican and Democratic administrations to exert distinct political pressures on institutions, significantly reshaping higher education—a shift partly influenced by McMahon’s direct role in the Columbia negotiations.
Since the National Institutes of Health grant cancellations began, I have described federal government agencies as “unreliable partners” for higher education. The “unreliable partners” label remains fitting as McMahon continues to dismantle ED and transfer its responsibilities to other departments, which is likely to cause extreme inefficiencies. I am especially concerned about delays in FAFSA processing and whether financial aid will reach institutions and students on time next academic year—if at all. Administrators should prepare for these risks. Furthermore, as Columbia has complied with the administration’s demands, it’s possible that future financial aid may come with new conditions (e.g., mask bans on all campuses)—or be intentionally withheld until expectations are met.
Daniel A. Collier is an assistant professor of higher and adult education at the University of Memphis. His work focuses on higher education policy, leadership and issues like student loan debt and financial aid. Connect with Daniel on Bluesky at @dcollier74.bsky.social.
West Virginia University’s football team is experiencing a digital Footloose: The coach has prohibited the players from dancing on TikTok. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression hopes to reverse the ban.
In March, head football coach Rich Rodriguez told his players that while they could post on TikTok, they weren’t allowed to dance on the platform.
“We have to have a hard edge … and you’re in there in your tights dancing on TikTok ain’t quite the image of our program that I want,” Rodriguez said, according to the Associated Press.
Rodriguez also said he wants the players to focus less on their individual performances and more on the team dynamic—and he believes not dancing on TikTok can help.
FIRE responded by writing a letter last month to the university’s athletic director, Wren Baker, arguing that the ban on dancing violates the athletes’ First Amendment right to free expression.
“WVU players don’t hand in their expressive rights when Rodriguez hands out shoulder pads at the start of training camp,” FIRE wrote in the letter. “Because student-athletes are students first, their right to free expression off the field must be commensurate to other students on campus.”
When Baker failed to respond within a few weeks, FIRE sent another letter, which was posted on X.
“Major NFL players like Tom Brady, Gronk [Rob Gronkowski], and the Kelce brothers maintain robust TikTok presences,” the letter read. “Coaches at public colleges can’t stop their players from posting online, because students—including athletes—have the First Amendment right to express themselves.”
The policy isn’t written anywhere, as Front Office Sportslearned after requesting a copy through the Freedom of Information Act, but FIRE claims “its existence and enforcement violates students’ expressive rights.”
Some college athletes use their social media presences to generate revenue through name, image and likeness opportunities, and many of the top earners through NIL deals are colleges football players, though fewer of their brand opportunities are a result of social media dances.
New College of Florida could soon expand its footprint in a significant way if plans to absorb a nearby museum and local branch campus of the University of South Florida come to fruition.
Current proposals would see New College taking over stewardship of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota and other associated properties and merging with USF Sarasota–Manatee. Such moves would nearly double New College’s acreage and triple its enrollment at a time when critics have raised questions about spending at NCF, where the cost to Florida taxpayers per student is roughly 10 times higher than any other institution in the State University System.
The proposed expansion would continue efforts to grow NCF after state leadership tasked a new board in 2022 with shifting the small liberal arts college in a conservative direction and growing its student body, which the administration has so far aimed to do by adding athletic programs.
But critics have raised concerns about a lack of transparency around both potential acquisitions and whether New College has the capacity to manage another campus and a sprawling art museum.
A Contested Acquisition
New College officials have quietly been preparing for a merger with USF Sarasota–Manatee for at least several months, according to public records obtained by WUSF, the local NPR affiliate.
A WUSF public records request turned up a draft press release from New College announcing the merger between the two institutions as well as talking points and details on the transition.
Details in the documents make the deal sound more like an acquisition than a merger.
Students will have the option to transfer to another USF campus “or remain at New College,” according to the documents. Under the proposed plan, USF Sarasota–Manatee employees would possibly be reassigned to other USF campuses or “to comparable roles” at New College.
University of South Florida Sarasota–Manatee main building.
Alaska Miller/Wikimedia Commons
Although it appears that New College would absorb USF Sarasota–Manatee in the merger, New College is the much smaller of the two institutions. In fall 2023, it enrolled 731 students compared to more than 2,000 at USF Sarasota–Manatee, according to details on the university website.
“As we reimagine the future of higher education in Florida, this integration is a testament to the power of collaboration,” New College of Florida president Richard Corcoran said in the news release obtained by WUSF. “Governor [Ron] Desantis [sic] has shown exceptional leadership in enabling this bold vision, one that positions New College to advance as a model of academic excellence while fostering economic innovation and impact in the Sarasota-Manatee region.”
The news release adds, “This collaboration is more than a merger,” casting it as “an opportunity to design a singular institution that meets the demands of the 21st century” and allows USF to focus on its mission as a research university and NCF to become the nation’s top liberal arts college.
“The integration also addresses longstanding inefficiencies, consolidating administrative functions and aligning academic offerings. USF-SM’s programs often overlap with those offered by other public higher education institutions in Sarasota and Manatee counties, including New College and State College of Florida,” part of the draft press release from New College reads.
New College officials did not respond to requests for comment from Inside Higher Ed.
USF president Rhea Law is also quoted in the draft press release, stating that “by coming together, we honor the distinct institution while creating a stronger foundation for the future of both institutions and our communities.”
But USF officials have distanced themselves from the announcement since it emerged publicly.
“Please be aware that the documents are several months old and include a draft press release and talking points that were prepared by New College. USF did not approve the proposal or communications drafted by New College. There have been no plans made to make any such announcement,” USF spokesperson Althea Johnson wrote to Inside Higher Ed by email.
However, Johnson noted that the two institutions have engaged in talks since last fall, when Florida Board of Governors chair Brian Lamb asked them to “identify additional synergies.”
Asked if NCF invented quotes attributed to Law and other USF officials, Johnson reiterated, “USF did not draft or approve of the communications. They were prepared by New College.”
Community members have also opposed the move. Last week more than a dozen former USF Sarasota–Manatee officials and community partners signed on to an open letter against the merger, calling the move “a bad deal for our students and families, employers and community.” They wrote, “There has been no community consultation on the impacts” of the proposal.
The merger proposal would require legislative approval. Although no bill has been filed, Republican state senator Joe Gruters—whose wife works at NCF—has thrown support behind the idea in interviews. Gruters did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.
Expanding Into the Arts
While NCF quietly planned to absorb USF Sarasota–Manatee, an effort to take stewardship of the Ringling Museum, currently administered by Florida State University, was also underway.
Visitors view paintings in the Ringling Museum of Art’s Peter Paul Rubens room.
When DeSantis unveiled his state budget plans in February, many observers were shocked to see a proposal for New College to take over the Ringling art museum and affiliated properties, which includes a former home of the namesake founder, and the Ringling Museum of the Circus.
Florida State has had stewardship of the Ringling properties since 2000. FSU’s responsibilities include managing the Ringling’s endowment and employing the staff that operate the facilities, which does everything from curate collections to provide security and other functions. One recent report counted 229 employees on the FSU payroll at the Ringling.
Many museum supporters are appalled at the idea of a New College takeover, including Nancy Parrish, a former member of its board and president of the nascent Citizens to Protect the Ringling. She argues FSU has transformed the Ringling from a property that had fallen into disrepair when it took over stewardship in 2000 to a thriving institution with annual surpluses. Parrish worries that NCF is incapable of taking on the same role and would upend that progress.
“New College is in a costly, complicated, precarious transition. How can it possibly manage an institution larger than itself? And an institution as complicated as a museum was never in its business plan. It’s outrageous government overreach and an outrageous waste of taxpayer money, because it would take millions to replace what FSU provides the museum,” Parrish said.
The timeline for the proposed transition from FSU to NCF by Aug. 1 is also rushed, she argues.
Amid the uncertainty over the Ringling’s future, she said that “donors are fleeing in panic.”
Details on how NCF would take over the operations are not laid out in the DeSantis proposal, and NCF officials did not fulfill a public records request about the transition prior to publication.
“This transition is not only sensible; it is a collective win. It is a win for Sarasota, reinforcing its reputation as a global leader in the arts and higher education; boosting tourism, cultural engagement and economic growth—all while preserving a historical gem,” Corcoran wrote.
He added that NCF stewardship would both expand “research partnerships, student engagement and statewide academic initiatives in the arts and humanities” and provide “an infusion of resources” to allow it “to elevate its world-class exhibitions, research and outreach.”
FSU did not respond to requests for comment from Inside Higher Ed.
The Financial Picture
New College’s potential expansion comes as it has grown in other ways since DeSantis appointed a conservative board that tapped Corcoran, a former GOP lawmaker, as president.
Since 2022, NCF has added six intercollegiate teams and plans to field 24 altogether by 2028. Beyond the inaugural programs in sports such as basketball, baseball and soccer, New College plans to expand to tennis, golf, bass fishing and various other athletic pursuits. NCF is investing in developing its athletic facilities in addition to paying for coaches and athletic scholarships.
New College’s strategic transformation has come with a substantial price tag for taxpayers. The state has already infused New College with millions of dollars since the change in leadership. And NCF’s leaders want more state money—at least $200 million over the next decade.
But that spending has prompted some pushback from the DeSantis-appointed Florida Board of Governors, which oversees New College and other members of the State University System.
FLBOG member Eric Silagy has challenged Corcoran at times on financial transparency and the high cost per student, calculating that NCF spent $91,000 per student in the 2023–24 academic year. The system average is $10,000, Silagy said at a September board meeting.
Corcoran initially disputed that number, arguing it was $68,000 per head.
But at a January meeting, Silagy said he had spoken with Corcoran, who now agreed that figure was between $88,000 and $91,000 per student, a figure Silagy said continues to climb. He projects that NCF could soon spend between $114,000 and $140,000 for each student.
Concerns about fiscal management also prompted a shake-up at the New College Alumni Association last month, when then-director Ben Brown resigned in protest because of “a deteriorating institutional relationship” between the college and alumni, and concerns that Corcoran had squandered funds. Brown also wanted more transparency.
Brown told Inside Higher Ed he is concerned about the state giving Corcoran more power.
“There’s no ingrained alumni opposition to the idea of being part of USF or doing things jointly with USF, but the current alumni sentiment is very clear that for this administration, operating the way it is, to take responsibility for part of USF is dangerous to the state and to the taxpayers,” Brown said.
The Trump administration presented Harvard University with a letter Thursday outlining “immediate next steps” the institution must take in order to have a “continued financial relationship with the United States government,” The Boston Globe reported and Inside Higher Ed confirmed.
The ultimatum came just three days after the president’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism notified the university it had been placed under review for its alleged failure to protect Jewish students and faculty from discrimination. If the case follows the precedent set at other universities, Harvard and its affiliate medical institutions could lose up to $9 billion in federal grants and contracts if they do not comply.
Sources say the move is driven less by true concern about antisemitism on campus than by the government’s desire to abolish diversity efforts and hobble higher ed institutions it deems too “woke.” This week alone, the administration has retracted funds from Brown and Princeton Universities. Before that, it targeted the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University and opened dozens of civil rights investigations at other colleges, all of which are ongoing.
Many of the task force’s demands for Harvard mirror those presented to Columbia last month, including mandates to reform antisemitism accountability programs on campus, ban masks for nonmedical purposes, review certain academic departments and reshape admissions policies. The main difference: Columbia’s letter targeted specific departments and programs, while Harvard’s was broader.
For example, while the letter received by Columbia called for one specific Middle Eastern studies department to be placed under receivership, Harvard’s letter called more generally for “oversight and accountability for biased programs [and departments] that fuel antisemitism.”
Inside Higher Ed requested a copy of the letter from Harvard, which declined to send it but confirmed that they had received it. Inside Higher Ed later received a copy from a different source.
Some higher education advocates speculate that the Trump administration’s latest demands were deliberately vague in the hopes that colleges will overcomply.
“What I’ve learned from various experiences with higher ed law is that it’s unusual to be general in legal documents,” said Jon Fansmith, senior vice president of government relations and national engagement for the American Council on Education. Trump’s “open-ended” letter “starts to look like a fishing expedition,” he added. “‘We want you to throw everything open to us so that we get to determine how you do this.’”
But conservative higher ed analysts believe the demands—even when broadened—are justified.
“Many of these are extremely reasonable—restricting demonstrations inside academic buildings, requiring participants and demonstrations to identify themselves when asked, committing to antidiscrimination policies, intellectual diversity and institutional neutrality,” said Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Still, he raised questions about how certain mandates in the letter will be enforced.
“When you see this in the context of the federal government trying to use funding as a lever to force some of these reforms, that’s where one might raise some legitimate concern,” he said. “For instance, trying to ensure viewpoint diversity is a very laudable goal, but if the federal government is trying to … decide what constitutes viewpoint diversity, there is a case to be made that that is a violation of the First Amendment.”
What Does the Letter Say?
The demands made of Harvard Thursday largely target the same aspects of higher ed that Trump has focused on since taking office in January.
Some center on pro-Palestinian protests, like the requirements to hold allegedly antisemitic programs accountable, reform discipline procedures and review all “antisemitic rule violations” since Oct. 7, 2023.
Others focus on enforcing Trump’s interpretation of the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling on affirmative action; the university must make “durable” merit-based changes to its admissions and hiring practices and shut down all diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which the administration believes promote making “snap judgments about each other based on crude race and identity stereotypes.”
The letter was signed by the same three task force members who signed Columbia’s demand letter: Josh Gruenbaum, commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service; Sean Keveney, acting general counsel for the Department of Health and Human Services; and Thomas Wheeler, acting general counsel for the Department of Education.
The most notable difference in Harvard’s letter is that the task force is demanding “full cooperation” with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. That department and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency have been arresting and revoking visas from international students and scholars who, the government says, are supporting terrorist groups by participating in pro-Palestinian protests.
Will Harvard Capitulate?
Harvard already appears to be taking steps to comply. On Wednesday, the university put a pro-Palestinian student group on probation. The week before, a dean removed two top leaders of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, which has been accused of biased teaching about Israel.
A letter to the campus community from university president Alan Garber also suggested capitulation is likely.
“If this funding is stopped, it will halt life-saving research and imperil important scientific research and innovation,” Garber wrote following the task force’s review. “We will engage with members of the federal government’s task force to combat antisemitism.”
But Fansmith noted such actions may not be enough to predict whether Harvard will fully acquiesce to the Trump administration’s demands.
“If you look at all of these institutions over the last two years, they’ve been making a number of changes in policies, procedures, personnel and everything else,” he said. “And a lot of that was happening and was at pace before this administration took office and started sending letters.”
Harvard was one of the first three universities that the House Committee on Education and the Workforce grilled about antisemitism on campus in December 2023. Shortly after, then-president Claudine Gay—the first Black woman to lead Harvard—resigned. The university has since been working to make changes at the campus level.
Both Fansmith and Cooper pointed to Trump’s mandates regarding curriculum as the most likely to face opposition, as was the case at Columbia.
A little over a week after the Trump administration laid out its ultimatum, Columbia capitulated and agreed to all but one demand: The university refused to put its department of Middle Eastern studies into receivership, a form of academic probation that involves hiring an outside department chair. Instead, it placed the department under internal review and announced it would hire a new senior vice provost to oversee the academic program.
“You need to be making sure that Jewish students are not subject to harassment,” Cooper said. But “where that crosses the line is if the federal government is telling the universities … ‘this is how you have to appoint somebody to put an academic department into receivership,’ as was the original demand made of Columbia.”
Regardless of how Harvard responds, one thing seems likely: There are more funding freezes to come.
“A lot of folks were expecting Columbia to file a legal challenge, and when that didn’t happen, that might have emboldened the administration a bit to go after some of these other institutions,” Cooper said. But sooner than later, “one of these institutions might say, ‘We’re not going to make the reforms.’”
“I don’t have a great guess as to which institution that will be,” he added, “but I would expect we probably will see a lawsuit at some point.”
